Declaration of Conscience and Concern of Global Intellectuals on Gaza Genocide

Initiated by the Action Committee For Call to Conscience About Gaza, 23 December 2023

On November 30, the Government of Israel resumed the genocidal onslaught it inflicted on Palestinians in Gaza after a much overdue but brief “humanitarian pause.” In doing so, Israel has ignored the worldwide protests of people as well as the fervent pleas of moral, religious, and political authority figures throughout the world to convert the hostage/prisoner exchange pause into a permanent ceasefire.

The overriding intention was to avert the worsening of the ordeal of the Gazan population. Israel was urged to choose the road to peace not only for humanitarian reasons but also for the sake of achieving real security and respect for both Palestinians and Israelis.

Yet now the bodies are again piling up, the Gaza medical system can no longer offer treatment to most of those injured, and threats of widespread starvation and disease intensify daily.

Under these circumstances, this Declaration calls not only for the denunciation of Israel’s genocidal assault but also for taking effective action to permanently prevent its repetition. We come together due to the urgency of the moment, which obliges global intellectuals to stand against the ongoing horrific ordeal of the Palestinian people and, most of all, to implore action by those who have the power, and hence the responsibility, to do so. Israel’s continuing rejection of a permanent ceasefire intensifies our concerns.

Many weeks of cruel devastation caused by Israel’s grossly disproportionate response to the October 7 attack, continues to exhibit Israel’s vengeful fury. That fury can in no way be excused by the horrendous violence of Hamas against civilians in Israel or inapplicable claims of self-defense against an occupied population.

Indeed, even the combat pause seems to have been agreed upon by the Israeli government mainly to ease pressures from Israeli citizens demanding greater efforts to secure the release of the hostages.

The United States government evidently reinforced this pressure as a belated, display to the world that it was not utterly insensitive to humanitarian concerns. Even this gesture was undercut before the pause started by the defiant public insistence of Prime Minister Netanyahu to resume the war immediately after the pause. It is more appropriate to interpret these seven days without combat as a pause in Israel’s genocidal operations in Gaza rather than as a humanitarian pause.

If truly humanitarian, it would not have crushed hopes of ending the genocide and conjointly resuming efforts to negotiate the conditions for an enduring and just peace between Israelis and Palestinians. 

The revival of this military campaign waged by Israel against the civilian population of Gaza amounts to a repudiation of UN authority, of law and morality in general, and of simple human decency. The collaborative approval of Israel’s action by the leading liberal democracies in the Global West, particularly the United States and the United Kingdom, accentuates our anguish and disgust.

These governments pride themselves on adherence to the rule of law and yet have so far limited their peacemaking role to PR pressures on Israel to conduct its exorbitant actions in a more discreet manner. Such moves do little more than soften the sharpest edges of Israel’s genocidal behavior in Gaza.

At the same time continuing to endorse Israel’s false rationale of self-defense, which is inapplicable in a Belligerent Occupation framework established by the UN in the aftermath of the 1967 War, shielded this brazenly criminal conduct from legal condemnation and political censure at the UN and elsewhere.

We deplore the reality that these governments continue to lend overall support to Israel’s announced intention to pursue its combat goals, which entail the commission of severe war crimes that Tel Aviv does not even bother to deny.

These crimes include the resumption of intensive bombing and shelling of civilian targets, as well as reliance on the cruel tactics of forced evacuation, the destruction of hospitals, bombings of refugee camps and UN buildings that are sheltering many thousands of civilians and the destruction of entire residential neighborhoods.

In addition, Israel has been greenlighting settler-led violence and escalating ethnic cleansing efforts in the West Bank. Given these developments we urge national governments to embargo and halt all shipments of weapons to Israel, especially the United States and the United Kingdom, which should also withdraw their provocative naval presences from the Eastern Mediterranean; we urge the UN Security Council and General Assembly to so decree without delay. 

We also support the Palestinian unconditional right as the indigenous people of the land to give or withhold approval to any proposed solution bearing upon their underlying liberation struggle.

The deteriorating situation poses an extreme humanitarian emergency challenging the UN system to respond with unprecedented urgency.

We commend UNICEF for extending desperately needed help to wounded children as well as to children whose parents were killed or seriously injured every continuing effort.

We also commend WHO for doing all in its power to help injured Palestinians, especially pregnant women and children, and to insist as effectively as possible on the immediate reconstruction and reopening of hospitals destroyed and damaged by Israeli attacks.

We especially commend UNRWA for continuing the sheltering of many thousands of Palestinians in Gaza displaced by the war and for providing other relief in the face of heavy staff casualties from Israeli repeated bombardment of UN buildings.

Beyond this, UNESCO should be implored to recognize threats to religious and cultural sites and give its highest priority to their protection against all manner of violation, especially the Masjid al-Aqsa; the Israeli government should be warned about its unconditional legal accountability for protecting these sites.

We also propose that the UN Human Rights Council should act now to establish a high-profile expert commission of inquiry mandated to ascertain the facts and law arising from the Hamas attack and Israel’s military operations in Gaza since October 7, 2023. The commission should offer recommendations in its report pertaining to the responsibility and accountability of principal perpetrators for violations of human rights and humanitarian norms that constitute war crimes and genocide.

We also view the desperation of the situation to engage the responsibility of governments, international institutions, and civil society to act as well as to speak, and use their diplomatic and economic capabilities to the utmost with the objective of bringing the violence in Gaza to an end now!

As signatories of this Declaration, we unequivocally call for an immediate ceasefire and the initiation of diplomatic negotiations under respected and impartial auspices, aimed at terminating Israel's long and criminally abusive occupation of Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem. This process must be fully respectful of the inalienable right to self-determination of the Palestinian people and take proper account of relevant UN resolutions.