History will remember 2024 as the year a raging genocide was ignored to the point of being normalised by some of the richest and most powerful institutions in the world. Western governments and mainstream media have bent over backwards to avoid calling Israel out for its carnage in Gaza, repression in the occupied Palestinian territories in the West Bank, and unprovoked aggression in Lebanon. With more than 45,000 people killed in Gaza alone over 14 months—most of them civilians and a large section of them women and children—silence on the issue is as harmful as complicity. Add to this the fact that most of Israel’s munitions are supplied by the US, and the link is irredeemably direct.
It’s no longer a matter of bickering over the precise meaning of the term genocide—ironically, coined by a Jewish lawyer during World War 2. Francesca Albanese, the special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories, has clearly and repeatedly explained why it is the correct term to use for Israel’s targeted killings. But that has not moved the West’s narrow political considerations. Meanwhile, Israel has continued its carnage. On Thursday, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and his team came within metres of an Israeli airstrike that targeted the Sana’a airport in Yemen, killing two people. In September, not for the first time, the UN voted overwhelmingly to adopt a resolution demanding that Israel end its “unlawful presence” in the occupied territories. It’s just another depressing reminder of the UN agencies’ intended role in global affairs.
Even if the corruption cases against Benjamin Netanyahu catch up with him in court, little help can be expected from the nation’s legislature. In a measure of polarisation in Israeli politics, when the Knesset voted at end-October to ban the work of UNRWA, the main relief agency in Palestine, about three-fourths of members supported it. So it’s up to the rest of the world to pull all strings it can to end the carnage. Elie Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor who won the Nobel peace prize, wrote, “I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever humans endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides.” In the new year, let’s hope the rest of the world still holding out will unequivocally take humanity’s side.