‘Israel Is Quickly Becoming A Pariah State’

Richard Anderson Falk, professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University and former UN ???Special Rapporteur??? on human rights in Palestine, has never been shy to express his views. Described by admirers as a ???critical analyst of international law in global politics,??? the 84-year old scholar has also come under severe criticism from US officials and others for his outspoken position on Israel. He shared his views with Pranay Sharma on Israel???s ongoing military campaign in Gaza, short excerpts from which were used in printIs Israel becoming a rogue state and is the international community totally powerless to rein it in?I believe that Israel is a rogue state in the regional context of West Asia. It has been defiant toward international law in war/peace contexts, especially since the Lebanon War of 2006, but also in its periodic massive military operations carried out in Gaza over the last six years (2008-09, 2012, 2104) against an essentially defenceless civilian population encaged within a crowded space. Gazan civilians have not even been granted the option of seeking sanctuary across the border, a normal refugee option, and the realities of Gaza make internal displacement unavailable as there no escaping the combat zone. We lament the refugee flows and internal displacements associated with the strife in Syria and Iraq, but compared to the people of Gaza, Syrian and Iraqi civilians are ???privileged.???Is the Israel???s ongoing military action on Gaza justified? And what is the motive behind it?It is always uncertain to speculate about undisclosed motives, but in this instance it is unavoidable. After the June 12 kidnapping incident Israel both initiated an anti-Hamas revenge campaign in the West Bank arresting hundreds and engaging in state terror, and incited anti-Palestinian rage among the Israeli population leading to several horrible vengeful incidents. Israel also made several air strikes against Gaza, seemingly to provoke Hamas rockets s