Much of the world now seems convinced that the only cause worth marching for, chanting for, beating up Jews for, even killing for, is Gaza, and its supposedly brutal oppressor, the embattled state of Israel. Israel, we keep being told, is a diabolical colonial-settler state, responsible for ethnic cleansing and genocide. Mass starvation in Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Haiti, Zimbabwe, Somalia, and Afghanistan, and mass killings by Muslim terrorists in Nigeria, mass enslavement of black Africans by Arabs in Mali, Mauritania, and Niger — none of these get more than a glancing mention in the world’s media. It’s Gaza, Gaza, Gaza day in and day out.
Brendan O’Neill reminds us that this manic focus on Gaza and those preternaturally wicked Israelis has allowed many much worse conflicts to be overlooked. More of his furious screed can be found: “In defence of whataboutery,” by Brendan O’Neill, Spiked, August 9, 2025:
…Brilliantly, some non-Europeans are rising up against Gaza myopia. Luai Ahmed, the Yemeni-born writer who lives in Sweden, has directly confronted the UN on its Israelophobic mania. In a speech at the UN Human Rights Council earlier this year, he asked: ‘What about Yemen?’ Half a million souls have perished there these past 10 years, he said. Yemen suffered one of the worst famines of the modern era in the wake of the Saudi-Yemen war. ‘Why does no one care when half a million Yemenis die?’, he demanded. You can envisage the moral preeners of the keffiyeh classes clubbing together to denounce this pesky Yemeni for his crime of whataboutery, for polluting their self-serving ‘Gaza genocide’ narrative with the inconvenient fact that there have been worse wars this very decade.
Even history must now bow to the Gaza delirium. Britain’s independent MP Zarah Sultana tweeted this week about the 80th anniversary of the nuking of Hiroshima. That was a ‘crime against humanity’ that ‘killed tens of thousands in an instant’, she said. Then, like a Pavlov’s dog of Palestinianism, she said ‘We also remember Gaza’, where Israel has dropped ‘five times the power of the atomic bomb’ that was launched over Hiroshima. ‘[This] is genocide’, she cried.
This is a kind of madness, isn’t it? Yes, with hilarious unwittingness Sultana actually made Israel’s case for it: that Israel has apparently dropped more firepower on Gaza over two years than America did on Hiroshima in a split second, and yet the casualities in Gaza are fewer than in Hiroshima, rather proves that this is not a genocide but a war on Hamas. But there’s a moral frenzy here, too. There is a class of people who think of nothing but Gaza. It colonises their every waking moment. It brutally blocks out all other political concerns, domestic and international. It casts its shadow over the present, the past and that starving child in Nigeria. Every human being, alive or dead, now finds his pain measured against Gaza. Ninety thousand human beings burnt to a crisp in Hiroshima? Okay, but what about Gaza? This isn’t activism – it’s hysteria.
I know what they say: it’s because our own governments support Israel that we are angrier about the Gaza conflict than any other. Bollocks. Our governments supported the Saudis too, yet I don’t remember you bawling in the streets every Saturday for the dead of Yemen. Our governments, via the aid industry, are catastrophically failing Nigeria and Sudan, yet you raise not one word. More to the point, the BBC – not to mention CNN, AP and the rest – are meant to be neutral news-collectors, not anti-government leftists. So why are they infected with the malarial Gaza fetish that ails the left and the cultural establishment?
Something else is going on. And we all know it. We all know that hating Israel has become the key source of moral virtue for the influential of the West. We all know Gaza is the issue through which high political society distinguishes itself from ‘the unenlightened’. And we all know that the consequence of this fetishisation of Palestine to the end of boosting the moral fortunes of time-rich, virtue-hungry Westerners is that black Africans and the Slavic victims of Russian imperialism are callously cast aside. That’s my charge: your swirling, one-eyed Israelophobia has nurtured a collective culture of abject indifference to our suffering cousins in Africa and elsewhere. So, tell me – what about them?
So what about it? What about the famine, a hundred times worse in the Sudan, where there are twenty-five million people suffering from hunger, while in Gaza there are hundreds? What about the extreme hunger that 17 million Yemenis now endure? What about the 24 million people in the Democratic Republic of Congo who are facing starvation? The thirteen million people enduring extreme hunger in Afghanistan? Or the millions of hungry people, enduring far worse conditions than the Gazans (who have just been served their 100 millionth meal by the Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation), but whom the world forgets? And what of the “food insecurity” affecting millions in Haiti, Mali, Somalia, Zimbabwe and Kenya? What about the massacres, of Christians by Muslims in central and northern Nigeria, their crops being deliberately destroyed to make way for Fulani Muslim herdsmen? What about the hundreds of thousands of black Africans who are still enslaved by Arab masters in Mauritania, Mali, and Niger? Let’s throw those charges back in the faces of those marching in lockstep support as they scream “from the river to the sea/Palestine shall be free,” which is a call for the total destruction of Israel, and its replacement by a 23rd Arab state, and “globalize the Intifada,” which is a call for murdering not just Israelis, but Jews everywhere. What about that?
ploome says
You forgot to attribute GLOBAL WARMING to Israel/Jews.
Mike says
Hey, you’re good! I’ll bet you could get a cushy government or NGO job in a heartbeat! Board members would all be sitting around thinking, “dammit, why didn’t I think about that?” 😉
Alkflaeda says
If C.S. Lewis were alive on earth today, he’d probably have Uncle Screwtape telling his nephew Wormwood “We cannot stop human empathy, but we can misdirect it so that people make huge efforts to allay non-existent injustices, whilst real atrocities slip under their radar.”
The other issue is that some of the real genocides which are in progress cannot be camouflaged as freedom fighting, so they show up the perpetrators, who may be Marxist or Islamic, in their true colours. And if too much of that happens, people might decide not to buy into the Globalist or Islamist vision for the world.
Wellington says
The Gaza fixation shows how phony, hypocritical and stupid the world is so very often.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
The sooner Israel crushes Hamas & retakes Gaza, even if it means losing some more of the hostages, the sooner all this nonsense will end. As long as Israel drags this on and lets Gaza fester, instead of expelling them to Puntland or Mauritania, this will continue
roger says
Why Israel Is Entitled to Annex the Gaza Strip Under International Law
International law is clear: sovereignty is not just a flag and de facto control—it must also be legitimate.
When the entity controlling a territory is a terrorist organization like Hamas, its sovereignty is neither legal nor recognized. It is not a “state,” not a “government,” but an illegitimate armed force.
Legally, this means one simple thing: the territory is without a sovereign (terra nullius).
What does this mean?
In a territory without a sovereign, a state may, under certain circumstances, apply its sovereignty if the conditions of security necessity, effective control, and acceptance or recognition by the international community (even if partial at first) are met.
Gaza today fits exactly this case:
• There is no lawful sovereign.
• The de facto regime commits war crimes and poses existential threats.
• Removing the threat requires not only dismantling Hamas but also changing the legal status of the territory to prevent the return of terrorism in the future.
And what about the population?
History and law recognize cases of population exchange and voluntary migration as ways to end violent conflicts:
• Greece–Turkey (1923) – a large-scale population exchange that ended decades of wars.
• India–Pakistan (1947) – population transfers following territorial partition.
• Czechoslovakia–Germany (1945) – removal of hostile populations to end conflict.
When people live in a hostile territory from which organized terrorism is carried out against a sovereign state, offering voluntary migration routes to third countries—accompanied by economic incentives and international arrangements—is legal, humane, and sometimes the only way to bring peace and security to both sides.
So, what have we learned?
When the “sovereign” is a terrorist organization, it is not a sovereign under international law. When the territory is without a sovereign, it may—and in some cases should—be annexed. And when its inhabitants choose not to live in peace with their neighbors, offering a fair opportunity for voluntary migration is a historically recognized way to resolve bloody conflicts.
(Yaelle Tothany on X)
gravenimage says
The Gaza Fixation
……………………………….
Important stuff from Hugh Fitzgerald.
Thomas Black says
Those who denounce Israel about its war against Hamas have selective concerns. They do not protest about the persecution and killing of Christians in North Korea, Pakistan, Africa, and other countries too many to mention here. They do not protest about the oppression of the Baha’I in Iran or the Falun Gong in China. They do not protest about the plight of the Druze in Syria or the Kurds. And there is the mass killing of Ukrainian civilians. This is hardly a complete list.
But many people just love to denounce Israel and have been even before October 7. The double standard is easily explained: antisemitism.
Tim gallagher says
The media seems to play a major role in what becomes trendy and what becomes the big issue for the sheeple, Thomas. This Gaza stuff gets so much attention and coverage whereas Christian murder in Africa, and oppression in North Korea and falun gong in China gets pretty well no coverage. These days Gaza seems to be an obsession for perpetually protesting. It’s the trendy issue for that crowd.
skeptiker says
Kein Weg führt daran vorbei, dass Israel endlich Gaza komplett annektiert, die Terroristen eliminiert oder gefangen nimmt und sie vor Gericht stellt, die Familien und Unterstützer der Terrorbande aus Gaza vertreibt, die Flüchtlingslager auflöst und dafür sorgt, dass nie wieder ein faschistischer islamischer Mob die Gelegenheit bekommt, Israelis zu entführen, zu belästigen, zu bedrohen und zu töten.
Andrew Blackadder says
The youth of Germany are ashamed of the past History of their country and yet today they appear to support 100% a gang of thugs that raped, defiled and beheaded young Jewish girls at a Music Festival and they seem to be totally unaware that these thugs, these muslim thugs, love Adolf Hitler while these young Germans call everybody else a Nazi…
While holding up welcome to Germany signs to people that adore Adolf Hitler and his gang of thugs.
Ya cant fix this kind of stupid.
dumbledoresarmy says
Brilliant article by Brendan O’Neill! I followed the link and read the whole thing.
Pass it around, people.
OLD GUY says
Political Islam, lie, cheat, steal, beat, rape, murder and any other depraved act to achieve power over non-muslim/islamic people.
Islam has infiltrated our education system, the media and our government officials through funding higher education and buying political favors.
They also use paid organizers and participants too but on the demonstration shows for the media to spread across the globe.
It is going to get both ugly and deadly before we the people fix the problem or kneel to Islam.