Eli Gerzon The Electronic Intifada Podcast
Israel and Iran are unique for starkly different reasons: Israel has less of a right to exist than any other country, while Iran is the only country that has stood up against the assault on international law by the US, Israel and their allies.
That is according to Craig Mokhiber’s comments on The Electronic Intifada Livestream on 30 July.
Mokhiber is an international human rights lawyer with more than three decades of experience. He served as director of the New York office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights until he resigned in October 2023 over the world body’s failure to act against Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
“This action of self-defense taken by Iran is the first truly consequential action by a member state,” Mokhiber said of Iran’s response to the US and Israeli aggression it has been facing.
Mokhiber also pointed to resistance by “students on their college campuses, by flotillas, by people’s tribunals, by demonstrations, by the resistance in Palestine, the resistance in Lebanon, by Ansarullah in Yemen.”
“But this is a state,” he said of Iran. “This is a formidable state with real military, diplomatic and political capacities that has stood up and said: ‘No more.’”
By contrast, Mokhiber said, every other country had either been directly complicit or looked away while the US, Israel and their allies committed serial aggression, livestreamed genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Mokhiber also explained why no state has an inherent “right to exist” under international law and why Israel has even less of a right than any other state.
Commenting on the recent dismissal of International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan, he said “something terribly irregular” was going on.
Contributing editor Jon Elmer reported on several days’ worth of Iranian attacks on US military assets in the region during the previous week, which caused extensive damage.
The US continues to threaten to escalate the war, call for a pause, then resume its attacks.
On 3 August, Trump said Iran was begging for talks with the US. Iranian officials denied it.
Co-host Ali Abunimah predicted on the 16 July livestream that the US would make such a claim as Trump backed away from his latest threats to target Iran’s civilian infrastructure.
Watch Elmer’s full report on YouTube.
Co-host Nora Barrows-Friedman reported on Israel’s expanding zone of extermination in Gaza.
Israel is escalating its attacks on Palestinians as it pushes its so-called yellow line westwards and expands the death zone in Gaza, while Israeli lynch mobs and soldiers carry out pogroms in the occupied West Bank with impunity.
Watch Barrows-Friedman’s report and read her article, “Israel expands extermination zone in Gaza.”
Dismissal of Karim Khan
Mokhiber acknowledged that sexual harassment or abuse can be a significant problem in hierarchical international organizations and should not be taken lightly.
But in Karim Khan’s case, a series of investigations has not found him at fault. Despite this, 82 of the 125 members of the Assembly of States Parties of the ICC voted to remove him.
“This is happening in the context of a brutal campaign by the United States and Israel, by their intelligence agencies, by their politicians, by their proxy groups to destroy Karim Khan, the ICC judges and the institution of the ICC itself,” Mokhiber said.
“All of this is being done because the court had the audacity to issue warrants for arrest for Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant for crimes against humanity in the context of the ongoing genocide in Palestine,” he added.
Mokhiber pointed out that the arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and former defense minister Gallant still stand and the ICC remains obligated to pursue their prosecution. But he believes the US and Israel have sent a chilling message and that the next ICC prosecutor will not pursue Israeli suspects.
Israel has no “right to exist” or “self-defense”
“No country has a right to exist. This is something that was entirely made up … in the case of Israel,” Mokhiber said.
He recently wrote an article for Mondoweiss: “No, Israel does not have ‘a right to exist.’ Quite the contrary, actually.”.
Mokhiber explains that Israel’s claim to statehood and existence as a state is uniquely shaky, which is why it insists that everyone affirm its right to exist.
He compared the situation to Shakespeare’s famous line from Hamlet: “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”
Mokhiber pointed out that while existing states have rights under international law, states come and go: East Germany, the USSR and South Vietnam are examples of states that no longer exist.
A state can violate international law and remain legitimate. But if it is founded through violations of international law, other UN member states are obligated not to recognize it, according to Mokhiber.
Israel was founded in violation of the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination and is therefore fundamentally illegitimate by this reasoning.
Its lack of clear borders and its “lawless and bloody history” further weaken its claim to statehood, he added.
Some regimes should therefore emphatically not exist, according to Mokhiber, who cites the examples of Rhodesia and apartheid South Africa, two white supremacist regimes whose claims to self-determination for settlers – like Israel’s claims – usurp indigenous rights.
Mokhiber also said Israel does not have the right to self-defense enjoyed by other UN member states.
“Israel tried to claim rights to self-defense in occupied Palestine. The International Court of Justice has said: ‘You have no right to self-defense there. Your remedy, if you’re being attacked there, is to get out,’” Mokhiber said.
He said an occupier cannot invade someone’s house and then claim self-defense, echoing what Abunimah said on the Livestream weeks earlier.
Iranian strikes pierce US missile defenses
“Maybe they’re empty, maybe they’re all empty,” Elmer said of heavily damaged US barracks struck by Iran in the region.
Elmer showed multiple before-and-after images of the Iranian strikes. He was casting doubt on the low casualty figures reported by the US, which he believes may be concealing the true extent of US troop losses.
As of 4 August, the Pentagon reported that 269 US military personnel had been injured and four killed since 7 July. It reported more than 600 injured since 28 February.
Elmer is not alone in questioning the Pentagon’s casualty figures. Media outlets and members of Congress have also challenged the numbers, demanding explanations.
Meanwhile, the US is running out of interceptor missiles. According to reporting by the New York Times, this has led US President Donald Trump to decide that he will not sharply escalate against Iran.
The Center for Strategic and International Studies estimated the number of missiles the US has left. Its Patriot stockpile has fallen from 2,330 missiles to fewer than 1,000, while its THAAD high-altitude interceptor stockpile has dropped from 432 to between 234 and 287.
Elmer emphasized that each THAAD missile costs $15.5 million and the US can produce only about 100 per year. Replenishing the stockpile will take years.
“So this absolutely and completely limits the Americans’ ability to carry out this war,” Elmer said.
“And that’s why you see the stops and starts, the threats, the breaks, the pauses because the US cannot continue this,” he said.
Elmer pointed out that the report on missile stocks does not even account for how Iran has already heavily targeted the US radars that the interceptor systems rely on, making Iranian missiles more likely to strike US bases.
Elmer concluded that the war has no outcome in which the US wins. For Iran, he said, the conflict is existential and defeat is not an option.
You can watch the program on YouTube, Rumble or Twitter/X, or listen on your preferred podcast platform.
Tamara Nassar produced and directed the program. Michael F. Brown contributed preproduction assistance and this writer contributed postproduction assistance.
Past episodes of The Electronic Intifada Livestream can be viewed on our YouTube channel.
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