The "right to exist" of a state has no basis in international law and no precedent in diplomatic practice. Simply put, a state's right to exist does not exist.

 https://x.com/MouinRabbani/status/2035312363436482929

Mouin Rabbani

@MouinRabbani

The "right to exist" of a state has no basis in international law and no precedent in diplomatic practice. Simply put, a state's right to exist does not exist. If Israel nevertheless proclaims a "right to exist", the only reasonable basis for the existence of such a right is that it is a universal one, equally applicable to every other state at the time it was first raised, and particularly applicable to those whose legitimacy, like that of Israel, was also challenged. If it is a right that applies to Israel alone, it is not and cannot be a right. It bears recalling that there were at least two other states that had a similar claim to a "right to exist" when Israel first invented it, on the grounds that their legitimacy and continued existence were also challenged: Rhodesia and the USSR. Yet neither the Soviet Union nor Rhodesia claimed a "right to exist". Nobody and no other state ever claimed either of them had an inherent right to exist, or claimed any fundamental rights would be violated if these states ceased to exist and disappeared from the map. In the case of Rhodesia, there was in fact an international consensus that it cease to exist. This succeeded and Rhodesia was replaced by Zimbabwe, to universal acclaim. It is also important to recognize that Israel's claims of a "right to exist" have nothing to do with achieving a peaceful resolution of the Question of Palestine, and are fundamentally about preventing one. Israel's "right to exist" was first raised precisely because the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), recognized by the international community as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, appeared to be amenable to accepting earlier demands by the United States in exchange for recognition of its mere existence: PLO acceptance of United Nations Security Council resolutions 242 and 338, renunciation of armed force, and recognition of Israel. The demand of a "right to exist" was proclaimed by Israel precisely in order to prevent Western recognition of the PLO, and in the expectation that the PLO would reject it out of hand as an unacceptable absurdity. Needless to say, Washington and its Western partners eagerly embraced the Israeli innovation, and never required Israel to define the borders within which the entity was supposed to enjoy a right to exist. When the PLO formally accepted Israel's "right to exist" in the context of the 1993 Oslo Accords, it was careful not to formulate it as an absolute right: "The PLO recognizes the right of the State of Israel to exist in peace and security". Palestinian negotiators had wanted to add "within the 5 June 1967 borders", but this was categorically rejected by Israel. It was made unambiguously clear that addition of this clause would have made agreement impossible. Israel demanded and the PLO accepted the above formulation, but it changed absolutely nothing. Several years later, Israel began demanding that the Palestinian not only recognize its "right to exist" but recognize "Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state". It once again did so on the presumption that this would be embraced by its Western sponsors and allies but that the Palestinians would reject the absurdity of this innovation. Israel's objective was to make negotiations and thus a diplomatic settlement impossible, and to ensure that the Palestinians rather than Israel were held responsible for the stalemate. It largely worked, as Western leaders and "mediators" once again embraced the Israeli demand and tried to pressure the Palestinians to accept it. I would not expect Tucker Carlson to be aware of this history. I would however expect Zanny Minton Beddoes, the Editor-in-Chief of The Economist, to be at least generally familiar with the issue, particularly since she made a point of interrogating Carlson about it. Yet, once again, when it comes to Israel, journalists believe themselves perfectly entitled to be zany, and virtually always get away with it.

10:07 PM · Mar 21, 2026

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https://x.com/MouinRabbani/status/2035312363436482929

Western silence allows Israel to get away with killing journalists

 

The non-reaction to an RT reporter’s narrow escape from a missile strike underscores the selective outrage of Western media

Published 21 Mar, 2026 09:24 | Updated 21 Mar, 2026 10:25

By Eva Bartlett, an award-winning Canadian independent journalist. She has spent years on the ground covering conflict zones in the Middle East, especially in Syria and Palestine, as well as Venezuela and the Donbass. 

@evakbartlettIn Gaza@Reality_Theories

On March 19, RT war correspondent Steve Sweeney and his cameraman Ali Rida Sbeity were injured by an Israeli strike meters from where they stood in southern Lebanon.

Sweeney was on camera reporting on recent Israeli attacks on southern Lebanese towns and infrastructure when he heard the sound of an incoming projectile. Ducking and running, he managed to escape the brunt of the impact.

According to the journalists, an Israeli aircraft fired a missile at their filming position near Al-Qasmiya Bridge, where Sweeney was reporting on, “the targeting of bridges and the forced displacement of one million people, an ethnic cleansing operation on a larger scale than the Nakba,” as he later stated, referencing the violent displacement of Palestinians which accompanied the creation of the Jewish State in the late 1940s.

The men were treated for shrapnel injuries. Sweeney said, adding “I’m amazed that we survived. We were incredibly lucky to come away with the injuries we did.”

Just a day prior, Sweeney had posted on X about the Israeli targeted airstrike on Lebanese journalist and Al-Manar TV presenter Mohammad Sherri and his wife. Both were killed. Sweeney reposted the news with the words, “Targeting journalists is a war crime.”

The next day, he himself was targeted.

This deliberate targeting of journalists wearing press vests is another Israeli war crime, in a long list of Israeli war crimes which include killing at least 261 Palestinian journalists in Gaza in the past two years alone, as well as previously killing Lebanese journalists and bombing Iranian media repeatedly.

Read more

 ‘Deliberate attack’: RT correspondent recounts surviving Israeli airstrike (VIDEO)

Targeted assassinations of journalists by the Israeli army are not new. Back in 2008, Fadel Shana, a Reuters cameraman in Gaza, was killed by a flechette shell fired by an Israeli tank as he worked.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), Israel was responsible for two-thirds of all press killings globally in both 2025 and 2024. CPJ notes that the Israeli army has committed more targeted killings of journalists than any other government’s military since the CPJ began documentation in 1992.

Russian condemnation, British silence

RT Editor in Chief Margarita Simonyan posted on X about the targeted attack, clearly stating the journalists had been targeted by an Israeli strike and stating, “War journalists are not legitimate targets.”

Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova highlighted that in no way could the strike be considered accidental, particularly given, “the rocket did not hit an ‘important strategic military target’, but the location of the report.”

While Western media is always quick to highlight claims of legacy media journalists in danger, no matter how staged it appears to be, when it comes to journalists actually under attack the outrage is selective.

Although the attack on Sweeney and Sbeity was filmed on camera in broad daylight, with Israel virtually the only possible culprit, British media in particular have been disinterested. The BBC’s report ran with the headline, “Missile lands next to presenter during live report from Lebanon.” Barely noticeable in small print many lines later, the BBC mentions the “ongoing Israeli air strikes and ground operations in southern Lebanon.”

The BBC listing an experienced war correspondent as a “presenter” was also not accidental. The overall flippant tone of their report was to insinuate a minor incident had occurred, the missile’s origin unknown.

Read more

 RT captures destruction in Lebanon after Israeli strikes (VIDEO)

Other media followed suit, including The Independent, which didn’t even mention, not even in small print, Israeli bombings of Lebanon.
As for the British government, the reaction thus far has been nothing. Declassified UK posted on X that the Foreign Office’s response to British journalist Steve Sweeney being targeted by an Israeli airstrike in Lebanon was simply to reply to the government’s position made before Sweeney was targeted, a word salad blaming Iran and Lebanese Resistance, Hezbollah, and whitewashing the US-Israeli strikes which were the direct cause of Iranian retaliation.

It also claimed the government would, “continue our support for British nationals in the region.” Clearly, that support doesn’t extend to Sweeney.

Remarkably, later the same day that he was nearly killed, Sweeney was already back outside reporting, defiantly stating, “If Israel thinks today’s strike will silence us and keep us out of the field they are very, very mistaken.”

To the CPJ’s credit, despite its failing elsewhere (like failing to report on Russian journalists killed by the Ukrainian regime), it did issue a strong and clear condemnation of the attack on Sweeney and Sbeity, unequivocally naming Israel as the perpetrator.

It called for “an investigation into the apparent targeting” of the journalists, and emphasized they were injured, “when an Israeli air strike hit just feet away from where they were filming while wearing clearly marked press gear and with their equipment clearly visible in southern Lebanon.”

CPJ stated, “Striking reporters who are clearly marked as a press constitutes a violation of international law.” See, BBC and co? It’s not that hard.

Not only does Israel, empowered by Western silence and cooperation, bomb civilians and civilian infrastructure. It also targets journalists, whose job it is to document these atrocities. Refusal to call these attacks out for what they are is cowardly at best, complicit at worst.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

https://www.rt.com/news/635719-israel-attacks-journalists-west-complicit/