Those who purport to lead and speak for the western world seem to be breaking their disgraceful silence 18 months after the onset of the Zionist state鈥檚 primitive savagery, writes Patrick Lawrence
A COUPLE of weeks after Israel began its campaign of terror in Gaza two Octobers ago, a journalist and novelist named Omar El Akkad published a note on X, formerly known as Twitter, that has stayed with me ever since:
Pure pith, if you ask me, a trespass onto that forbidden land where humanity鈥檚 taboos are ignored and acid truths openly articulated.
El Akkad, an Egyptian by birth who has lived, reported and written in Canada the whole of his adult life, already had some honored novels to his credit 鈥� American War, 2017, and What Strange Paradise, 2021 鈥� by the time he offered the above observation.
This past winter he published his bitter reflections on Gaza and the West鈥檚 hypocrisies thereupon under the title One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This. The thought altogether merits the recycle, digital media message to hard covers.
I have wondered lately whether the day El Akkad anticipates with raw indignation may be hard upon us. Those who purport to lead and speak for the Western world 鈥� parliamentarians, senior foreign policy people, various corporate media 鈥� seem to be breaking their disgraceful silence 18 months after they ought to have spoken up in condemnation of the Zionist state鈥檚 primitive savagery.
There is a great, often untraversed distance between words and action, what is said and what is done, in our post-democracies. So I cannot usefully speculate where these recent expressions of outrage, confessions of error and misplaced sympathies prominent among them, will lead. Turns in sentiment, however, nearly always precede turns in policy and conduct. Anyone who lived through the Vietnam war years knows this.
I have suspected from the earliest days of the Israeli military鈥檚 real-time barbarities that 鈥榯he Jewish state鈥� was bound to overplay its hand at some point. The rest of the world can take only so much pretending that the murder spree in Gaza is a Biblically authorised war against 鈥� How does this work? 鈥� the descendants of those phantom, Jew-hating clans known as Amalekites. The Zionist project is at bottom an attempt to make the modern world recognise invocations of ancient wars of revenge, annihilation and race-paranoia, whether or not they ever took place, as legitimising unspeakable horrors in the third decade of the 21st century. Sooner or later, I figured, the rational would prevail over the imaginary and mythological 鈥� Athens, as the scholars think of it, over Jerusalem.
Has this moment come at last? Good enough it is worth posing the question. A highly significant emergency session of the UN Security Council on May 13 suggests that the west鈥檚 unconscionable support for Israeli terrorism now wears very thin. So does a marked turn toward plain-spoken truths about Gaza in some Western media. (And how novel is this?) We also begin to hear a few disavowals coming from political figures who have until now defended the indefensible. There is often a danger of over-interpretation in times such as these, but a shift of sentiment seems to me in the offing, if it has not already arrived.
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Shifting winds
THE chronology of events, easily enough read, indicates that Israel crossed its bridge too far in early March, when it was step-by-step betraying the phased ceasefire agreement it had entered upon in January. On March 2, the Netanyahu government announced that it would block all humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip. On March 18, the Israeli military resumed its bombing campaign, marking a decisive breach of its recent commitment.
Blockades and bombs are hardly new to the Palestinians of Gaza. But this time the terrorist state declared its intention to escalate the violence beyond the previous 16 months, until all remaining hostages were released and Hamas was eliminated. This is to be totalised extermination just as we can read of it in Deuteronomy, Samuel and Chronicles 鈥� or in any good history of the Reich, I will add. By early April, when the World Food Program announced it was running out of food stocks, it was clear we were witnessing a campaign of savagery that simply has no limits.
My first intimation that the winds were shifting, if I did not miss an earlier sign, came by way of an editorial in The Economist, published April 9 under the headline, 鈥業srael is intent on destroying Gaza.鈥� Shockingly honest, I recall thinking 鈥� most unlike The Economist in these sorts of matters. Ever the Atlanticists, the British weekly鈥檚 editors looked to President Donald Trump to avert a disaster no one could gloss or justify and expect to be taken seriously. 鈥楾he outlook is bleak,鈥� they wrote. 鈥榃ithout pressure from him, it is hard to see anything else that could prevent Israel鈥檚 final destruction of Gaza.鈥�
A month later we have had a flood of media reports and official statements in this line. As other commentators have noted, the Financial Times published a blistering editorial on May 6 鈥� signed by the editorial board, a measure of its gravitas 鈥� under the headline, 鈥楾he west鈥檚 shameful silence on Gaza.鈥� Wow, the FT no less. After noting Israel鈥檚 post-ceasefire blockade of water, food, medicine and all other forms of humanitarian aid, the prominent British daily levels this one at the west鈥檚 leaders:
鈥樷�� the US and European countries that tout Israel as an ally that shares their values have issued barely a word of condemnation. They should be ashamed of their silence, and stop enabling Netanyahu to act with impunity.鈥�
Further on, the FT recites the mess Trump has made with his incoherent policies and somersaults 鈥� Gaza as a luxury resort, support for the ceasefire, dispensation to breach it, all the while more weapons. And then this conclusion:
鈥楾he global tumult triggered by Trump has already distracted attention from the catastrophe in Gaza. Yet the longer it goes on, the more those who remain silent or cowed from speaking out will be complicit.鈥�
Total destruction, shame, complicity: Let us all listen intently now that mainstream media are saying what independent media have been saying the whole of this crisis.
Last weekend the liberal Independent published its own editorial, 鈥楨nd the deafening war on Gaza 鈥� it is time to speak up.鈥� A snippet here:
鈥業t is time for the world to wake up to what is happening and to demand an end to the suffering of the Palestinians trapped in the enclave.鈥�
And, a day later, The Guardian stepped forthrightly up to the plate with 鈥楾he Guardian view on Gaza: Trump can stop this horror. The alternative is unthinkable.鈥� 鈥榃hat is this, if not genocidal?鈥� the paper鈥檚 editors ask. 鈥榃hen will the US and its allies act to stop the horror, if not now?鈥�
The horror, the horror: The mind goes back to Joseph Conrad鈥檚 Heart of Darkness, exactly as it should: Bibi Netanyahu as Kurtz, the Zionist project as the true face of western 鈥榗ivilisation.鈥�
You get some herd instinct among mainstream media when touchy questions of ideology and geopolitics arise, as I have seen in years gone by at very close range. And as you will have noted, the recent outpouring of media outrage has been confined mostly to the British press. Of this kind of thing there has been nothing in the Zionist-supervised New York Times and very rarely anywhere else in mainstream American media. This is the Israeli lobby at work, to state what ought to be obvious.
The same holds for the political figures who have at last broken the silence.
Josep Borrell, the blunt-spoken Spaniard who previously served as the European Union鈥檚 foreign policy director, said at a May 9 award ceremony in Spain (as quoted in the New Arab):
鈥榃e鈥檙e facing the largest ethnic cleansing operation since the end of the Second World War in order to create a splendid holiday destination once all the millions of tonnes of rubble have been cleared from Gaza and the Palestinians have died or gone away.鈥�
Mark Pritchard, a Tory MP, addressing the House of Commons last week:
鈥楩or many years 鈥� I鈥檝e been in this House 20 years 鈥� I have supported Israel pretty much at all costs, quite frankly. But today, I want to say that I got it wrong and I condemn Israel for what it is doing to the Palestinian people in Gaza and indeed in the West Bank, and I鈥檇 like to withdraw my support right now for the actions of Israel, what they are doing right now in Gaza鈥�. I鈥檓 really concerned that this is a moment in history when people look back, where we鈥檝e got it wrong as a country.鈥�
I hope Omar El Akkad is listening to all this up there in Toronto.
All this suddenly seems prelude as of Tuesday, when the Security Council met in the aforementioned emergency session at the Secretariat in New York to consider a reality no amount of 鈥榬ight-to-defend-itself鈥� nonsense can be deployed to explain.
Israel has brought the 2.2 million residents of the Strip to the brink of mass starvation, dehydration and disease. Photographs, videotape and press reports coming from those courageous journalists still working inside Gaza are about to get a great deal more horrible than they have been these past many months.
There cannot be an attorney alive 鈥� apart from corrupt hacks at the State Department and elsewhere in Washington 鈥� who will not call the Israelis鈥� siege since March a war crime and a crime against humanity.
Suggesting the shifting sands in the West, it was Britain, France, Denmark and other members of the Atlantic alliance who asked the UNSC to convene.
Of the council鈥檚 15 members only the US 鈥� Does this go without saying? 鈥� refused to call upon the Zionist state urgently to lift its siege and allow aid flows to resume.
Bringing the point yet closer to home, the speaker who carried the session was Tom Fletcher, a long-serving British diplomat now serving as the UN鈥檚 under-secretary general for humanitarian affairs.
Fletcher鈥檚 impassioned speech is worth reading in full, and a transcript is here, provided by ReliefWeb, an online resource run by the UN鈥檚 coordinator for humanitarian affairs. I single out a few of his choicer remarks, those most suggestive of the broader shift in the winds that I describe:
鈥楲et me start with what we see and are mandated by this Council to report.
鈥業srael is deliberately and unashamedly imposing inhumane conditions on civilians in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
鈥楩or more than 10 weeks, nothing has entered Gaza 鈥� no food, medicine, water or tents. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have, again, been forcibly displaced and confined into ever-shrinking spaces, as 70 per cent of Gaza鈥檚 territory is either within Israeli-militarised zones or under displacement orders鈥�.
鈥楾his degradation of international law is corrosive and infectious. It is undermining decades of progress on rules to protect civilians from inhumanity and the violent and lawless among us who act with impunity.
鈥楬umanity, the law and reason must prevail. This Council must prevail. Demand this ends. Stop arming it. Insist on accountability.
鈥楾o the Israeli authorities: Stop killing and injuring civilians. Lift this brutal blockade. Let humanitarians save lives.
鈥楩or those killed and those whose voices are silenced: What more evidence do you need now? Will you act 鈥� decisively 鈥� to prevent genocide and to ensure respect for international humanitarian law? Or will you say instead, 鈥淲e did all we could?鈥濃��
Fletcher, who received unanimous support from UNSC members 鈥� again, we must leave out the Americans 鈥� reserved some of his sharpest criticisms for the US鈥揑sraeli plan to bypass all international humanitarian organisations and resume aid by way of private groups Washington and Tel Aviv are picturesquely calling the 鈥楪aza Humanitarian Foundation.鈥�
Distribution sites would be reduced from 400 to a very few. This would require Gazans to walk long distances to receive aid; Israeli military units would surround these sites and the routes leading to them.
The US representative at the session, Dorothy Shea, defended this plan 鈥� 鈥榃e urge the UN to continue discussions鈥� 鈥� as she declined to join the other 14 council members to call for Israel to end its illegal siege and let perfectly capable international aid organisations resume their work. Parenthetically, if you want to keep up with the depravities of the State Department under Marco Rubio, a transcript of Shea鈥檚 remarks will fix you right up. It is here.
And here is Fletcher on the US鈥揑sraeli plan:
鈥楩or anyone still pretending to be in any doubt, the Israeli-designed distribution modality is not the answer.
鈥業t practically excludes many, including people with disabilities, women, children, the elderly, the wounded. It forces further displacement. It exposes thousands of people to harm. It sets an unacceptable precedent for aid delivery not just in the OPT [the Occupied Palestinian Territories], but around the world.
鈥業t restricts aid to only one part of Gaza, while leaving other dire needs unmet. It makes aid conditional on political and military aims. It makes starvation a bargaining chip.
鈥業t is a cynical sideshow. A deliberate distraction. A fig leaf for further violence and displacement.
鈥業f any of that still matters, have no part in it.鈥�
There is one theme in Fletcher鈥檚 inspired comments that seems to me to reflect the emerging zeitgeist, if this is the right word, among the western powers 鈥� with the exception, once again, of the United States.
It makes me think again of Omar El Akkad鈥檚 point. It suggests that the price of not speaking out against the Zionist regime鈥檚 terrorism 鈥� the 鈥榩ersonal downside,鈥� as El Akkad puts it 鈥� now comes to outweigh the price of speaking out, as people of mediocre character would calculate these things.
I will let Tom Fletcher conclude this commentary:
鈥業 ask you to reflect 鈥� for a moment 鈥� on what action we will tell future generations we each took to stop the 21st century atrocity to which we bear daily witness in Gaza. It is a question we will hear, sometimes incredulous, sometimes furious 鈥� but always there 鈥� for the rest of our lives.
鈥榃e will surely all claim to have been against it? Maybe we will say we issued a statement? Or that we trusted that private pressure might work, despite so much evidence to the contrary?
鈥極r pretend that we thought a more brutal military offensive had more chance of bringing the hostages home than the negotiations which brought so many hostages home?
鈥楳aybe some will recall that in a transactional world we had other priorities.
Or maybe we will use those empty words: 鈥淲e did all we could.鈥濃��
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Consortiumnewd.com, May 20,听 Patrick Lawrence, a correspondent abroad for many years, chiefly for the International Herald Tribune, is a columnist, essayist, lecturer and author, most recently of Journalists and Their Shadows.
