Does the genocide in Gaza expose the hypocritical nature of the Western world disguising itself under the cloak of liberal democracy ?
A topic that may perplex future historians examining the present moment is why Western democracies failed to intervene against Israel's genocide in Gaza.
Their inaction may seem confusing, given that human rights discourse has been foundational for the US and its allies, as well as a crucial element of Western hegemony. It has historically served as an instrument of soft power, legitimizing the use of armed force.
Why, then, have they jeopardized this esteemed reputation by endorsing Israel's war crimes in Gaza?
The United States and its European allies, including Germany, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands, have been pivotal to Israel's onslaught. They have consistently transferred weapons, sought to shield Israeli leaders from prosecution, and failed to prevent lethal attacks on Palestinian civilians.
Two distinct camps account for this complicity. One camp alleges that the Israel lobby has dominated Western decision-making, ensuring Israel's impunity and backing. The other camp posits that the United States considers Israel a crucial component of its imperial strategy in an oil-abundant region, hence regarding its survival as vital to its interests.
However, there is another explanation, which has less to do with Israel and more to do with the Western perception of itself and its global significance.
Liberalism has predominated Western foreign policy since the end of the Cold War. Realist international relations academics, including John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, characterize this phenomenon as "liberal hegemony."
The foreign policy of the United States and its principal Western allies posits that liberal democracies and free markets are the most effective means for attaining stability and peace.
This axiom is based on political scientist Francis Fukuyama's notion of "The End of History," wherein he asserted that the conclusion of the Cold War and the victory of the West will result in the "universalisation of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government".
Since 1945, the discourse of Liberalism has persisted in US and European foreign policy and has gained acceptance across the political spectrum.
The United States has functioned as the guardian of liberal values, endeavoring to convert other civilizations into democracies with open markets. Imperialism employed the rhetoric of rights to rationalize military intervention: the justification for Afghanistan centered on women's rights, whereas Iraq was predicated on human rights.
The entrenched belief in the liberal nature of US and Western policy has two implications: firstly, it portrays states and entities deemed as Western rivals as morally defective.
Countries' human rights records and undemocratic behavior undermine their legitimacy within the international system. They are regarded as irrational entities lacking legitimate security and economic interests and are characterized as immoral and deceitful.
The name "Axis of Evil," used by the Bush administration to describe Iran, Iraq, and North Korea, exemplifies this phenomenon; however, Russia and China receive similar categorization. This has evolved into a doctrine for Western elites.
Instead of recognizing that nations opposing the West may possess valid concerns that warrant discussion, they are disregarded solely because they do not adhere to liberal democratic principles.
This is a common belief among foreign policy experts, academia, and the media, with few contrasting opinions. This is partly due to the large industry that has developed around this belief and the career prospects it offers. Stephen Walt asserts that "liberal hegemony, in short, was a full-employment policy for the foreign policy elite."
The second implication concerns the genuine conviction of Western elites in their moral superiority and their use of liberalism to police the world.
This deeply ingrained belief system has endured despite numerous instances that challenge the notion of the West's ethical foreign policy. The US and UK invasion and occupation of Iraq exemplified the use of liberal democracies to justify self-interest, resulting in significant harm to the Iraqi populace.
Nonetheless, liberals have remained resolute.
In 2021, after President Joe Biden's victory over Donald Trump (arguably the only recent US president who does not conform to this liberal ideology), his government contended that the international community welcomed the United States' re-engagement on the global stage.
"America at its best has a greater ability than any country on Earth to mobilise others for the common good and for the good of our people."
How does this liberal hegemony address the Palestinian issue?
This situation presents a dilemma, as Israel, a close Western ally, is neither a liberal democracy nor governed by liberal Democrats.
It is a settler colony that has consistently sought to displace the indigenous population since its establishment. It is responsible for one of the longest military occupation in modern history, employing an apartheid system to isolate and dominate Palestinians.
Western foreign policy addresses this reality by portraying its involvement as mediating a conflict between two equal sides, one of which is characterized as ‘’the only democracy in the Middle East.’’
By labeling it the "Israeli-Palestinian conflict," which the interminable peace process seeks to address, it allows for the perception of the West's position as constructive, logical, and beneficial rather than involved in brutal settler colonialism.
The Oslo process has all but died. It has transformed into a "zombie," yet continues to serve as a convenient instrument of deception. It enables the West to superficially enhance the apartheid and occupation regime imposed on the Palestinians.
By doing so, Israel can be portrayed as an acceptable democracy and an appropriate ally for the liberal project. Instead of condemning Israel for its military occupation, the West might depend on the illusion of a settlement that would foster harmony and stability.
The situation in Gaza has shown the complete scope of the liberal delusion and its failure to confront reality.
The Mediterranean enclave has long been viewed as a concentration camp, predominantly inhabited by refugees from prior Zionist ethnic cleansing operations in 1948 and 1967.
Since 2007, the area has been under blockade, resulting in restricted movement for its inhabitants, limited access to markets, and continuous Israeli military assaults.
Despite Israeli claims, the 2005 departure of its forces from Gaza did not terminate its occupation, and Palestinians have no sovereignty over its borders, airspace, or sea.The inhabitants of Gaza have effectively been abandoned, confined between barriers, and forgotten.
Western nations overlooked this reality. Hamas, democratically elected in 2006, became an easy scapegoat for the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza. A prevalent hypothesis posited that the underlying cause of the territory's issues was not the military occupation and state of confinement, but rather the poor governance of Hamas.
Some claim that, had it not been for Hamas, the region could have evolved into a prosperous entrepot similar to Dubai or Singapore, belying an assumption that economics determine politics, as opposed to the reverse, a characteristically liberal response.
The circumstances in Gaza were untenable, yet Palestinian dissent, whether nonviolent or otherwise, received no consideration.
In March 2018, a series of protests termed the Great March of Return occurred at the barrier between Gaza and the remainder of historic Palestine.
Israel violently suppressed the demonstrations, which aimed to peacefully end the siege. Army snipers killed 226 people and wounded 9,000. Over 150 people underwent limb amputations due to gunshot wounds. Notwithstanding the violence, the demonstrations persisted until December 2019.
For many in Gaza, conditions had become so miserable and dehumanizing that a prevalent conviction emerged that there was nothing remaining to lose.
An activist in Gaza who helped organize the protests stated:
"[We are] a people that want life and nothing more. Nothing can delay this idea but the shackles of our self-delusions. We are dying in this tiny besieged place, so why not bolt before the knife reaches our throats?"
Instead of viewing these protests and Israel's brutal response as a warning light, the West remained indifferent.
The protests received little media attention, and Western governments attributed the violence in Israel to the Palestinians:
"The responsibility for these tragic deaths rests squarely with Hamas. Hamas is intentionally and cynically provoking this response, and as the secretary of state said, Israel has the right to defend itself," one White House spokesman said.
Then came the explosion. On 7 October 2023, Hamas launched an assault on the Israeli military and settlers in the colonies surrounding Gaza. Upon reflection, the unsustainable reality in Gaza rendered such an outbreak inevitable.
A senior Hamas official stated:
"The people in Gaza, they had one of two choices: either to die because of siege and malnutrition and hunger and lacking of medicine and lacking of treatment abroad, or to die by a rocket. We have no other choice."
However, 7 October constituted a profound shock to Israel and the Western world. The impeccable image of Israel was irrevocably damaged, along with entrenched beliefs regarding the West's geopolitical agenda in the region.
The prevalence of the liberal delusion is evidenced by the reluctance of anyone in the West to suggest that the attack was justified. There was no question that sovereignty, security, and liberation may have impelled the assault. The liberal creed was so robust that Hamas and the Palestinians were expected to be an exception in human history.
The fundamental necessity for security, the inherent right to self-defense, and the historical principle of resistance to colonialism were all abandoned.
Instead of recognizing that Israel's occupation and apartheid are unsustainable and contribute to the surge of violence, the Western foreign policy establishment has found it more convenient to depict Hamas, classified as a "terrorist" organization in the UK and other nations, as irrational and immoral extremists.
The rejection of rationality served as a backdrop for the instigation of genocide that swept across the Western world in the weeks after October 7.
The propaganda apparatus intensified its efforts.
The Israeli prime minister characterized Palestinians as the "children of darkness," and other government officials echoed similar sentiments.
Western politicians and media did nothing to counter these allegations, and they repeated the Israeli government's propaganda without question. Western officials repeated the unverified accounts of Hamas burning babies and orchestrating a widespread campaign of mass rape. Instead of characterizing the motivations of Hamas and Palestinians as self-defense and resistance, they disparaged them as nihilistic, hateful, and violent.
The incitement has led to genocidal outcomes. The situation in Gaza has become so dire that it is difficult to fathom.
For almost a year, Israel has conducted a brutal war against Palestinian existence. Women, children, and families are explicitly targeted. Over 16,500 children have been killed, while an additional 22,000 remain missing. Over 41,000 Palestinians have been killed, with the total death toll—encompassing both direct and indirect fatalities resulting from the destruction of civilian infrastructure—estimated to reach as high as 186,000.
The same war crimes that the United States denounced in other conflicts have also been perpetrated by its partner, Israel. Yet despite the dissonance between this reality and the liberal self-perception, western elites have conceded little. Military support and aid to Israel persist relentlessly, the humanitarian catastrophe is predominantly overlooked, and the Palestinian solidarity movement in the West encounters escalating repression.
This state of denial may yield various potential outcomes. The delusion among foreign policy elites has become so deeply entrenched that it is impossible to imagine that it is wrong.
Liberals are so intensely engrossed in their ideology that they can no longer perceive or comprehend reality. This self-delusion engenders a subjectivity that hinders the West's ability to confront reality and accurately recognize its own limitations, as well as the needs and rights of others.
Any acknowledgment of complicity in genocide would severely undermine the foundational concepts of self-righteousness and morality, and the whole edifice could collapse. Considering the significance of moral discourse in its interactions with adversaries like Russia and China, this is not allowed to occur.
This adherence creates an increasing mismatch between Western foreign policy elites and the reality of the world. This paradox undermines the rationalist claim intrinsic to the telos of the universal form of government in Fukuyama's concept of the End of History.
Government leaders, media professionals, and numerous academics in the West increasingly exhibit subjectivity and irrationality toward Palestine and other nations that are considered "morally unacceptable."
Instead of embodying universality, Western nations that ardently support Israel are misaligned with the global consensus, especially among societies that have endured European colonization and saw the Palestinian struggle as a reflection of their own historical and contemporary experiences.
On a global scale, the accommodation of a violent settler colony is an anachronism. Instead of representing a universal spirit, Western nations that support Israel in its present state constitute a diminishing enclave.
Another perspective is that Gaza may represent the terminus of liberal hegemony. Palestine is not the first case in which there has been a gaping contradiction between liberal discourse and reality. The war on terror and the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan are excellent examples. Nonetheless, the primary distinction between that era and the present is that the United States is no longer the unipower.
The transition to a multipolar world, driven by China's ascent and Russia's resurgence, may mean that there will be rival visions that have a more realistic notion of stability. US policies in Palestine are destabilizing the Middle East and threatening China's oil sources and logistical lines. At some juncture, it may become imperative for China and other growing nations to establish an alternative, more pragmatic vision for the area.
Furthermore, the United States currently finds that its backing for Israel undermines the foundational institutions of liberal hegemony. Its attacks on the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court serve as an example.
The shame of Gaza should forever tarnish and render the current hegemony ineligible.
Regardless of future developments, one can only hope that the Palestinian reality will finally be acknowledged. As with any colonized population, Palestinians will make their own history, but the denial and delusion they have encountered will have come at a terrible cost.