The Secretary General of the United Nations, António Guterres, claimed that the Hamas attack of October 7 did not happen in a vacuum. If not in a vacuum, what was in that space?

Israel’s 80 years of Zionist cruelty began with the confiscation of land and other property and expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians with no compensation who were also prohibited from ever returning to their homes; a settler rule that is aptly characterized by inhumanity, random incarceration, torture and murder; with Gaza the largest prison in the world, holding 2.3 million Palestinians, isolated from the rest of the world; and administered by Israel, an apartheid state with three sets of laws—one for Israeli Jews, another for Israeli Arabs and yet another for non-Israeli Palestinians. The perfect definition of apartheid and arguably worse than what we witnessed in South Africa as claimed by the late Archbishop Tutu.

Biden is the most Zionist U.S. president everIsrael has been a country that breaks international law on a daily basis, by expanding its unlawful settlements in the West Bank, annexing homes and land, separating Palestinian families and incarcerating and torturing them with no formal charge or trial.

Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu calls Hamas and those in Gaza “animals” and Amihai Eliyahu, one of Israel’s far-right ministers, proposes dropping Israel’s nuclear bombs on the inhabitants of Gaza. Frank N. von Hippel, Emeritus Professor of Public and International Affairs with Princeton University’s Program on Science and Global Security calls this a “criminal statement” by a “lunatic.” Biden says he supports Israel and a two-state solution at the same time as a minister in Netanyahu’s cabinet promises that there will never be a Palestinian state: “We live here, this is our country. The historical estate of our ancestors. There will be no Palestinian state here. We will never allow another state to be established between the Jordan and the sea.” Who are we to believe Biden, the most Zionist U.S. president ever, or senior Israelis?

Israel can do all that it has and get away with it because of Western colonial support. This support comes primarily from the United States with military, economic, intelligence, media and political backing as exemplified by its dozens of UN Security Council (UNSC) vetoes to protect a rogue state, even going so far as to veto a ceasefire, ruining its own international reputation, perhaps beyond repair for years to come. The U.S. is all in and complicit with Israel, no matter how vehemently it denies this and urges Israel to spare civilians. Sadly some U.S. allies have followed in its footsteps. On November 14, the French National Assembly screened a heart wrenching and bloody 43-minute video of the atrocities of October 7 prepared by the Israeli military (IDF) for French lawmakers. While horrific videos of Hamas’ actions of October 7 are repeatedly shown on TV and on social media, videos of the Israeli atrocities in Gaza are much more sparingly shown and have to be approved by Israeli Defense Forces before they can be shown. This is simply controlled propaganda to support Israel’s ongoing campaign of terror in Gaza and not needed information for lawmakers and concerned citizens around the world.

Is complicity in the killing of about 23,000 innocent Palestinians by December 19, the appropriate answer to the West’s failure to protect Jews during WWII?After October 7, Israel declared that it had the right to defend itself, a right which at that time received the support of people from around the world. The operative word being “DEFEND,” but not to indiscriminately murder innocent civilians, mostly children and women, doctors, nurses, aid workers and reporters in Gaza, using American planes and bombs. Killing with white phosphorus, an outlawed weapon of war. With Israeli settlers (in illegal settlements) on the West Bank ramping up their terror on Palestinian women, children and innocent men—forced entry into homes with arrests, imprisonment, torture and death. All the while, a “law-abiding” United States continues to supply Israel with arms and munitions and in so doing breaks its own laws—supplying weapons to a country that is not a signatory to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and without the normal oversight of how and when its weapons are used. And the U.S. will not even agree to making the region a nuclear free zone, something that is supported by Arab countries and Iran.

In pursuit of “defending” itself, Israel has rained down bombs on Gazans with the most intense bombing known to man—more than in WWII, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan or in the Bosnian war. As of December 19, Israel’s so-called “defense” has resulted in about 23,000 deaths in Gaza including about 10,000 children. And this ongoing carnage is called defense by a “civilized” and “law-abiding” nation and people! There is forced eviction from North Gaza to its South as Israel bombs fleeing Gazans and then again when they are in the supposed “safety” of the South. Starvation is being used as a weapon of war. Deprivation of needed medicines is not only killing innocent civilians but spreading diseases that could result in many more thousands of casualties. These are war crimes, crimes against humanity, crimes that can be classified as ethnic cleansing and even genocide as it continues.

Even this only affords a glimpse of the tragedy as the Western media follows the party line in order to protect Israel and Zionists from growing global outrage, Israel’s arrogance and inhumanity and America’s support of Israel, especially its veto for a ceasefire. Is this what Israel and the U.S. call Israel defending itself? In the aftermath of the Hamas attack that killed 1,200 Israelis (civilians and soldiers), Israel has killed 23,000 (with 70 percent women and children) in Gaza and probably almost another 1,000 in the West Bank. Is this in defense of Israel or brutal revenge?

It is all difficult to comprehend why the West, especially the United States, follows Israel so and what is Israel’s thinking as it defies the world? Is this an eye for an eye or 20 eyes for an eye this time around with even more eyes in revenge if one looks back on the history of this conflict?

The U.S. is ruining its reputation, perhaps beyond repair for years to come. It may be that the Western world, the United States, France, Germany and others feel overwhelming guilt for not having done enough to thwart the murder of innocent Jews at the hands of Hitler and his Nazi followers, but here is the question: is complicity in the killing of about 23,000 innocent Palestinians by December 19 and counting, including nearly 10,000 children, and driving hundreds of thousands from their homes, with their homes being utterly destroyed, the appropriate answer to the West’s failure to protect Jews during WWII? How can the U.S. watch all these ongoing deaths and not even support a ceasefire! Does this make the United States, Germany and France feel honorable or are they simply repeating their failures of the past and standing by to witness a similar murderous fate for innocent Palestinians who have suffered so much since 1947?

As for Israel, its actions are clearer by the day. It is hell bent on illegally annexing all of Palestine, trashing all UN Resolutions since 1967, expelling as many Palestinians as possible from their homes and bellowing that Israel is a Jewish state for Jewish people. And it repeats some of the same horrors that Nazis committed on innocent Jews. It is a tragedy for Palestinians as well as for Jews in Israel and around the world. In defense of the atrocities it has committed, Israel has relied on the victim card—recalling the Holocaust and equating any criticism of Zionism and Israel’s policies to anti-Semitism and racism. And in this it has been supported by most U.S. politicians and some well-known universities.

There is precious little ordinary Arabs can do apart from peacefully demonstrating in the United States and in some other Western countries where pro-Palestinian demonstrations are allowed, but there is much more they can do in their own countries to sway the course of events. However, the stance of Arab rulers since October 7 is BEYOND SHAMEFUL. They have been akin to moles hibernating for the winter. They have gone underground and dare not show their heads. They could do much but they are scared of what their colonial masters might do to them! Has anyone seen a single Arab leader take meaningful action to support a single solitary Palestinian? Arab states that have relations with Israel could recall their ambassadors or go further and cut all diplomatic ties with the Zionist state. They could recall their ambassadors to the United States, France and other states complicit in Israeli crimes. They could demand that their rulers embargo their exports of oil and natural gas. If their rulers do not follow their wishes they could peacefully demonstrate and bring their countries to a halt. And yes, they may be arrested and suffer other painful consequences. All I can say is that sometimes when we stand up for a righteous cause we may have to pay a price — lose our jobs and even be imprisoned.

This is what morality requires. To stand up. Will we stand up and be counted in the West and will Arabs have the courage to do the same in their homelands?

What does the future hold in store?

I will be foolish and venture a guess. More carnage. A mushrooming of resistance fighters against Israel and the United States, whom the West will call terrorists as they fight with guns and knives for their illegally annexed land and homes and defend Israel as “righteous soldiers” dropping bombs indiscriminately on civilians in the hope of killing Hamas fighters here and there. There will be uprisings in a few Arab lands, making reconciliation with Israel even more difficult. A turning point will come in the United States as Americans begin to learn more of the facts about Israel’s occupation and annexation of Palestinian land and homes. With a more critical lens in assessing the United States’ blind support for Israel and the Israeli lobby’s cries of anti-Semitism falling increasingly on deaf ears, as Americans become tired of alienating the world, seeing themselves in the mirror as complicit in Israeli crimes. Things will change for the better but only after more conflict and bloodshed.

Yet, there is hope to mitigate further conflict and bloodshed if the United States shows moral courage and does a dramatic pivot in support of humanity, justice and the safety of our fractured world. Telling Israel behind closed doors that enough is enough. America cannot afford assistance to Israel as Americans go without. America cannot risk isolating itself from much of the world as it supports Israel’s intransigence. Israel will face increasing danger if it continues on its path. Israel must immediately agree to a viable two-state solution along the lines of the 1967 borders. And the United States will champion an international commitment to compensate Palestinians for the loss of their land and for the reconstruction of Gaza and the West Bank. Jews would still have acquired much territory that was not legally theirs and could be citizens of a more respected country alongside a Palestinian country.
This prescription may be seen as a naïve pipedream, but if it is not nurtured into reality, there will be more devastating consequences for the region and the world. Just ask yourself a simple question: after what the Palestinians have suffered all these years under the Israeli hammer and now with the carnage of the Gaza war, would you be surprised if hundreds more Palestinians and Arabs seek revenge against Israel and its backers?

Hossein Askari is emeritus professor of business and international affairs, George Washington University