- Yasir Ali Mirza
Source: Al Mayadeen English
Despite witnessing these atrocities, the leaders and officials of the Western governments are shamelessly supporting the Israeli war crimes and their narrative.
The well-coordinated Hamas operation was a huge blow to the myth of the Israeli security doctrine, an unprecedented event in the history of the protracted Arab-"Israel" conflict since 1948. The following day, Israeli Security Minister Yoav Gallant announced the complete siege by saying, “We’re fighting against human animals”, derogatory words he used for the Palestinians. He further explicitly revealed the Israeli regime’s intention to annihilate the civilian population by saying “Gaza will never go back to what it was”. In a renewed escalation, the Israeli leadership affirmed that this is going to be a full-scale and long-drawn war, supported and armed by the US and West European liberal democracies.
The massacre of the displaced civilians at the al-Ahli Arab Anglican Episcopal Hospital in Gaza is an unprecedented event that sent shockwaves across the globe. This heinous crime was executed moments after the Western countries vetoed the Russian resolution in the UN Security Council to halt the ferocious missile attacks.
Amid the raging bombardment of the densely populated Gaza Strip, the 1.1 million civilian residents of the northern part, half of whom are children, were ordered to evacuate the entire area to go down south. Many media reports emerged that Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) fighter jets are deliberately targeting civilians who are scrambling to find safe places within the blockaded territory. To maintain the psychological warfare in their favour, the Israeli military is more ruthless in its aggression. In this effort, the forceful displacement plan is a vicious tactic to occupy the land and inflict Nakba 2.0 on the Palestinian people and society. These orders are a grave violation of international laws, and amount to war crimes.
The apartheid Zionist regime is employing the tactics of Hitler’s Nazi forces. Russian President Vladimir Putin said that to besiege Gaza is on par with the siege of Leningrad during the Second World War. Netanyahu has revived the medieval practice of imposing a complete blockade of food, water, electricity, and even medical supplies and other humanitarian aid. His racist ministers, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, are shamelessly making fun of the human suffering, and are even openly distributing arms to the settlers. Adding to the despicability, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has confirmed that banned lethal white phosphorus munitions have also been fired. To put things into perspective, Western leaders had created much hue and cry over the unconfirmed use of the banned lethal weapons in Syria, but their deafening silence on Gaza is complicit in this act and is a blatant instance of betrayal.
With no end in sight, questions arise as to how much the Western nations are responsible for emboldening "Israel" and its expansionist plans in the Palestinian territories. The contentious issues of the right to return of Palestinian refugees was never implemented, even after the recognition of "Israel" and the “two-state solution” following the Oslo Accords in 1993.
The US-brokered historic treaty proved to be a huge strategic success for "Israel", whose Western allies never paid heed to the demand for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, and that resentment eventually emboldened the desire to liberate the occupied territories.
The Western media are also peddling the prevailing narrative to implicitly favour the Israeli effort to maneuver public opinion. These mainstream media outlets operating under the guise of neutrality are equally to blame for rationalising "Israel’s" killing spree and not calling their governments out to keep it from happening.
They do not care about innocent human lives and blatantly ignore the violations of the military offensive on the battlefields, where civilian casualties are soaring every passing day. In a few days of pounding on civilian infrastructure, the death toll has shockingly risen. Hospitals are on the verge of operational collapse. Distressing images are swirling on social media platforms that tell the story of a huge human catastrophe that is not being televised in Western mainstream media.
Showing solidarity with the Palestinian cause and opposing Israel’s aggression are being weaponised by the European governments who are calling it anti-Semitism. Massive protest marches are being held in European cities, and the swelling public outrage on the streets is clamping down upon by the goverment. The French and British Interior Ministers have issued ban orders on pro-Palestine protests in their different cities. What kind of so-called Western liberal and democratic values are they following? Is this not an assault on civil liberties and freedom?
At this juncture, the Western governments' double standard and their ‘moral high grounds’ need to be called out. Paying no heed to the opinion of the international community, the Biden administration is dispatching tons of arms and ammunition to "Tel Aviv" and sending military vessels to the shores of the Mediterranean in the wake of possible involvement of the Iran-led Axis of Resistance.
The extensive military hardware and technologies provided to "Israel" have long been seen as an unjustified provocation, which critics say, has been emboldened in its aggressive posturing. Moreover, the Israeli clandestine nuclear weapons programme has also been deliberately ignored by the West over the years. Whilst the humanitarian aid that is being sent to the war-ravaged Gaza is blocked by the IOF.
On a diplomatic level, the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is doing his job as an emissary of the Zionist regime, and shuttling back and forth between his regional Arab counterparts to prevent any escalation beyond this theatre. There is a great possibility of the involvement of the Lebanese Islamic Resistance movement Hezbollah in the war if the bombings are not halted.
In fact, Western leaders and policymakers, not all of them, are paying back to their sponsors or lobbyists. Most Western politicians are often backed and bankrolled by influential right-wing Zionist lobbying groups and think tanks which are very much penetrated in the corridors of power in their respective countries. Very few European governments or political leaders take an independent stance when it comes to the Palestinian issue.
The American-"Israel" Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the American Jewish Committee (AJC), European Friends of "Israel (EFI)" and the Friends of Israel "Initiative" (FII) are some of the few potent Zionist advocacy groups which influence domestic politics to block any anti-Israeli moves and to ensure the domination of the arena of narrative control and information manipulation. These political leaders, including lawmakers, political parties and media outlets, have also been long-engaged by Hasbara--- Hebrew for explanation--- a soft public diplomacy effort to enhance the "Israel's" positive image and legitimise every action of the Zionist entity. The American Military Industrial Complex (MIC) also adds much woe to the international world order.
As the fierce aggression is underway, Western governments are repeating their usual position that "Israel" has the ‘right to self-defence’ without taking into consideration "Israel’s" earlier repressive policies, coupled with the construction of illegal settlements by occupying lands, the increasingly xenophobic settler militia's attacks and storming of al-Aqsa holy site in al-Quds that led to these consequences.
Since the blockade in 2007, the collective punishment has made daily life worse by controlling mobility, making Gaza an open-air prison. Now, the Western leaders are exposing themselves by deliberately ignoring Benjamin Netanyahu’s despicable strategy to cut off humanitarian supplies during the invasion. They are weaponising the Israeli deaths and the pretext of eliminating top Hamas officials to justify "Israel’s" collateral damage.
The way Israeli warplanes are relentlessly raining down tons of missiles on the civilian ghetto, killing unarmed civilians and flattening high-rise residential complexes, have qualified "Israel's" actions for the classic case for committing genocide. It is ethnic cleansing, plain and simple. Such acts certainly amount to war crimes under the fourth Geneva Convention, and constitute brazen violations of international law. The perpetrators should be dragged to court for their barbarity. Even if "Israel" withdrew from the Rome Statutes, Netanyahu and his racist vile colleagues should be tried in the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague for their crimes against humanity.
Despite witnessing these atrocities, the leaders and officials of the Western governments are shamelessly supporting the Israeli war crimes and their narrative. In fact, Western European governments are equally complicit in the dehumanization of Palestinian people. They are enabling the genocide in Gaza.
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