JUNE 18 — G7 leaders urged de-escalation but did not condemn Israel’s attack on Iran.
Extraordinarily, they affirmed Israel’s right to self-defence after the regime’s pre-emptive attack on Iran’s nuclear enrichment programme.
Under international law, a country may only defend itself from an actual or imminent armed attack by another country.
Israel’s claim that its attack is necessary to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and using them in the future does not hold water.
And G7 leaders are defending a claim that does not hold water.
Iran has not built and has no single nuclear weapon; it did not attack Israel prior to Israel’s strikes.
There may have been inflammatory and even genocidal rhetorics by Iranian officials over the years—like the vow to “wipe the Zionist regime” off the political map—but that does not equate to a plan, let alone a concrete one, to launch an imminent nuclear attack.
There is no self-defence against a speculative threat. On the contrary, Israel’s illegal, unlawful and lawless attack hands Iran the legal right of self-defence.
(Left to right) Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, French President Emmanuel Macron, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, U.S. President Donald Trump, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, and European Union Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, participate in a group photo in front of the Canadian Rockies at the Kananaskis Country Golf Course during the G7 Leaders’ Summit on June 16, 2025 in Kananaskis, Alberta. — AFP pic
According to international jurists, allowing a country to unilaterally decide when it wishes to attack another country’s military, even when it has not been attacked, is a recipe for global chaos – and for the unjustified deaths of many innocent people.
According to Prof Ben Saul, the current Challis Professor of International Law at the University of Sydney and an Australian Research Council Future Fellow, Israel’s attack may also have violated international humanitarian law (IHL), which regulates fighting once they begin.
The many Iranian nuclear scientists Israel has targeted were not taking a direct part in the hostilities and were thus protected civilians immune from attack.
It’s mind boggling that while Israeli’s impunity for alleged international crimes in Gaza has been allowed to continue, its attack against Iran has been defended as self-defence.
G7 leaders called Iran the principal source of regional instability and terror.
But it is Israel that’s terrorising the Gazans.
So, who is terrorising who?
