The Palestinian issue is the main question that we must return to to understand the collapse of the international regime.
He added during his hosting in episode (6/2025/23) of the “Gray Zone” series that the fact that the United States used the right to veto (veto) against an countless number of decisions that condemn the violation of international humanitarian law, whether it is in relation to the Israeli apartheid system or war crimes and genocide that we are witnessing today, it shows that it is unreasonable that such matters occur in the 21st century.
De Silva has participated in making the most sensitive decisions in the past decades, and has a deep experience in resolving conflicts from his personal experience in the Sri Lankan Civil War, in addition to his work in Northern Ireland, all the way to his position in the executive office of Kofi Annan.
He explained that his criticism of the international regime is not just a theoretical criticism, but rather stems from a practical experience he lived in himself. When he talks about Palestine as a settlement colony that was created with the support of Europeans and Americans, it puts this situation in a wider context of erosion of the rules of international humanitarian law that reached today to the point of complete collapse.
According to the advisor, the Security Council, which was established in the aftermath of World War II, was based on the idea that the permanent organic countries represent the good who will take over the affairs of the world within an international system based on laws.
But the reality today is completely different, as it shows that two members of the permanent members, Russia and the United States, have deviated from the agreed context, which made the Security Council inappropriately.
The invasion of Iraq
He set an example of an experience of invading Iraq in 2003, whose details lived from within the United Nations offices, and witnessed how fateful decisions are taken, which, according to his opinion, show how American pressure mechanisms work on the United Nations.
De Silva recalled how he and his wife were summoned to the American Military Academy in West Point after the events of September 11, where he witnessed a meeting with General Wayne Downing, anti -terrorist adviser to former President George W. Bush.
At that meeting, General Downing clearly said that Iraq has nothing to do with the September 11 attacks and anticipate all the chaos that prevailed in Iraq and the entire Middle East.
The advisor pointed to the transformation that occurred in the philosophy of the United Nations since the late 1990s, as the focus has changed from preventing crises to its management, a transformation that has left profound effects on understanding how the international system dealt with chronic issues such as Palestine.
This means that the United Nations does not prevent conflicts, but only runs them, which requires constantly pumping more resources, so the complexities accumulate and do not solve problems, especially in deeper divided societies.
Regarding the Needo of the United Nations, de Silva pointed out that the organization was hacked by damaged foreign intelligence services, and he narrated how one of his German directors told him that the German mission asked him to inform him that he was talking a lot on the phone.
He also explained that there is an intense intelligence activity in the square kilometers surrounding the United Nations building with regard to electronic listening.
Regarding the opportunities to bring peace, the counselor emphasized that peace is not just the absence of war, but rather the presence of justice, which is a definition of special importance in the Palestinian context, where there can be an apparent peace in the absence of direct war, but without real justice for the Palestinian people.
He added that real justice is rarely comfortable for influential people, which explains the resistance facing any serious attempt to achieve real justice in Palestine.
23/6/2025