ISTANBUL 

The event, held at Istanbul University’s Prof. Dr. Cemil Birsel Conference Hall, began with an opening speech by the Gaza Tribunal president and former UN special rapporteur on Palestine, Prof. Dr. Richard Falk. The program was attended by academics, human rights defenders, media representatives, and members of civil society organizations.

Following the tribunal's final session, Falk told Anadolu that the panel faced a "very challenging double task": to expose the genocide that has occurred in Gaza over the past two years and to clarify the "defective means" by which the enclave's future is being shaped "in a pro-Israeli manner."

He accused Israel of pursuing its unchanged goal of creating a “Greater Israel” by absorbing East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza “into the territorial sovereignty of Israel.” The tribunal, he said, aims to document Palestinian suffering and warn against diplomacy that legitimizes domination.

Falk pushed for civil-society solidarity through flotillas, UN rapporteur investigations, and the enforcement of International Court of Justice and International Criminal Court rulings.

He sid the Palestinian struggle for self-determination is “not over,” but it is being undermined by “Trump diplomacy that has evolved from an ultimatum, not from a negotiation.”

“Hamas was given 72 hours to accept the ceasefire for the return of the hostages, and it accepted this threat diplomacy, which rewards the perpetrator of genocide.

“Israel puts itself in the position of being rewarded for its crimes and puts the Palestinians in the position of being further punished despite their extreme victimization over this period,” he added.

Falk argued that the Palestinians are engaged in a "legitimacy war," a symbolic contest over legality and morality that has defined anti-colonial struggles since World War II. The tribunal's goal, he explained, is to strengthen "the victory of the Palestinian people in the legitimacy war" and maintain international pressure for a fair outcome.

‘US-Israel bargain disguised as peace’

Falk said the current ceasefire was negotiated as a “bargain between Israel and the United States,” allowing Washington to claim credit for ending the war while guaranteeing Israel freedom of action. He contended that Israel can provoke a Hamas response at any time, giving it a pretext to break the truce while avoiding accountability for the destruction in Gaza.

“It’s evidently envisioned in this diplomacy that the Arab neighbors of Israel would take primary responsibility for funding reconstruction that was then placed under the administration of the US and Tony Blair,” Falk said, adding: “It’s an overtly colonial framing of what is proclaimed to be a peace process.”

He compared the situation to “imagining that the future of Germany was being shaped by the surviving Nazi leadership at the end of World War II,” calling such an arrangement a “moral absurdity and political impossibility.”

Richard Falk, the former UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories and president of the Gaza People’s Tribunal, said Israel’s ceasefire deal rewards “the perpetrator of genocide” and allows it to continue erasing Palestinian political identity while escaping responsibility for reconstruction.

UN structure ‘created to fail’

Falk said the UN was founded in 1945 by the victors of World War II to protect their strategic interests through a two-tier system. The five permanent members of the Security Council—the United States, Russia, China, France, and the United Kingdom—were given veto power over all major security matters, while all other states were bound to international law.

He quoted a Mexican delegate’s description of the arrangement: “We’ve created an organization in which the tigers roam free while the mice are regulated.”

“The UN was created in such a way that it would not interfere with the strategic interests of the five permanent members,” Falk said, adding that the system creates “an enforcement gap and an accountability gap,” which prevent the implementation of rulings such as those issued by the International Court of Justice on Gaza.

Citing Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s remark that “the world is greater than five,” Falk said the UN’s structure makes it incapable of keeping peace or ensuring global security.

“The UN made those promises and pledges, but it undermined their implementation. And so, it's simultaneously a promise and a lie,” he said.

‘Israel refuses to accept a viable Palestinian state’

Falk said Israel “is not prepared to reach an accommodation with the Palestinians that involves the creation of a viable and equal Palestinian state.” While Israel publicly supports diplomatic efforts, he said, Tel Aviv retains the authority to break the ceasefire framework whenever it chooses.

Israel is “walking a kind of tightrope between pretending to go along with this diplomatic offensive and keeping its eye fixed on the essential goal of achieving Greater Israel, which means extinguishing any Palestinian territorial or political identity,” said Falk.

He said Gaza’s strategic value has grown over the past decade because of offshore natural gas deposits and a planned “Ben Gurion Canal” that could serve as an alternative to the Suez Canal.

“There are strategic reasons why Gaza suddenly became much more important not only for Israel but also for the West,” he said, framing the conflict as part of a broader Western effort to maintain regional dominance.

Tribunal driven by 'moral imperative'

Falk said the Gaza People’s Tribunal, a global and independent initiative investigating Israel’s war crimes, like previous “people’s tribunals” such as the 1960s Russell Tribunal on Vietnam, is driven by a belief that governments and international institutions have failed to address clear injustices.

“It doesn’t proceed from a doubt,” he said, adding: “It wouldn’t go to the immense trouble of organizing a civil-society initiative of this character if it didn’t believe that the system of governments and international institutions had failed the people of the world.”

He said the tribunal is “acknowledging that it’s not neutral,” describing it as “a jury of conscience, not a jury of legality.” The effort, he said, responds to crimes committed in Gaza but also serves as “a metaphor for the challenges unmet throughout the world and implicating the whole of humanity.”

Western ‘moral hypocrisy’ over Gaza and Ukraine

Falk said the West’s contrasting responses to the wars in Ukraine and Gaza expose “moral hypocrisy with respect to international law.”

“International law is a policy instrument for adversaries or rivals, but it’s a policy impediment if it is applied to friends and allies,” he said.

“That is not the law. Law presupposes that equals are treated equally,” he added.

Falk said that while the US and Europe condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which he called “provoked,” they ignored or actively supported “Israel’s genocide” by providing funding, weapons, and diplomatic cover. “It shows an opportunistic view of international law as state propaganda,” he lamented.