Craig Mokhiber declares Israel has no ‘right to exist’ in fierce op-ed

Former senior UN human rights chief, Craig Mokhiber, has written a fierce opinion piece in Mondoweiss denying Israel’s right to exist.

In the essay, he calls for the dismantling of the Israeli regime, which is on trial for genocide at the ICJ, charges that the court has found plausible enough to issue a series of preliminary orders — all of which the regime has ignored.

Mokhiber calls for Israel to be replaced by a free Palestine with equal rights for all, which is not only a legal requirement but an “existential imperative for all of humanity”.

My latest: No, Israel does not have ‘a right to exist.’ Quite the contrary, actually. https://t.co/AeqS7e9YGp

— Craig Mokhiber (@CraigMokhiber) July 14, 2026

In the article, Mokhiber deploys both decolonial theory and international jurisprudence to argue that Israel, like the apartheid and colonial regimes of the past, possesses no legitimate “right to exist” and indeed should be dismantled.

He writes:

Clearly, no one would today argue that Nazi Germany, or Apartheid South Africa, or Vichy France, or Khmer Rouge Kampuchea had a “right to exist.” Nor would we entertain claims for eternal colonial regimes in Algeria, India, Namibia, or Kenya. For the same reasons, no legal (or moral) argument could justify a right to exist for Zionist Israel.

There is no “right to exist” for states under international law. Thus, Israel cannot claim such a right.

Craig Mokhiber highlights Namibia and Rhodesia

Mokhiber draws particular attention to the legal precedents set by the international community’s treatment of apartheid Namibia and white-minority-ruled Rhodesia. Cases that he argues establish binding obligations for how the world must respond to Israel today.

He says:

To the contrary, international law requires that, where breaches of peremptory norms of international law are integral to the creation, expansion, and sustaining of a state (as was the case in apartheid Namibia and Rhodesia), such entities should not be recognized or accepted as legitimate states and should in no way be assisted.

Mokhiber noted that, like the two, Israel was founded on the breach of two peremptory (jus cogens) norms of international law.

Israel’s record is clear. It was founded on the breach of two peremptory (jus cogens) norms: the right to self-determination of the people of the land, and the rule on the non-acquisition of territory by force, as well as on the two highest crimes in international law: genocide and aggression.

Israel: A rogue regime

Scathingly, he lists Israel’s crimes:

• The Israeli regime has held the distinction of being in breach of the highest number of UN resolutions and ICJ decisions of any country on the planet.
• The regime is unlawfully occupying Palestine, Lebanon, and Syria, attacking Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Yemen, and beyond, and perpetrating genocide in Palestine.
• The regime has carried out assassinations across the region and has admitted to (indeed, bragged about) transnational terrorist attacks with booby-trapped pagers in Lebanon.
• The regime has declared policies mandating the mass murder of civilians (the Dahiya Doctrine), the killing of its own citizens (the Hannibal Directive), and the potential nuclear destruction of the world (the Samson Option).
• The regime has spies active in countries around the globe, and its proxies are actively engaged in corrupting governments and institutions across the West.

For Mokhiber, the question is not whether Israel has a right to exist, a concept he calls “nonsense, unrooted as it is in either law or fact”.

Rather, it is whether the international community dares to apply the same legal and moral standards to Israel that it applied to the colonial and apartheid regimes of the past.

Featured image via Democracy Now