Image by Emad El Byed.
Media complicity and political cowardice have enabled mass slaughter
Such is the unhinged, hypocritical state of the world—particularly in the West. To speak the truth about Palestine—to name Israel’s heinous campaign against Palestinians as genocidal, and to stand with the oppressed and starving—is to risk being branded an antisemite or an extremist. The consequences of such perverse labelling are many and far-reaching: social isolation, loss of livelihood, deportation—or worse, total expulsion from public life.
In contrast, say nothing critical of Israel—or almost nothing. Don’t mention the most violent crime against humanity since the Second World War, and you’ll be left alone. At a joint press conference on 19 May, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen were asked directly whether Israel is committing genocide. Both, to their utter shame, largely ignored the question—von der Leyen, in particular, failed to summon even the most basic moral integrity.
This evasiveness—combined with the appallingly biased coverage in virtually all mainstream media, most notably the globally influential BBC—has enabled Israel to carry out the systematic genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. The BBC is therefore complicit in genocide, as are all the Western governments that have armed, shielded, and politically supported it.
The current Israeli government, led by Benjamin Netanyahu—an evil man, if ever there was one—is openly pursuing the total destruction of Palestinian life. In line with the long-held goals of the settler movement, it seeks to annex both Gaza and the West Bank into a Greater Israel.
While tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza have been killed—most of them women and children—Western leaders have not merely looked away. They are enabling the slaughter. The United States, foremost among them, has poured billions in military aid into Israel (and continues to do so), despite evidence that these weapons are being used against civilians. In the UK, weak politicians repeated the saccharine mantra of Israel’s “right to defend itself.” Germany, paralysed by its own historical guilt, has responded by silencing critics of Israel—banning pro-Palestinian protests, censoring artists, and conflating Palestinian solidarity with antisemitism.
Most Western media has echoed the politicians: major outlets like the BBC and CNN routinely spout Israeli military statements, while treating Palestinian suffering as tragic but somehow inevitable. The word “genocide” is avoided, even as entire families are being erased, neighbourhoods obliterated, and aid convoys bombed. A false equivalence prevails—reducing settler colonialism/apartheid and righteous resistance to a “cycle of violence,” erasing Israel’s role as occupier and aggressor.
International journalists have been banned from entering Gaza. The only images and testimonies to reach the world have come from Palestinian reporters already inside—working under siege, and in unimaginable conditions.
More than 100 journalists have been killed since October 2023, making this the deadliest period for the press in modern history. Many were targeted while clearly identified as media workers.
Their deaths—like those of Palestinian civilians—have been met with silence or indifference from governments and Western outlets that, in any other conflict, would have rightly called such killings war crimes. But, presumably because of its big brother, the US, Israel is allowed to get away with anything—murder, starvation as a method of war, ethnic cleansing—you name it.
In addition to journalists, aid convoys and UN facilities have been routinely targeted by Israel. Dozens of aid workers from respected organisations—including Médecins Sans Frontières, the World Central Kitchen, and the UN—have been killed by Israeli airstrikes, despite having shared their coordinates with the Israeli military in advance.
Belated Words, Absent Action
Far, far too late and far too weak, there are now tentative signs that the dam of blind support is beginning to splinter. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has called Israel a “genocidal state.” The governments of the UK, France, and Canada have begun issuing statements demanding that the killing stop and that Israel allow humanitarian aid into Gaza.
Such steps, welcome of course, are grossly inadequate. These governments watched the genocide unfold in real time. They have armed it and they continue to defend it. And only now—after months of mass public protest (500,000 people marched in London on 17 May)—are they offering mealy-mouthed objections. Where is their humanity, their principles, their moral courage?
The men and women currently in office in the UK, the US, and across Europe are not leaders. They are weak, manipulative, dishonest salesmen. History will judge them harshly—and rightly so. Their cowardice has cost tens of thousands of lives. They will be remembered as collaborators in genocide—standing not with the victims, but with the killers.
Immediate, decisive action is needed. Israel should be completely isolated from the global community. All arms sales must end—obviously. Sanctions should be imposed not just on individual settlers, but on the Israeli state itself. All diplomatic ties must be severed. Embassies closed. Palestine recognised as a state by all nations and by the UN. And the principal perpetrators—Netanyahu and his gang of monsters—must be arrested, tried, and sentenced for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Anything less is not justice—it’s a betrayal of humanity, a cowardly act of manipulation that sanctions ongoing slaughter, systemic persecution, and the brutal domination—and looming extermination—of an entire people.
