Introduction:
Prosecution of war, wherever it prevails, creates distortions of various kinds, especially human miseries, destruction of health facilities, including socio-economic infrastructural systems that promote dignified and humane sustenance for peoples and society. The sordid images and miserable human sufferings which characterise the Gazan war, have been streaming across television sets and social media platforms about the carnage and genocidal killings of children, women and elderly people. With that background, this blogpost examines the glamour displayed by Netanyahu in committing genocidal acts against Gazans; the brazen cowardice demonstrated by the international community to rebuke Netanyahu; and, the utter silence among key stakeholders to speak out and hold Netanyahu and his Israel Defence Force (IDF) to account.
Glamourising Human Miseries in the Gaza-Lebanon Conflicts
Despite copious histories tracing the Israeli-Palestinian conflicts to1967 and the role played by the Balfour Declaration as part of the antecedents to the ensuing conflicts, geo-political expediencies coupled with endemic biases against Palestinians induced some presidents, prime ministers and heads of government in the western states to peg October 7, 2023 as the genesis of the Gazan debacle. Without delving into the nuances of this debate, it is astonishing for those with expertise in the substantive politics and history of the Middle-East, that arguments fixing 7 October 2023 as the main cause of the conflict is pedestrian and redundant. However, with a firm backing of the USA, UK, Germany, France and other spineless European states, Netanyahu has been emboldened to defy judgment of the international Court of Justice (ICJ) ordering it to stop its genocidal and human rights abuses against the people of Gaza, majority of whom are children, women and elderly people. Also, Netanyahu has issued orders banning the United Nations’ Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, from entering/visiting Israel or Lebanon as well as attacking United Nations Peacekeeping Forces (UNIFIL) in parts of Lebanon. Furthermore, on 10th November 2024, CNN confirmed that Netanyahu has accepted responsibility for initiating the pager attack which killed civilians and destroyed medical facilities in the country in Lebanon. The frustration among the general public is that how can Israel- a small country in the Middle-East- wield and arrogate to itself extensive power and flaunt it in a glamourous fashion while perpetrating genocide and human rights abuses without impunity.
Simply, the international community comprises member states of the United Nations (UN) of which Israel, US, UK, Germany, France, African states, Asian states, Latin American states, Caribbean states and Middle-East, among other substantive members. Yet with the exception of Barbados, Spain, Ireland, South Africa and some statesmen and academics who openly criticise Israel’s dastard action in Gaza are labelled as antisemitic; while majority of the international community are silent and substantively numbed into submission in the face of these heinous crimes. The continuous killings of children, women and elderly people, together with the bombardments of civilians and socio-economic facilities, gravely dehumanise the Gazans by laying the foundation for their perpetual extinction as genocidal acts. Considering the Lancet (British Academic Journal)’s condemnations of the IDF’s killing of 49,000 people in Gaza; there were insistent criticisms by some western states against Ann Sun Su Ki’s house arrest; Slobodan Milosevic’s threatened action against ethnic Albanian Kosovar as well as Saddam Hussain’s invasion of Kuwait in 1991. Yet, the passivity and indifference shown by the international community in Gaza’s tragedy betrays cowardice and insensitivity towards the people. With “antisemitism” and “self-defence” principles being weaponised by Netanyahu and ably supported by the US, UK, some European states and AIPAC, people holding dissenting views about Israel’s carnage as well as criticise its destructive activities in in Gaza are branded as security threat.
Silencing International Community
With political expediency and determination to silence moral and opposing voices against Israel’s carnage and genocidal acts in Gaza, President Biden, Premier Keir Stammer, President Macron and Olaf Scholtz among a host of European leaders, continue to support and defend Netanyahu’s genocidal acts and carnage in Gaza and by extension parts of Lebanon, recently. Being enslaved by their self-seeking political interests and sheepishly cowed by the influences of America-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), members of the US Senate and Congress, parliamentarians of the Conservative and Labour parties, coupled with their counterparts in Europe, have abdicated their senses of morality, independent judgement and moral compass to speak out against the inhumane miseries unfolding in Gaza. While Biden and his cronies in the US government and other European states act unconscionably and immorally with supplies of arms to help Israel perpetrate evil deeds in Gaza; people and institutions with humane, moral and patriotic dispositions are silenced to speak out against the miseries of Gazans. For example, Jeremy Corbyn, Bernie Saunders, George Galloway, Medi Hasaan, General McGregor, Jeffrey Sachs, Scott Ritter and Elon Pappe and many others are branded as unpatriotic and antisemitic for speaking out against Isarel’s genocidal acts in Gaza. What distinguishes those moral voices from the silent majority is that despite their human limitations, they recognise the need to speak out against blatant evils committed against Gazans. The silence is palpable disingenuous, deceitful and immoral strategy deployed by western governments to silence moral and patriotic voices against the unfolding carnage in Gaza. Furthermore, the United Nations (UN) with its specialised organs such as the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), United Nations Interim Force In Lebanon (UNIFIL), and other non-governmental organisations, like the Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Red Cross and International Rescue Committee have all been cowed by Netanyahu into silence and often prevented from working to support the needy, injured and maimed. These dehumanising strategies of Netanyahu, which are silently supported by the US and other European states have resulted in stifling voices of reason and numbing the conscience of the international community to cowardly turn a blind eye to the gross sufferings of the Gazans. Although few heads of states – President of Barbados, King of Jordan and President of South Africa, at the September 2024 UN General Assembly, spoke out against Israel’s genocidal acts in Gaza as well as called on the General Assembly to accept Palestine into the United Nations. However, Israel’s Netanyahu has managed with the help of AIPAC to tie the hands of the Biden’s administration and successive US governments’ at their back and confidently converted them as allies and public relations officers to do his bidding unhinged. These developments not only shock human conscience but also mirror the weakness and loss of moral compass among political leaderships across the Atlantic.
Final Remarks
The deafening silence of the international community coupled with intimidating strategies adopted by Biden, Keir Stammer, Macron, Olaf Scholtz and other western leaders to numb moral and conscientious voices speaking against Israel’s genocidal acts in Gaza, betray an international community on the cusp of losing importance in global politics. Similarly, the continuous supply of arms, miliary equipment, intelligence and personnel to support Israel’s carnage in Gaza, which is extended to Lebanon; strengthen and embolden Israel to snub the ICJ’s ruling, the Lancet’s publication of human deaths in Gaza and the UN’s criticisms and proposition for peace and reconciliation of the conflict in Gaza. With explicit collaborations among government agencies and some universities to ban open debates, arguments, dissenting opinions and demonstrations against the crisis in Gaza, it suffices to suggest that open and freedom of discussion which generate novel solutions to problems at the international and national levels are stymied, and that is plaquing the international community with respect to Gaza’s crisis.
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