The bodies of 15 Palestinian paramedics and rescue workers, killed by Israeli forces and buried in a mass grave nine days ago in Gaza, were found with their hands or legs tied and gunshot wounds to the head and chest, according to eyewitnesses. The United Nations has called for an investigation into a crime reminiscent of past pogroms, war crimes, and genocides. Yet, there has been little indignation—not just in the United States, which shares direct responsibility after consenting to Netanyahu’s decision to resume the war, but also in Europe. The most shocking reality is that the war in Gaza has become business as usual. There is no discussion of sanctioning Israel, despite mounting evidence of war crimes, including domicide, forced displacement, and the use of starvation as a weapon.
Nothing can justify this level of complicity with Israeli war crimes. This is not a matter of proportionality. What we are witnessing is a far-right regime using Hamas’ war crime as a pretext for the elimination of an entire community—one that was already being oppressed long before October 7, 2023. EU leaders fail to call a spade a spade when they describe Israel’s response as merely disproportionate. Because genocidal intent can never be seen as being proportional to anything else. It is a crime.
However, it would be a disservice to the Palestinian cause not to acknowledge the other elephant in the room: the absence of a national leadership capable of standing up to Israel while negotiating on behalf of the Palestinian people. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has been entirely absent, unwilling to stand up for his people. Meanwhile, Hamas’ cult of death and martyrdom does a disservice to their cause. Last week’s protests in Gaza against both Israel and Hamas were significant—not just in their scale, but in the reactions (and silence) they provoked.
“We demonstrated today to declare that we do not want to die. Eventually, it is Israel that attacks and bombs, but Hamas also bears direct responsibility, as do all who define themselves as Arab and Palestinian leaders,” one protester said. Tragically, one of the protest leaders was reportedly kidnapped and murdered.
That said, the paralysis of Palestinian politics is the result of Israel’s long-standing ‘divide and rule’ strategy, including its covert co-option of Hamas to weaken Fatah and its left-wing partners. Meanwhile, militant secular Palestinian leaders like Marwan Barghouti—who could take the liberation struggle to the next stage—languish in Israeli prisons. The stark reality is that Israel prefers fighting a band of criminal fanatics, whose actions serve as a pretext for its aggression, rather than confronting a rational and determined Palestinian leadership—one that is willing to take up arms against oppression but does so judiciously, with the welfare of the population in mind.