Opinion | Israel-Gaza war: how the world can restore humanity and lead process for lasting peace in Middle East
- There must be international recognition of the genocide in Gaza, and targeted sanctions to hold Israel accountable and encourage massive reforms
- The US’ complicity in the Gaza war means it cannot lead the peacemaking process, which must be a global effort led by the collective international community
Chandran Nair is the founder of the Global Institute for Tomorrow and member of the Club of Rome. He is also the author of Dismantling Global White Privilege: Equity for a Post-Western World and The Sustainable State: The Future of Government, Economy and Society. In a separate essay below, he spells out steps to untangle the humanitarian crisis in the Middle East.
“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.” – Archbishop Desmond Tutu
In Gaza, the echoes of violence have reverberated every single day for months. We are witnessing the erasure of an entire society in real time, television cameras rolling, live-streamed, into living rooms across the planet, as children watch other children being killed.
Innocent Palestinians continue to be slaughtered daily while the very foundations of society – hospitals, schools, power stations, factories, water supply infrastructure – are systematically destroyed by the most powerful military alliance in the world. This is a military alliance led by Israel and the United States, and supported by other Europeans. It is a modern military empire that has written itself into the history books with its moral vacuum. But it will have nowhere to hide when the truth is fully revealed, supported by thousands of pictures and videos documenting the destruction in Gaza.
The repeated global calls for peace and a ceasefire have been ignored by the agents of this assault, committing war crimes in the process. So how can a lasting peace be secured amid such a fraught situation?
It begins with a recognition of what so many have knowingly shied away from doing: classifying the premeditated slaughter of tens of thousands for what it really is – a genocide.
International institutions which have prided themselves on calling out inconvenient truths of grave magnitude must seize this opportunity to put this on the record. To turn a blind eye is unconscionable and will result in them being on the wrong side of history. Too many institutions and public figures remain eerily silent for fear of being seen as anti-Semitic for standing up against a government oppressing Palestinians under the pretext of self-defence. The pursuit of an enemy in a war does not under international law permit a scorched earth policy.
