Phalapoem editor, 8/10/25
As of this writing, over 20,000 children have been killed in Gaza. Among them are 1,000 infants — babies who never had a chance to take their first steps or speak their first words. This is not a tragedy that unfolded in darkness. It happened in full view of the world — livestreamed, documented, undeniable. And yet, the response from global leaders has been an appalling silence, broken only by carefully crafted statements of “concern” that mean nothing to the slaughtered.
The world has failed Gaza. Not through ignorance, but through moral cowardice and political calculation.
A System Built to Protect the Powerful
If the killing of twenty thousand children had been committed by any other state, the reaction would have been immediate and severe. Sanctions, travel bans, arms embargoes, and international trials would follow. Yet Israeli apartheid and occupation , shielded by its Western allies, continues to enjoy full diplomatic, economic, and cultural privileges.
It still competes in football tournaments, Eurovision, and global sporting events — spectacles meant to celebrate peace and unity. The hypocrisy is grotesque. A nation accused of grave breaches of international law continues to sing, play, and trade as though nothing has happened.
The “rules-based international order,” so often invoked by Western governments, has been exposed as a selective fiction. Rules apply only to the weak, never to the well-armed or well-connected.
Western Complicity
The governments most vocal about democracy and human rights have stood by, providing weapons, diplomatic cover, or strategic silence. Washington continues to send military aid. European capitals, while shedding crocodile tears, refuse even the mildest sanctions. Some have gone further, criminalizing protests, censoring journalists, and intimidating those who dare to call the genocide what it is.
The message is unmistakable: the lives of Palestinian children are negotiable — expendable collateral in a geopolitical alliance.
The Failure of International Institutions
The United Nations, paralyzed by American vetoes and political cowardice, has become a theatre of impotence. Humanitarian agencies have been bombed and starved of funds. War crimes investigations stall. The International Criminal Court moves at a glacial pace, hesitant to anger powerful states.
Every structure designed to prevent mass atrocities has either collapsed or been corrupted. The moral infrastructure of the post-war world — the Geneva Conventions, the UN Charter, the principle of universal human rights — lies in ruins in Gaza’s rubble.
The Collapse of Moral Authority
How can Europe lecture the Global South on human rights after this? How can the United States claim to defend democracy abroad while funding the Israeli genocide, destruction of hospitals, schools, and refugee camps? The answer is simple: it can’t. Gaza has destroyed whatever moral credibility these powers once claimed.
In the face of genocide-scale violence, silence is not neutrality — it is endorsement. The refusal to act, to sanction, to even condemn unequivocally, is a form of complicity that history will not forget.
The Reckoning to Come
Gaza will not be remembered only as a humanitarian catastrophe, but as the moment the world’s conscience died. The image of lifeless children pulled from the rubble will haunt every leader who chose political convenience over human decency.
No amount of diplomatic spin or televised empathy can erase the reality: the global order failed to stop the mass killing of children. And in doing so, it failed itself.
These criminals must be held accountable for their crimes against humanity