Fernando Alcoforado*
This article aims to demonstrate the need for Israeli and Palestinian extremists to be removed from power and for the UN to be restructured so that there is peace between Israel and Palestine. A group of experts from the ICC (International Criminal Court), based in The Hague, Netherlands, unanimously advised requesting arrest warrants against leaders of Israel and Hamas in a recently held panel. The ICC’s main prosecutor, Briton Karim Khan, announced on Monday that he had asked the court to issue arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, as well as arrest warrants for Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, Gaza chief Yahya Sinwar and Al-Qassam Brigades commander Mohammed Al-Masri, known as Deif. The five targeted are suspected of war crimes and crimes against humanity allegedly committed in Israel and the Gaza Strip.
Since 2021, the ICC prosecutor has been investigating allegations of war crimes committed since 2014 by the Israeli army and all Palestinian militias in the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel. The investigation includes and covers the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7 and the war in Gaza. The panel unanimously concluded that Hamas leaders Sinwar, Deif and Haniyeh committed war crimes and crimes against humanity, including hostage-taking, murder and crimes of sexual violence. It also unanimously concluded that Netanyahu and Gallant committed war crimes and crimes against humanity, including starvation as a method of war, murder, persecution and extermination of the Palestinian people. The arrest warrants for Netanyahu put him in the company of Russian President Vladimir Putin, for whom the ICC issued an arrest warrant over Russia’s war against Ukraine.
With the arrest warrants, Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant of Israel will not be able to go to any of the 124 countries that adhere to the rules of the International Criminal Court, under risk of arrest. This measure by the ICC is late, but absolutely necessary to show that no ruler of any nation and no political group, such as Hamas, can go unpunished for the war crimes and crimes against humanity that they have committed and continue to commit. This measure by the ICC is a signal to the Israeli and Palestinian people of the need to remove the right-wing extremists who govern Israel and the extremist leaders who command Hamas from power. This is the first condition for peace to be built and celebrated in the region of Palestine occupied by Israel since the Six-Day War in 1967.
The construction of peace can only happen in the Palestine region if the Jewish people in Israel and throughout the world, as well as the Palestinians, politically repel the extremists who exercise power in their territories and establish governments that seek conciliation between the Jewish and Palestinian peoples. This would be the way to avoid the continuation of the conflict between the State of Israel and the Palestinian people. It can be said that there is only one solution to the conflict between Palestine and Israel: on the one hand, Israel needs to accept the constitution of the Palestinian State, seek a fair and negotiated solution regarding Jerusalem and the fate of Palestinian refugees and end the settlements Jews in the West Bank and, on the other, Palestinians need to recognize the State of Israel because neither Palestinians nor Israelis can impose their will on each other. Neither the right-wing extremists who govern Israel nor the Palestinian extremist group of Hamas will be able to impose their will by force of arms in Palestine.
It is important to note that the conflict between Israel and Palestine began in the 19th century, when Zionist Jews expressed the desire to create a modern state in their ancestral land and began to create settlements in the region of Palestine, at the time still controlled by the Ottoman Empire. The great powers that won the First World War decided the fate of Palestine in favor of the Jews, using the League of Nations to do so, thus configuring the arrogance that has always characterized international relations throughout history. The Palestinians saw the sponsorship given first by Great Britain and then by the League of Nations to the Zionist project of creating a Jewish national home in Palestine as a denial of their right to independence. Since then, there has been much violence and controversy surrounding the issue, as well as several peace negotiations during the 20th century.
The State of Israel was founded in 1948, following the Partition Plan drawn up by the UN, which divided the region, then under British rule, into Arab and Jewish states (Figure 1).
Figure 1- UN Partition Plan
Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:UN_Partition_Plan_For_Palestine_1947.svg
One fact is evident: Israel’s history has revolved around conflicts with Palestinians and neighboring Arab nations that have been shaken by wars and clashes between Jews and Arabs who do not agree with the territorial division of the former Palestinian lands, as established in the current moment. Since the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, the conflict opposing it to the Palestinians has been the epicenter of a conflict between Israel and all Arab countries, with strong global repercussions. There were wars with Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, but without the tension in the region decreasing. During this period, Israel occupied the Sinai Peninsula, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights and southern Lebanon after the Six-Day War against Egypt, Syria and Jordan in 1967 (Figure 2).
Figure 2- Israeli achievements in the Six-Day War (1967)
Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-39960461
Figure 3 below shows that there has been a deliberate strategy by the various Israeli governments since 1967 to progressively conquer the territory of Palestine until the present time. Figure 3 shows that the map of Palestine has changed over the years with Israel’s advance into Palestinian territory. At the current time, the Israeli government tyrannically occupies the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. This situation cannot continue because it generates permanent conflict between Jews and Palestinians. Peace between Jews and Palestinians will hardly be concluded if these conditions are maintained.
Figure 3- Israel’s advance on Palestinian territory
Source: https://www.palestineportal.org/learn-teach/key-issues/settlements-and-the-occupation/
Palestinians demand to establish a sovereign and independent Palestinian State. Most Palestinians accept the West Bank and Gaza Strip regions as territory for a future Palestinian state. Many Israelis also accept this solution. A discussion around this solution took place during the Oslo Accords, signed in September 1993 between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which allowed the formation of the ANP (Palestinian National Authority). Despite the return of the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank to Palestinian control, a final agreement still needed to be reached. To do this, it would be necessary to resolve the main points of contention, which are the dispute over Jerusalem, the fate of Palestinian refugees and the end of Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
It is unlikely that the conflict between Palestinians and Jews will be resolved today because existing international institutions are not capable of building a negotiated solution to the conflict between these two peoples and between Israel, Iran and the Arab countries. The United States has lost the ability to mediate any conflict, no great power has the conditions to play this role and the UN is currently incapable of promoting peace on a local, regional or global levels. If everything continues, as it is, no structure, not even the UN, which works, in practice, in the service of the interests of the United States, will be able to exercise governance over planet Earth. This means that there is an urgent need to restructure the international system to resolve the conflict between Israel and Palestine, between Russia and Ukraine and all international conflicts that may occur in the future.
The time has come for humanity to equip itself as urgently as possible with instruments capable of promoting the construction of world peace and exercising control over its destiny. To achieve these objectives, it is urgent to restructure the UN with a view to transforming it into a democratic government of the world that constitutes the only means of survival for the human species. To make peace between Israel and Palestine possible and definitively eliminate new risks of a new world war and to achieve perpetual peace on our planet, it would be necessary to reform the current international system, which is incapable of guaranteeing world peace. The new international system should work based on a Planetary Social Contract. The Planetary Social Contract would be the Constitution of the people of planet Earth.
To prepare the Planetary Social Contract, a Constituent World Assembly should be convened with the participation of representatives from all countries in the world elected for this purpose. The Planetary Social Contract should establish the existence of a world government. The preservation of peace should be the first mission of every new form of world government. Its objective would be to defend the general interests of the planet, making it compatible with the interests of each nation. For this to happen, there must be democratic governance in the world with a world government elected by all countries in the world. Its role would be to build the governability of the global economy and environment and the maintenance of world peace. Through it, the defense of the general interests of all countries on the planet would be pursued in terms of international relations.
A global democratic government would ensure that the sovereignty of each country is respected because it would act to prevent any country from intervening in the internal affairs of others, especially with military interventions. Contrary to what many think, the existence of a world government would not be a threat to national sovereignty, on the contrary, it would guarantee that no country would intervene in the internal affairs of other countries. In addition to the World Government and the World Parliament, the World Supreme Court should also be created, which should be composed of high-level jurists from the world chosen by the World Parliament who would act for a determined period of time. The World Supreme Court should judge cases that involve disputes between countries, crimes against humanity and nature committed by national States and rulers in light of the Planetary Social Contract, judge conflicts that exist between the World Government and the World Parliament and act as guardian of the Planetary Social Contract.
The new rule of international law would be executed by the three constituted powers: World Government, World Parliament and World Supreme Court. World power would rest in the World Government, the World Parliament and the World Supreme Court. The World Government will not have its own Armed Forces and must rely on the support of the Armed Forces of the countries that would be called up when necessary. With this proposed configuration for the democratic governance of the international system, no country would therefore be a vassal of the World Government. To ensure democratic practice and governance on planet Earth, world power should be exercised by the World Parliament, which, in addition to electing the President of the World Government, should draft and approve international laws based on the Planetary Social Contract.
The World Parliament should be composed of a determined and equal number of representatives from each country democratically elected for this purpose. The President of the World government will only exercise command of the World government as long as he has the support of the majority of World Parliament. If, by majority of World Parliament, there is a need to replace the President of the World Government, this must be done. The World Supreme Court should be composed of high-level jurists from around the world chosen by the world Parliament who would act for a fixed period of time and should elect the President of the Court to serve a mandate for a determined period of time. The World Supreme Court should judge cases involving disputes between countries, crimes against humanity and nature committed by national states and rulers in light of the Planetary Social Contract, judge conflicts that exist between the World Government and the World Parliament and act as guardian of the Planetary Social Contract. The new rule of international law would be executed by the three constituted powers: World Government, World Parliament and World Supreme Court.
To make global governance viable, there must initially be a powerful global movement in defense of world peace through a World Forum for Peace and the Progress of Humanity to be made up of Civil Society organizations and governments from all countries in the world. In this Forum, the objectives and strategies for establishing a World Government, a World Parliament and a world Supreme Court should be debated and established, aiming to raise awareness among the world population and national governments in order to make a world of peace and progress for the entire world a reality. This would be the path that would make it possible to transform the utopia of World Government into reality. Without the constitution of a democratic World Government, the scenario that unfolds for the future of humanity will be one of economic, political and social disorder, the war of all against all, and the extinction of the human species with the use of nuclear weapons by countries contenders for world power.
* Fernando Alcoforado, awarded the medal of Engineering Merit of the CONFEA / CREA System, member of the Bahia Academy of Education, of the SBPC- Brazilian Society for the Progress of Science and of IPB- Polytechnic Institute of Bahia, engineer from the UFBA Polytechnic School and doctor in Territorial Planning and Regional Development from the University of Barcelona, college professor (Engineering, Economy and Administration) and consultant in the areas of strategic planning, business planning, regional planning, urban planning and energy systems, was Advisor to the Vice President of Engineering and Technology at LIGHT S.A. Electric power distribution company from Rio de Janeiro, Strategic Planning Coordinator of CEPED- Bahia Research and Development Center, Undersecretary of Energy of the State of Bahia, Secretary of Planning of Salvador, is the author of the books Globalização (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 1997), De Collor a FHC- O Brasil e a Nova (Des)ordem Mundial (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 1998), Um Projeto para o Brasil (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 2000), Os condicionantes do desenvolvimento do Estado da Bahia (Tese de doutorado. Universidade de Barcelona,http://www.tesisenred.net/handle/10803/1944, 2003), Globalização e Desenvolvimento (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 2006), Bahia- Desenvolvimento do Século XVI ao Século XX e Objetivos Estratégicos na Era Contemporânea (EGBA, Salvador, 2008), The Necessary Conditions of the Economic and Social Development- The Case of the State of Bahia (VDM Verlag Dr. Müller Aktiengesellschaft & Co. KG, Saarbrücken, Germany, 2010), Aquecimento Global e Catástrofe Planetária (Viena- Editora e Gráfica, Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo, São Paulo, 2010), Amazônia Sustentável- Para o progresso do Brasil e combate ao aquecimento global (Viena- Editora e Gráfica, Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo, São Paulo, 2011), Os Fatores Condicionantes do Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2012), Energia no Mundo e no Brasil- Energia e Mudança Climática Catastrófica no Século XXI (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2015), As Grandes Revoluções Científicas, Econômicas e Sociais que Mudaram o Mundo (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2016), A Invenção de um novo Brasil (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2017), Esquerda x Direita e a sua convergência (Associação Baiana de Imprensa, Salvador, 2018), Como inventar o futuro para mudar o mundo (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2019), A humanidade ameaçada e as estratégias para sua sobrevivência (Editora Dialética, São Paulo, 2021), A escalada da ciência e da tecnologia e sua contribuição ao progresso e à sobrevivência da humanidade (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2022), a chapter in the book Flood Handbook (CRC Press, Boca Raton, Florida United States, 2022), How to protect human beings from threats to their existence and avoid the extinction of humanity (Generis Publishing, Europe, Republic of Moldova, Chișinău, 2023) and A revolução da educação necessária ao Brasil na era contemporânea (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2023).
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