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by Jasim Al-Azzawi

Moral outrage and political tsunami

The pièce de résistance in the political tsunami that swept across parliaments, streets of world capitals, and podiums, culminating in a cascade of recognitions for Palestine, was Israel’s starvation campaign. A deliberate deprivation that tore through the veil of diplomatic neutrality. When images of emaciated children and hollow-eyed families flooded the world’s screens, the silence shattered. From Madrid to Brasília, from Pretoria to Dublin, governments that once tiptoed around the issue found their voices. Chile, Spain, Norway—each stepped forward, not out of political convenience, but because the moral cost of inaction had become unbearable. The campaign was not just a humanitarian crisis—it was the moral rupture that forced the world to choose: complicity or conscience.

This rupture was not born in isolation. It followed months of mounting evidence, from UN agencies and human rights organizations, that Israel’s siege on Gaza had crossed every red line of international law. The deliberate targeting of food supplies, the obstruction of humanitarian aid, and the weaponization of starvation are not just morally abhorrent—they are prosecutable war crimes under the Rome Statute. And yet, the United States, long seen as the indispensable power in global diplomacy, chose silence. Worse—it chose endorsement.

The US endorsement of Israel’s starvation siege on Gaza is not just a policy misstep—it is a grotesque moral betrayal that will haunt the nation’s soul and forever brand President Trump’s legacy with shame. To support the deliberate starvation of children is to stand on the wrong side of humanity. The harrowing images of skeletal Palestinian toddlers conjure the darkest chapters of history—ghastly reminders of Jewish children in Nazi death camps. That such horrors are now mirrored with American complicity is a stain that no amount of spin or silence can erase. This is not hyperbole—it is history repeating itself in grotesque imitation. The very nation that once vowed “never again” now finds itself employing the same tactics it once condemned. And the man at the center of this moral collapse is Benjamin Netanyahu.

Netanyahu, drunk on his cunning, believes he can outmaneuver justice, stretching the Gaza war like a smokescreen to dodge the noose tightening around him at home. In his desperate bid for survival, he’s not just burying Gaza in rubble and grief; he’s dragging America’s reputation through blood-soaked mud, staining it with shame and criminal complicity. Every day this war drags on is another day the US is tethered to a man who treats human suffering as a political chess piece.

READ: ‘Unimaginable’ hunger: US doctor in Gaza reports children starving to death due to Israeli blockade

Like a modern-day Macbeth, Netanyahu clings to power with bloodied hands, convinced that his mastery of manipulation can outwit fate. He drags the Gaza war endlessly, not for strategy but for survival, hoping the fog of war will obscure the reckoning awaiting him at home, the noose tightening with every indictment and protest. In doing so, he mirrors the tyrants of history who believed brutality could buy them time—Milosevic in the Balkans, Pinochet in Chile—men who misinterpreted carnage for control. And as he orchestrates this siege, he pulls the United States into the mire, staining its legacy with complicity, shame, and the kind of moral failure that history never forgets. Gaza burns, and with it, the illusion that this war is anything but a desperate man’s gambit.

What makes this moment especially perilous is the semi-silence of American institutions. What would it take for the growing dissent within the US Congress, the media, and civil society to reach a critical mass that convinces President Trump to pressure Netanyahu into ending the conflict in Gaza? Where is the moral clarity that once defined American leadership? The answer lies in a toxic blend of political inertia and strategic delusion—a belief that supporting Israel, no matter the cost is a geopolitical imperative. But this calculus is crumbling. The world is watching, and the moral ledger is being written in real time.

Trump, Netanyahu, the donor class, and the GHF death trap   

President Trump must awaken to the peril of Netanyahu’s war of deception. This is not a statesman’s struggle—it is the desperate theater of a man cornered by scandal, clinging to power through destruction. If Trump continues to tether himself to Netanyahu’s intrigue, he risks allowing Netanyahu to drag him into a moral and political abyss from which there may be no return. History is merciless to those who stand beside tyrants in their final acts. The bloodshed in Gaza is not just a humanitarian catastrophe—it is a trap. And unless Trump distances himself now, he will find his legacy shackled to a war that was never his, but whose shame will be his to bear.

Why does President Trump allow Netanyahu to run circles around him, dragging his reputation through blood and betrayal? The answer is simple: money and influence. The Zionist lobby and donor class that bankrolled Trump’s rise now demand unwavering loyalty to Israel, even as his MAGA base grows disillusioned. “My people are starting to hate Israel,” Trump reportedly warned a prominent Jewish donor. Yet the financial leash remains tight, and Trump’s silence is bought at the cost of his legacy. The Gaza Humanitarian Fund (GHF), a private aid contractor with no prior experience in humanitarian relief, has become a grotesque symbol of failure and cruelty. Designed as an alternative to UN agencies, its distribution sites have turned into death traps. Over 1,400 Palestinians have been killed while seeking food, shot by Israeli soldiers working alongside GHF contractors. Retired U.S. Green Beret Anthony Aguilar, who served as a subcontractor, testified: “What I witnessed were war crimes—indiscriminate violence against starving civilians.” 

OPINION: Israel at a crossroads: Warnings from within on war crimes and the cost of denial

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This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.