Trump’s Gaza takeover plan condemned as ‘betrayal’ by former UN official

After more than 15 months of relentless bombardment, the surviving Palestinians in the ruinous enclave now face yet another looming threat: displacement.

Donald Trump’s proposal to "take over" of Gaza and forcibly remove its two million residents has sparked tensions in the region, even as a precarious ceasefire holds.

What Trump offers as a peace plan has confused many.

Among the critics is Richard Falk, a former UN special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories, who warns that Trump’s approach represents a broader moral collapse in global governance.

“Palestinians have been given breadcrumbs disguised as peace, advertised as such by mainstream Western media and even the UN,” Falk, a 94-year-old professor of international law, tells TRT World in an exclusive interview at the Gaza Tribunal Special Conference in Istanbul.

Falk says that recent ‘so-called’ peace efforts bear little resemblance to genuine political solutions. Rather, these amount to a dismissal of Palestinian fundamental rights: self-determination and equality during the conference titled “Uncertainty in Global Politics and the Future of Palestine” on February 17.

As an American scholar and longtime advocate for Palestinian rights, having spent decades studying international law, Falk sees a stark betrayal of the values that were supposed to shape global affairs after the Second World War.

“World War II created a new framework of international life based on the expectation that behaviour would be much more regulated by law and moral principles. Even though the winners of that war did not accept restraints for themselves, they presented themselves as guardians of moral development,” Falk says.

Yet, in his view, those very powers are now abandoning their supposed role.

“One of the tragic aspects of the Gaza experience is the betrayal by these liberal democracies of that custodial relationship to moral values,” he says.

According to Falk, the genocidal war in Gaza and the ongoing ethnic cleansing are turning international law from a “regulative authority that applies equally to both the weak and the strong into a policy instrument used as a tool against adversaries and as a shield for friends.”

“That kind of duality undermines the authority of the law,” he adds.

Weaponised ‘legal interference’ in South Africa’s case

Following his latest attempt to remove Palestinians from their land, Trump has also signed an executive order to cut financial assistance to South Africa on February 7, citing its genocide case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) against Washington's ally Israel and disapproval of the country's recent change to land policy.

By retaliating to pressure South Africa away from the case, Trump’s policy, Falk argues, is “certainly an unfortunate” one and could be “interpreted as legal interference in an ongoing judicial proceeding at the ICJ.”

According to Falk, international law has been transformed from a neutral regulatory framework into a political weapon.

“The law is no longer an authority that applies equally to both the weak and the strong. Instead, it has become a policy instrument—used as a tool against adversaries and as a shield for allies,” he says.

Such double standards erode the legitimacy of the international legal order.

“From a public policy perspective, what the US has done is a clear interference in the operations of formal UN institutions and international society,” Falk says.

Trump’s decision to cut aid to South Africa on February 7—ostensibly in response to its ICJ genocide case against Israel—further underscores this shift, Falk says.

He describes the move as “certainly an unfortunate” policy that could be seen as “legal interference in an ongoing judicial proceeding at the ICJ.”

“This represents a deeply regressive approach to public policy. Whether this interference can be translated into a legal response—one that condemns the US and potentially imposes sanctions for its retaliation against South Africa—is unclear at this point,” he says.

Whether Washington’s actions will lead to any legal repercussions remains uncertain.

Gaza Tribunal bears torch of hope

As the future of Gaza and its people remain uncertain; Falk insists that hope and action must go hand in hand.

“Both are essential,” Falk says. “Hope, that change for the better is possible, and action based on the belief that it can happen.”

To lead that by example, he is among the leaders of the Gaza Tribunal, an independent initiative based in London that examines the legal, political, and ethical dimensions of Israel’s war on Gaza.

The tribunal is a coalition of academics, jurists, rights advocates, artists, and civil society representatives, the tribunal aims to provide an alternative pathway to justice.

“In a small way, the Gaza Tribunal is an expression of faith in a possible but unlikely desirable future. It is also a judgment on liberal democracies and others that have been complicit in this genocide—to a much greater degree than Western countries were complicit in the South African apartheid experience.”