Liberalism Has Drowned In The Blood Of Gaza's Children

Israel split a child in half at the waist last week.

A little girl, to be precise. Next to the two pieces of her, on the roof of a building, was an adult, likely her parent, also dead. In front of them sitting amidst the rubble, was a crying, blood-soaked little boy. Likely the little girl’s brother.

Did you see the headlines, the condemnation? No, you did not. If you aren’t following this evil on social media, you’ll have missed it.

I’ve chosen not to include the pictures. You can find them here and here. It’s up to you whether you click on the links, but I think they’re important to see. I think we need to bear witness and call attention to the complicity of the legacy media who are aiding the whitewash of this historical evil. To never say we didn’t know. To call out the fake tokenistic moral bullshit of “never again.”

If the crying little boy survives who can imagine the trauma to follow? The lifelong pain? The bone-deep terror? I am in contact with Palestinians in Gaza. More than once I’ve been told how they wish for death because they know if they survive they’ll never be able to close their eyes in restful peace again. This little Palestinian boy is, of course, just one among many thousands who, if he survives, will carry a trauma so profound, so unfathomably deep, he will never truly recover.

You may not have heard about this little boy or his little sister who was split in half, but you did hear about Russia. I know you did. We all did. Unlike Israel’s violence, Russia’s violence made the headlines. Why? Because it maintains the illusion of moral superiority we in the west so love to indulge in. Support for Ukraine makes western media and political elites feel good, like they’re on the right side of history. Telling us about Israel would shine an uncomfortable light on true ‘western values.’ Most of us are nothing if not determined to live in cognitive dissonance. The media knows this, buttresses it. The Guardian headlined Russia’s bombs for days yet coverage of Gaza and Israel’s evil dropped completely off the homepage. This, we’re told, is the west’s leading progressive media.

You may not have heard about the blood-soaked toddler or his little sister who was split in half by our bombs, but you probably heard about the Irish hip hop band who said a swear word in condemnation of all the child killing.

Honestly, I think we can call it a wrap on liberalism.

So a genocide continues for the world to see if it chooses, and most don’t. A genocide that has now moved into the starvation phase. No food or other aid has been allowed into the killing fields of Gaza for nearly two months. A caged population deprived of the necessary means for life head now towards total annihilation, an annihilation fully enabled and supported by our governments, by our tax money, by the clear-eyed choices of our leaders who decide how that money is spent. While we struggle to survive in this necro-capitalist system, while we skirt precarity, dodge viruses and wonder what the weather holds this summer on a boiling planet, our governments shovel billions and billions of dollars, pounds and euros to a crazed government carrying out a fascistic project of extermination.

On the subject of a boiling planet—and while the human cost of Israel’s project should never be overshadowed—Israeli genocide has inflicted a massive ecological cost. From the hundreds of razed olive groves to the destroyed tree-lined parks of Gaza to the huge quantities of carbon emitted in the course of exterminating a population, the world has not just been morally altered by Israel’s bloodlust, it has been biophysically changed too.

Does it have to be this way? In an objective sense, no. We live in a world swilling in unmeasurable amounts of wealth, a world where the dream of a good life for all is eminently realisable with the technology and resources of this century, yet our governments choose death. They choose killing. They choose genocide. They choose extermination. With infinite wealth and resources at hand, our governments choose the end of the world.

The conclusion is undeniable: it’s a wrap on liberalism. It has to die.

There are utopian futures, or there are no futures at all.

The first few months of Trump might have some convinced we shouldn’t be so rigid. The purity of his evil might have convinced some people there are in fact lesser evils. I’m once again asking you not to believe this. I’m once again asking you to stand firm in your radicalisation. I’m once again pointing to the ladder of fascist escalation. Trump is merely taking liberalism up the ladder. As I have written about many times before, none of what we’re seeing started with Trump. He didn’t open the ICE camps, he didn’t militarise the police, he didn’t start the deportations, he didn’t designate China the official enemy. He didn’t even start building the wall for christ’s sake! The infrastructure was all in place. This has been a 50-plus year project. Ever since the neoliberal revolution of the 1980s this moment has been brewing. And in case anyone forgets, America’s lesser evil at the last election was already doing genocide.

But okay, fine. For arguments sake, let’s pretend lesser evils are a path forward. And to do this, let’s take a look at the UK where Keir Starmer, the Labour prime minister, is a yardstick. Promising a more humane approach to governance after a decade of Tory disaster, Britain’s Labour government began immediately accelerating the country’s collapse into poverty and cruelty. From day one his government refused to criticise Israel and continued logistical and financial support for the Gaza genocide. Within weeks his government began arresting journalists for reporting on Israel’s crimes. Now they are sacrificing the disabled for capitalism, scapegoating immigrants for the country’s failures and doubling down on austerity. Because centrists stand for nothing, they will always, in historically reactionary times, be dragged along by the tides of ethno-nationalism. The UK under Labour is a textbook example. For this reason Keir Starmer is the most dangerous politician in the west. And the party’s loss at the next election will be historic. Worse will follow under Nigel Farage and the far-right Reform party. But, as with Trump, that is no reason to fall back on a corrupt, rotting, amoral centre.

Liberalism is a show that has gone on too long. Its cast of characters are staid, its show-writers are bloated and out of ideas. The final season is ending gorily, drowned in the blood of tens of thousands of Palestinian children.

No more lesser evils.

We must have utopian futures or we will have no futures at all.

If children being split in half by western bombs hasn’t convinced you of this, nothing will.

(cover photo by Mohammed Ibrahim, a photojournalist from the Gaza Strip)