Over the last week the British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has been holding frantic meetings on Ukraine with his "coalition of the willing" partners, the French President Emmanuel Macron, and the German Chancellor Friedrich Merz. These meetings have been taking place at the G20 in Johannesburg, South Africa, and also with a virtual meeting on Tuesday, November 25, in London. This was because these partners in their proxy war against Russia were stunned by US President's Trump's proposed 28-point peace plan for Ukraine, claiming according to reports that "it was widely seen as a capitulation to most of the Kremlin's demands". These leaders, who have done everything to escalate their proxy war against Russia for nearly four years, now claim to be Ukraine's staunchest ally in bringing about "permanent peace". Yet they immediately rejected this peace proposal from their chief NATO ally and the very country that enabled them to intervene 22 years ago in Ukraine, against Russia.

On the sidelines of the G20, they hatched up a hurried 28-point counter-proposal dressed up as "constructive additions" to Trump's 28-point Ukraine peace plan. Reports say this rejected Trump's concessions to Russia, kept Ukraine's NATO membership possible, and introduced stronger security guarantees for Ukraine. Here they have previously stated they hoped to deploy British, French and German armed forces in Ukraine seeing themselves as the "peacekeepers". Starmer admitted in the Downing Street virtual meeting on Tuesday of the "coalition of the willing" that "the Multinational Force Ukraine will be a vital part of this. Our Military Planners who have worked really hard in recent months will continue to work on the readiness of that force." They have made extensive plans to deploy troops, aircraft and warships whether to Ukraine itself and the seas and air around it, or in Europe continuing to escalate war tensions. This under the hoax of defending Ukraine in the event of a permanent peace agreement which they do not support. They tried to justify this by claiming that Washington's agreement dictates terms "that could leave Ukraine permanently vulnerable".

Reports say that the US later rejected their revisions and insisted on sticking much closer to its original draft that they were discussing with the Ukrainian side. But what was also so noticeable was a report that was withdrawn (for now) from the US peace proposal. This was the clause that suggested Russia's immobilised funds would partly be used jointly by the US and Russia to reconstruct Ukraine. In their initial reaction to the plan, Britain and the EU leaders were said to be furious at this clause, having been for so long trying to find a way to seize Russia's $300 billion sovereign funds for themselves to "invest" in their proxy war in Ukraine. This seems to be the case. Starmer admitted on Tuesday: "I know EU leaders are looking at this in the next few weeks where progress is being made. We the UK are ready to move with the EU on providing financial support based on the value of the immobilised assets." In other words, Britain and the EU are relying on stealing Russia's assets to finance their proxy war as he said to "keep Ukraine in the fight" for their war.

What this reveals is that the Anglo/US and NATO's proxy war in Ukraine to defeat Russia was never a just cause and has now failed. It cannot be won and it now threatens to defeat all their plans to intervene and exploit the Ukrainian people and Ukrainian resources. They also dream of defeating and dismembering Russia by using the Ukrainian people as their cannon fodder. However, it is not these warmongers who will die but it is the people of Ukraine and Russia that that will be left with hundreds of thousands dead on both sides. This sums up the dangerous warmongering role of NATO today.

There would not be this conflict in the Ukraine today had the US not expanded NATO at all, had it stood by previous agreements to keep Ukraine out of NATO and not used it to permit neo-Nazi gangs that they recruited into the Ukrainian army to attack the population of eastern Ukraine since 2014 and threaten Russia's borders. NATO should have been dismantled after the Warsaw Pact was officially disbanded in March and July of 1991, following the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Instead, the Anglo-US imperialists led the expansion of NATO into eastern Europe. The vaunted "peace dividend" disappeared. This warmongering alliance engaged in brinkmanship, pushing to see how far they could go in the hopes their plans to crush Russia would prevail and then deal with China from a position of strength.

This is alongside the Anglo-US and NATO's record of destruction of Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria. These horrific and failed wars - just in this century - destroyed countries that they could not control, killing millions of people. The old world of these powers is one that cannot face up to a changing world where the peoples and countries want to and are determined to decide their own future. The devastating proxy war in Ukraine against Russia is their latest failed project bringing death and destruction to the world. This is alongside their arming and full involvement in the Israeli regime's genocidal war against the Palestinian people who continue to be murdered by the Israel forces, even now during the US brokered UN ceasefire. The rights of the Palestinian people continue to be denied.

The plans of Starmer and the British government and its "coalition of the willing" will never bring about peace between Russia and Ukraine. All along Britain has continued its warmongering role in escalating the Ukraine war and being the first to supply modern battle tanks, Storm Shadow missiles and now Starmer declares that he will "step up the gifting of long-range capabilities" to hit Russia. Starmer also said in the lead up to the budget that the British economy and his "plan for change" must be based in prosecuting the Ukraine war and in further militarisation of the economy. This must be opposed! Sending British or NATO troops to Ukraine must be resisted as a further escalation of the conflict. A lasting peace between Ukraine and Russia must be supported. Britain's dangerous warmongering must be blocked. The issue for the British working class and people is to seek truth from facts, speak out, and settle scores with our own pro-war government, fighting to establish in Britain an Anti-War Government.

By Craig Mokhiber, Mondoweiss, November 19, 2025

The Security Council's backing of the Trump plan for Gaza ignores international law, punishes the Palestinians, and rewards those responsible for genocide.

Demonstration outside the U.S. Mission to the UN during UN Security Council meeting, November 18, 2025 - Photo: Palestine Online

More than two years into the genocide in Palestine, the UN Security Council has finally acted. But rather than acting to enforce international law, protect the victims, and hold the perpetrators accountable, it adopted a resolution that openly flouts key provisions of international law, disempowers and further punishes the victims, and rewards and empowers the perpetrators.

Most disturbingly, it hands control of Gaza and the survivors of the genocide over to the United States, a co-perpetrator of the genocide, and provides for the participation of the Israeli regime in decision making. Under the plan, Palestinians themselves are to be granted no such participation in decisions on their own rights, governance, and lives.

In adopting this resolution, the Council, in effect, has become a mechanism of US oppression, an instrument for the continued unlawful occupation of Palestine, and a complicit actor in Israel's genocide.

Not since the UN partitioned Palestine in 1947 against the will of the indigenous people, setting the stage for 80 years of Nakba, has the UN acted in such a baldly colonial (and legally ultra vires) way, and trampled so recklessly on the rights of a people.

A resolution from Hell

On Monday, November 17, the UN Security Council adopted a US proposal to hand control of Gaza over to a US-led colonial body called "The Board of Peace" [1] while deploying a proxy occupation force, also US-directed, called "The International Stabilisation Force". Both will answer, ultimately, to Donald Trump himself. And both will function in consultation with the Israeli regime.

Demonstration outside the U.S. Mission to the UN during UN Security Council meeting, November 18, 2025 - Photo: Palestine Online

Not since the UN partitioned Palestine in 1947 against the will of the indigenous people, setting the stage for 80 years of Nakba, has the UN acted in such a baldly colonial way, and trampled so recklessly on the rights of a people.

In what will long be remembered as a day of shame for the UN, while both Russia and China abstained, they did not use their vetoes, and not a single member of the Security Council had the courage, principle, or respect for international law to vote against what can only be seen as a US colonial outrage, a ratification of genocide, and a flagrant abdication of UN Charter principles.

The resolution implicitly rejects a series of recent findings of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), openly denies the Palestinian right to self-determination, and reinforces Israeli regime impunity, even as the genocide continues.

Despite the ICJ's finding that the Palestinian people have a right to self-determination on their land, the resolution strips that right away, empowering hostile foreign forces to govern them.

Despite the Court's finding that Gaza (as well as the West Bank and East Jerusalem) is illegally occupied and that the occupation must end quickly and completely, the resolution extends the Israeli occupation, endorses the indefinite presence of Israeli regime troops, and superimposes a second, US-led occupation on top of it.

And despite the Court's finding that the Palestinians need not negotiate for their rights with their oppressors, and that no agreement or political process can trump those rights, the resolution nullifies those rights and assigns them to the discretion of the US and its Israeli and other partners.

Even in the midst of an ongoing genocide perpetrated by an apartheid regime, nowhere in the resolution is there a single mention of the crimes of genocide, apartheid, or colonisation, of the thousands of Palestinians still held in Israeli torture and death camps, or of the principles of accountability for perpetrators or redress for victims.

Nor is Israel required to meet its legal obligations of compensation and reparations, with that responsibility handed instead to international donors and international financial institutions, in what amounts to a multibillion-dollar bailout of the Israeli regime. In sum, the resolution guarantees the full impunity of the Israeli regime, in addition to advancing its normalisation

A colonial administration

The resolution even welcomes, endorses, and annexes the widely discredited Trump plan (September 29 version), and, while not citing all of its problematic provisions, it calls on all parties to implement it in its entirety.

It empowers the Trump-headed Board of Peace to serve as the transitional administration governing all of Gaza, to control all services and aid, to control the movement of people in and out of Gaza, and to control the framework, funding, and reconstruction of Gaza, and it includes the dangerously broadly formulated authorisation of "any other tasks that may be required". And it grants up-front authority to the Trump board to establish undefined "operational entities" and "transactional authorities", at its own discretion.

The resolution even envisages a quisling body of Palestinian technocrats taking orders from and reporting to Trump's Board Of Peace - on their own land. In clear breach of international law, it rejects Palestinian control of their own territory in Gaza until Trump and his collaborators decide that the Palestinian Authority has satisfied the reform requirements set by Trump himself and by the similarly odious "French-Saudi Proposal". And it contains no promise whatsoever of Palestinian independence or sovereignty.

Instead, in direct contradiction to the findings of the ICJ, it sets back the cause of Palestinian freedom and self-determination with a vague, hyperqualified, and non-committal line that says that AFTER the Trump-led bodies decide that the Palestinians have met UNDEFINED "reform and development" criteria, "the conditions MAY finally be in place for a credible PATHWAY to Palestinian self-determination and statehood".

And any shred of hope for progress left within those conditions is finally dashed with the coup de grace provision stating that any such process toward those ends is to be controlled by the US itself. In other words, the UN Security Council has granted a veto over Palestinian self-determination to the US, the Israeli regime's chief sponsor and co-perpetrator of the genocide.

The resolution does not even offer hope that the systematic deprivation of the Palestinian people in Gaza will end. While the ICJ has declared that restrictions on aid must cease, the resolution only "underscores the importance of" humanitarian aid. It does not demand its unfettered flow and distribution.

A proxy occupation force

The resolution also mandates an armed proxy occupation force, labelled the "International Stabilisation Force", to operate under the Trump-headed Board of Peace. This force is to have a command approved by the Trump Board, and will explicitly operate in collaboration with Israel, the perpetrator of the genocide (as well as with Egypt).

Its members are to be identified "in cooperation with" the Israeli regime, and it is to work with the regime to control the Palestinian survivors in Gaza.

It will be mandated to secure the borders (i.e., to cage the Palestinians), to stabilise the security environment of Gaza (i.e., to suppress any resistance to occupation, apartheid, or genocide), to demilitarise Gaza (but not the Israeli regime), to destroy Gaza's military defence capacities (but not those of Israel), to decommission the weapons of the Palestinian resistance (but not those of the Israeli regime), to train the Palestinian police (in order to control the Palestinian people inside Gaza), and to work for the (nefarious) objectives of the "Comprehensive (Trump) Plan".

The force is also mandated to "protect civilians" and assist humanitarian aid, to the extent that it is allowed by the US (or inclined) to do so. But that such a force, which is to collaborate with Israel, would do nothing to stand up to Israeli aggression and attacks on civilians should by now be self-evident.

The mission of this proxy occupation force is to control, contain, and disarm the population victimised by the genocide, not the regime perpetrating it, and to ensure security not for the victims of the genocide but for its perpetrators.

And it is to "monitor the ceasefire", a US-guaranteed ceasefire that has allowed continuous Israeli attacks on Gaza every day since it was declared (killing hundreds and causing massive destruction to civilian infrastructure) but which tolerates no retaliation by the Palestinian resistance. It is safe to assume that any ceasefire monitoring by such a force will be focused principally on the Palestinian side - not on the Israeli regime as the occupying power.

In other words, the mission of this proxy occupation force is to control, contain, and disarm the population victimised by the genocide, not the regime perpetrating it, and to ensure security not for the victims of the genocide but for its perpetrators.

In still another stunning breach of international law, the resolution authorises Israeli regime forces to continue to (unlawfully) occupy Gaza until the US-led Board of Peace and the Israeli regime forces collectively decide otherwise. And, in any event, the resolution provides that the IOF can remain in Gaza to occupy a "security perimeter" indefinitely.

Finally, both the colonial Board of Peace and its proxy occupation "stabilisation force" are given a two-year mandate and the possibility of an extension in consultation with Israel (and Egypt) but not with Palestine.

The madness of colonisers

Needless to say, this resolution has been rejected by Palestinian civil society, almost all Palestinian political and resistance factions, and human rights defenders and international law experts from around the globe.

As a matter of international law, the occupation of Palestine is unlawful, the Palestinian people have a right to self-determination, and they have the right to resist foreign occupation, colonial domination, and racist regimes like Israel. Not only does this resolution seek to deny these rights, but it even goes so far as to buttress the illegal Israeli presence, and to authorise its own mechanisms of foreign occupation and colonial domination.

What's more, the Security Council derives all its powers from the UN Charter. That Charter, as a treaty, is a part of international law - not above it. As such, the Council is bound by the rules of international law, including and especially the highest, so-called jus cogens and erga omnes rules, like self-determination and the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by force. Its blatant disregard for the findings of the ICJ on these matters reveals the degree to which many of the terms of this resolution are in fact unlawful and ultra vires (beyond the authority of the Council).

As such, the ramifications of this rogue action by the UN Security Council will have implications far beyond Palestine. The UN Security Council, if unconstrained by international law, becomes a dangerous instrument of repression and injustice. This is precisely what we have witnessed in this case, as the Council ignored international law and effectively turned the survivors of Gaza over to the co-perpetrators of the genocide.

And followers of the Council will be well aware that the veto has repeatedly been used in the Council to deny Palestinian rights. In this case, when it could have been used to protect Palestinian rights, the veto was nowhere to be found. In one minute of voting, the Security Council has lost all legitimacy.

A path forward

The US attempt to impose a 19th Century form of colonialism on the long-suffering Palestinian people of Gaza, like the French-Saudi colonial scheme that came before it, is destined to failure. Such schemes are fundamentally flawed from the outset, as they seek to impose outcomes without legality (under international law,) without legitimacy (in their exclusion of Palestinian agency), and without any practical hope of success (given their near universal rejection both in Palestine and across the world).

The US may be able to threaten and bribe enough states to support it in a UN vote, but securing sufficient troops and other personnel to implement the resolution on the ground, against the will of the indigenous people, may well be another matter. And sustaining support as the plan (inevitably) begins to unravel will be even more difficult.

In the meantime, for those committed to justice, human rights, and the rule of law, the task is clear. This plan must be opposed in every capital, and at every juncture. Governments must be pressed to end their complicity in Israeli abuses, US excesses, and in this atrocious colonial scheme. The Israeli regime must be isolated. Efforts toward boycott, divestment, and sanctions must be redoubled. A military, fuel, and technology embargo must be imposed. Israeli perpetrators must face judicial prosecutions in every available tribunal. And the streets must echo with the righteous roar for Palestinian freedom of millions through demonstrations, strikes, civil disobedience, and direct action.

And when this colonial house of cards falls, another, more just solution is ready to take its place. If the global majority will rise from its knees before the emperor, and assert its collective power, acting under the UNGA Uniting For Peace mechanism to circumvent the US veto, adopt accountability measures to isolate and punish the Israeli regime, and deploy real protection to Palestine, then the UN may live to fight another day. If not, it will almost certainly wither away and die, a victim of self-inflicted wounds, none deeper than the shameful resolution of November 17, 2025.

Craig Mokhiber is an international human rights lawyer and former senior United Nations Official. He left the UN in October of 2023, penning a widely-read letter that warned of genocide in Gaza, criticised the international response and called for a new approach to Palestine and Israel based on equality, human rights and international law.

"Workers' Weekly" Note

[1] Former Prime Minister Tony Blair, one of the criminal architects of the war against Iraq and arch-enemy of the Palestinian people, is expected to be among the members of the board.

As protesters in London prepare to participate in the International Day for Palestine today, November 29, serious concerns have been raised after the judge who was expected to hear the legal challenge to the proscription of Palestine Action was removed from the case at the last minute without explanation.

Mr Justice Chamberlain is the judge who had headed the hearing to apply for a judicial review and had granted permission for it. He was due to preside over the juridical review, which began on November 26. But a panel of three different judges will instead hear the case.

This replacement at the last minute is almost unprecedented, and reports point out that it also happened to Justice Chamberlain earlier this year in the legal challenge to the sale of F-35 aircraft parts to Israel, which he had also granted permission for. The three judges who will now hear the case are Dame Victoria Sharp, Mrs Justice Steyn and Mr Justice Swift.

When Chamberlain had been replaced earlier by Justice Steyn and Justice Males, they found that Britain's decision to allow the export of F-35 fighter jet components to Israel was lawful, despite accepting they could be used in breach of international humanitarian law in Gaza.

Tayab Ali, a partner at the law firm Bindmans, said: "A sudden and unexplained shift from the single judge who already had conduct of the case to an entirely new panel of three is deeply concerning, particularly without any stated justification. In a matter as sensitive as this, involving allegations linked to Palestine and public-interest activism of significant constitutional importance, the integrity and transparency of the judicial process must be beyond question. At the very least, the court should provide a clear and credible explanation for such a change."

A spokesperson for Defend Our Juries, which has organised demonstrations against the proscription of Palestine Action, said: "If Dame Sharp believed a panel of judges was necessary, the usual process would have been to add judges to sit alongside him, not to remove Chamberlain entirely - especially as he is one of the most senior judges on the high court bench, so this cannot be explained on grounds of seniority. In a case of such national significance - determining whether 2,350 peaceful protesters will continue to be criminalised as 'terrorists' for holding cardboard signs the public deserves transparency, not backroom manoeuvres to cherry-pick judges, threatening the fundamental principle of judicial independence."

Emily Apple, the media co-ordinator for Campaign Against the Arms Trade, called Chamberlain's removal from the Palestine Action case "deeply alarming" and urged the court to explain the reasoning behind it. "This raises serious questions around the lack of impartiality and transparency in our judicial system, and whether this is now a pattern in significant legal cases concerning Palestine," she said.

At the opening of the judicial review on November 26, a protest action took place as around 200 people sat in front of the gates of the court holding placards which read: "I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action". To add insult to injury, a significant number were arrested and carried away by police officers.

Speaking outside the Royal Courts of Justice ahead of the start of the judicial review, Amnesty International UK's law and human rights director, Tom Southerden, said that direct action protest is "under major threat" if the proscription of Palestine Action is ruled to be a proportionate use of terrorism powers.

Raza Husain KC, for Palestine Action co-founder Huda Ammori, told the court that the decision was an "ill-considered, discriminatory, due process-lacking, authoritarian abuse of statutory power ... that is alien to the basic tradition of common law and the European Convention on Human Rights".

(News reports)