The Israeli men who executed 15 unarmed paramedics got away with it. Whether the Israelis enjoyed themselves as they murdered their victims, or whether they will blitz their brains with drugs to forget doesn’t matter. Just as with the men who executed Hind Rajab, a five-year-old child, individually, they will have got away with it because their society offers them safe haven. All of Europe and the US is their playground.
Nor will global leaders intervene to end the mass murder which has been punctuated by this latest obscenity. Some of them – such as Emmanuel Macron, who called for a ceasefire, might appear to want to end the slaughter. After all, dead babies in incubators and paramedics in a mass grave are unpleasant garlands to wear. But 18 months in, they are too deeply implicated. Who can forget Ursula von der Leyen’s embrace of Netanyahu? Or Keir Starmer’s affirmation of Israel’s “right” to starve Palestinians in Gaza?
Today, those who are tasked with upholding international law have been co-opted by the Israeli leadership, whether they like it or not. The logic of gangland drug dealers and criminals – new members commit crimes to join, and are locked in – prevails.
So far from being complicit, US and European leaders are the authors of this latest atrocity by their Israeli colleagues in Gaza. As for the rest of us, we can take note, and we can remember. There will be no Nuremberg for the Palestinians, but we can honor the memory of all those who fought to live. And who were exterminated for having lived at all.