The current state of the world is a tragic manifestation of history repeating itself, echoing the famous phrase: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
In 1919, at the end of World War I, the victorious powers – Britain, France, Italy, the United States and Japan – met for the Paris Peace Conference, which resulted in the Treaty of Versailles and created the League of Nations, heralding a new era in international relations.
The latter’s primary objective, as stated in its 26-article pact, was to promote peace, prevent the recurrence of global conflicts, and ensure collective security through negotiation and diplomacy.
The League of Nations was initially run by an executive council composed of representatives of the four victorious countries: Britain, France, Italy and Japan. Germany, defeated in the war, became a permanent member in 1926, but withdrew alongside Japan in 1933.
The League of Nations failed spectacularly in achieving its founding goals, eventually declaring its own demise on April 20, 1946. It proved incapable of solving international problems or imposing its authority on nations. For example, it could not prevent Japan from invading the Chinese region of Manchuria in 1931 or stop Italy from attacking Ethiopia in 1935. Most importantly, it could not prevent the outbreak of World War II. It was too weak to contain growing and conflicting colonial interests.
Another group of victors from another world war held another assembly, this time in San Francisco, on June 25-26, 1945. There they laid out their interests and once again enshrined them in practical and institutional terms, with the aim of preventing a repetition of the horrors of World War II, which cost the lives of 40 million civilians and 20 million military personnel, nearly half of them in the Soviet Union.
Their goal was to ensure international peace and security and to foster cooperation among nations. The delegates adopted the United Nations Charter, establishing new rules for governing the postwar world.
The irony is that the same “civilized” victors who championed freedom and humanity by establishing the New World Order in San Francisco were themselves occupying half the world at that time, wreaking havoc in Algeria, India, Vietnam, Palestine and many other countries. They turned the charter, from its inception, into a tool of new colonialism, protecting and defending their interests with extreme arrogance.
They demanded that other nations respect the charter according to their will, transforming it into a selective criterion imposed on peoples, liberation movements and states to measure their conduct in the defense of their interests, their existence, their sovereignty and their rights.
The major powers could then label smaller nations or popular movements as rogue entities and threats to peace and security, or as defenders of these values. They would then send them either to hell or to heaven, to suffer military and “humanitarian” interventions and economic sanctions, or to “stability” and “international cooperation.”
The ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip and the rest of the Palestinian territory exposes these fault lines. At the time of writing, the number of martyrs killed by the Israeli occupation forces in the Gaza Strip exceeded 38,000 Palestinians, more than half of whom were children and women. There were more than 80,000 wounded.
Entire families have been wiped out by Israeli bombs. Nearly 80 percent of the neighborhoods and homes in the Gaza Strip have been destroyed, and nine out of ten people have been displaced from their homes more than once. We have reached a point where time is measured in the bodies of children.
According to an article published by the prestigious medical journal The Lancet, the real death toll in Gaza could be as high as 186,000. These deaths are caused directly by the indiscriminate bombing and shelling by the Israeli occupation forces or indirectly by starvation, the blocking of medicine supplies, the destruction of medical facilities, sewage treatment plants and drinking water stations, and the spread of diseases. This figure represents 8% of the population of the Gaza Strip. This would be equivalent to the deaths of 27,000,000 Americans, 5,400,000 Britons or 6,600,000 Germans.
This mass death is occurring under the watchful eye of the “civilized” world, the victors of World War II who swore never to repeat genocide or wars – the very same ones who dominate the UN Security Council.
It is imperative that we stop turning a blind eye and calling things by their name. At best, this is a terrible conspiracy of silence, which in itself gives Israel the right to kill; at worst, it is active participation and complicity through the continued supply of weapons used by the occupying state to exterminate civilians.
All this is happening under the pretext of justifying “Israel’s right to defend itself.” It is nothing less than an assassination of the truth. As the philosopher Ahmed Barqawi says, those who assassinate the truth know that it is the truth but deny it, distort it, or fabricate a contradictory and non-existent “truth.” The most dangerous aspect of this assassination of the truth is that it enables the genocide and all the other crimes committed in Palestine.
It is not surprising that the West facilitates genocide, given the role its white supremacy has played in genocides around the world, including in Rwanda, Bosnia, and against Jews in Europe. This sense of white superiority has fueled the most egregious violations of international law and the most heinous war crimes and crimes against humanity in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Panama, Cuba, and elsewhere.
In Palestine, too, white supremacy is leading the charge. Many in the Western world follow the writings of the Anglo-American historian Bernard Lewis, who sees the world divided between the “superior” Judeo-Christian culture, which is supposed to engender civilization and rationality, and the inferior, Eastern Islamic culture, which is supposed to engender terrorism, destruction and underdevelopment.
This false dichotomy deprives the peoples of the Islamic world and the East – young and old, men and women – of any human attributes and reduces them to a “human surplus” and a “human burden.” This perspective explains the barbaric and complicit behavior of Western countries in the ongoing crimes against the Palestinian people.
Beyond the exposure of white supremacy, what is happening in Gaza also testifies to the degradation of a civilization that claims to uphold humanity, justice and reason. The failure to apply the rules of justice and accountability not only confirms the double standards and hypocrisy of the West, but also the decline of the order established by the victors of World War II, as it fails to end the bloodshed, genocide, injustice and exploitation in Palestine and the rest of the world.
Indeed, the order established after World War II, governed by narrow national interests, the monopolization of decisions and the subjugation of small nations, has neither maintained security nor peace. On the contrary, it has contributed to the spread of wars, crimes, famine, poverty and racism to a level unprecedented in human history, bringing the world to the brink of a world war that could leave behind massive devastation and death.
This declining system has prevented countries with significant civilizational weight and notable contributions to stability, peace and international cooperation, such as India, Egypt and Brazil, from becoming permanent members and playing a leading role in international affairs.
This declining system has deprived the diverse and changing world of its right to strive for a more just, balanced and reasonable order, governed by equitable relationships that establish peace and international cooperation based on the rejection of wars, occupations and exploitation, and on respect for human dignity, human rights and justice.
This state of affairs has brought us to a dangerous crossroads: either we seek justice for all, or we succumb to the law of the jungle; either we establish cooperation based on equality, respect for sovereignty and the right to self-determination, or we fall into racial and cultural supremacy, injustice and exploitation.
Just as the League of Nations failed, the United Nations is failing. The current situation demands a change in the world system to a more just one that takes into account all, treats nations equally, preserves world peace and strengthens international cooperation. It must seek to unite the diverse cultures that enrich human life and existence, not to divide us into good and bad cultures and foster false existential conflicts.
A version of this article was originally published on Tel Aviv Tribune Arabic.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Tel Aviv Tribune.
