“The trouble with Eichmann was precisely that so many were like him, and that the many were neither perverted nor sadistic, that they were, and still are, terribly and terrifyingly normal.” Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem.
The United States and Germany supply 99% of Israel’s weapons. As U.N. Special Rapporteur Ben Saul recently pointed out, they could end this genocide overnight – if they wanted to. But they don’t. They won’t. They have chosen complicity instead.
The U.S., Germany and the rest of Western Europe are not passive observers of the carnage in Gaza; they are its enablers. They arm it, fund it, shield it.
Even after the International Criminal Court (ICC) sought an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity, Western leaders embraced him. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz welcomed Netanyahu with a red carpet in Berlin. French President Emmanuel Macron defended Israel’s bombardment of Gaza as “self-defense.” Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni promised “unconditional support.” And during their terms, former U.S. President Joe Biden, former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and former British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak all stood loyally by Israel’s side – approving arms deals, muting criticisms and offering endless diplomatic cover.
Today, the names have changed – Donald Trump in Washington, Keir Starmer in London, Pierre Poilievre in Ottawa – but the cowardice remains. The silence of these leaders is not neutrality. It is collusion.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered Israel to prevent genocide. Israel ignored it. Now, 1.1 million Gazans face catastrophic hunger. Eight in 10 children suffer from life-threatening malnutrition, according to the World Food Programme.
Meanwhile, the so-called values of the West – human rights, the rule of law, democracy – lie buried beneath the rubble of Gaza. They were never universal. They were always conditional. Justice is suspended when the perpetrator is an ally.
History will not forget this. Germany, America, Britain, France, Canada – they will all be remembered not just for watching a genocide unfold, but for helping it happen.
Gaza’s children were not only killed by Israeli bombs. They were killed by Western bombs, too. No speech, no press release, no staged apology will ever erase that fact.
