Transcript from CounterVortex podcast of May 30:

Welcome to the CounterVortex with your ranter Bill Weinberg, ranting at you in the wee hours of May 30, 2025, as always from my apartment on Manhattan’s Lower East Side—which fortunately is not under aerial bombardment, not under military occupation, and were there is plenty of food, even if it is often rather absurdly overpriced.

In contrast to, of course, the Gaza Strip. Just to briefly review the events of the past weeks that have brought us again to the brink of everything getting much, much worse...

The Israeli government on May 5 unveiled a new military plan for Gaza, forebodingly dubbed operation “Gideon’s Chariots” after an Old Testament conqueror. Approved unanimously by the security cabinet, the plan calls for the “conquering of Gaza” and retaining the territory indefinitely. The plan also includes concentrating the Palestinian civilian population in a “sterile area” in the south of the Strip. An obvious prelude to the cleansing or “transfer” (quote-unquote) of the populace of the Strip entirely, which has clearly been the agenda for months. We have spoken before about the massive detention camps that Egyptian authorities have prepared in the Sinai desert for the anticipated influx of hundreds of thousands expelled from Gaza.

In a typically Orwellian construction, the official government spokesperson David Mencer said the plan calls for “the expanding and holding of territories—not occupation—the expanding and holding of territories and remaining in them to prevent Hamas from taking it [sic] back.” Which is not grammatical and engages in a clear self-contradiction, always give-aways of dishonest propaganda. Of course what he’s describing is occupation. In contrast, ultra-hardline Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich stated more honestly: “We are finally going to conquer the Gaza Strip. We will stop being afraid of the word ‘occupation.'” He added that there would be no withdrawal, even in exchange for the hostages.

Israel has ordered Gaza’s second-largest city of Khan Yunis in the south evacuated, and is expanding its so-called “buffer zone” along the Gaza border and enlarging its corridor that bisects Gaza. Today, Israel controls about a third of the Strip and is pushing the population into shrinking pockets outside of direct Israeli military control.

Amid growing warnings of starvation, the Israeli military allowed humanitarian aid into Gaza for the first time in more than 11 weeks. The first trucks were permitted to pass through the Kerem Shalom crossing May 19 after the UK, France and Canada threatened to sanction Israel if it did not allow in assistance. UN Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs Tom Fletcher welcomed the move, but said it was a “drop in the ocean of what is urgently needed.” Not remotely at the level it was at during the two-month ceasefire that ended in March, when some 600 trucks were entering Gaza each day. In the week following May 19, a total of only some 200 trucks were allowed through.

In an open letter issued the same day the first trucks were allowed in, nearly a dozen international aid and human rights groups warned that a US-backed organization set up to take over aid distribution in Gaza is “a dangerous, politicized sham.” They charged that the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, or GHF, has been launched without Palestinian involvement, while the population in Gaza remains under siege.

The statement noted that Tom Fletcher has dismissed creation of the GHF as “a cynical sideshow,” and added: “Aid does not need rebranding. It needs to be allowed in." The groups called on governments and humanitarian agencies to reject the GHF and demand access to the enclave for all aid providers, "not just those who cooperate with an occupying power.” The statement asserted: “The problem is not logistics. It is intentional starvation.”

On May 25, GHF executive director Jake Wood announced his resignation, just hours before the group was to begin “direct aid delivery” in Gaza. Wood, a US military veteran who had been appointed just weeks earlier, said he did not believe it is possible for the organization to operate independently or adhere to humanitarian principles.

On May 27, the first newly established GHF aid distribution point outside Rafah was overwhelmed by hungry local residents, and Israeli troops apparently opened fire, leaving at least one Palestinian dead and 48 injured. The IDF acknowledged that its troops had fired “warning shots.” The next day, hundreds of Palestinians stormed a UN food warehouse in Deir al-Balah and four were killed; it is unclear if Israeli soldiers, private contractors or others had opened fire. [NOTE: Since this podcast was recorded, there have been three more shooting incidents at the Orwellianly-named “Safe Distribution Point,” leaving at least 60 dead.]

The Trump regime—deeply complicit in this escalation toward the total cleansing of the Strip, having not only given a green light, but actively encouraged it—is now, in its strange see-saw game, said to be attempting to broker a 60-day ceasefire in exchange for the release of several hostages. So we may be looking again at a step back from the brink, we may hope. But we are closer to it than ever before.

So as horrible as everything is now, I’ve been waiting in dread for months for when it is going to go over the edge and become much, much worse, and it looks like we could now be at that tipping point. Let us recall that the World Court is investigating Israel over accusations of genocide, and has issued temporary orders to Israel to take measures to prevent genocide in Gaza, which Israel is contemptuously flouting.

And suddenly there is a Facebook meme going around reading “I support military intervention to stop genocide in Gaza,” with the hashtag #ProtectPalestine.

A tweet from Jason Hickel is getting much circulation, reading:

It should be clear to everyone at this point that the only reasonable course of action is a military coalition of states to impose a no-fly zone around Gaza, physically stop Israel's genocidal slaughter, and rush aid in to prevent mass starvation.

There’s a petition online at Avaaz.org for “Urgent International Military Protection for Palestinians.”

And uh, I have to say... I am flashing back to our previous podcasts of April 21 and August 23, 2021, both discussing the book The Responsibility to Protect in Libya and Syria: Mass Atrocities, Human Protection, and International Law by Syrian American legal scholar Yasmine Nahlawi, who was making the case for humanitarian intervention in those two countries. Retrospectively in the case of Libya, looking back on what happened in 2011 when the NATO powers intervened against the Qaddafi dictatorship, which was then unleashing mass atrocity crimes. And calling for that same kind of intervention against the Assad regime in Syria which was then, 10 years after the Libya intervention, escalating to genocide, with the same kind of mass atrocities committed against the Syrian people by the regime and its Russian backers that we now see Israel carrying out today in Gaza, with US support. Qaddafi back in 2011 had, let us recall, favorably invoked Israeli bombing campaigns in Gaza as an example of what he would unleash on rebel-held Benghazi. And it was, very arguably, the military intervention that prevented this—and the lack of military intervention in Syria that enabled it.

Nahlawi was making the case for the implementation of the developing legal doctrine of “Responsibility to Protect” in Syria to belatedly prevent the Assad regime from continuing to commit mass murder. Now, I was not making a dogmatic endorsement of Nahlawi’s book—in fact, I criticized her work for failing to grapple with the Chomskyan critique of humanitarian intervention—but merely saying that her case needed to be grappled with, and an urgent discussion needed to be had about what responsibilities we in the outside world did have to the Syrians facing genocide. And for this I was excoriated as a heretic—for even loaning any degree of legitimacy to the notion of humanitarian intervention. And now some of the same people who were excoriating me are literally calling for humanitarian intervention. Curious.

The Chomskyan critique, until very recently taken as inflexible dogma on the anti-imperialist left, is summed up in the sneeringly sarcastic title of his book The New Military Humanism: Lessons From Kosovo, written after the NATO military intervention launched in 1999 ostensibly to protect the Kosovar Albanians from the campaign of ethnic cleansing launched by the Serbian regime of Slobodan Milosevic—a military intervention met with near-universal support from the Kosovar Albanians, who in the aftermath were able to recover their lost territories and establish a de facto, at least, independent state which has now actually been recognized by several governments around the world.

And just like Yasmine Nahlawi failed to grapple with the Chomskyan critique that imperial powers always by definition act in their imperial interests no matter what “humanitarian” rhetoric is employed (which I do not contest, by the way), Chomsky and his followers failed to grapple, again, with what responsibilities the outside word did in fact have to the Kosovar Albanians as they were being massively attacked and driven from their homes. And some of Chomsky’s followers went so far as to deny that the ethnic cleansing was taking place, because it was inconvenient to their anti-imperialist dogma—which was some bullshit, some dangerous bullshit. And Chomsky himself has loaned credence to similar genocide-denialism where Bosnia was concerned, in the years immediately preceding the Kosova crisis, and then later where Syria was concerned—as discussed in depth in our three podcasts critiquing Chomsky, of April 23, May 21 and May 28 of 2022.

A more legit point made by Chomsky and his followers was the double standard, or what they called seeing “worthy and unworthy victims,” quote-unquote.

They pointed out that at the same time the West was intervening against the Serbs in Bosnia and then far more massively against Serbia in Kosova, the Western powers were underwriting Israel, which was committing equivalent, or (at that time) near-equivalent crimes against the Palestinians, and NATO member Turkey, which was committing equivalent or near-equivalent crimes against the Kurds. Legitimate point. My only problem with it is that they acted like that ended the conversation, that if the Western powers have double standards, then we had no responsibilities of solidarity to the Bosnians and Kosovars—which is again some dangerous bullshit.

And these same arguments were brought to bear in 2015, when the Syrian city of Aleppo was under siege by the Assad regime and under massive aerial bombardment by the regime and its Russian sponsor, and the residents of the city were clamoring for a no-fly zone. And on the so-called anti-imperialist left, the Chomskyan left in the West, it was absolutely verboten to even broach the idea of a no-fly zone for Aleppo. It was treated as sheer heresy.

And then, interestingly, in 2019, Turkey and its Syrian Arab proxy forces invaded Rojava, the Kurdish autonomous zone in northeast Syria. And for various reasons we have discussed before, including their explicit anarchist influence, the Rojava Kurds were, and to an extent remain, a popular cause on the left in the West, and particularly the anarchist and Chomskyan left. And now, for the first time, calls for humanitarian intervention suddenly became acceptable on the western left, and even Chomsky himself joined calls for a US intervention force or a no-fly zone in northeast Syria to protect Rojava from Turkey.

Yet strangely, this principle again did not apply in 2022 when Russia invaded Ukraine and calls were launched for a no-fly zone for Mariupol. This time, in fact, Chomsky dismissed the idea as madness that could lead to nuclear war.

And now here we are three years later, and a consensus is quickly emerging for humanitarian intervention in Gaza, and some of the very people who excoriated me for even broaching humanitarian intervention in Syria are now posting Facebook memes calling for humanitarian intervention in Gaza. Very strange.

So I kind of feel like I, and more importantly people like Yasmine Nahlawi who were making a legal and moral case for humanitarian intervention in Syria, were prematurely correct here. And I cannot help but point out that the Chomsky-heads are ironically just as guilty of selective sympathy and seeing “worthy and unworthy victims” as those they critiqued.

OK, just saying. I just felt the need to read that into the record.

Now lets take a look at the concrete steps already taken by elements of the international community to implement the “Responsibility to Protect” doctrine in the Gaza Strip.

On Jan. 31, delegates from nine nations (including South Africa, Malaysia, Colombia, Bolivia and Cuba) formed the Hague Group, responding to the failure of the broader international community to halt Israel’s crimes in Gaza. Drawing on a series of binding and advisory rulings by international bodies, the group’s declaration especially cited the advisory opinion of July 2024, issued by the International Court of Justice (or World Court, based at The Hague in the Netherlands), asserting that the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination demands a total and unconditional Israeli withdrawal from the occupied Palestinian territories, or OPT, including Gaza.

A coalition of independent UN human rights experts on April 3 called on additional states to join the Hague Group. The experts, part of the UN Human Rights Council’s Special Procedures, expressed concern that the credibility of the international legal system is at risk due to inaction over ongoing violations in the OPT:

We call on all nations to join us in our solemn commitment to an international order based on the rule of law. Only through coordinated, collective action can we hope to end this cycle of impunity and safeguard the rights and lives of those affected.

Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur for human rights in the Palestinian territories, called May 6 for an arms embargo and sanctions against Israel, at least, and demanded an emergency session in the UN General Assembly, urging the General Assembly to invoke the “Uniting for Peace” resolution—Resolution 377a of November 3, 1950, which enables the General Assembly to:

[make] appropriate recommendations to Members for collective measures, including in the case of a breach of the peace or act of aggression the use of armed force when necessary, to maintain or restore international peace and security.

This mechanism was adopted for cases in which the Security Council fails to act due to a lack of unanimity among its five permanent members who hold veto power. Resolution 377a was passed in the context of the Korean War, when the Security Council was paralyzed by a Soviet boycott. It was invoked in the 1956 Suez crisis, effectively ending the war against Egypt that had been launched by Israel in league with the UK and France, getting around the British and French veto on the Security Council, allowing the General Assembly to at least broach intervention to end the hostilities—with US support, by the way.

On May 7, a group of United Nations human rights experts urged that the international community must act immediately to end the intensifying violence in Gaza:

Escalating atrocities in Gaza present an urgent moral crossroads and States must act now to end the violence or bear witness to the annihilation of the Palestinian population in Gaza—an outcome with irreversible consequences for our shared humanity and multilateral order.

The rights experts claimed that the continuous attacks on civilians and health facilities enter the realm of crimes against humanity, and said:

The world is watching. Will Member States live up to their obligations and intervene to stop the slaughter, hunger, and disease, and other war crimes and crimes against humanity that are perpetrated daily in complete impunity?

And Michael Fakhri, UN special rapporteur on the right to food, wrote in The Guardian on May 22 that thousands of children are at imminent risk of starvation in Gaza, and said:

When the security council fails to act to a threat of peace or security because of veto, the UN charter empowers the UN general assembly to step in through what’s called the “Uniting for Peace” provision. Under this provision, the general assembly can pass a resolution calling for UN peacekeepers to accompany humanitarian convoys and deliver the necessary aid into Gaza, regardless of Israel’s plans and permissions. The UN general assembly must break the illegal blockade and stop the starvation of 2.3 million Palestinians.

So the matter a been broached, and a process and conversation have been started. Now regarding Aleppo in 2015, with the situation so desperate, I felt conflicted and somewhat guilty merely calling for a conversation rather than joining unequivocally in the demand for no-fly zone. But I gave enough weight to the Chomskyan critique that I just couldn’t bring myself to cross that line. And of course, there are obvious obstacles now. Who is going to do it? There are memes going around falsely claiming that China is volunteering for an intervention force to break the Israeli blockade and protect Gaza, but it is disinformation, completely fabricated. Similarly, there are no outside powers that are truly guided by humanitarian concerns and untainted by geostrategic motives. And in most cases, geostrategic concerns would militate against standing up to nuclear-armed Israel over a fairly expendable piece of territory, which is what Gaza is for the Great Powers, unfortunately for the people who live there—although, as we all know, being a desirable piece of territory can also be bad for the people who live there.

And double standards abound. If there were truth to claims that China is planning an intervention on behalf of the Palestinians (which there is not), this would certainly be greeted with a sense of irony by the Uyghurs, who face mass internment and quite plausibly genocide at the hands of the Chinese state in Xinjiang. And there are numerous other genocides going on around the world at the moment—just for instance, against the Masalit in Sudan. And against the Fulani in the Sahel—a situation certainly approaching a genocidal threshold, at least, as we’ve argued before, including in the podcast we did following the coup in Niger in August 2023. And it has only gotten much worse since then—serial, criminally under-reported massacres of Fulani people throughout the Sahel states. And I can’t help but point out that some of those meme-warriors now calling for humanitarian intervention to protect Gaza are rallying around the Russian-backed coup regimes committing atrocities against the Fulani in Mali and Burkina Faso. Just saying. But of course I recognize that just as Western double standards did not lessen the urgent mandate of solidary to the Bosnians or Kosovars or Syrians or Ukrainians, similarly these double standards do not lessen the urgent mandate of solidary with the Gazans.

And then there is the perennial Chomksyan point of the threat of escalation—and it was easy to imagine scenarios in the case of Aleppo or Mariupol in which humanitarian intervention could have brought Russia and the West eyeball-to-eyeball. It is less easy to imagine that in the case of Gaza, but it’s also less easy to imagine humanitarian intervention happening at all in Gaza. And if it does, getting outside powers militarily involved could in fact internationalize the conflict, no matter who they are. But just as I always said that we can’t tell the Syrians and Ukrainians that they have to die for the good of world peace (such as it is), this same principle applies to the Palestinians.

So I do not offer any easy answers, but I hope that I have usefully contributed to the conversation. And no matter what happens, we will be watching closely.

This has been Bill Weinberg with the CounterVortex.

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