Gaza crisis: If we can't agree genocide is wrong, what can we agree on?

By Tarik Cyril Amar

World history has turning points that leave little the same as it was before. We are living through such a moment because the Israeli "textbook" genocide – in the words of Israeli scholar Raz Segal – that is currently targeting almost 2 million Palestinians trapped in Gaza is not a regional event. Instead, it has turned into a global wedge, splitting humanity along a truly elemental line.

Since the 1948 UN Genocide Convention, there has been, at least in theory, a global consensus that this "crime of crimes" can never be justified. Yet we now see, on one side, those who will consistently never accept genocide and, on the other, those who tacitly condone and practically support this particular genocide.

The historic significance of this moment is not a matter of size. In purely quantitative terms, the Gaza genocide is (still) overshadowed by other cases, such as the Holocaust (6 million murdered) or the mass murders in Rwanda in 1994 (over 800,000 victims).

What makes Gaza unprecedented is something else: Never before have so many witnessed a genocide while it is unfolding. This is the first such mass murder taking place as a real-time global event. The Israeli perpetrators are reinforcing this effect by their compulsion to flaunt their crimes: from the self-incriminating "Amalek" and "human animals" rhetoric of the leadership to the sadistic videos Israeli soldiers cannot stop sharing. Gaza is inescapable – not only for the victims but, in a different manner, for us, the witnesses, too.

To escape a paralyzing sense of helplessness and grasp the essence of the global change we are experiencing, we must look beyond this horror. Let's ask two simple questions: What can we say about the two emerging global groups – the consistent genocide opponents and the genocide condoners? And what does this divergence imply regarding humanity's chances of peacefully and equitably sharing a diverse and increasingly multipolar world?

Note that this global split is occurring between countries and inside them. Many governments of the U.S.-led West have sided with Israel, providing it with military and diplomatic support. They have disregarded reams of evidence and the key preliminary finding of the UN's International Court of Justice: that genocide is plausible enough to require urgent measures to protect the Palestinians.

Yet outside the self-isolating West, most governments – including major powers such as Brazil, China, Russia, and Türkiye – have expressed concern about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. The Houthis, also known as Ansar Allah, or "supporters of God," which controls the capital and much of Yemen, have taken military action, with the declared aim of compelling a "ceasefire."

Inside the West, societies are polarizing between genocide opponents and genocide condoners. In the U.S., leader of the genocide-condoning camp, resistance is a minority activity but growing. In Germany – in decline but still the key power of the European Union – the government has suppressed public criticism of Israel, smearing it as "antisemitism." Yet even there, demonstrations for the Palestinians continue, likewise in, for instance, Great Britain and France.

In sum, we are seeing double splits: Geopolitically, there is, on one side, the West, now irreversibly discrediting its brittle claims to being a "garden" of superior values and rules. On the other, the much larger part of the world is consistent with a rule that could not be simpler or more important: Do not murder people simply for who they are.

And within Western societies, there is a split between those following their inhumane governments and those who do not. This split is a good thing. Just imagine a world where everyone followed the genocide-condoning Western elites. That at least is a hell we have been spared. Yet there is also great uncertainty and risk, as in every period of transition: If the West can no longer impose its violent hypocrisy on the world, we also do not yet have an alternative order that could impose key human values on the West, because if that order were in place already, then the Israeli genocide would have been stopped.

Gaza shows that humanity is facing a question of survival: As a whole, as a species, are we ready to agree – not merely in words but in deeds – on a minimal set of truly fundamental values? Values made by all of us that will not be, as so many in the West seem to believe, about specific political – or economic – regimes or the way societies use their pronouns or label their bathrooms. The values we really need to agree on are basic matters of life and death. For instance, that genocide is never permitted. No exceptions.

Tarik Cyril Amar, a special commentator for CGTN, is a historian and geopolitical analyst based in Istanbul.