The recent conflict between Israel and Hamas has resulted in a devastating loss of life and widespread destruction in Gaza. The article argues that the world's response to the violence has been inadequate and that those complicit in the atrocities must be held accountable.
Unless those complicit in the Gaza genocide are held to account, the brutal consequences will be felt far beyond that shattered land. The ceasefire between Israel and Hamas offered a respite for traumatised survivors.
But Donald Trump’s declaration that he is of 2,000lb bombs to Israel, which were dropped repeatedly on civilians in so-called safe zones, to his pick for the US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, who once said there was “no need to apologize for the killing of terrorists” and that “Israel has a right to defend itself against Hamas”, is deeply troubling. The assault on Gaza is normalising an almost limitless violence against civilians, all facilitated and justified by multiple western governments and media outlets. It is worth recalling the destruction of Guernica by Nazi and Italian forces during the Spanish civil war nearly nine decades ago. Guernica was one of the first aerial mass bombardments of a civilian community, and it scandalised the world. The then US president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, deplored how “civilians, including vast numbers of women and children, are being ruthlessly murdered from the air”. The Times journalist, George Steer, wrote that, “In the form of its execution and the scale of destruction it wrought, the raid on Guernica is unparalleled in military history.” Alas, Guernica turned out to be a trial run for the aerial obliteration of European cities a few years later: the Nazi military leader Hermann Göring told the Nuremberg trials that Guernica allowed the Nazis to “test out methods of aerial bombing” at the start of Israel’s military onslaught in October 2023. Presumably, the former president believed telling the world he has said this would aid his rehabilitation. But it seems more like an inadvertent confession of criminal complicity. The US, after all, handed Israel nearly $4 billion in military aid last year. What was the military purpose of this? The US doesn’t seem to have an answer. Its former secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said last week that Hamas had “new militants as it has lost”. If that is true, it undermines the entire stated aim of Israel’s brutality, which was to eliminate Hamas. Israel’s other claimed objective was to bring back hostages by military means. Yet, as a commentator in the Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom noted, “There is no evidence that any hostages have been freed as a result of IDF operations”. It’s hard not to conclude that Israel’s actions amounted to slaughter for its own sake. The manipulation of information and the spread of baseless accusations are also disturbing. Several British newspapers, including The Times, have published lurid and unverified allegations of Hamas cutting babies’ throats; two days later, it followed up with another story about the allegedly babies aren’t rumours – they really have been killed by Israeli forces. As far as I’m aware, no equivalent Times investigation into alleged atrocities committed by Palestinians against Israelis. The horror is not limited to the massacre of children. Early in the conflict, Human Rights Watch accused Israel of using white phosphorus bombs indiscriminately against civilians, causing horrific burns. The UN has also catalogued horrific reports of torture and sexual assault: men and women kept in cage-like enclosures, tied to beds in diapers and blindfolded, stripped naked, deprived of food, water and sleep, and tortured with cigarette burns, waterboarding, electrocutions and even rape and allegations of gang rape. None of this should come as a surprise. Israeli general Ghassan Alian, charged with civilian affairs in Israel’s occupied territories, described Gaza’s civilians as “the enemy”, promising to punish them with a total blockade and subject them to “hell”. An unnamed Israeli defence official said that Gaza would “eventually turn into a concentration camp”. Unlike Guernica, the crimes committed in Gaza have been documented in real time. Israeli soldiers gleefully posted evidence on social media and survivors took to the internet to share footage of what they were enduring. Many of those survivors were, in the words of the Irish lawyer, Michael Mansfield, “broadcasting their own destruction in real time in the desperate, so far vain hope that the world might do something”. The British government and the European Union have condemned the violence but have stopped short of calling for a full-scale investigation into Israel’s actions. Earlier this month, after significant public and legal pressure, the UK government finally suspended the export of arms to Israel. Meanwhile, most of the British media defended or whitewashed Israel’s atrocities, and failed to link its criminal intent with its murderous actions. Faced with the potential of a reckoning over their own complicity, political leaders and media outlets have sought to portray the opponents of Israel’s genocide as dangerous extremists. The former home secretary Suella Braverman called protests “unacceptable” and “undermining the hard work of our security services”. The destruction of Guernica provoked widespread shock, but it’s worth remembering that after the attack, far more cataclysmic aerial bombardment became a new norm. An estimated 1,650 were killed there; in Gaza, the death toll is likely a drastic underestimate, but the greater atrocity of Gaza does not trigger anything like the same establishment outrage today. Those who have profited from this war without consequence, both those in government and the media, ought to be put on trial for helping to facilitate it. Those who used their media platforms to justify it should see their reputations in tatters. Without that accountability, even more depraved violence will become normal, even acceptable. This risk is particularly acute in an era when the far right is forming governments and when the climate emergency threatens even greater global turmoil. The complicit know that the only way to defend themselves is by demonising those who stood against genocide, and turning the world upside down. But if they get their way, that world will burn
GAZA CONFLICT INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS HUMAN RIGHTS ACCOUNTABILITY WAR CRIMES MEDIA COVERAGE ISRAEL HAMAS
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