It is now clear that Israel is engaging in genocide of the Palestinian people. As Al Jazeera reports, the Israeli state has “relaxed” its rules of military engagement, essentially giving its soldiers the green light to kill anyone they encounter inside the Gaza Strip as part of their land operations. Israeli politicians and soldiers openly talk about turning Gaza into dust, eliminating Palestinians, and imagining Israeli settlers living in a land that was once called Gaza. Palestinians are deliberately deprived of all basic necessities, including food, water, shelter and medical care. Aerial bombs indiscriminately kill and maim Palestinians. Palestinians are encouraged to leave their lands and homes in northern Gaza and head south – Israel clearly wants to colonize northern Gaza and make it a security or military zone, permanently expelling the Palestinians currently living there .
Genocide scholars have consistently maintained that such mass atrocities are rarely the product of an “evil leader” or a “small extremist political class.” The terrifying reality of genocide is that it occurs with mass support, which either takes the form of active participation (direct and indirect) or complicity through silence.
I’m not sure we’ve ever seen a case of genocide supported by so many actors, openly and actively. The majority of institutions in North America, Western Europe and elsewhere are either actively participating in this genocide or are completely silent and therefore complicit.
For genocide to occur, two essential elements are necessary: the infrastructural and material capabilities necessary to carry out the genocide and the ability to cover up the genocide by calling it something other than what it is. The West participates in both of these critical elements.
In terms of material capabilities, the American empire sent not one, but two aircraft carriers to the region, and made it clear in word and deed that if any state or group attempted to enter the scene and help the Palestinians in their desperate attempt to survive Israel’s genocidal operation, that the United States will intervene with all its might. The United Kingdom also sent warships to support this Western imperial threat against the region’s populations. The United States sends military equipment and weapons to Israel, refusing to call for a ceasefire or de-escalation. Businesses and economic institutions provide financial support to Israel in the name of supporting Israeli victims, and are also reportedly offering financial incentives to Egypt, attempting to get it to welcome Palestinian refugees who will not be allowed to return to the country. Gaza strip. . Years of American and Western aid and support for Israel allowed Israel to develop the infrastructural capabilities necessary to carry out genocide.
In terms of cover-up, political, media, social and cultural institutions are fully mobilized in the West to hide and conceal this act of genocide, presenting it as righteous violence of a victimized Jewish people all over the world. Those who express support for Palestine in the West are threatened with job loss (and in fact lose their jobs), possible criminal charges and bans, as well as other punitive measures and harassment campaigns. The media continually and systematically sends the scandalous message that Hamas is responsible for the loss of Palestinian civilian life in the Gaza Strip, trying to wash its hands of the genocide. The Israeli operation is presented as a mission to “eliminate Hamas”, as opposed to what it really is: a genocide of the Palestinian people and their erasure from the map. The few voices that challenge these narratives are marginalized, silenced and downgraded.
In short, all established institutions in the West are mobilized, fully and coherently, right now to enable the genocide of the Palestinians, all under the guise of protecting “civilization” from “barbarism.”
As I write this, I fear what will happen. The suffering endured by the Palestinians so far is already unfathomable and very difficult to express in words. And what’s coming will be even worse.
At times like this, everything becomes clear. This has been clear to many of us for a long time, but now there is no longer any doubt. The imperial West is still firmly committed to the imperial project it launched against the world in the late 15th century. Yes, it has changed and transformed its methods, its tactics, its strategies and its apparatus of power and force. The actors have changed, some things have become more complex, others less. And so on. All these academic debates are important, but not right now. What is important right now is to say it clearly and loudly: the imperial West is determined to maintain its supremacy and will kill indiscriminately in order to achieve the only objective it has ever had, the only value he ever defended, power. and wealth.
The same imperial project that brutalized millions of black Africans, committed genocide against millions of indigenous peoples across the Americas, Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere, colonized Asia and Africa with brutality and an unfathomable force, destroyed countless societies full of complexity and beauty, massacred civilians in its imperial wars in places like Vietnam and Iraq, dropped atomic bombs on Japanese civilians, created a neocolonial economic infrastructure that is continually stealing from the majority of the world’s population, and I can go on and on, but this project is ongoing and nowhere right now is this more visible than in Palestine.
The world will never forget any of these brutalities and injustices. We will always remember our dead and our wounded; our suffering will always guide us in our actions and give us the impetus to create a better world.
The world is realizing that we do not live in an international system of nation-states, but in an imperial world order where the West reigns supreme; it is about recognizing that white supremacy is not only alive and well, but that it is an expression of the material conditions of our world; In short, the world sees how the Euro-American empire poses itself, with force and violence and by any means necessary, as lord of the world.
The world should understand that the only way to begin a serious movement out of this era of colonial modernity is to oust the states of Western Europe and North America, not people but states, from our lives political and economic all over the world.
People around the world must begin to opt out of this system that works primarily for Euro-American powers and political and economic elites around the world. Don’t do it just for Palestine, do it for your own good too. Do it for your dignity, your freedom and your humanity.
The people of Europe and North America can and must join us in creating this better world. But not unless they actively participate in dismantling the imperial global order that primarily benefits their political and economic elites. You too can and must join this courageous project of decolonization on an equal footing with the rest of the world, but never again as lords of the world. For you, as for the Israeli people, joining the decolonization project is the only way to escape what history teaches is the inevitable fate of all overlords, namely their eventual violent replacement by new overlords.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.
