Mohd Iqbal
A MOTHER, watching on her phone the video of her child killed days earlier in an Israeli strike, breaks down in tears and says, “Had this deal (peace accord brokered by the United States) been made a few days earlier, it would have brought me happiness instead.”
The world has been witnessing, for the past two years, the horrifying death of humanity and morality in Gaza at the hands of the marauding Israeli forces. The question of morality has undoubtedly become central to international relations today—and as people everywhere begin to see and understand events through social media and other means, this question will only assume more significance.
If we look half a century ahead, every event will be more visible and documented than ever before. Crimes against humanity—like genocide and ethnic cleansing—will become impossible to deny. The Gaza crisis created by human actions—of which the grief of that mother above is but one example—has engulfed countless families. Infants, children, and adults alike have perished in Israeli strikes. Official estimates suggest that more than 71,000 Gazans, most of them women and children, have been killed, while nearly a million others have been injured, many deprived of even basic medical care.
This development is not merely a tragedy but a collective failure of eight billion human beings who allowed it to happen. It is a betrayal of those who uphold the principles of human rights, democracy, equality, and justice. The silence, evasive responses, and diplomatic doublespeak of powerful international institutions and governments—and their refusal to impose sanctions or stop military aid to the colonial aggressor—have only deepened the wounds of this humanitarian disaster. Before signing the peace agreement, President Donald Trump addressed the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, stating, “Bibi [Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu] kept asking for weapons, and I kept approving them. There were even some weapons I hadn’t heard about, but the people to use them were already in Israel.” This statement is absurd and deeply shameful.
Power Politics
The Gaza crisis and the atrocities in the West Bank are products of deliberate historical acts. The British government’s Balfour Declaration brought this region into perpetual conflict. In 1948, the United States and Britain, through the United Nations, manipulated and coerced several countries with monetary incentives and threats to declare Israel a sovereign state—by sheer power politics. Even before that, Britain had allowed Jewish immigration and land purchase in Palestine, enabling the creation of militias that began driving Palestinians out of their homes. Just after Israel’s establishment, more than 750,000 Palestinians were displaced in 1948 because of Zionist militias—creating a vast refugee crisis. This event in Middle Eastern history is known as Nakba, meaning “Catastrophe”. The story continued beyond that point. In 1967, under Egypt’s leadership, Arab states’ defeat led to Israel’s occupation of Gaza and the West Bank and its illegal control over Syria’s Golan Heights and Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. The Six-Day War of 1967 expanded Israeli settlements in the West Bank, gradually eroding Palestinian autonomy and making their livelihood entirely dependent on foreign aid.
Since 2007, Israel has exercised control over Gaza’s land, air, and sea—the Gaza Blockade—effectively turning the region into an open-air prison. Repeated UN and WHO reports warned that Gaza would become unliveable by 2020 due to food insecurity, contaminated water, and lack of medical services. Today, Gaza’s entire infrastructure stands destroyed by Israeli bombardment. There are no functioning hospitals, no schools left to study in, and no mosques to pray in. Reports indicate that more than 90% of Gaza’s homes and basic infrastructure have been obliterated, rendering it uninhabitable. Its reconstruction remains uncertain, while Israel continues to prevent aid from reaching northern Gaza—the area most affected by famine and starvation—a blatant violation of the ceasefire terms.
Netanyahu’s Survival Fight
International scholars and analysts argue that Prime Minister Netanyahu orchestrated this devastation to save himself from corruption charges and to maintain his fragile coalition government. He has allied with far-right radical groups that openly advocate the expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank and even propose exterminating them through nuclear attacks. Some of these extremists consider Palestinians to be “human beasts”. Under threat of losing this far-right support, Netanyahu deliberately blocked food, water, and medical access to Gaza.
The UN, WHO, and numerous NGO reports have repeatedly confirmed famine-like conditions in Gaza. On one hand, children are dying from bombs; on the other, they are dying from hunger. The number of deaths due to starvation has reached 440, including 147 children. Under the Geneva Conventions, starving civilians as a weapon of war is explicitly forbidden. Yet Israel ignores these laws because it enjoys American protection, heavily influenced by the Jewish lobby in the United States—notably AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee). Historian Ilan Pappé, in his book Lobbying for Zionism on Both Sides of the Atlantic, has documented this influence thoroughly.
Muslim nations, governed by pseudo-democracies or entrenched monarchies that have ruthlessly suppressed the rights of their citizens, are equally complicit in Israeli war crimes. These regimes deny real representation to their people, fearing that acknowledging Hamas or other legitimate Palestinian voices could ignite rebellion for popular representation within their borders. Thus, their acceptance of Israel’s war crimes in Gaza and the West Bank makes them as responsible as the United States or Europe, which back Israel’s illegal actions. Let it be remembered: oppression may bring temporary peace, but never lasting stability. Real peace and stability require that the reins of power lie in the hands of true and independent representatives of the people.
Another dimension of complicity is Christian Zionism, which has fuelled Israel’s settler-colonial expansion. Christian Zionists believe that the sooner all Jews return to Israel, the sooner Jesus Christ will come again and redeem humankind. A substantial population in the US and Europe adheres to this belief. Even American politicians such as Pete Hegseth and Marco Rubio have propagated this ideology.
According to The New York Times, American digital multinationals—including Microsoft Azure—allegedly assisted Israel in surveillance activities. Thus, those who speak of privacy rights violated them, siding with Israel in war crimes and genocide. The 1948 UN Genocide Convention defines genocide as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group.” Could there be a more fitting description of what has happened—and continues to happen—in Gaza? Even the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has expressed concern over attacks carried out with genocidal intent. While several world leaders voiced condemnation, these turned out to be hollow gestures. Israel’s collective punishment of Palestinians constitutes crimes that cannot be excused as “self-defence”, for the disproportionate nature of Israeli attacks defies that justification entirely.
The way the mainstream Western media covered these attacks—using selective terminology—was a deliberate attempt to downplay the crisis. Instead of words like “occupation” or “genocide”, they used “conflict”, “clashes”, or “war”, often reporting “deaths in the fighting” rather than “deaths from Israeli attacks”. The framing equated a powerful military state with a small resistance group. Such linguistic manipulation served to distort moral judgement.
In contrast, social media became the real media—breaking censorship and amplifying Palestinian voices worldwide. Citizen journalism and documentation from the ground revealed the truth to the global audience, forcing even corporate media to acknowledge fragments of reality.
Complicity in Crimes
International and regional organisations—including the United Nations, the European Union, and the United States—responded to Israel’s assault with deliberate restraint and minimal urgency, revealing their complicity in Israel’s war crimes. The US veto politics in the UN Security Council highlighted a selective, not principled, approach to peace. Driven by guilt over the Holocaust, the US and leading European states armed Israel with lethal weapons used against Gaza’s civilians. They could have stopped the war from dragging on, yet they chose not to—granting Israel continued diplomatic cover to sustain aggression. When a few leaders finally called out Israel and Netanyahu—such as the UN Secretary-General remarking, “Hamas’s attack did not occur in a vacuum”—they faced harsh criticism from Israel and its allies for speaking the truth.
Unlike their governments, ordinary justice-seeking citizens across the world have stood up for truth through protests, campaigns, and movements. The Global Sumud Flotilla, for instance, symbolically challenged Israel’s maritime blockade on Gaza—a humanitarian signature in human history. Risking their lives, the participants vowed to deliver essential aid to Gaza’s deprived population. Although they could not succeed physically, they exposed Israel’s true face to the world and sent a message that war crimes and genocide are intolerable.
Global South populations, student movements, and solidarity campaigns around the world have distanced themselves from Israel’s crimes through their moral engagement. History bears witness that Palestinians—doctors, teachers, artists, journalists, and youth alike—have resisted Israeli occupation with unbroken resolve, sacrificing immensely, yet teaching the world that the oppressed must never kneel before tyranny.
The Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October 2023 cannot be justified. However, it did not occur suddenly or without cause. Its roots lie in the Zionist violence after World War I, followed by Israel’s decades-long oppression of the Palestinian people since 1948. Before Israel’s birth, Zionist militia wings were branded terrorists by the Ottoman Empire—yet those militias formed today’s IDF (Israel Defence Forces) foundation. Similarly, the groups now called “terrorists” by Israel—such as Hamas—are seen as heroes by Palestinians. At a practical level, the Palestinian struggle is unlikely to subside until the establishment of an independent and sovereign Palestinian state that ensures the people’s autonomous agency. Until such sovereignty is realised, the conflict will persist, as the dominant powers continue to manipulate regional instability in the Middle East to serve their strategic and geopolitical interests.
Prolonging Process of Free Palestine
The inclusion of a “Board of Peace” in the proposed peace framework appears less an instrument of resolution and more a mechanism to prolong the process of creating a genuinely free Palestinian state. Moreover, the European countries’ recognition of Palestine—without clearly defined borders, sovereign control, or authentic political leadership—constitutes not a substantive diplomatic move, but rather a symbolic gesture confined to rhetoric and bureaucratic formalities. This recognition, in fact, reflects Europe’s broader geopolitical calculus, particularly its desire to redirect global attention and expedite the resolution of the protracted war in Ukraine.
The hypocrisy of European diplomacy has thus become increasingly evident: while Europe vociferously advocates for peace in Ukraine, it maintains a cautious and ambivalent stance on Gaza. Hence, the European recognition of Palestine emerges not from good faith or moral conviction, but from strategic convenience and political self-interest. This raises a fundamental question: Has humanity become a hollow word in a world governed by interests? Has morality devolved into a mere academic concept—irrelevant to the real politics of our time?
The United Nations keeps holding meetings, and human rights organisations keep issuing statements, yet the machinery of mass killing continues unchecked. Today’s world lays bare its moral double standards. The same world that created laws to prevent genocide after the Holocaust now remains silent as a new genocide unfolds—broadcast live for all to see. It seems that international law was not written for the protection of the oppressed but for the preservation of the powerful. When the perpetrator enjoys the backing of a major power, legal principles mutate, verdicts are delayed, and crimes are justified under the guise of “the right to self-defence”.
Perhaps this generation will not be able to prevent this genocide, but it will remember it and hold it accountable before the courts of history and conscience. Just as the Nazi crimes were brought to account, one day the devastation in Gaza will also be reckoned with. For today, everything has been recorded—no one will be able to claim, ‘We did not know.‘
Moral Defeat
The silence of the world’s great democracies, most powerful nations, and most influential institutions is the greatest moral defeat of our age. History will remember—not only those who dropped the bombs, but also those who remained silent, ignoring the cries of hunger and blood intermingled.
The current Gaza ceasefire is merely the silence of guns, not of hunger or homelessness. The clauses of the so-called Gaza peace agreement lead not toward lasting peace but toward renewed conflict in the future. The essence remains—the powerful continue to oppress the weak, and in response, an antithesis is taking shape. What that antithesis will be, and who will embody it, remains to be seen. Those who once suffered the horror of genocide must pause to reflect before inflicting a new one.
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Mohd Iqbal is a research scholar at Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. The views expressed here are his own and Clarion India does not necessarily subscribe to them. He can be contacted at mohdiqbal7101@gmail.com
