This is a critical moment when more and more Western governments speak out against Israel’s genocidal actions and warn of severe consequences to follow if things continue as they are. A closer look at US statements on proposals for a Gaza ceasefire and exchange of detainees in the last 24 hours, though, suggests that Washington wants to perpetuate the colonial order by which White northern governments define how the rest of the world behaves. And most European states support this position, so they talk harshly to Israel but send it money, technology, and weapons, and protect it at the UN.
I suspect we witness now the deeper and wider global battle underway to either end the Western colonial era, or perpetuate it, starting with breaking the Palestinians. Gaza may be a warning to others in the global South to watch how they behave and not to oppose Western colonial demands, or they will end up like Gaza. The difficulty that Western governments face is that the majority of people in the global South and the North oppose Israel’s brutal policies and Western collusion with them. This is clear from the growing protests everywhere, some unilateral sanctions, and the results of public opinion polls.
We’ve never had such a situation where global majorities face off against a few Western colonial powers and their genocidal partner on an issue so laden with implications for human morality, the rule of law, the exercise of power, and relations among people. Gaza and Palestinian national rights, on the one hand, and militant zionism, on the other, define this battle in the Middle East — but it plays out globally in street protests, political forums, the media, universities, churches, mosques and synagogues, and so many other ways that reflect how people feel, and the genocide they reject.
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