The man-made famine in Gaza has triggered a global moral reckoning,
stripping away diplomatic pretenses and exposing the complicity of
Western governments in a live-streamed genocide.
And yet, the dam of impunity is breaking. This massive, two-year investment in censorship, intimidation, and propaganda
is failing. We are seeing the cracks emerge in the very foundations of
the Western power structure that enabled this catastrophe.
In the Netherlands, an entire political party resigned from the government over its country’s complicity. In the United States, town halls with elected officials are routinely disrupted
by constituents demanding an end to the slaughter. Global public
opinion has turned decisively, with millions recognising the actions of
the Israeli state for what they are: a moral abomination. People hate
Israel more and more, and who can blame them? How many images of
murdered children can one see without feeling a visceral revulsion for
the power that killed them? This transcends religion, nationality, or
creed. It is a universal response to unconscionable cruelty.
The architects of this terror are being stripped bare. The International Criminal Court has sought arrest warrants
for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav
Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Their attempts to
deflect, such as equating accusations of starvation to medieval blood libel,
represent a new nadir in brazen deception. Netanyahu mobilises the
oldest antisemitic tropes to defend a modern genocide, all while the
world watches Israel block aid trucks and snipers firing at civilians
seeking food. This is the reality that the governments of the United
States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and France continue to defend with
every diplomatic shield and weapons shipment.
Their entire foreign policy apparatus has, for months, been singularly
devoted to this defence. They have become, in effect, not national
governments but agencies for aiding and abetting a foreign power’s
campaign of extermination.
This complicity has catalysed a global resistance. From historic demonstrations in Australia that shook the political establishment to European nations being forced into hypocritical
but symbolic recognition of Palestinian statehood, the pressure is
building. The lie of unwavering Western moral authority has been
exposed. The fantasy of limitless American power has been
punctured—unable to defeat the resilience of Yemen and forced to back
down from confrontations with Iran. This check on Western expansionism
has created the precious space for this global opposition to grow.
Without it, a successful war of conquest could have crushed dissent for a
generation, solidifying a techno-fascist order.
We must choose to support the Palestinians and their right to
resistance. We must boycott, divest, and sanction the Zionist entity and
its backers. We must take to the streets and make our voices heard in
every forum. The darkness is deepest before the dawn. The struggle of
the Palestinian people is the front line in the global struggle against
settler colonialism and ethnic cleansing. Their victory will be a
victory for all oppressed people everywhere.
Finally, we must confront the profound tragedy Zionism has inflicted
upon Judaism itself. While the primary victims are, and always will be,
the Palestinian people, Zionism has also destroyed Jewish identity from
within. For millennia, to be Jewish was a rich tapestry of pluralistic
identities. One could be a German Jew, an Iraqi Jew, a Russian Jew—fully
invested in the cultural and political life of their homeland while
maintaining their religious and ethnic heritage.
Zionism shattered this plurality. It politicised Judaism, colonising
it with a single, Draconian imperative: unconditional loyalty to the
state of Israel. It declared every Jew everywhere a citizen of this
political project, stripping them of the freedom to define their own
identity. Today, to be Jewish is to be presented with a horrific false
choice: either stand with Netanyahu, the bombs, and the starvation, or
be cast out. The rich, diverse, and liberal traditions of Jewish life
have been suffocated by a cruel and psychopathic political ideology.
What should Jews make of their ethical tradition today when it cannot
prevent a Jewish state from committing genocide? How many will lose
their faith because of what Israel is doing in Gaza and the West Bank?
Jews did this to themselves, trading a millennia of complex identity for
a rigid, colonial loyalty.
The UN’s famine declaration is a tombstone for the era of denial. It
is the undeniable truth that now sits in the inbox of every world
leader. The masks are off. The evidence is irrefutable. The question
history will ask is no longer “What happened?” but “What did you do when
you knew?”
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