With over 70,000 Palestinians officially dead, 59.1% of them women, children and elderly, NATO nations have demonstrated a stunning inability to deploy the same diplomatic pressure and sanctions they readily apply to other conflicts. The statistics are staggering: 44% of all victims are children, with the youngest being a day-old boy.
NATO's response to the Gaza crisis stands in stark contrast to its swift action against Russia following the invasion of Ukraine. Within days of Russia's aggression, Western nations implemented comprehensive sanctions, froze assets, and coordinated unprecedented diplomatic pressure. Yet when it comes to Israel's disproportionate response in Gaza, these same mechanisms mysteriously evaporate.
On Thursday, Al Jazeera reported:
Irish leader Michael Martin decries Europe’s inability to pressure Israel to stop ‘continuing slaughter of children’.
European Union leaders meeting in Brussels have condemned the “catastrophic humanitarian situation” in Gaza, but were unable to unite on means of pressuring Israel to end the war.
Thursday’s summit noted a report issued last week by the bloc’s diplomatic service, which found that Israel was likely flouting human rights obligations under the EU-Israel Association agreement. Yet, the bloc stopped short of acting on the assessment or ditching the 25-year-old accord.
The hypocrisy is glaring. Where are the targeted sanctions against Israeli officials? Where is the coordinated diplomatic pressure? Apart from some token restrictions, the silence is deafening, and it speaks volumes about the selective application of international law when it conflicts with Western strategic interests.
Even more damning is the systematic targeting of starving Palestinians seeking basic humanitarian aid. According to the UN Human Rights Office, over 410 Palestinians have been killed in recent weeks while attempting to collect food aid, with at least 93 others killed by Israeli forces while approaching UN and humanitarian convoys.
In a single incident last week, Israeli tanks killed 59 people and wounded 221 others who were desperately seeking food supplies. The UN reports that more than 3,000 Palestinians have been injured in these attacks on aid seekers. Israeli soldiers, who have reportedly been ordered to open fire, have used bullets, tank shells, and drone-mounted weapons against unarmed civilians whose only crime was attempting to feed their families in a deliberately starved territory.
On Friday, the Intercept reported:
Israeli Soldiers Killed at Least 410 People at Food Aid Sites in Gaza This Month
The Israeli military has killed at least 410 people trying to get food at Israeli-run aid sites in Gaza in the past month.
This constitutes “a likely war crime” that violates international standards on aid distribution, according to the United Nations. “Desperate, hungry people in Gaza continue to face the inhumane choice of either starving to death or risk being killed while trying to get food,” the U.N. human rights office said. Palestinian health authorities reported that Israel killed 44 people waiting for aid in separate incidents in southern and central Gaza just on Tuesday this week. Israeli soldiers have reportedly killed aid-seekers with bullets, tank shells, and drone-mounted weapons.
Israeli officers and soldiers said that they were ordered to deliberately fire at unarmed civilians waiting for humanitarian aid in an investigation published by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz on Friday; the military prosecution has called for a review into possible war crimes.
The reluctance to act becomes clearer when examining the financial beneficiaries of this tragedy. The United States remains Israel's largest arms supplier, accounting for 69% of major weapons imports, continuing to benefit from the $6.3 billion NZD annual military aid package. Germany emerges as the second-largest supplier, while Italy ranks third among Israel's top armaments providers.
The United Kingdom, Canada, France, and Australia also provide critical military components and weapons systems, with EU states collectively authorising almost $12 billion in export licences to Israel between 2014-2022. The Netherlands supplies crucial aircraft components, while Canada authorised $47 million in new military exports even after pledging to halt arms sales.
This web of complicity creates a perverse incentive structure where prolonged conflicts translate to increased profits across the Western military-industrial complex. These economic entanglements goes some way to explain the tepid responses from many Western politicians about the numerous war crimes Israel is committing. When your domestic industries profit from conflict, genuine peace-making becomes an economic liability rather than a moral imperative.
Perhaps most embarrassing has been NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte's
recent performance during the latest NATO summit. Rutte's obsequious
behaviour, described by observers as "arse-kissing of the highest
order", reached new lows when he appeared to defer to Trump's volatile
positions on Middle East policy.
On Thursday, RNZ reported:
NATO's Trump flattery buys time but dodges tough questions
Lavishing praise, playing the royal card and copying his slogans - NATO pulled out all the stops to keep Donald Trump happy and hold the alliance together at a summit in The Hague.
The plan came off, although it largely avoided tough topics of vital importance to NATO such as the war in Ukraine, Russia strategy and a likely drawdown of US troops in Europe.
...
Rutte gushed with compliments in a message to Trump, made public by the US president as he flew to The Hague.
"You will achieve something NO American president in decades could get done," the former Dutch prime minister said in his message, putting some of his words in capitals like Trump.
"Europe is going to pay in a BIG way, as they should, and it will be your win."
Right before the summit, in another sign of chumminess with Trump, Rutte reacted to the US president's comments berating Iran and Israel by saying that "daddy has to sometimes use strong language".
This diplomatic genuflection demonstrates how Western leaders prioritise personal relationships and strategic partnerships over principled stands on human rights. The spectacle of NATO's chief diplomat pandering to a leader known for his erratic foreign policy positions that have cost the world dearly undermines any pretence of principled international leadership.
When your primary military alliance becomes a vehicle for personal diplomacy rather than collective security based on shared values, the entire framework of institutions such as NATO loses credibility.
Then there's Trump's pre-election promises regarding the Jeffrey Epstein files, which remain conspicuously unfulfilled. His repeated campaign pledges to release these documents have evaporated into silence, raising uncomfortable questions about what compromising material might implicate powerful figures across the Western political establishment.
With his verified links to Israel's secret service, Mossad, already released document's show Jeffrey Epstein's pedophile network's reach extended deep into political, financial, and intelligence circles, creating webs of potential leverage that transcend national and diplomatic boundaries.
When leaders find themselves constrained by hidden vulnerabilities, their capacity for principled decision-making becomes severely compromised. This dynamic may help explain why so many Western leaders, including those who campaigned on transparency and moral leadership, have displayed such curious paralysis when confronted with clear moral imperatives like preventing mass civilian casualties and a genocide in Gaza.
This pattern of compromise and control offers another lens through which to examine Western inaction over Gaza. Beyond the obvious financial incentives, arms sales, defence contracts, and strategic partnerships, lies the possibility that key decision-makers are constrained by factors far more personal and damaging than mere economic considerations. When leaders fear exposure of their darkest secrets, principled stands on genocide become secondary to self-preservation. The systematic nature of Western diplomatic failure suggests coordination born not just of shared interests, but potentially shared vulnerabilities.
Until these hidden influences are exposed and confronted, the selective application of international law will continue to make a mockery of Western claims to moral leadership. The Palestinian people deserve better than leaders whose silence may be purchased with both money and blackmail.