Will Trump’s Support for Israel Provoke a Global South Rebellion?
A group nine nations are leading the charge in seeking to hold Israel to account for its genocidal war in Gaza.
Watching the news today, you’d be forgiven for wondering what exactly international law is – a near-mythic concept; it is mentioned only to be shouted down, if it’s recalled at all. People know it exists – we’ve read about it, we’ve just never witnessed it in real life. As tempting as it is to blame the new Trump administration for its destruction, American presidents have long laughed at the idea of international law. When asked in 2003 if his Iraq invasion and subsequent policy met the standards of international law, George W. Bush chuckled, “International law? I better call my lawyer; he didn’t bring that up to me.” Barack Obama, the recipient of a Nobel Peace Prize, authorized 563 strikes, largely by drones, during his presidency across three countries, often killing civilians. And it was the Biden administration that threw away the scraps of what tiny symbolic respect remained for the concept of international protocols of war by arming, defending, and providing cover for Israel’s brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing in Gaza. Karim Khan, the beleaguered prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, has said ICC officials faced “threats” from supporters of Israel and Russia and that a senior figure had reminded him that the ICC was “built for Africa and for thugs like Putin,” not for Western countries and their friends.
So, it ought not to come as a surprise that the launch of a nine-state body to defend and uphold the values of international law had not a single country from the Global North among them. The Hague Group, convened by Progressive International, was launched earlier this year by Belize, Bolivia, Colombia, Cuba, Honduras, Malaysia, Namibia, Senegal, and South Africa. At the group’s inauguration, chair Varsha Gandikota-Nellutla recalled Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declaring, “Nobody will stop us, not The Hague, not the axis of evil and not anyone else” after the International Court of Justice hearings on South Africa’s genocide case against Israel. Ahmed Alnaouq, a Palestinian journalist from Gaza, presented the group’s opening testimony. It was important for it to be from an ordinary Palestinian, he told me, not an official, “the world has to hear from the victims.” An Israeli strike on his home in October 2023 killed 21 members of his sleeping family, including 14 children.
‘Taking a Real Risk’
The inaugural commitments of The Hague Group are three simple but vital measures: to uphold the ICC arrest warrants against Netanyahu and his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant; to refuse harbor to vessels carrying jet fuel and weaponry to Israel; and to transfer no arms to Israel. The commitments echo a September 2024 UN resolution that called on Israel to end its occupation within a year, and for member states to cease arms transfers to Israel if the aid could be used against Palestinians.
It was a historic resolution, but it had the support of 124 nations. The nine countries part of The Hague Group are "sticking their neck out," Guillaume Long, Ecuador’s former minister of Foreign Affairs and an adviser to The Hague Group, told me. They "are not shielded by 115 countries," Guillaume said. "They're taking a real risk."
Colombia, a traditional US ally whose security in the context of their long and deadly civil war was offshored to Israel, which trained and armed ruthless paramilitaries, signed onto the group after imposing a coal embargo on Israel. It was, until then, the biggest coal exporter to Israel. Colombia cut diplomatic ties with Israel, as did Belize, Bolivia, and South Africa. Cuba hasn’t had relations with Israel in decades and has long been a supporter of the Palestinian cause. Namibia had already refused to provide harbor for Israel-bound ships carrying weapons, and Malaysia – besides being a power in the Muslim world – is strategically important because of the Malacca Strait, a major shipping route.
After the ICC arrest warrants were issued, Gandikota-Nellutla wondered if such a move rendered the then-idea of The Hague Group obsolete, but then very quickly watched as “countries like France that have for decades pushed … nations to continue to sign up to the Rome Statute make up rules as they go along and say there’s immunity for Netanyahu.” France took one week to throw away its commitment to international law and announce that it would continue to work closely with a wanted war criminal.
Blocking the ‘Arteries of the Genocidal Machine’
Israel, Gandikota-Nellutla says, was using “logistics networks in every single one of our countries” throughout the genocide as ships sometimes passed through harbors without being labeled as military ships or carrying military cargo but “disguised through the use of shell companies …with fake names.”
The Hague Group members felt a “real resentment and anger at our soil being used for this with deception,” and if war globalization had led to unified action on one side – countries agreeing to be transit points for Israel’s war machine – then surely the same spirit of coordination could be used to cut what Gandikota-Nellutla calls “the arteries of the genocidal machine.”
It was the UN Security Council’s arms embargo against South Africa in 1977 that unleashed a domino effect in bringing down apartheid. The UNSC went further against South Africa, making their arms embargo more stringent in 1986 and closing what loopholes remained.
A binding Security Council resolution against Israel today seems impossible because of the US veto. If that body doesn’t act to cut the supply of weapons to Israel, then The Hague Group will. It cannot be another talk shop, everyone I spoke to stressed. It is designed to be a network of interconnectedness that enforces its commitments, transforming them into state policy.
‘A Global South Rebellion?’
As exciting as The Hague Group is for those of us concerned with the concept of universal jurisdiction, any tangible actions it attempts to take will likely face hurdles and pushback from Israel’s allies, notably the US.
We’ve already seen the US threaten Spain, a NATO ally not part of The Hague Group, over actions taken to prevent ships carrying weapons to Israel dock its ports. Last year, the US launched an investigation and threatened fines and other punitive measures over Spain's decision to refuse to dock several ships due to its embargo on arms bound for Israel. The US additionally violated Spain’s embargo by sending over 1,000 tons of ammunition to Israel via one of their local naval bases.
When it comes to The Hague Group itself, the Trump administration, in particular, already has antagonistic views of some of its member countries. Trump, for example, put Cuba back on the list of state sponsors of terrorism and froze aid to South Africa over the baseless claims it was violating the “human rights” of “white farmers.” Perhaps most worrying is Trump’s targeting of the ICC. Last month, he signed an executive order sanctioning the court for what he called “illegitimate and baseless” actions targeting the US and Israel.
Israel, for its part, demonstrated their classic arrogance in the face of international law with the vulgar braggadocio befitting a serial killer. Following the US, it disengaged with the UN Human Rights Council and gifted Trump a golden pager embedded in the bark of an olive tree, a terroristic tongue in cheek referencing Israel’s deadly pager attack in Lebanon.
Gandikota-Nellutla called Trump’s ICC sanctions “the final iteration of ‘Mask off Empire,’” saying it was “profoundly concerned about their devastating blow to the integrity of the UN Charter and its foundational principles of human rights, sovereign equality, and the prohibition of genocide.” The group will continue forward, expanding membership and measures, unimpeded by the intimidation and secure in the lessons of history: ultimately, it was a unified block taking unified action like blockades and arms embargoes that broke apartheid South Africa.
Will Trump provoke a massive Global South rebellion? I, for one, hope so.
Fatima Bhutto is an award-winning author and journalist. Her most recent books include the novel The Runaways and her non-fiction reportage New Kings of the World. She recently hosted Reframe, a four-part series on the genocide in Gaza, on Al Jazeera.
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The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of Zeteo.
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"Colombia, a traditional US ally whose security in the context of their long and deadly civil war was offshored to Israel, which trained and armed ruthless paramilitaries, signed onto the group after imposing a coal embargo on Israel."
Meanwhile "Sultan" Erdogan (Turkiye) who condems Israel over and over again on TV exports through Azerbaidschan oil to Israel and Dubai breaks the Iftar with an israeli embassador while the muslims over in Gaza are killed by the israelis... They lick everyones dick when it comes to money....
It is a process and it has started. These issues for some reason take time as money talks rest walk.
It is a good beginning and hopefully, more countries such as Indonesia and India will join them and actively implement the Hague group's mandate.