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<a class="gmail-domain gmail-reader-domain" href="https://mondoweiss.net/2025/06/the-people-vs-the-abyss-the-sarajevo-declaration-of-the-gaza-tribunal/?ml_recipient=156459417217270802&ml_link=156459346678514727&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=2025-06-06&utm_campaign=Daily+Headlines+RSS+Automation">mondoweiss.net</a>
<div class="gmail-domain-border"></div><h1 class="gmail-reader-title">The People vs. The Abyss: The Sarajevo Declaration of the Gaza Tribunal</h1>
<span class="gmail-post-author"><span class="gmail-by">By</span> <a href="https://mondoweiss.net/author/craig-mokhiber/" title="Posts by Craig Mokhiber" class="gmail-author gmail-url gmail-fn" rel="author">Craig Mokhiber</a></span>
<span class="gmail-meta-sep"></span>
<span class="gmail-date-link">June 5, 2025</span>
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<div class="gmail-moz-reader-content gmail-reader-show-element"><div id="gmail-readability-page-1" class="gmail-page"><div><img src="cid:ii_mbkzfnph0" alt="080423_Berlin_ZU_00-4.jpg" width="467" height="311"><br>
<font size="1">Pro-Palestinian protesters rallying in Berlin, Germany in April 2023.
(Photo: © Michael Kuenne/PRESSCOV via ZUMA Press Wire APA Images)
</font><br><h2>A people\u2019s tribunal</h2>
<p>Almost sixty years ago, the world watched in horror as the US carried
out brutal aggression and serial atrocities against the people of
Vietnam. Those atrocities, and the apparent impunity afforded to the US
in their commission, was, for many, too much to bear. </p>
<p>Because no state, no group of states, or international institution
was coming to rescue the Vietnamese people, it quickly became clear that
freedom would come only from popular resistance inside Vietnam, and a
global solidarity movement outside. </p>
<p>It was in that context that Bertrand Russell, the prominent British philosopher and public intellectual, launched the first \u201c<a href="https://opil.ouplaw.com/display/10.1093/law-mpeipro/e3205.013.3205/law-mpeipro-e3205">people\u2019s tribunal</a>\u201d as an organized expression of moral outrage. </p>
<p>In 1967, he stood before the Russell Tribunal and <a href="https://chomsky.info/1971____/#:~:text=In%20Bertrand%20Russell%20War%20Crimes,about%20circumstances%20in%20the%20colonies'.">declared</a>: \u201c<em>W</em><em>e
are not judges. We are witnesses. Our task is to make mankind bear
witness to these terrible crimes and to unite humanity on the side of
justice.</em>\u201d </p>
<p>Today, another people\u2019s tribunal is following in the footsteps of
Russell, this time to confront the Israeli regime\u2019s genocide in
Palestine, the racist ideology that underpins it, and the complicit
western powers and corporations that enable it. </p>
<h2>The Gaza Tribunal</h2>
<p>Assembled in November of 2024, and meeting for the first time in London in February of 2025, the <a href="https://gazatribunal.com/">Gaza Tribunal</a> has just completed its first public meeting in Sarajevo (26-29 May 2025) with the adoption of the <a href="https://gazatribunal.com/the-sarajevo-declaration-of-the-gaza-tribunal/"><em>Declaration of Sarajevo</em></a>. </p>
<p>The Tribunal was initiated by another celebrated public intellectual, this time Professor <a href="https://richardfalk.org/">Richard Falk</a>,
preeminent professor of international law, former UN Special Rapporteur
on human rights in Palestine, and now the President of the Gaza
Tribunal.</p>
<p>The Gaza Tribunal assembles <a href="https://gazatribunal.com/advisory-policy-council/">thinkers and activists</a>
from Palestine and around the globe to address not only the colonial
and genocidal horrors being perpetrated by the Israeli regime in
Palestine, but also, the complicity of powerful states, corporations,
media companies, and Israel proxy groups in the West, as well as the
inaction or inadequate response of the majority of countries and
institutions in the world, whether at the national or international
levels. </p>
<p>Structuring itself around three \u201cchambers,\u201d the Tribunal considers questions of (1) <a href="https://gazatribunal.com/chambers/international-law-chamber/">international law</a>, (2) <a href="https://gazatribunal.com/chambers/international-relations-and-world-order-chamber/">international relations and world order</a>, and (3) <a href="https://gazatribunal.com/chambers/history-ethics-and-philosophy-chamber/">history, ethics, and philosophy</a>, examining all aspects of the struggle against genocide and for Palestinian freedom. </p>
<p>Considering survivor testimonies, expert witnesses, and the analysis
of its members, the Tribunal will ultimately convene a \u201cjury of
conscience\u201d to pronounce later this year. It is compiling an archive of
evidence. And its Declaration of Sarajevo, adopted on 29 May 2025,
encapsulates its vision for a global, moral response to the ongoing <em>Nakba</em> in Palestine. </p>
<h2>Why a tribunal? </h2>
<p>The work of the Tribunal is based on a fundamental premise: that the
people of Palestine are human beings with human rights, including the
right to self-determination, to return to their homes anywhere in
historic Palestine, to equality under the law, and to freedom from fear
and want. It recognizes that the alignment of dark forces perpetrating
genocide in Palestine represents an existential threat to the survival
of the people of Palestine, to international peace and security, and to
the project of a just international order. And it begins with the
recognition that governments and the international institutions
ostensibly established to maintain peace and security and to advance
human rights and international law have failed to end the impunity of
the Israeli regime and to respond effectively to the genocide and to a
century of colonial persecution in Palestine. </p>
<p>As such, the Tribunal recognizes that the challenge of justice falls to <em>people</em>,
to legitimate resistance, to acts of solidarity, to civil society, to
social movements, and to people of conscience everywhere. It understands
the need to mobilize the power of the people, in their millions, to
challenge the crimes of the Israeli regime and its co-conspirators, to
isolate the Israeli regime and to actively dissent to the complicity of
our own governments and institutions. </p>
<p>It seeks to counter the forces of evil with the forces of justice, by
bringing pressure to bear in every sector, and making clear that
genocide will not be normalized, that apartheid will not be normalized,
that colonialism will not be normalized, and that Palestine will be
free. This is the cry of conscience of the Gaza Tribunal. A call to all
decent people to oppose the lawlessness and brutality of powerful actors
implicated in the genocide in Palestine, foremost the Israeli regime,
but also the US, the UK, Germany and their collaborators. </p>
<h2>What the Tribunal is not</h2>
<p>While the Tribunal includes some of the most skilled <a href="https://gazatribunal.com/chambers/international-law-chamber/">international lawyers</a>
on the planet, it is not a formal judicial or legal mechanism, but
rather an assembly of civil society, of movements, of thinkers and
activists, and of people of conscience determined to end the horrors
that we are all forced to witness in Palestine. </p>
<p>Neither does the Tribunal believe it must wait to act until final pronouncements are made by any international court,<strong> </strong>years
down the road. In the face of a historic exigency like genocide,
members of the Tribunal view passive deference to official institutions
as morally indefensible. </p>
<p>Unlike a court, the Tribunal <em>begins</em> with the recognition of
the reality of genocide, of apartheid and settler colonialism, which its
members see as undeniable realties. These crimes have long been
confirmed by prominent human rights organizations, UN bodies, and
genocide scholars, and are by now beyond reasonable doubt. Indeed, this
assault in Gaza has rightly been called \u201cthe world\u2019s first livestreamed
genocide.\u201d </p>
<p>While official institutions endlessly debate whether the night is
falling, the people of Palestine know that the darkness is already here,
and that means that we all have a moral obligation to find ways to
restore the light. The Tribunal therefore sees an urgent moral
imperative in confronting these crimes now, with all the power and
resolve that can be mobilized in society. </p>
<p>The Tribunal also differs from many official institutions in that it does<strong> </strong>not
engage in the moral prevarication that is so common among governments
and official institutions, including the political offices of the UN.
The Tribunal rejects the rhetorical application of a \u201c<em>both sides</em>\u201d
approach to a situation like Palestine, in which the two sides are
colonizer and colonized, occupier and occupied, oppressor and oppressed,
genocidaires and victims. </p>
<p>Neither does the Tribunal recognize an Israel exception to international law, so often<strong> </strong>insisted
upon by Western powers to buttress Israeli state impunity and to
protect individual Israeli perpetrators from accountability. But either
the law is real and applies to all equally, or it is a lie, a
perfidious weapon of oppression and subjugation in the hands of power.
The Tribunal comes down squarely on the side of the rule of law. </p>
<p>Finally, the Tribunal refuses the gag orders imposed by the Israeli
regime, its Western allies and proxies, and its complicit media
corporations. The Tribunal speaks openly about root causes, the words
that states and official institutions often refuse to utter, including
Zionism, settler colonialism, ethno-supremacism, and apartheid, because
they are the root of the problem. And the Tribunal confronts genocide
directly, never diverting its eyes, never employing the familiar
rhetorical tricks (\u201conly a court can declare genocide\u201d) often used by UN
officials to avoid the question. </p>
<p>The Tribunal does so not only because it\u2019s right in moral terms, but
also in recognition of the simple truism that no conflict can be
resolved without attention to root causes. And it should by now be clear
to all that the Palestine crisis will certainly not be resolved by
reviving the stinking corpse of the Oslo process, by establishing
Palestinian Bantustans, or by an amorphous promise<strong> </strong>of a two-state solution somewhere down the road. </p>
<p>As evidenced by its Declaration of Sarajevo, the Tribunal speaks the
truth outload, and has the audacity to demand actual justice, not empty
rhetoric or meaningless consolation prizes in its stead. </p>
<h2>A Declaration of conscience and a call to action</h2>
<p>Thus, the Sarajevo Declaration offers itself as an antidote to the
moral obfuscation, the distorted narratives, and the silent complicity
that has dominated official positions for the past nineteen months,
indeed, the past seventy-seven years. The declaration is an appeal of
conscience that directly addresses the struggle against the darkness,
the evil of the Israeli regime, its ideology and actions, and its
collaborators. And it provides a platform for collective action upon
which people can organize. </p>
<p>Thus, in the Declaration of Sarajevo, the Gaza Tribunal declares
moral outrage at the genocide and the myriad other crimes of the Israeli
regime, solidarity with the people of Palestine, and commitment to
working with partners across global civil society to end the genocide,
and to ensure accountability for perpetrators and enablers, redress for
victims and survivors, and a free Palestine. </p>
<p>It demands an immediate end to those crimes, including the
occupation, the siege, the apartheid, and the genocide, and freedom for
all Palestinian prisoners. It calls on all governments and on
international organizations to act. And it denounces all those who have
been complicit in the regime\u2019s crimes, from states to media companies,
arms corporations, and others. </p>
<p>Importantly, the Declaration expresses the conviction that the
struggle against all forms of racism, bigotry, and discrimination
necessarily includes the equal rejection of Islamophobia, anti-Arab and
anti-Palestinian racism, and antisemitism, as well as an acknowledgment
of the horrific effects of Zionism, apartheid, and settler-colonialism
on the Palestinian people. The Declaration explicitly rejects \u201cthe
destructive ideology of Zionism, as the official state ideology of the
Israeli regime, of the forces that colonized Palestine and established
the Israeli state on its ruins, and of pro-Israel organizations and
proxies today.\u201d And it calls for decolonization across the land, an end
to the ethno-supremacist order, and the replacement of Zionism with a
dispensation founded on equal human rights for Christians, Muslims,
Jews, and others. </p>
<p>Expressing concern both at the failings of the international system
and at attacks on those international institutions that have challenged
genocide and apartheid in Palestine, the Declaration demands immediate
action to isolate, contain, and hold accountable the Israeli regime. To
these ends, it calls for universal boycott, divestment, sanctions, a
military embargo, suspension from International organizations, and the
criminal prosecution of perpetrators of war crimes, crimes against
humanity, genocide, gross violations of human rights, and complicity. </p>
<p>It denounces the wave of persecution and crackdowns on human rights
defenders, peace activists, students, academics, workers, and
professionals, and honors those who, despite this persecution, have had
the courage and moral convictions to stand up and speak out. And it
calls out the tactic of smearing as \u201cantisemites\u201d or \u201csupporters of
terrorism\u201d all those who dare to speak up against the Israeli regime and
its crimes. </p>
<p>The Declaration honors \u201cthe courageous resistance and resilience of
the Palestinian people, and the movement of millions standing in
solidarity with them,\u201d and it recognizes the right of the Palestinian
people to armed resistance in accordance with international law. It
recalls that the Palestinian right to self-determination is \u201c<em>jus cogens</em> and <em>erga omnes </em>and
is non-negotiable and axiomatic.\u201d And it respects \u201cPalestinian
aspirations and recognizes full Palestinian agency and leadership over
all decisions affecting their lives.\u201d </p>
<p>While critical of the failure of most international institutions to
act effectively to challenge the Israeli regime and its crimes, the
Declaration also recognizes those international actors that have acted
with principle. It praises the International Court of Justice for its
historic genocide case against the Israeli regime and for its landmark
advisory opinions on Palestine. It recognizes South Africa for bringing
the genocide case to the ICJ. And it calls for expediting the case of
the International Criminal Court against Israeli perpetrators, for
states parties to meet their obligations to arrest them, and for the US
to cease its persecution of the court. </p>
<p>The independent special procedures of the UN Human Rights Council are
also the subject of praise, and the Declaration recognizes them \u201cfor
their expert contributions and for their strong and principled voices in
holding the Israeli regime to account and defending the human rights of
the Palestinian people.\u201d And the Declaration declares particular
support for humanitarian actors and international agencies that have
acted to defend the rights of the Palestinian people, foremost among
them, UNRWA. </p>
<h2>We will not relent: The final words of the Declaration </h2>
<p>The Declaration of Sarajevo ends with a warning that \u201cthe world is
approaching a dangerous precipice, the front edge of which is in
Palestine.\u201d It finds that key international organizations and most
countries of the world have failed in defending the human rights of the
Palestinian people and in responding to the Israeli regime\u2019s genocide in
Palestine. And it concludes by declaring:</p>
<p>\u201cThe challenge of justice now falls to people of conscience
everywhere, to civil society and to social movements, to all of us. As
such, our work in the coming months will be dedicated to meeting this
challenge. Palestinian lives are at stake. The international moral and
legal order is at stake. We must not fail. We will not relent.\u201d </p>
<p><em>Craig Mokhiber is a member of the Gaza Tribunal</em>.</p>
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