In the annals of modern political depravity, few figures have so brazenly weaponized state machinery for personal absolution as Benjamin Netanyahu. His latest campaign of aggression against the Palestinian people, as exposed by Israeli historian Ilan Pappé, is not merely a geopolitical maneuver, but a grotesque act of self-preservation, a cynical ploy to delay justice at the International Criminal Court
This is not the conduct of a statesman but of a man cornered by his own moral bankruptcy who is willing to immolate an entire population to shield himself from accountability.
Netanyahu’s war on Gaza is not a war in the conventional sense but a calculated purge, a scorched-earth policy masquerading as national defense. The sheer scale of devastation, tens of thousands dead, entire neighborhoods razed, and a generation of children orphaned, is not collateral damage, but the intended outcome of a regime that views Palestinian life as expendable, a mere footnote in its messianic vision of territorial expansion.
The Prime Minister’s far-right coalition, emboldened by biblical fantasies of a “Greater Israel,” has found in him a willing executor of their apocalyptic ambitions.
What is most damning is not only the brutality of the campaign but the cold, bureaucratic precision with which it is executed. Netanyahu’s government has turned Gaza into a laboratory of suffering, testing the limits of international tolerance while cloaking its atrocities in the language of counterterrorism. The world is expected to believe that the flattening of hospitals, the bombing of refugee camps, and the starvation of civilians are unfortunate necessities in the fight against Hamas.
This is not security policy but a state terror. And why does it seem that the United Nations is mum about this act of terrorism?
The silence of Western powers, particularly those who pride themselves on democratic values, is a stain that history will not forgive. While some European leaders have begun to murmur about sanctions, their actions remain tepid and symbolic.
The United States, ever the enabler, continues to supply arms and diplomatic cover, effectively underwriting the destruction of Palestine. This complicity is not passive but an active participation in a campaign of ethnic cleansing.
Netanyahu’s invocation of existential threat is a grotesque inversion of reality. It is the Palestinians who face cultural, physical, and political extinction. Their homes are bulldozed, their histories erased, their futures foreclosed. And yet, in the face of this annihilation, they resist, not as terrorists, but as a people asserting their right to exist. That resistance is not only justified but a sacred act.
The Prime Minister’s manipulation of fear is not limited to the international stage. Domestically, he has stoked nationalist fervor to distract from his legal woes, turning Israeli society into a cauldron of paranoia and militarism. The judiciary is under siege, dissent is criminalized, and the media is cowed. This is not the behavior of a democracy at war but the descent of a democracy into fascism.
To speak of peace under Netanyahu’s rule is to indulge in fantasy. His vision of peace is one of submission where Palestinians are stripped of agency, dignity, and land. The so-called “ceasefires” are mere interludes in a permanent campaign of domination. There can be no peace without justice, and there can be no justice while Netanyahu remains in power.
The international community must confront a painful truth: diplomacy has failed. Words have failed. Only decisive action, sanctions, arms embargoes, and legal prosecution, can halt this descent into barbarism. The ICC must not be deterred by Netanyahu’s theatrics. The world must not be blackmailed by his threats of perpetual war. Justice delayed is not only justice denied but a cowardly act of complicity.
History will remember this moment. It will remember the children buried beneath rubble, the mothers who wailed over lifeless bodies, the cities turned to ash. And it will remember those who stood by and did nothing. Netanyahu may escape the courtroom for now, but he will not escape the judgment of history.
In the end, this is not merely a Palestinian tragedy but a human one. The world must reclaim its conscience. It must say, with one voice, that no leader, no matter how powerful, no matter how embattled, has the right to wage war on an entire people to save himself. Netanyahu’s war is not Israel’s war. It is his alone.
And it must end.