These are the steps the world must take to end the slaughter in Gaza, according to Richard Falk, Chandra Muzaffar and Joseph Camilleri of Saving Humanity and Planet Earth (SHAPE).
Jabalia camp destruction by Israel in Gaza, October 2024. (Al Jazeera/Wikimedia Commons)
Stopping the Barbarism in Gaza
Over the last 18 months, the world has witnessed undiluted militarised cruelty targeting the entire population and the supportive natural habitat of Gaza – with not so much as an ounce of mercy or compassion, let alone justice, or sensitivity to issues of ecological viability.
No one has been spared in this onslaught: not civilians, not children, women or the elderly, not humanitarian workers or U.N. personnel overseeing the distribution of aid, not homes, schools, places of worship, or hospitals.
No logic can begin to explain or justify this genocidal policy of indiscriminate maiming and killing, or the calculated and systematic starvation of the already traumatised Palestinian population. These and other unspeakable atrocities leave us with just two words to describe the conduct of the cabal presently ruling the State of Israel: pure evil
Faced with such vicious behaviour, humanity has but one option: to call out the evil and take appropriate action to put an end to such outrageous conduct.
In the name of humanity we therefore call on all peoples and governments to:
1. Terminate all transactions with the State of Israel that relate to military capabilities until a just and lasting peace settlement has been reached, which gives effect to the inalienable right of Palestinian self-determination. This embargo should include:
a. A ban on the export of all weapons and dual-use equipment as well as ammunition, whether supplied directly or through a third party;
b. A ban on the import of all Israeli weapons and military technology;
c. A cessation of all other forms of military co-operation, including joint operations/exercises/ logistics and communications initiatives, intelligence cooperation and sharing, and expert exchanges and visits; and
d. A ban on all financing arrangements designed to facilitate the above activities.
2. Break diplomatic relations with the State of Israel until a complete and durable ceasefire has been established across all the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
3. Seek the exclusion of Israeli participation in international cultural and sporting events and call for national boycotts of foreign and domestic cultural and sporting happenings until a complete and durable ceasefire has been established across all the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
4. Apply maximum pressure on those governments that have been Israel’s primary backers, notably the United States, Britain and Germany, to cease forthwith any support of Israel’s inhuman conduct in Gaza and Palestine as a whole.
5. Support and financially contribute to the Arab plan for Gaza’s reconstruction formally adopted by the Organisation of Islamic Co-operation in March 2025, and to this end call for an immediate U.N.-sponsored international summit, open to all supportive governments, relevant regional organisations and sympathetically disposed civil society, philanthropic and business organisations.
The reconstruction process in Gaza and the proposed international summit should be mindful of Palestinian rights, especially the right of self-determination as applicable to all developments pertaining to Israeli Occupied Palestine.
6. Encourage nonviolent solidarity initiatives by civil society, both individual and collective action of the sort that proved helpful in the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. A mobilised people can change history, and bring political evil to an abrupt end, especially where, as is the case in Gaza, a severe humanitarian emergency exists.
Such measures on the part of states need to be complemented and reinforced by resolute, collective action at the U.N. General Assembly. A special session of the General Assembly should be urgently called to denounce the heinous crimes being committed in Gaza and the West Bank and the constant threats to cleanse Palestine of its people by measures of forced displacement.
The General Assembly should consider and adopt a series of resolutions which demand:
a. An immediate ceasefire in all parts of Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and adjacent areas;
b. The establishment of a U.N. peacekeeping contingent of sufficient strength to monitor and supervise the ceasefire and deter in timely fashion actions that would lead to a renewal of violence;
c. The unimpeded flow of water, food, fuel and medicines to Gaza;
d. Strong measures designed to protect humanitarian aid workers, health and medical personnel, and agencies and institutions engaged in the running of hospitals, clinics, kitchens and other essential services; and
e. Decisive measures to enable journalists and media personnel to carry out their duties in safe and secure environments.
We also request the world’s religious organisations to issue a call addressing from a spiritual and ethical perspective the evil of genocide as it continues to unfold in Gaza. They are uniquely placed to set forth the ethical criteria that should govern an agreement on the cessation of all military hostilities in the Occupied Territories and the creation of just and durable peace in Palestine.
Since October 2023, millions have exposed, and protested against, Israel’s conduct in Gaza. They have succeeded in raising the level of global public awareness even though their cries for humanity and justice have thus far gone unheeded. The complicity of the rich and the powerful have stood in the way.
People of goodwill everywhere must now redouble their efforts in solidarity with the Palestinian people. They must peacefully and resolutely unite their voices and work closely together for as long as it takes.
A powerful global dialogue for a just peace in Palestine that brings together people of diverse social, cultural and religious background is a primary ethical imperative of our time.
So is accountability, which means punitive action against leaders of the State of Israel and the complicit enabler governments, including imposing obligations to pay reparations to the victimised population of Gaza and contributions to the funding of reconstruction.
Issued on behalf of SHAPE and its Co-ordinating Committee by Professor Emeritus Richard Falk, Dr Chandra Muzaffar and Professor Emeritus Joseph Camilleri
SHAPE Co-Conveners
Published on Pearls and Irritations May 30.
Saving Humanity and Planet Earth (SHAPE) is a project to expose the perils of confrontation in the nuclear age and explore pathways to a safer, just and sustainable future.
Richard Falk is Albert G. Milbank Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton University, Chair of Global Law, Faculty of Law, at Queen Mary University London, and co-Director of its Centre of Environmental Justice and Crime, Research Associate the Orfalea Center of Global Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Fellow of the Tellus Institute. He directed the project on Global Climate Change, Human Security, and Democracy at UCSB and formerly was the director of the North American group in the World Order Models Project. Between 2008 and 2014, Falk served as U.N. Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Occupied Palestine.
Dr. Chandra Muzaffar is the President of the International Movement for a Just World (JUST), an international NGO based in Malaysia, which seeks to critique global injustice and to develop an alternative vision of a just and compassionate civilisation guided by universal spiritual and moral values. He has published extensively on civilizational dialogue, international politics, religion, human rights and Malaysian society. The author and editor of 32 books in English and Malay, many of his writings have been translated into other languages. Among Chandra’s latest publications are, A World in Crisis: Is There a Cure? and Reflections on Malaysian Unity and Other Challenges. In l977, he founded a multi-ethnic social reform group called Aliran Kesedaran Negara (ALIRAN) which he led for 14 years. Today, apart from his role in JUST, Chandra sits on the board of a number of international NGOs concerned with social justice and civilizational dialogue.
Joseph Camilleri OAM is Emeritus Professor at La Trobe University in Melbourne, a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia, and convener of Conversation at the Crossroads. He was born in Alexandria, Egypt where he received his early education. At the age of twelve he left Egypt with his parents who migrated to Melbourne. He began teaching in the Department of Politics at Monash University, Melbourne in 1967. He pursued his PhD studies as Buxton fellow at the London School of Economics (1969-1972). He was appointed lecturer at La Trobe University, Melbourne in 1973, where over forty years he taught some thirty-five undergraduate and postgraduate level, established the Bachelor of International Relations degree and the Master of International Policy Studies. He has supervised some 40 PhDs and mentored more than 30 scholars who now hold senior academic positions. He was the founding director of the La Trobe Centre for Dialogue, which specialised on research and training in the management of cultural, religious and political tensions within and between countries,
Can Consortium news make it possible to up or down vote comments? Please!
‘The reconstruction process in Gaza and the proposed international summit should be mindful of Palestinian rights, especially the right of self-determination as applicable to all developments pertaining to Israeli Occupied Palestine.’
One state, two or none….
‘The existence of the state is inseparable from the existence of slavery’ (Marx, Vorwärts, August 1844).
‘The working men have no country. We cannot take away from them what they have not got’ (Communist Manifesto, 1848).
‘For us neither geographical boundaries, political history, race, nor creed makes rivals or enemies; for us there are no nations, but only varied masses of workers and friends, whose mutual sympathies are checked or perverted by groups of masters and fleecers whose interest it is to stir up rivalries and hatreds between the dwellers in different lands’ (The Manifesto of The Socialist League, 1885).
“A “right of nations” which is valid for all countries and all times is nothing more than a metaphysical cliché of the type of “rights of man” and “rights of the citizen”. When we speak of the “right of nations to self-determination”, we are using the concept of the “nation”, as a homogeneous social and political entity… In a class society, “the nation” as a homogeneous socio-political entity does not exist. Rather, there exist within each nation, classes with antagonistic interests and “rights”” (Rosa Luxemburg, The National Question, 1909).
‘Presupposing that there have to be states is like saying, what kind of feudal system should we have that would be the best one? What kind of slavery would be the best kind?’ ( Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent, 1988).
‘If you ask my personal preference, I would say that I don’t believe in two states; I don’t believe in one state; I happen not to believe in any states’ (Norman Finkelstein, Breaking-the-Set, August 2014).
Salman Rushdie says a new Palestinian state would be ‘Taliban-like’ (The Independent, 20 May, 2024).
‘As for national liberation, all one can say is that with friends like Hamas, Palestinians do not need enemies. Rather than freedom, the so-called ‘Islamic Resistance’ has nothing to offer them but poverty and bloodshed. Hamas’s position is crystal clear. ‘These are necessary sacrifices’, military commander Yahya Sinwar said of the mass. destruction in Gaza in a communication with fellow Hamas leaders in Doha, Qatar ‘ (Daniel Lazere, 2 September, 2024).
‘6. Encourage nonviolent solidarity initiatives by civil society, both individual and collective action of the sort that proved helpful in the struggle against apartheid in South Africa.’
South Africa today is the most unequal society in the world – economic apartheid persists for millions. ‘More than two decades after South Africa ousted a racist apartheid system that trapped the vast majority of South Africans in poverty, more than half the country still lives below the national poverty line and most of the nation’s wealth remains in the hands of a small elite’ (NPR, 2 April 2018).
“That’s where I sleep, under that bridge,” he says, pointing to a nearby cluster of tents beneath a highway overpass. “And the dogs are up there with their own private pool. They probably eat more in a day than we do in a month.” (NPR,
‘Where luxury dog hotels are all the rage, but half the humans live in poverty,’ 11 May 2025).
Good suggestions, although of course:
1. UN control by its SC allows the corruptocracies to prevent more than gestures at progress;
2. Economic dependencies allow the corruptocracies to threaten sanctions to prevent progress;
3. The corruptocracies cannot be reformed due to economic control of government and mass media; and
4. The moral corruption in corruptocracies makes nearly all willing opportunists of corruptocracy.
Receptivity to true moral and political education in corruptocracies requires a major disaster.
This must be seen as disconnecting status quo government from the public interest of every faction.
It’s simple. Cut all funding, arming, and assistance of any kind to Israel. Period. Do it immediately. And then sanction Israel, arrest the genociders and send them to prison, the way the Nazis were sent to prison after the end of WWII. That’s it. Oh, and kick Israel out of the United Nations. End of.
Wiping out the heinous genocidal regime of israel, once and for all, is the ONLY solution to the problem. Whoever or whatever does that will have given the world the best gift it can ever get.
Yes! And thank you. With the abolition of Israel peace will reign in the Middle East. Nearly every war and act of terrorism in the Middle East since 1948 has its source code in Israel. Smash AIPAC, Smash Zionism, Smash Israel.
Right on! Thank you for putting it in black and white.
The reason that ‘no one’ is doing anything about the genocide is that those who could do something are all Christian. They are not in the least inclined to do anything to help Muslims, who are out-competing them for converts and in many places, replacing them. Quite the opposite to helping them, not all, but many Christians actively hate Muslims, just as they do Jews. And they are not above using Jews, expelled from Europe into Palestine, to fight and kill Muslims there. As far as they are concerned, it is two different birds for the same one stone if you start a religious war, but let the Jews be your proxies and do the fighting and dying for you, as long as they kill the Muslims.
Exactly right! It is an old competition, going back to when Islam first arrived on the scene. Good old competition for converts.
“Encourage nonviolent solidarity initiatives by civil society”
Unfortunately, that don’t mean what it used to mean.. (like so much else)
It used to mean something effective like the Berkeley Free Speech Movement, with its famous cry that when a machine becomes too odious we must throw ourselves upon the gears of the machine until we stop it from function. That was the famous description of civil disobedience in the 20th Century. In the 21st Century, it means marching around an empty DC on a Sunday wearing pink hats and listening to boring speeches. The attitude of the first stopped the ongoing slaughter of over 2,000,000 Vietnamese. The latter has never accomplished anything.
The 1960’s are remembered as a time of turbulence and upheaval. When you stop and thing about it, any occasion where the people are successful in changing the course of a huge machine will be remembered in such a way. Changing its course will always create a lot of turbulence. The Elites, the Establishment, whatever you want to call them, don’t change just because someone asked nicely.
The modern left, run as it is by its upper-middle-class core, hates turbulence. By and large, they’d rather suffer through nightly reports on the sanitized American news of victims in Gaza rather than create turbulence in their society where they live in nice homes and drive nice cars. None of them look like they are ready to become poor to stop genocide, and since opposing genocide might mean losing a nice corporate job, that matters. And yet, with both American political parties, and the oligarchs that back them, all committed to the course of genocide (and wider wars), it is obviously going to create a lot of turbulence to change the course of this giant ship.
If this genocide is to end, we will probably end up referring to the 2020’s as a turbulent and upheaval. The only way it ends without that is if all the pro-genocide forces of various flavors agree to end it on their own. And it don’t look like that’s gonna happen. For those who oppose genocide, buckle up, and gain the mindset that you enjoy turbulence.
I was a young anti war hippie in the 60s, the anti war movement in the 60s accomplished nothing. The majority of Americans continued support of the war. The war ended because we suffered a military defeat (as in we had to rebuild our entire army after the war) and the Military blamed its battlefield defeat on hippies and the press.
One item conspicuously absent from this list.
X) Break all ties with all political parties and candidates that do not come out completely and absolutely on the position that this must stop and stop yesterday.
Israel gets its cover from richer and more powerful nations, and this cover comes from people who supposedly win elections. We just saw in the recent US elections where a fair number of people who say they oppose this genocide still on polling day voted Killer (D). Everyone who voted for Biden’s administration in 2020 bares a part of the blame for this. As does everyone who voted for Trump’s winning campaign in 2024. Both administrations have basically said “Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition.”, although in different styles. Everyone who voted for a winning candidate in this Congress bears responsibility as well, with a very small handful of exceptions. If you vote (D) or (R) because you dislike the other party, or for any other reason, then you voted YEA for Genocide.
Israel gets its support from politicians who get elected in the USA and Europe. Cutting that off at the source has to be a key goal of a campaign to stop this.
We must declare a Zero Tolerance policy in terms of who we support politically.
Some hope. Since 1948 the atrocities have been of no interest to the West or anyone else. Even in 1948 the British were there but did nothing to stop the murder and ethnic cleansing in Palestine. The Israelis take no notice of anything not supporting them which has never stopped and will not stop.
The ongoing hypocrisy is SICKENING!!! All these pronouncements against what is being done to Palestinians in Gaza, all the world-wide indignation and yet…ABSOLUTELY NOTHING IS BEING DONE to stop israel from massacring these people. NOTHING!!! Have the courage and take MILITARY ACTION against israel and put an END to all this pain, misery and death.
And face possible nuclear attack in response from a mad regime.
Yep. Or everyone can just keep whittering on for another eighteen months until everyone is murdered and Palestine has ceased to be.
Or all nations, especially the US, immediately cuts off all weapons, ammunition, and money to Israel, impose an arms, oil, financial and trade embargo on Israel and the genocide would stop. Risking a retaliatory nuclear strike from Israel is not necessary.
You are spot on Vera. The Houthis have the right idea but it’s just not enough.
The Israelis are mad, but they obviously still have self preservation in mind. If the Zios launch nukes they’d be annihilated; they’re not THAT mad.
The Samson Option only comes into play if the Jew supremacists feel Israel’s existence is at stake.
You’re probably right Drew. I would say, not only are they not that mad, but they are cowards. Just look at the way they are adressing their “Hamas” problem.
Great point. Stay strong.
7. Boycott, Divest and Sanction. No one should buy Israeli products nor, to the best of their ability, products made by companies that support Israel. Comprehensive lists of such companies can be found all over the internet.
Only way this repulsive genocide ends is putting the fear of god into these sadistic creepy supremacists — which means hitting Tel Aviv hard enough to get their attentio