History’s crossroads: Gaza or the failure of the West

Le Monde Diplomatique, June 2025

The post-1945 order promised institutions, justice and rights, and the UN enshrined the ‘responsibility to protect’. But the Gaza war has shown that all such claims are hollow.

The period since 7 October 2023 marks the worst chapter yet in the Palestinian people’s long ordeal. Worse even than the Nakba – ‘catastrophe’ in Arabic – of 1948, referring to events which have subsequently been called ‘ethnic cleansing’. The current catastrophe is characterised, among other things, by genocide. Thus, a stronger Arabic term is necessary to describe the misery being visited upon Palestine: karitha. Israel is slaughtering a part of the Gazan population without giving up ethnic cleansing, both in the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip. ‘Gaza will be totally destroyed,’ Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich announced at a conference on 6 May this year in the West Bank settlement of Ofra. Civilians will be ‘concentrated’ in the south, from where they ‘will be looking for relocation to begin a new life in other places’.

Donald Trump sensed an opportunity in the threat. He may seek to win his Arab allies over to an updated version of the ‘deal of the century’, which they roundly rejected in 2020. The plan proposed a rump ‘state of Palestine’ and, compared with the prospect of ethnic cleansing, now looks like the lesser of two evils. Saudi Arabia would join the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Morocco – and before them Egypt and Jordan – in normalising relations with Israel. Trump and Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu would be handed a victory they could boast about, but fundamentally very little would be resolved. The future of the Middle East – and indeed international relations as a whole – seems bleak.

For more details, visit: https://mondediplo.com/2025/06/02gaza

Disclaimer

Opinions expressed in this article remain those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of CEMAS Board.