In response to the fall of the government of Bashar al-Assad on December 8, the United States, Türkiye, and Israel have all launched bombing campaigns on Syria. Shortly after the government’s collapse, Israel also destroyed most of the Syrian Navy in port at Latakia, and invaded Syria from the long-occupied Golan Heights, advancing to within sixteen miles of the capital city of Damascus.
On December 9, U.S. Central Command said its bombing targeted remnants of the Islamic State (ISIS) in the east of the country, hitting seventy-five targets with 140 bombs and missiles. Meanwhile, Türkiye is conducting airstrikes, drone strikes, and artillery fire as part of a new offensive by its “Syrian National Army” proxy against Rojava, the Kurdish enclave in northeastern Syria.
Israel launched a much broader bombing campaign than Türkiye or the United States, with about 600 airstrikes on Syria during the first eight days after Assad’s fall. Without waiting to see what new government may emerge, Israel methodically destroyed Syria’s military infrastructure to ensure that the country would be as defenseless as possible in the face of its expanded military occupation and future airstrikes.
Israel claims its expanded occupation of Syrian territory is a temporary move to ensure its own security. But throughout the history of Israel, land grabs like this have usually turned into long-term illegal annexations, such as those in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and the Golan Heights.
Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Iran, Russia, and the United Nations have all joined the global condemnation of this new Israeli assault on Syria. Geir Pedersen, the U.N. Special Envoy to Syria, called Israel’s military actions “highly irresponsible,” and U.N. peacekeepers have removed Israeli flags from newly occupied Syrian territory.
The Saudi Foreign Ministry reiterated that the Golan Heights is an occupied territory, and said that these actions confirmed “Israel’s continued violation of the rules of international law and its determination to sabotage Syria’s chances of restoring its security, stability, and territorial integrity.”
The United States became the only country in the world to recognize Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights under the first Trump Administration in 2019. President Joe Biden’s failure to reverse Trump’s recognition of the illegal Israeli annexation is part of his disastrous legacy in the Middle East.
Israel’s actions confront the world with the age-old question of what to do about a country that systematically ignores and violates the rules of international law. At the foundation of the U.N. Charter is the agreement by all countries to settle their differences diplomatically and peacefully, rather than by the threat or use of military force.
In its “war on terror,” including its wars on Iraq and other countries, the United States flagrantly and systematically violated the U.N. Charter and the Geneva Conventions, the bedrock of post-World War II international law. A fundamental principle of all legal systems is that the powerful must be held accountable as well as the weak and the vulnerable. A system of laws that the wealthy and powerful can ignore cannot claim to be universal or just.
Today, our system of international law faces exactly this problem. The presumption by the United States that its overwhelming military power permits it to violate international law with impunity has led other countries—particularly U.S. allies, but also Russia—to apply the same opportunistic standards to their own behavior.
In 2010, an Amnesty International report on European countries that hosted CIA “black sites” called on U.S. allies in Europe not to join the United States as another “accountability-free zone” for war crimes. But now the world is confronting a U.S. ally that has not only embraced the U.S. presumption that dominant military power can trump the rule of law, but doubled down on it.
The Israeli government refuses to comply with international legal prohibitions against deliberately killing women and children, seizing foreign territory, and bombing other countries. Shielded from international accountability behind the power of a U.S. veto in the U.N. Security Council, Israel thumbs its nose at the world’s impotence to enforce international law, confident that nobody will stop it from using military force wherever and however it pleases.
U.S. responsibility for Israel’s lawlessness is compounded by the conflict of interest in its dual role as both Israel’s military superpower ally and weapons supplier, and as the supposed mediator of the lopsided “peace process” between Israel and Palestine since the 1990s. The failures and inherent flaws of this process discredited the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority in the eyes of most Palestinians and led to the Hamas electoral victory in 2006. Since then, instead of deferring to intervention by the United Nations or other neutral parties, the United States has guarded its monopoly as the sole mediator between Israel and Palestine, and has used this position to grant Israel total freedom of action to commit systematic war crimes. If this crisis is ever to end, the world cannot allow the United States to continue in this role.
While the United States bears a great deal of responsibility for this escalating and expanding crisis, U.S. officials remain in collective denial over the criminal nature of Israel’s actions and their own instrumental role in supporting Israel’s crimes. Plus, the systemic corruption of U.S. politics severely limits the influence of the majority of Americans who support a ceasefire in Gaza. Pro-Israel lobbying groups are able to buy the unconditional support of U.S. politicians and attack those few who stand up to them.
But everyday Americans are finding ways to call for a ceasefire and for the enforcement of both U.S. and international law. Members of CODEPINK, Jewish Voice for Peace, and various Palestinian American, Arab American, and other activist groups are showing up in Congressional offices and hearings every day; constituents in California are suing two members of Congress for funding genocide; students are calling on their universities to divest from Israel and U.S. weapons makers; activists and union members are identifying and picketing companies and blocking ports to stop weapons shipments to Israel; journalists are rebelling against censorship; U.S. officials are resigning; people are going on hunger strikes; and others have even committed suicide in protest.
An international movement to end the genocide is making progress, but it is excruciatingly slow compared to the appalling human cost and the millions of Palestinian lives at stake. Many countries are increasingly willing to resist the political pressures and propaganda tropes that have successfully muted international calls for justice in the past.
The U.N. General Assembly has passed resolutions for a ceasefire in Gaza, an end to the post-1967 Israeli occupation, and for Palestinian statehood. The General Assembly’s tenth emergency special session on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict under the Uniting for Peace process has been ongoing since 1997. This process permits the General Assembly to take action to restore peace and security when the Security Council fails to do so.
The General Assembly should urgently use its “Uniting For Peace” powers to turn up the pressure on Israel and the United States. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has provided the legal basis for stronger action, ruling that the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories Israel invaded in 1967 is illegal and must end, and that the massacre in Gaza appears to violate the Genocide Convention. Fourteen other countries have intervened with the ICJ to support South Africa’s Genocide Convention case against Israel.
By the time the court issues a final verdict on its genocide case, millions may be dead. The Genocide Convention is an international commitment to prevent genocide, not to just pass judgment after the fact. Since the United States is preventing the Security Council from acting, the U.N. General Assembly has the authority to impose an arms embargo, a trade boycott, economic sanctions, a peacekeeping force, or to do whatever it takes to end the genocide.
When the U.N. General Assembly first launched its campaign of sanctions against apartheid South Africa in November 1962, not a single Western country took part. Many of those same countries will be the last to do so with regard to Israel today. But the world cannot wait to act for the blessing of complacent wealthy countries who are themselves complicit in genocide.