The Blogs: Independent Observers? Define ‘Independent’

International Is Not a Synonym for Independent

Why doesn’t Israel allow independent observers into Gaza?

Why does Israel block an independent investigation into October 7?

If Israel has nothing to hide, why does it prevent independent scrutiny?

I hear variations of this question constantly.

It sounds reasonable.

It isn’t.

The problem is hidden inside one word:

Independent.

Independent from whom?

Who appoints these observers?
Who funds them?
Who gives them their mandate?
Who decides what they investigate?
Who decides what evidence they consider?
Who determines their methodology?
Who reviews their conclusions?
And, ultimately, who is independent of whom?

There is no such thing as an “international independent observer.”

International organizations are political institutions. They are created, funded, governed, and influenced by political actors.

They have interests, constituencies, institutional culture, political assumptions, and, more often than not, very serious conflicts of interest.

Calling something “international” does not make it neutral.

Calling something “independent” does not make it unbiased.

Independent From Israel Is Not the Same as Independent

This is particularly important in Gaza.

Consider UNRWA.

UNRWA is not some detached humanitarian force floating above the conflict. It is a United Nations agency, established by the UN General Assembly and operating under a mandate given by the General Assembly. It has been deeply embedded in Gaza for decades, providing education, health care, social services, and other government-like services and functions.

And the question of neutrality is not theoretical.

Israel has banned UNRWA because of its ties to terrorist organizations and the involvement of its personnel in the October 7, 2023, terrorist attacks. The United States government has also taken action against UNRWA over these allegations.

So when someone tells me that Israel should simply admit “independent international observers,” my first reaction is:

They must at least be independent of UNRWA.

The United Nations Is Not a Neutral Court of Moral Authority

There is another problem.

Many people use “the international community” as if it were synonymous with “neutral.”

It isn’t.

The United Nations is a place where dictatorships sit alongside democracies.

Where governments accused of violating human rights lecture other countries about human rights.

Where regimes that deny women basic dignity chair committees on women’s rights.

Where authoritarian governments vote on questions of democracy.

Where states with terrible records on freedom pronounce upon freedom.

And where countries that openly support terrorist organizations participate in debates about terrorism.

And when it comes to Israel, the problem is particularly obvious. The General Assembly devotes extraordinary institutional attention to Israel, including repeated resolutions directed specifically at this tiny state. The scale and persistence of this institutional focus are themselves legitimate subjects of scrutiny.

The United Nations has spent decades targeting Israel, beginning almost immediately after its reestablishment in 1948. Israel has faced a level of institutional hostility at the UN that is difficult to explain by the size of the country, the scale of its conflicts, or the magnitude of the world’s other problems.

Antisemitism never disappeared. It evolved. Today, much of it has been repackaged as hostility toward Zionism and the Jewish state—Ziophobia.

We are living through a tide of antisemitism unseen since the 1930s. Much of it is being peddled by the UN.

So if someone proposes a UN investigation and calls it “independent,” I am entitled to ask:

Independent of Israel, perhaps. But independent of the UN?

If not, why should “UN” be treated as synonymous with “neutral”?

What About the ICC?

Perhaps, then, we should use the International Criminal Court.

Except that neither the United States nor Israel are parties to the Rome Statute establishing the ICC. Israel does not recognize the Court’s jurisdiction, and the United States has long rejected the Court’s assertion of jurisdiction over U.S. nationals.

The United States has gone considerably further. Under Executive Order 14203, issued in February 2025, the United States imposed sanctions on ICC personnel involved in efforts to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute protected U.S. or Israeli nationals without their countries’ consent. The order authorizes the blocking of property and interests in property and the suspension of entry into the United States of designated ICC officials, employees, agents, and their immediate family members.

And in July 2026, Secretary of State Marco Rubio launched a campaign to dismantle the ICC, describing it as a threat to American sovereignty.

As Rubio put it:

As we speak, the ICC and its friends are waging a war against our country, not with bullets or missiles, but with statutes and compacts and the force of so-called international law!

They believe that they should be in charge of your laws, of your country, your life, and they don’t care whether or not you agree.

Halfway across the world, there’s an institution that calls itself the International Criminal Court. Maybe you’ve heard of it, maybe you haven’t. The chances are you don’t know the names of its judges, of its prosecutors, or its president!

It was a global tribunal staffed by unelected globalist bureaucrats who claimed their power is almost unlimited. The danger of this global court has only continued to grow.

It threatens every aspect of our political and legal system. Border Patrol agents removing violent criminals from our country, American Marines risking their lives to defend our homeland, prosecutors working to dismantle terrorist plots to attack and kill Americans.

If we stand idle, all of them would be at the mercy of foreign judges thousands of miles away facing the constant risk of prosecution and even imprisonment for the so-called crime of defending their own country.

The American people never agreed to any of this, and they never will. Read the words of our Declaration of Independence. We fought a revolution against a foreign power transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses!

Independence is our birthright. We will never let foreign bureaucrats take that away from us. This administration will not sit by as the ICC and its allies seek to threaten our people.

If they believe they can deprive us of our sovereignty, we will teach them the full meaning of American resolve.

Source: Marco Rubio, “Why We’re Dismantling the International Criminal Court”, The Wall Street Journal, July 13, 2026.

And that is the point.

International is not a synonym for independent.

Even Nuremberg Was Not “Independent”

People sometimes invoke the Nuremberg trials as though they demonstrate the existence of independent international justice.

They don’t.

The International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg was created by the four victorious Allied powers: the United States, United Kingdom, Soviet Union, and France.

Each supplied judges and prosecutors.

The defendants were the leaders of the defeated Nazi regime.

The victors established the tribunal and prosecuted the defeated.

That is not an insult to Nuremberg.

It is simply reality.

And reality is precisely what we should be discussing when someone demands an “independent” international investigation.

There Is No Neutral Universe Outside Politics

This is the uncomfortable truth that people seem to forget:

International relations are politics.

States have interests.
Organizations have mandates.
Institutions have constituencies.
Investigators have assumptions.
Judges have legal philosophies.
Journalists have editorial cultures.
NGOs have funding structures.
Universities have ideological environments.
And international bodies have voting blocs.

The burden is on the person demanding an investigation to explain why the proposed investigators deserve to be called independent.

Not merely international.

Not merely prestigious.

Not merely funded by foreign governments.

Not merely affiliated with the UN.

Independent.

Define the word.

And Now We Return to the Loaded Question

“So why doesn’t Israel allow independent observers into Gaza?”

Notice what has happened.

The question has already smuggled in its conclusion.

Israel is assumed to be obstructing “independent observers.”

The observers are assumed to be independent.

Their conclusions are assumed to be trustworthy.

And Israel’s refusal is then interpreted as evidence that Israel has something terrible to hide.

This is not an argument.

It is a rhetorical trap.

The same logic can be used against anyone:

“If you have nothing to hide, why won’t you submit to our investigation?”

But who is our?

Who selected us?

Who wrote the mandate?

Who decides what counts as evidence?

Who investigates the investigators?

And who investigates the people who investigate the investigators?

At some point, the word “independent” becomes nothing more than a rhetorical credential.

It means:

“An authority whose conclusions I already trust.”

And that is not independence.

That is preference.

Investigation of October 7

There absolutely should be a rigorous investigation of October 7.

There should be an investigation of Hamas’s crimes.

There should be an investigation of the murders, kidnappings, rapes, and other atrocities committed that day.

There should be an investigation of Israeli military decisions before, during, and after the attack.

But first and foremost, that should be Israel’s own investigation, with whatever allies, states, organizations, or institutions Israel decides to involve.

Reread Marco Rubio’s quotes on dismantling the ICC.

That is what independence actually means.

The Real Question

So the next time someone asks me:

If Israel has nothing to hide, why does it prevent independent scrutiny?

My answer is simple:

Tell me who the independent investigators are.

And tell me from whom they are independent.

Historically, allowing foreign investigators into a country has rarely been a simple matter of moral virtue. It is a matter of sovereignty and power.

Weak, isolated, sanctioned, or defeated states may accept foreign inspections in exchange for sanctions relief, humanitarian assistance, unfreezing of funds, financial aid, or other concessions—or because they have no realistic alternative.

There is no reason to assume that a sovereign state should voluntarily surrender control over investigations simply because someone calls the investigators “independent.”

Because there is no magical class of people called Independent Investigators™ whose conclusions become objective merely because someone attached the adjective “independent” to their job title.

If “independent” simply means “agrees with me,” then “independent” has lost all meaning.

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