Israel's Terrorist Origin: What The Media Won't Tell You | Dr. Dr. Alfred de Zayas

## A History Recast: Violence, Memory, and Media Omission The conversation with Dr. Dr. Alfred de Zayas forces a disquieting re-examination of origins and narrative. One recurring claim is blunt: modern Israel emerged through a campaign that included acts any reasonable observer would classify as terrorism—not only against Palestinian civilians, but against the British authorities who governed Mandatory Palestine. The bombing of the King David Hotel and the assassination of UN mediator Count Folke Bernadotte are cited as pivotal episodes that mainstream outlets rarely present as part of Israel’s foundation myth. Beyond contesting a tidy national origin story, this line of argument poses a larger question about selective memory in contemporary media: what gets remembered, how it is framed, and which episodes are excised when historical legitimacy is at stake. Dr. de Zayas’ wider point is not merely historiographical. Where origin stories are sanitized, a public consensus forms that can immunize present-day policies from rigorous moral or legal scrutiny. If the violent roots of statehood are obfuscated, then so too are the lines that connect those origins to present conduct. The absence of sustained mainstream reportage on these formative attacks, he argues, is not just an analytic gap but a form of complicity—an omission that permits narratives of exceptionalism to ossify and of impunity to persist. ## Eroding Guardians: The Weaponization of Human Rights Institutions The conversation pivots from historical contestation to institutional failure. The creation of a post-1945 architecture of human rights—international courts, treaties, and UN mechanisms—was premised on the idea that both states and individuals would be held accountable. Yet Dr. de Zayas laments how those guardians have been penetrated by politics: secretariats populated by ideologues, petitions that vanish into bureaucratic limbo, and a prioritization of politically congenial victims over those deemed inconvenient. This critique draws on lived experience within the UN system. Once, secretariats were small, professional, and committed to a neutral administration of rights; now, he contends, they often function as geopolitical instruments. When victims or petitioners fall outside prevailing narratives, their cases never see the light of day. The result is not merely inefficiency; it is a structural bias that erodes trust in international remedies and renders legal protections unevenly available. For Dr. de Zayas, the core question—borrowed from Juvenal’s famous line—is as urgent as ever: who will guard the guardians when those entrusted with enforcing the rules become actors in their subversion? ## The ICC and the Mirage of Neutral Accountability When international criminal justice emerged following the atrocities of the late twentieth century, there was palpable optimism that an independent tribunal would end impunity. The Rome Statute was enshrined with ambitious universality: crimes of aggression, genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes were to be prosecuted regardless of the perpetrator’s rank or nationality. Yet the conversation asserts that these ideals gave way to a troubling reality: the International Criminal Court (ICC) has, in practice, become a selective instrument. Dr. de Zayas, who once advocated for such mechanisms, now declares the ICC a failure—a body so compromised that reform may be futile. His critique is twofold. First, institutional capture: secretariats and judicial bodies, he argues, reflect a neo-colonial bias that disproportionately targets leaders of African and Asian states while sparing Western allies. Second, function and consequence: even where prosecutions proceed, they can have the strategic effect of neutralizing political opponents for years without delivering durable justice. Cases that take a decade in The Hague may leave accused leaders politically sidelined, but they rarely provide the transparent, equitable accountability promised in theory. The remedy proposed is radical but principled: return to states’ responsibility under the Geneva Conventions. The obligation for each state to investigate and prosecute its own forces for violations of humanitarian law—particularly under Geneva Convention IV—would, in Dr. de Zayas’ view, eliminate the perception of external, politically motivated interventions. Whether that would succeed in practice depends on states’ political will; but the alternative—the perpetuation of a weaponized international court—is presented as worse than imperfect state-based accountability. ## The Case of Israel: Genocide Allegations and International Paralysis No subject in the discussion is more incendiary than the claim that contemporary Israeli actions amount to genocide. Dr. de Zayas frames the issue as stark and immediate: sustained attacks on civilians, destruction of hospitals and UN facilities, and speech acts by public officials that, when considered together, satisfy elements of the Genocide Convention. If accurate, such a diagnosis ought to trigger a suite of international mechanisms designed for fast and decisive action. Instead, the conversation depicts a slow, compromised system: delays in the International Court of Justice, reluctance by UN officials to call events by the name “genocide,” and an almost reflexive prioritization of geopolitical alliances over legal obligations. Specific procedural grievances underpin this moral outrage. South Africa’s case at the International Court of Justice, he notes, deserved urgent interim measures—but court timetables and extensions have permitted the circumstances on the ground to worsen. Meanwhile, domestic and international leaders who continue to arm, fund, and politically protect Israel are, in Dr. de Zayas’ assessment, complicit under provisions of the Genocide Convention that criminalize aiding and abetting. When Special Rapporteurs and civil-society groups point to complicity, mainstream Western media coverage tends either to marginalize such claims or to place them in small-type caveats—thereby limiting public and political response. The legal crescendo—if there is to be one—rests on demonstrating not only the scale of civilian suffering but also the causal chains that link foreign assistance to ongoing atrocities. Dr. de Zayas points to the jurisprudence of past tribunals: incitement, denialism, and logistical support can all constitute forms of criminal liability. The moral corollary is equally stark: silence in the face of credible allegations is itself a moral act with legal resonance. ## Instruments of Pressure: What International Community Could Do Faced with institutional inertia and political cover, the conversation shifts to practical levers available to the international community. A central proposal is an immediate, universal arms embargo coupled with targeted commercial and diplomatic isolation. Breaking diplomatic relations may be symbolic, yet severing economic ties has demonstrable impact. Historical precedent is invoked: the international measures that isolated apartheid South Africa were gradual, collective, and impactful. Similar steps—refusal of credentials, suspension of participation in UN bodies, and robust General Assembly resolutions—could signal international repudiation and impose real costs. The conversation further contemplates the legal tools embedded in the UN Charter itself. Resolution 377 (“Uniting for Peace”) and Article 6 of the Charter provide procedural paths for the General Assembly to assume functions when the Security Council is paralyzed by veto. Expulsion from membership is unlikely to be actionable in the short term because of geopolitics, but the symbolic force of a large majority vote condemning a member state can degrade its international legitimacy and alter calculations of allied support. Beyond state-level sanctions, mobilizing global civil society and independent media is presented as a necessary

Israel's Terrorist Origin: What The Media Won't Tell You | Dr. Dr. Alfred de Zayas Today I’m talking again to Dr. Dr. Alfred de Zayas, a Professor at the Geneva School of Diplomacy, who used to work as a senior lawyer in the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights and later became the first UN Independent Expert on International Order, serving in that capacity from 2012 to 2018. Two years ago, Alfred wrote an important scholarly article entitled “Who will guards over the guardians” about the weaponization of human rights and how the west is transforming the entire discourse into a geopolitical tool. Links: Alfred's human rights trilogy: https://www.claritypress.com/book-author/alfred-de-zayas/ Alfred's book Nemesis at Potsdam, that was reissued by Routlede as "Routledge Revivals": https://www.routledge.com/Routledge-Revivals /book-series/REVIVALS Goods Shop: https://neutralitystudies-shop.fourthwall.com #M3 How did Israel come to be? It came to be through violence, through terrorist acts—not only against the Palestinians, but also terrorist acts against the British. You will remember when the King David Hotel was blown up and they killed, I don't know, maybe a hundred Brits who were there. And there were any number of other terrorist attacks against the British in what was then Palestine. Then you have the United Nations trying to pacify matters, and they send their envoy, Count Folke Bernadotte. And Count Folke Bernadotte is then murdered, assassinated by a group of Zionist terrorists. That eventually became a famous case at the International Court of Justice. Now, the mainstream media doesn't remind you that Israel was born in terrorism or through terrorism. #M2 Hello everybody, this is Pascal from Neutrality Studies, and today I'm talking again to Dr. Alfred de Zayas, a professor at the Geneva School of Diplomacy who used to work as a senior lawyer in the office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and later became the first UN Independent Expert on International Order, serving in that capacity from 2012 to 2018. Two years ago, Alfred wrote an important scholarly article entitled "Who Will Guard Over the Guardians?" about the weaponization of human rights and how the West is transforming the entire discourse into a geopolitical tool. That's what we want to discuss today. So, Alfred, welcome back. #M3 Thanks for inviting me again. And indeed, it is the crucial problem. We have a rebellion against international law, international morals, international relations. The United States and Europe have done their level best to destroy what we had built since 1945. I mean, they are in rebellion against -- 1 of 18 -- the UN Charter. But in order to achieve that, you need accomplices. And who are the accomplices? The mainstream media, public relations, relentless propaganda—New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, even the BBC. It's a disgrace, because I remember 50 years ago, 40 years ago, the BBC was at least a point de repère, you would say—something that you would rely on as objective. No longer the case. And who shall guard over the guardians? Only ourselves. This, of course, is an endemic problem. It has followed humanity throughout history. You already have it in the sixth satire of Juvenal, verses 347 and 348, where he asks this crucial question: Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? What do you do if the institutions created to defend your rights actually betray you—when these institutions are penetrated? Penetrated by intelligence services, penetrated by ideologues, penetrated by governments, and actually by the organizations themselves. And part of the problem is that the secretariats of the United Nations—here in Geneva, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Secretariat of the World Health Organization, the ILO—80% are ideologues, and 80% have been put there to do a geopolitical job. When I entered the United Nations back in 1980, it was a different game. I was personally interviewed by the great Theo van Boven, Professor Theo van Boven from the Netherlands, who was the director of the Human Rights Office. I became the principal drafter for the Human Rights Committee, and I rose to be the chief of petitions, also the registrar and secretary of the Human Rights Committee, as the case may be. It was a different secretariat, and we were small. But we were a group of committed professionals. And today, if you are a politically incorrect victim and you address yourself to the United Nations, your communication—your petition—might land in the bin. And I'm not kidding you. Or it simply doesn't get registered; you never hear anything of it again. So there are certain, shall we say, consensus victims—politically correct victims—whose cases will be taken and examined, and decided also in an ideological way. But if you are Jorge Glas, if you are the former vice president of Ecuador, and you were not clever enough to leave the country when it turned into a right-wing dictatorship, you are subject to what we call lawfare. And we've seen plenty of lawfare. I mean, the United States, United Kingdom, and Sweden all practiced lawfare in the case of Julian Assange, which ruined his life for 12 years, etc., with the complicity of so many institutions. I mean, the corruption of the administration of justice in the US, UK, Sweden, and Ecuador—it's so obvious. And you have a UN rapporteur, Nils Melzer, Professor Nils Melzer, now with the International Committee of the Red Cross, who wrote a whole book on the case of Julian Assange. As I say, I call Nils the Emile Zola of the 21st century, because what he reveals is so much worse than the Dreyfus Affair of 1895–1898, the malfunction of the French military justice system. Today, we have a malfunction of the entire administration of justice in the United States and the United Kingdom, in Sweden, but also in Germany and France, and in many countries in Latin America. So you have lawfare against Jorge Glas. You have lawfare and coup d'état against this poor fellow called Pedro Castillo, the former president of Peru. And basically, the world doesn't care. Either the -- 2 of 18 -- mainstream media doesn't inform you about what's going on, or it whitewashes it. So you don't get the feeling that the system is corrupted and that the guardians are not guarding you—they are actually working against your interests. It's a very serious problem. And I'm not the first person to identify it. I mean, you've interviewed Glenn Diesen, and you've interviewed Jeffrey Sachs, and probably also Richard Falk, and many of my friends who have the same worries as I do—that the system has been corrupted. And we have to fix it. Either we have to fix it, or our civilization goes down the drain. #M2 Now, you know, the history of international law since 1945—the biggest change that came was the idea that not only states are subject to international law, but also individuals are. And not just in high-profile criminal cases like the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials, but also for other issues, right? And that states are responsible for maintaining the basic rights of their citizenry, and human rights are basically the rights of the citizenry against the state. And for that, we've created all of these institutions, and you name several of them. I mean, the ICC is such a huge example because when it was created back in 2002, there was all this hope that it would really push forward human rights and that you could now have a handle on all of these illegalities committed by people in high office. And it turns out, oh, no, wait a second, it will only be applied when Western leaders actually want to prosecute some leaders from Black or Asian states, right? Can you explain a little bit about what went wrong with the ICC and what institutional mechanisms aren't working? #M3 Well, the ICC—and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda—they emerged at a time when there was a certain effervescence and a certain enthusiasm for international law and for accountability. At the time, I was a professor at DePaul University in Chicago, together with Cherif Bassiouni, the late Cherif Bassiouni, and we were working very hard to get the statute of the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia adopted, and then to work for the creation of this International Criminal Court that was intended to be neutral. It was intended to be there in order to try every single official, every single head of state, every single military leader who violated the Statute of Rome. Article 5: crime of aggression. Article 6: genocide. Article 7: crimes against humanity. Article 8: war crimes. Now, there was conviction on my part—I mean, I am one of those who was advocating for the ICC from the very beginning. And in its 22 years of existence, it's been not only a great disappointment, it's been a fraud. And I say this kind of ICC, based on our empirical experience, cannot be reformed. You can only abolish it. Forget it. I mean, a body like the ICC has been penetrated, and both the secretariat and judges are ideologically neo-colonial—against, shall we say, the Africans and the Asians, and these people whom we basically, deep down, look down on. -- 3 of 18 -- It's a useful political tool when you can support your geopolitical ambitions by defaming, demonizing, and labeling as war criminals those whom you want to get out of the way. And of course, that has failed many times, because you had the case pushed by France against Bemba, and the case pushed by France against Gbagbo of Côte d'Ivoire, and in both cases they ended up having to acquit them. But these people were taken out of circulation. For 10, 12 years, they were cooked off in The Hague, and of course, could not participate in the political life of their respective countries. And so what it turns out, as I said, is a fraud, is a farce. And considering that this has cost billions of dollars, I am in favor of doing away with it. My proposal is that states observe their own obligations under the Geneva Conventions. Take Geneva Convention Number 4, which is the Convention on the Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict. It's very clear— Articles 145, 146, 147, 148—about the obligation of each and every state to investigate violations of humanitarian law by its own troops and to prosecute them. That is the way it should be done. Then you don't have the suspicion that this is something from the outside, that this is something the United States or Europe or some other major power wants to do in order to advance geopolitical agendas. #M2 Yeah, but the whole problem is that states don't do it, right? I mean, Israel is part of the Genocide Convention. And it's appalling how it is breaking that convention, not only with what it does on the ground, but with the speech acts of its politicians, with the goals of its military—call it a military operation, okay, like what it does. I mean, it's grotesque. It is bizarre. And the Geneva Conventions, of course, too—they stand there as the shining lights. And actually, these states are part of them, even the ones that have ratified them. #M3 It is for us to call it out. It is for the media to call it out, and then to call out all of those who are complicit by providing military, political, economic, diplomatic, or propagandistic support to a genocidal state. No question, Israel is in open rebellion against international law, in open rebellion against the Genocide Convention, against the United Nations Charter. And the best answer would be for the General Assembly to have a special session under Uniting for Peace. You remember the famous Uniting for Peace resolution of the GA back in 1950, Resolution 377. And they could take action. And one of the things that I think the international community would have to do is to immediately impose a total weapons embargo on Israel, and then to break commercial relations. Breaking diplomatic re