For almost 3 years, we have all collectively borne witness to the genocide in Gaza. But for a few countries, the world has been silent and allowed the slaughter to continue uninterrupted. For almost 3 years, we have witnessed a genocide being done in real time, all to fulfil a colonialist project of wiping Palestinians off the map and creating what is termed Greater Israel, a colonial entity which would gobble up parts of neighbouring countries – countries that have, by and large, been silent on the genocide and colonial project.
For almost 3 years, social organizations, political movements, human rights groups and even the UN bodies, have all come out and stated in unequivocal terms that allowing this genocide to take place, and to be silent on things like decapitation strikes on Hezbollah and Iran, were a green light for future acts of genocide at most, and at least the open flouting of international law.
The Caribbean and Latin America, once declared a zone of peace, have now become a war zone, and we are witnessing in our own hemisphere, the very same behaviour that was brought down on the Palestinians. Blockades were enacted on Venezuela and tightened on Cuba, decapitation attacks launched, and a leader kidnapped in the dead of night; these are things which the Palestinians have had to endure, and now they find us here in Latin America and the Caribbean. Civilians killed in boats by robots in the sky are eerily reminiscent of Palestinian citizens murdered by Israeli drones with total impunity.
At this moment, we are experiencing but a smidgen of what the Palestinians have had to endure, but rest assured that the techniques honed in the holy land will be brought to bear on us, and this is just the beginning. We are all Palestine now in this region, facing down an imperial power which is scared but still seeks to exert its dominance. We are all Palestinians now as we wonder who among us is the infiltrator and which device is safe to use as the empire uses its tools to crush dissent internally and regionally.
It is one of history’s greatest ironies that the victim of this violence has been one of the few countries that champions the Palestinian cause and has put their money where its mouth is. It is one of history’s cruel twists that the nation attacked in this imperialist project has been one which has been consistently anti-imperialist and has sought to spread its anti-imperialist worldview peacefully throughout the global south.
And just as with Palestine, the outcry from the international community has been muted, with the noble exception of a few countries – ironically, in many instances, they are the same countries that have condemned the genocide. This silence is complicity, this silence, or in some cases the open support for it, will mean that there will be a next time, and other countries will be impacted as nations feel the patina of international law is no longer in effect and will use their might accordingly.
As the world braces to see if Trump will invade Greenland or bomb Iran again, we must remember that we carefully crafted this new world, we allowed a world where strength rules and weakness is punished by remaining silent on Palestine, thinking that such atrocities like double tap strikes would be relegated to that region.
Governments that have remained silent in the hope that they won’t feel the wrath are mistaken; nothing short of complete suppliance will be accepted by the US at this moment, and just as with the Cold War, neutrality will be viewed as taking the other side. There is no saving us unless we stand up for the others; there is no magic spell that will stop the violence of the empire, only the force of the many as they stand up against the few.
It is daunting, it is scary, but it must be done if we are to salvage anything from this world and change it for the better. Neutrality will get us nowhere; appeasement is just giving the imperialists more time to undermine us all. We must take a stand and call out this aggression and violence wherever we may see it, be it Gaza, Sudan, Haiti, or the southern Caribbean. If not, we can be sure that we will be among the next victims.
