The duplicity of Western humanitarianism

Every time I tune into the BBC TV, I find horrifying pictures of rabble and destruction, devastation and death, men and women wailing at the loss of loved ones, especially children. 

In a small and densely populated strip of land, there is no way more than 700 bombs can rain down in a day without mass casualties. 

Two weeks ago there was an attack on a hospital and more than 500 people were reported killed. The IDF vehemently denied responsibility.

But on Tuesday this week, the largest refugee settlement was bombed and authorities in Gaza under Hamas, a group patently labelled terrorist by Israel and its Western allies, reported 195 dead.

This time, Israel was forthright in conceding responsibility. An IDF spokesperson who first confirmed the attack had no regrets; the attack was a legitimate target because the camp had Hamas militants and a key commander.

Assuming this is true, does the goal of killing one enemy command justify carpet bombing a place that houses a mass of refugees?

The West prides in being the civilised world that takes progress and enlightenment to the rest of the world. In fact there is a long standing claim to the white-man’s burden of working to save the world, to rid humanity of barbarism and backwardness. 

Since Hamas fighters breeched Israeli security and conducted killings of Israeli citizens, utterly despicable, leaders of major Western nations including the US and UK have rushed to Tel Aviv to give assurance to the Israeli government that the West stands firmly behind actions taken and to be taken against the terrorist outfit in Gaza – Hamas.  

At a press conference with a Western leader, Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, asserted rather combatively that his country was involved in a war of civilisation. Earlier this week, someone on Twitter claimed that Israel was an outpost of Western values. 

The idea that the West represents some kind of superior civilizational credentials or that it has high moral credibility is simply ludicrous. Recall that the first genocide of the twentieth century was committed by the Germans on the Herero and Nama people of present day Namibia.

And the two most brutal and destructive wars of the modern era, the First and Second World Wars, were fought among ‘civilized’ nations and peoples.  

At the time of this writing, Israel is reportedly intensifying its ground assault to finish the job that has heretofore been prosecuted through bombs from the air. The stated mission of the military campaign is to destroy Hamas.

When asked about the day after Hamas is presumably no more and what has to be done about the fate of Palestinians in Gaza, Israeli government officials and military spokespersons have been unequivocal: it’s for Palestinians not Israel to manage their business. 

Yes, of course, the people of Palestine deserve sovereignty and an independent national state through which they can self-govern and live in dignity away from the indignity of an occupying force and the humiliation of being displaced in one’s own homeland. Except that Israel and the West have little interest in finding a long-term solution to the root cause of the violence that has been on display since at least 1947.  Rather than confront the root of the problem, the West is content with drumming up humanitarian support and aid to the wretched people of Gaza. Western leaders speak with gusto about how so many aid trucks have finally been able to cross the border with Egypt and into besieged Gaza.  The duplicity of providing and pushing for aid while at the same time abetting, funding and fuelling bombardment and destruction of the same people is difficult to digest. If Palestinians weren’t under a colonial-type occupation, facing a relentless Israeli military assault, squeezed and displaced on their own land
, facing armed violence from Jewish settlers and stripped of their basic right to exist in a free environment, they wouldn’t be needing the humanitarian largesse of the West.

As and when the dust settles a bit, and the death and destruction in Gaza comes to some end of sorts, one has to wonder whether the West will still have any moral authority to preach the values of peace, respect for human life, freedom and human rights.  

To insist that Israel has the right to defend itself including retaliating with heavy bombardments that kill masses of civilians, Western leaders and their governments along with the media have irreparably imperilled their historical claim to being torchbearers of enlightenment and civilisation.

Moses Khisa, 
[email protected]