Jonathan Kuttab is a Christian Palestinian attorney, human rights activist, and co-founder of Al-Haq and Nonviolence International. He served as the Head of the Legal Committee of the Palestinian delegation negotiating the Cairo Interim Agreement of 1994 between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).
In the year since the October 7th Hamas attack on Israel, nearly 42,000 people have been killed in Gaza. How do you think the international community’s response to these events has impacted its approach to building solutions? How have international perspectives on the conflict shifted?
It's been a very difficult year for those who believe in international law, human rights, and a rules-based international order. While there were some attempts at the beginning to provide some excuses, justifications, or explanations, it seems that even that effort is no longer being taken. We see, in Lebanon, deliberate attacks on hospitals without even the pretense that they are somehow hiding command centers or tunnels underneath them. We see deliberate obstruction of food and water supplies, we see deliberate orders for people to evacuate all areas without the pretense that we are doing this in order to reach the tunnels or those who are in [them]. We see massive bombardment of civilian areas, again, without the excuse that we are going after a particular target or person.
In Lebanon today, we see the same behavior that occurred in Gaza—and [in Lebanon], there are no hostages, there is no Hamas, there are no tunnels—but the loss of even a pretense that you are following international law. There is [not] any sense of proportionality [nor] need to make a distinction between combatants and non-combatants, civilian targets and non-civilian targets. [There is also not a sense that] you need to respect mosques, churches, centers where food is being distributed, [and] medical locations. Even that precept is being abandoned. Now, there is just pure force, pure power, and technological, particularly aerial, superiority, used to massively attack [Israel’s] targets and [to] attack civilians.
Are there any particular similarities or differences that strike you between Lebanon and Gaza at the moment?
The first thing is the absence of excuses. The first time you hit a hospital, you pretend that this wasn't you, [that] this was some kind of errant missile, or that you think there's some command and control center underneath it. There is no longer an excuse even given. Israel attempts to move with boots on the ground in Lebanon and is facing some resistance, so now there's just aerial bombardment. The fact that you can order whole populations out of towns and villages—Nabatieh, the sixth-largest town in Lebanon, they told everybody [to] leave. “We want you to leave because [we’re] going to bomb.” Even under the laws of warfare, that was never done. Because of [US] support, because of the paralysis of the Security Council due to the US veto, because the International Criminal Court has been maybe intimidated, [because] the International Court of Justice [ICJ] is very slow and very deliberate and depends on largely voluntary compliance—somehow, Israel feels that it has impunity and that international law doesn't apply anymore.
Where do you see peacebuilding efforts being created despite this obstruction of rights and resources? How can nonviolent movements effectively respond to divisions?
First of all, international law, just like domestic law, largely depends on voluntary compliance. People drive on the right-hand side of the road, not [just] because there's a camera or a policeman at every intersection, but because you need laws and voluntary compliance. You [also] need the police and the courts for the occasional excessive action that requires [intervention]. By and large, people abide by [the] law as a matter of convention and custom. That's how [the] law operates. The same is true in international law. However, when you have some bad actors who are very powerful, that shakes your faith in the legal system itself. My biggest worry is that—as a result of what's happening in Gaza and now in Lebanon and before that in Ukraine—powerful actors are getting the message that international law is meaningless, that [it has] has no teeth, that if [a country is] powerful enough, [it] can get away with violating [these laws] with impunity, even such [central] principles like the illegality of acquisition of territory through force.
The fact that force should not be used as the first resort to resolve disputes, that international organizations, including the United Nations and Security Council and the ICJ and the ICC, can [somehow] be ignored with impunity—that is scary for all of humanity, not just for people in the Middle East.
Given that perspective, what do you believe should the role of international law be [in] relegating the conflict?
It should be reasserted. People forget that international law develops and matures over time. Most of [the] international law was codified after the two World Wars, when people realized you can't leave things as rules of the jungle. You can't have the powerful always do whatever they want. You have these conventions, these multilateral treaties, that say we can no longer afford a situation where there are no rules for law. That’s why the Geneva Convention and other conventions were created. [This realization is] why human rights conventions [and] the Declaration of Human Rights, which took almost half a century, [happened]. It was mostly because of civil society, ordinary people pressuring their governments to sign these conventions, to abide by them. [Over] the last twenty years, we have seen a retreat in many of these areas. Unfortunately, the United States, which was a very positive force in the beginning, has become one of the forces preventing the growth of international law, preventing the increased use and effectiveness of international law, and it's mostly been around the issue of Israel, I think, although not exclusively.
Al-Haq and Nonviolence International have extensively documented human rights violations in Palestine. Beyond international law, what role do you believe grassroots movements and civil society organizations such as these can play in creating meaningful change, particularly given calls for violence and military responses?
The world is becoming much smaller. The challenges facing humanity are increasing, and they are not just war. [They are also] climate change, the dangers of an uncontrolled AI revolution, and pandemics and mutating viruses that threaten humanity. All of these things require international cooperation [and] international order. Those of us who believe in international law and human rights are not just acting out of selfish individual interests, but out of humanity, [which] as a whole requires an international order.
The Oslo Accords and other later peace processes have largely stalled. In your view, what critical missteps contributed to this impasse, and what new approaches might reinvigorate the peace process moving forward?
I hate to say it, but I think some major disaster may be required to bring us back to sanity. Something must be done, particularly in [the United States], to restore sanity, to restore humanity; something must be done to take money out of our politics. The US political system has been so captured by the profit motive and by the money in politics [that] it takes billions of dollars to run a campaign for president. For example, the influence of money in politics is so huge that sometimes the actual national [and human] interest[s] get lost. We need to have a citizenry that is directly involved and active in both political parties, not just in one political party, and to restore a sense of civility, humanity, and common cause to our political system.
Reflecting on your experience as part of the legal team working on the Cairo agreement, what were the biggest challenges you faced at the time, and what lessons would you take forward from that?
I take a lot of lessons from it. One of them is, as a lawyer, we need to have clarity [on] any agreement. There needs to be a mechanism for enforcement of an agreement, for [the] resolution of outstanding issues, especially when there’s such a huge power imbalance between the two parties. There has to be some resort to uniform principles of international law that [apply] to both sides. There also [has to be] a vision for the future. There has to be an endgame in sight. Otherwise, you sit and talk and don't change much other than maybe codify an unjust status quo.
Colleges and universities across the United States have disciplined students for pro-Palestinian activism, including withholding degrees. How do you think student activism fits into the broader global conversation on Palestinian rights?
Students have always been at the forefront of political change because of their idealism, enthusiasm, [and ability to] think outside the box. They should be encouraged to think outside the box. Academic freedom is much greater than just First Amendment rights when you are in an academic setting. In theory, you should be encouraged to examine all ideas—including unpopular, crazy, and stupid ideas—and challenge and discuss them.
Instead, we find that college[s] [and] universities are [now] under attack for their freedom [of] expression and involvement in larger issues of society. On the one hand, I'm very encouraged that students are active and interested. [On the other hand], I am very worried that those in power are using different methods to suppress the student movement. Even though the direct issue here is Palestine and Palestinian rights, the effect is much broader. It means that students are going to be repressed. They are not going to be encouraged to be active in political life, on issues of the environment, race, poverty, and social justice, [as well as] on war and violence—on all [these] issues where students should be at the forefront and encouraged to speak.
I remember giving a commencement speech for Bethlehem Bible College, a conservative, evangelical Bible college in the West Bank. I told the students: I know you're living under occupation and in a very conservative society, but within these walls, you are not only allowed, you're even encouraged to examine everything [and] to study different religions. You are and will be assisted by your professors to challenge and question your own faith. I [said] all that in Bethlehem, in a Bible college that's very conservative, [with students] living under occupation. [In] the United States, universities living under [First] Amendment and academic freedom are being suppressed and are being told: you cannot talk, you cannot protest, you cannot wear flags, you cannot hurt the feelings of others who may not like what you are saying—instead of being encouraged to examine everything and discuss everything and challenge everything. We see repression at American colleges and universities, and it's a sad thing that I hope students will be able to resist.
Looking ahead, where do you see the most significant challenges that Palestinian leadership must confront? How do you see those issues being overcome?
The biggest challenge is to maintain hope even though the situation is not optimistic. [It is difficult] to maintain one’s integrity and belief in [universal] principles, to resist the temptation to become like your opponents, to resist the temptation towards violence. [We need to] resist the temptation towards being intolerant of other views [and] be open to all ideas. If you believe racism is wrong, [you must] be willing to stand for equality, whether it's against Palestinians or Muslims or Jews. It has to be universal: principles need to apply to friend and foe alike. An openness to ideas must be an openness to all ideas, not just to my ideas, popular ideas, and conventional ideas.
Is there anything else you would like to add?
We really must emphasize the principles that we believe in. We must hold them with integrity, and we must be willing to defend them, regardless of our particular religious, racial, or political identity. These principles are important. They are what keeps society moving forward. They are [what] distinguish between a truly open society and a repressive, totalitarian one.
Black spoke with Kuttab on October 12, 2024. This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
The views expressed in this piece are the interviewee's own and are not reflective of the views of the HIR.
