Abhishek G BhayaWith Gaza still reeling from two years of Israel’s relentless military onslaught, American economist and UN adviser Jeffrey Sachs expressed his strongest condemnations of Israel’s brutal actions — describing them as “an ongoing genocide”.
In an interview with TRT World, Sachs said that the tragic continuation of bloodshed in Gaza exposes the deep moral and institutional failure of the global order.
“The vast majority of humanity wants the war to stop and for there to be two states — a state of Palestine and a state of Israel,” Sachs said. “There are two countries that reject that — Israel itself, which aims to dominate the region and the Palestinians, and the United States, which has backed Israel almost without any exception during this period.”
Two years after the October 7 operation by Palestinian resistance group Hamas, Israel killed tens of thousands of Palestinians, mostly women and children, while much of Gaza lies in ruins.
Rights groups and UN agencies have repeatedly warned of famine and systemic destruction of civilian infrastructure.
Sachs said the catastrophe has reached genocidal proportions. “The result is an ongoing genocide — hundreds of thousands of people starving, some starving to death right now, and Israel continuing to kill the people of Palestine in shocking numbers day by day,” he said.
He blamed Washington for repeatedly obstructing UN efforts to end the war. “The US has blocked all resolutions in the UN Security Council that could have had the Council put this into effect,” Sachs noted. “So this must be put into effect by the UN General Assembly.”
A ‘colonial mindset’
Sachs also took aim at US President Donald Trump’s proposed Gaza ceasefire and peace plan, unveiled last week alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — a move that has drawn global attention and cautious support from several countries, including Türkiye.
While Trump’s 20-point plan to end the war in Gaza includes provisions for a ceasefire, humanitarian aid, prisoner exchange and the eventual disarmament of Hamas, Sachs warned that it reflects a “colonial mindset” rather than a genuine effort toward Palestinian self-determination.
“If you read it carefully, it has many good points, but it's also a very colonial document,” Sachs said. “In the end, Donald Trump wants to chair the committee to run Gaza. This is absurd.”
Trump’s plan also proposes the creation of a "Board of Peace," to be chaired by the US president himself. Trump told reporters that the board would also include "very distinguished leaders" from other countries – among them, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, the only individual explicitly named in the plan besides Trump.
The American academic rejected any notion of Western “tutelage” over Palestine, stressing that Palestinians are fully capable of governing themselves.
“The Palestinian people are very talented — there are professional Palestinians all over the world. There does not need to be a period of tutelage by Western colonial powers — still less Tony Blair, for heaven’s sake, to sit on a board to run Palestine,” Sachs said.
He instead called for immediate recognition and establishment of an independent Palestinian state, “governed by the Palestinian people, living in peace side by side with Israel.”
Türkiye’s ‘skillful diplomacy’ praised
Immediately after the announcement of the Gaza peace plan last Monday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan commended Trump’s diplomatic initiative “aimed at halting the bloodshed in Gaza and achieving a ceasefire,” stressing that Ankara “will continue to support the process aimed at achieving a just and lasting peace acceptable to all parties.”
However, during a phone call with Trump on Friday, Erdogan cautioned that cessation of Israeli attacks remains crucial for any genuine efforts to achieve peace in the region.
Analysts note that Erdogan’s endorsement of Trump’s ceasefire plan does not imply approval of its colonial undertones — a concern echoed by Sachs and many voices across the Global South.
Sachs’ remarks, in fact, reinforce Türkiye’s position as an “independent power” advocating for “equitable peace and justice,” rather than a passive participant in Western-led frameworks.
A long-time advocate for multipolar cooperation and UN reform, Sachs praised Türkiye’s growing global influence and diplomatic role — particularly in mediating conflicts such as Ukraine and Gaza.
“Türkiye is an extremely important country,” Sachs said. “President Erdogan has a very important voice in world affairs and a very important voice in global diplomacy.”
Citing Ankara’s past mediation in the Ukraine-Russia peace talks, Sachs credited Türkiye for its “skilful diplomacy” and said that peace might have been achieved years earlier had Washington not blocked the process.
“With the Ukraine war, for example, it was Türkiye which hosted the negotiations between Ukraine and Russia and did so very skillfully — until the United States blocked those negotiations. Had the United States not blocked them, there would have been peace in Ukraine already, more than three years ago,” he said.
He added that Türkiye “plays a major role in trying to end this current disaster of Israel’s war on Gaza,” underscoring Ankara’s extensive regional and global connections.
