The empire greases the global war machine and oils the gears of a genocidal regime. The engines driving the carnage know no other program but total expansion and obliteration, crushing all those who stand in its way.
It has been exactly a year since Palestinian resistance groups led by Hamas launched an unexpected attack against Israel. The Zionist state has used it as the pretext for the unparalleled escalation of its genocide in Gaza. Up to 186,000 deaths were estimated to have resulted from the aggression, far from the Gaza Health Ministry’s conservative tally of more than 40,000 Palestinians killed.
Israel’s decades-long violent occupation of Palestinian territories belies the apartheid state’s claim that it is only attacking in the name of self-defense. Its recent attacks in Lebanon and Yemen reveal the true motive for regional dominion underlying Israel’s belligerence. Israel assassinated Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah through the use of US-supplied bombs, massacring civilians in the process.
Fueling these tensions, the supposed champions of international law in the West actively abet the war crimes of the aggressor. The regional conflagration and genocide in Gaza driven by the Israeli regime bare the US’s hegemonic grip over international law, signaling a perilous future for all other countries that will be caught in the empire’s warmongering crusade.
International legal systems and treaties meant to curb genocide and war crimes fail not merely out of faults in application, but because the very institutions promulgating them are in the thrall of the US-led West. These holders of the levers of power enact a simple governing logic: Impose whatever action befits the empire’s interest, and castigate all those contravening it.
Despite the International Court of Justice’s advisory opinion noting the illegality of Israel’s annexation of Palestine, the apartheid state not only defies calls to uphold international law but even escalates its violations, absent any punishment or material consequences. It went as far as declaring the United Nations (UN) secretary-general persona non grata.
Such brazen transgressions prove the toothlessness of foreign institutions at most times, the potency of which is largely only at the behest of the US—a longtime Israeli ally, military aid source, and key partner in securing its interests in the Middle East.
The US weakens attempts by many nations, especially in the Global South, to advance actions toward the end of the genocidal campaign and recognition of a Palestinian state. Its use of the UN Security Council, where it wields veto power with four other nations, and penalization of humanitarian organizations allow it to influence decisions toward the protection of its allies and quick punishment of its enemies. The US, for one, blocked France and Britain’s call to broker a ceasefire between Lebanon and Israel at the UN.
Such leveraging capacities monopolized by the US render most nation-states virtually powerless. Given this lopsided character of global arrangements, other nations who refuse deference to the empire will never be safe as the US cements its hegemony in an increasingly growing multipolar world.
Afraid of its own ghost, the US has accused Russia of planned election interference. It knows this possibility precisely because it has facilitated hundreds of coups and destabilization plots across the globe over the decades. Latin American countries struggling to extricate themselves from US dependence still bear the brunt of the empire’s intervention. Economic embargoes and military interference impose a collective punishment among those in Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, among others.
The US acts only in accordance with the preservation of its interest, invoking international law when it furthers its agenda. It has, for one, repeatedly condemned Chinese incursions in the West Philippine Sea, fully aware that another superpower’s control there would undermine its hold in the Indo-Pacific region.
But this supposed commitment to international law collapses once its lapdogs subvert humanitarian standards just to receive favors from their imperial patron at the expense of the rights of their citizens. Recent verdict by the International People’s Tribunal found the Philippine government in concert with the US state guilty of war crimes against the Filipino people. Yet arms sales and military exercises between the US and the Philippines continue unabated.
The Gazan situation is thus the imperial machine writ large. It evinces the extent of atrocities the US-led global order is willing to accept and cause as long as it bolsters the prevailing order.
Call for a ceasefire and the support of leading international bodies are long overdue. The dead continue to pile up. All efforts must go toward dismantling the empire’s apparatuses, part of which is its near-total hold on foreign institutions.
International bodies such as the UN have to be restructured altogether to ensure a fair representation for all, which entails the removal of veto powers and the expansion of permanent seats in the UN Security Council. In its process, more multilateral alliances among the oppressed nations may be created with sufficient leveraging power to undermine the West’s absolute dominion over the world’s affairs. The assurance of a peaceful coexistence devoid of foreign interference will pave the way for a global setup where rights are duly respected and war crimes impartially penalized.
Instances of this internationalist solidarity had already started disrupting the engines of the empire. Militant activists conduct direct actions to impede arms flow, university students encamp to press their administrations to divest from arms corporations, and Global South nations take their support for Palestine in international forums.
The global war machine must now grind to an absolute halt, then torn asunder by the militant defiance of Palestinians and other oppressed people of all nations. Across the globe, our struggle against empires and regimes facilitating genocides knows no bounds. ●
