Hamas' leadership were willing to "move toward an acceptance of Israel’s existence if Israel would in turn agree to move back to its 1967 borders". He called Israel's disengagement from Gaza a "sham" in which 300 Gazans were killed since Israel's "supposed physical departure" and stated that Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip had brought Gaza to "the brink of collective starvation", imposing a "sub-human existence on a people" through "collective punishment", and that Israeli policies were "indeed genocidal." In late December 2009, Falk again criticized Israel's blockade and called for Israel to be threatened with economic sanctions if the blockade was not lifted. In April 2008, Falk compared Israeli actions in Gaza to those of the Nazis and responded to criticism of his statements by saying, "If this kind of situation had existed for instance in the manner in which China was dealing with Tibet or the Sudanese government was dealing with Darfur, I think there would be no reluctance to make that comparison." He attributed the reluctance to criticise Israel's policies to the "particular historical sensitivity of the Jewish people", as well as Israel's ability to "avoid having [its] policies held up to international law and morality." At a conference in Cork, Ireland in late March 2017 entitled "International Law and the State of Israel: Legitimacy, Exceptionalism and Responsibility", Falk delivered the keynote address. He stated Israel's creation in 1948 was the result of the "most successful terrorist campaign in history". Falk stated that the initial campaign for a Jewish state was one of "colonialism" which gained "moral justification" from the Holocaust. He said "Liberal democracies felt guilt and it was easy to soothe their consciousness by encouraging and accepting the state of Israel". 2011 intervention in Libya During the 2011 Libyan Civil War, Falk published an op-ed in Al Jazeera against the proposals for military intervention. Falk wrote that military intervention was illegal under international law and that "the Gaddafi government, however distasteful on humanitarian grounds, remains the lawful diplomatic representative of a sovereign state." Falk also wrote that any intervention would be pro-insurgency rather than counter-insurgency, and he criticized politicians who supported intervention by arguing that "it seems that many of the Republicans focused on the deficit although cutting public expenditures punishes the poor at a time of widespread unemployment and home foreclosures would not mind ponying up countless billions to finance acts of war in