Making demands for basic moral actions of governments unlikely to do most of them anytime soon can be a useful educational and long-term activity.

Here are some demands for governments of the world that many of us have been making, with some variations, but only the beginnings of success, for years now.

  1. Arrest Israeli or any other officials facing arrest warrants from the International Criminal Court.
  2. Prosecute Israeli criminals under universal jurisdiction.
  3. Establish a complete embargo on weapons or weapons parts to or from Israel and to or from any nation not upholding such an arms embargo on Israel.
  4. End diplomatic relations with Israel.
  5. End financial transactions, trade, and travel to and from Israel.
  6. Train and send unarmed civilian defense teams, food, medicine, doctors, and aid workers to Palestine.
  7. Develop a major public educational campaign about the genocide in Gaza and the propaganda that has facilitated it.
  8. Support a Uniting for Peace action through the UN General Assembly to implement worldwide numbers 3-7 above and to do steps 9-12 below:
  9. Economically sanction Israeli war criminals.
  10. Expel Israel from the United Nations.
  11. Recognize the nation of Palestine.
  12. Move UN meetings and headquarters out of the United States.
  13. Break off military relations with and expel from your nation troops belonging to any government that is not upholding an arms embargo on Israel.
  14. Halt membership or support for weapons-dealing institutions that do not uphold an arms embargo on Israel: the Abraham Accords, NATO, etc.

Now here’s an even less likely demand than any of those to be met anytime soon by any government, much less by two-thirds of a UN General Assembly:

  1. Send armed ships and troops to Gaza.

The unlikelihood of its happening does not provide a license for demanding it. Such a demand could be remembered on other occasions. And what would happen if this demand were met? How would the Israeli and U.S. militaries respond? And how might other militaries respond to that response? If you cannot answer that question, let’s stick with increasing the pressure for numbers 1-14.

The original article can be found here