Gaza: The Endless Shame of the West and Europe
Amid the shameful passivity of the international community, the deliberate project of eliminating the Palestinian people is being carried out. Bombs, hunger, disease, cold, and lack of water are the means through which Palestinians are being exterminated in Gaza, while the violent occupation of the West Bank, jointly pursued by settlers and the IDF, the Israeli army, continues and expands.
There can be no doubt that this is genocide, in light of the events we have been witnessing in horror for many years, with even greater intensity since 7 October 2023, and the clear provisions of the 1948 International Convention on the subject. However, the International Court of Justice will not deliver its ruling before the end of 2029 (the deadline for Israel’s defence submissions has been set for 22 May 2029). In the meantime, unequivocal statements have been issued by the United Nations, and the International Court of Justice itself has raised the spectre of genocide in the various orders it has issued to date.
It is not only the executioner Netanyahu who stands accused, and who, if all goes well, should soon bid his melancholy farewell to the political stage. Unfortunately, there is also a persistent inclination towards hatred and discrimination against Palestinians within Israeli society. This is confirmed by the attitude of a large part of the opposition to Netanyahu, which rejects the prospect of cooperation with the electoral lists representing Palestinians holding Israeli citizenship, albeit with diminished rights, who have elected eighteen members of parliament to the Knesset. Such cooperation is in itself inevitable and necessary if a future is to be restored to that tormented region.
However, Western governments are also under accusation, as they constitute the actual rear guard of the genocide by supplying Israel with lethal weapons, explosives, money and political support. At the forefront among them is Italy under the Meloni government. Various legal proceedings have also been initiated on this front. The International Court of Justice has long been seized of contentious proceedings brought by Nicaragua against Germany, the world’s second-largest supplier of weapons to Israel. In the United States, the world’s leading supplier, several legal actions have been brought against Trump, Rubio and other senior figures in the current administration, and these were reiterated in recent days before the International Criminal Court.
In Italy, too, we have long been taking action on this matter through various criminal, civil and administrative proceedings. The picture that emerges is by no means flattering to the Italian judiciary. Despite the triumph of last March’s referendum, which confirmed the Italian people’s attachment to the independence of the judiciary, judges are demonstrating, through their reluctance to act, the existence of an unacceptable degree of Don Abbondio-like timidity within our judicial ranks. This is, of course, disguised as equally unacceptable appeals to the alleged untouchability of the political sphere, even in cases involving incontrovertible crimes of genocide and crimes against humanity. We have also turned to the International Criminal Court, where we will pursue further initiatives in coordination with Americans and others.
Beyond the strictly legal sphere, there have been significant and important statements by various states, including China, Russia, Cuba and many others. However, any attempt at concrete humanitarian intervention, and, if necessary, self-defensive action to protect the Palestinian population, is thwarted by the deliberate dysfunction of the United Nations, whose Security Council is paralysed by the US veto. The abolition of the right of veto, now supported by a majority of states, is therefore itself an urgent necessity.
The immediate material needs are those set out in an urgent appeal issued just a few days ago by the Palestinian Bar Association. It called for the immediate adoption of measures to allow humanitarian aid to enter; the provision of emergency shelter; the immediate supply of essential goods and medical services; the guaranteed operation of water and sewage systems; and, more generally, the protection of civilians and the activation of international legal mechanisms aimed at preventing those responsible for this extremely grave situation from enjoying impunity.
These are entirely legitimate demands, but unfortunately they will most likely encounter the rubber wall of resistance put up by Western governments, which are more intent on fiercely persecuting those who express solidarity with the Palestinian people, including through new monstrous legislative instruments such as the so-called “antisemitism” bill, than on confronting the genocide which, on the contrary, as mentioned above, they facilitate and promote in various ways.
This also enables us to take a penetrating look into the heart of darkness of the West, which, today, in the era of its irreversible decline, is more determined than ever to leave no stone unturned in protecting its criminal colonial outposts. For it was under the banner of colonialism and the oppression of other peoples that the West was born and grew over the past five centuries. We, democratic and solidarity-minded citizens of the West, have the task, difficult but of essential importance, of finally bringing this disgraceful and shameful history to an end.
Reference Link: https://www.ilfattoquotidiano.it/2026/11/12/gaza-vergogna-infinita-non-solo-netanyahu-sotto-accusa-la-complicita-di-occidente-e-europa/8566608/
Zamir Ahmed Awan is the founder and Chair of the Global Silk Route Research Alliance, a think tank in Islamabad. He studied engineering at Shanghai University in the 1980s, and years later he went back to China as Pakistan's science counsellor in Beijing, from 2010 until 2016, working on science and higher education cooperation between the two countries.…
