When Condemnation Is Strategy: Gaza and the Moral Collapse of the West

In recent days, we have seen Western leaders condemn Israel’s actions—ironically, the very same leaders who granted Israel a license to kill and, in many cases, supplied it with weapons. However, let us be very clear: these leaders have not awakened from a slumber of moral conscience. Their condemnations are not born of principle but are strategic responses.

All governments that remained silent for over a year and a half while Gaza was reduced to rubble and its people starved into submission have exposed their moral bankruptcy. Their sudden condemnations now ring hollow — reactive damage control after months of complicity. These are not voices of conscience. They are the delayed echoes of shame, spoken only once the silence became politically and socially untenable.

The Western mantra of human rights, international law, and democracy has not merely eroded — it has been violently and visibly buried in Gaza. These values, long held up as the ethical foundation of Western civilisation, have been discarded whenever they threatened to constrain power, profit, or alliance. For decades, the West has swallowed its own principles in pursuit of control: in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Libya, in drone wars, in mass surveillance, in refugee pushbacks — and now, most nakedly, in Gaza. The humanitarian catastrophe there is not a deviation from the norm; it is the inevitable result of a system that long ago abandoned integrity for interest.

Gaza is not just the breaking point. It is the burp after decades of moral consumption without digestion — the involuntary exposure of what Western civilisation has truly become.

From arming despots while preaching democracy, to vetoing UN resolutions meant to protect civilians, to criminalising dissent and protest in their own streets, Western states have systematically chosen power over principle. The same nations that loudly proclaimed “never again” have now watched — and enabled — mass civilian suffering in real time, livestreamed and documented for the world to see. Gaza did not kill Western moral authority. It merely confirmed its death.

Speeches of Western rulers underline this hypocrisy:

– Joe Biden, October 2023: “Israel has a right to defend itself,” a refrain repeated while white phosphorus fell on civilian areas.

– Rishi Sunak, November 2023: “We stand with Israel,” even as UK-made weapons were being used in densely populated civilian zones.

– Emmanuel Macron, December 2023: “Humanitarian pauses are necessary,” while refusing to support a ceasefire resolution.

– Olaf Scholz, January 2024: “Antisemitism has no place in Germany,” used to silence protesters calling for an end to the bombing of hospitals and schools.

– Ursula von der Leyen, February 2024: “Europe will always support Israel’s security,” a declaration made as UN experts warned of impending genocide.

– Keir Starmer, October 2023: “Israel has the right to withhold power and water,” even as international law classified such actions as collective punishment.

These are not moral positions. They are strategic calculations — and history will remember them as such.

After Gaza, it would be a shameful act for any Western nation to continue parading as a poster child for justice and human rights. The mask has slipped, and no amount of diplomatic spin can restore what has been lost.

The real question now is not whether Western civilisation can recover its moral compass — but whether it even wants to.

This moment demands more than token condemnations or reviews of trade agreements. It demands a global reckoning. The international system, long dominated by Western hegemony, has failed to protect the most basic principles it was supposedly built on. It is time for the world — particularly the Global South — to seek a true alternative: a framework for justice and accountability that is not beholden to imperial nostalgia or the vetoes of the powerful.

From tribal chieftaincies to monarchies, from pagan empires to papal theocracies, from capitalist democracies to communist dictatorships, mankind has experimented with every form of governance. Pharaohs ruled by tyranny, Rome by conquest, Europe by colonialism, and the modern West by markets and media. Communism collapsed under its own brutality; liberalism now drowns in hypocrisy. Amid all this, Islam stands apart — not as an idea yet to be tested, but as a system with a proven track record. It united warring tribes into a global civilisation, established centuries of justice from Andalusia to India, balanced rights with duties, and power with accountability. It produced scholars and statesmen, markets without exploitation, and armies without arrogance. In a world disillusioned with every other model, Islam’s legacy remains the most consistent example of principled, sustainable governance in human history.

If Gulf nations can prop up American debt with oil and arms deals, if Pakistan can dominate the skies over India, and if the entire Global South stands firmly for the liberation of Palestine, then the solution is not distant or complex. It is present and possible: establish a system rooted in the beliefs and values of the global majority — not the elite minority. That system is Islam.

It is not only morally sound, but politically coherent, economically just, and militarily capable. It does not rely on slogans of freedom while crushing dissent. It does not preach human rights while funding bombs. It does not promise peace while selling weapons. Islam offers something the West cannot: a system of governance accountable not to poll numbers, corporate donors, or imperial alliances — but to God, truth, and justice.

Gaza did not just expose the brutality of occupation. It unmasked the futility of the order that protected it. The Islamic system is not waiting in the shadows. It is rising — and the world would do well to see it for what it is: the most credible contender to a world desperate for change.