ZEENAT ADAM

I had intended to write this piece as a sober survey of history: the Balfour Declaration, the Nakba, the maps of shrinking Palestinian land, the endless peace conferences, resolutions and summits. I thought I might recount the familiar trail of diplomatic jargon—from Camp David to Doha—that has promised everything and delivered nothing.

But then I opened Instagram.

The first image was of a skeletal body—skin stretched taut over bone. The second, of a man collapsing in a food line, begging for a morsel before dying on the spot. The third, testimony of a Palestinian detained without trial, describing in graphic detail how he was raped. In the same 24 hours that such images reached my screen, Israeli forces opened fire on a starving crowd waiting for food, killing 130 people. This is what it means to sit in the comfort of conferences, panels, and summits while Gaza starves.

So often we theorise, politicise, and analyse—but we neglect to humanise. As Dr. Ezzideen Shehab, a surgeon in Gaza, wrote recently:

“In this shattered land, where the earth groans and the sky bleeds fire, I sit in a room no wider than a prison cell. Around me, the wind carries the faint echoes of promises made in distant capitals… In Doha, they sip coffee over blueprints of ruin. They speak of balance, as if they are weighing corpses on a scale.”

Dr. Shehab does not theorise suffering. He inhales it between airstrikes, sutures it with trembling hands, writes it so it will not be forgotten.

In the beginning of this genocide, we kept count: ten, a hundred, a thousand. We shared infographics on WhatsApp. Then came the names, the ages, the unborn infants listed among the dead. At one rally, I tried to read those names aloud—but I choked, stumbling on the names of children who never drew a first breath. Their dates of death preceded a date of birth.

Next came the screams from under rubble, the whimper of Hind al-Rajab, trying not to get blood on her dress in the car that became her coffin. Then came the obliteration of entire family lineages, erased from the registry. Then the targeted assassinations of doctors, the bombing of hospitals and schools. We grasped for words—scholasticide, urbicide, domicide, ecocide. But the space between the counts and the “-cides” only widened.

The official tally now exceeds 65,000 Palestinians killed, most of them women and children. Israeli military data reveals that 83% of those killed in Gaza are civilians. A Harvard-led study suggests the real toll may be closer to 186,000. Another 300,000 remain missing buried beneath rubble or vanished into displacement.

Journalists who document this are killed in record numbers: over 240 assassinated – a deliberate targeting of those who tell the stories and collate the evidence. Independent international media remain barred from Gaza on the pretext of safety concerns, but it is so that Israel can continue to annihilate media workers, claiming they are terrorists.

Gaza is a graveyard of the undocumented dead. A genocide, in intent, execution, and impunity.

And yet, life goes on in the corridors of power. Diplomats sip coffee over blueprints of ruin, just as Balfour did. Investors draft “reconstruction” plans while neighbourhoods burn, just as Rothschild did.

A recent reveal in the Financial Times describes “Ten Mega Projects for Gaza”—a grotesque fantasy of luxury resorts, blockchain land registries, AI border control. The names on the map are not Beit Hanoun or Shujaiya. They are “Trump Riviera,” “Elon Musk Industrial Zone,” “MBS Highway.” This is not recovery. It is recolonisation disguised as rebuilding. It is erasure by project number.

Meanwhile, Netanyahu speaks of “voluntary resettlement” while such resorts are planned atop mass graves. Aid itself has been weaponised—ration cards in one hand, shrouds in the other. And the world’s response? Meetings. Statements. Silence.

The United Nations, born of genocide and built on the promise of “Never Again,” has collapsed under its contradictions. The Security Council is paralysed by veto politics. Independent experts are smeared and sanctioned. In July 2025, the resignation of Navi Pillay, Chris Sidoti, and Miloon Kothari from the UN Commission of Inquiry confirmed what many already knew: the UN cannot even protect its own truth-tellers.

The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Palestine, Francesca Albanese has been threatened and sanctioned for her reportage. The International Criminal Court prosecutor, Karim Khan has also faced an intensive intimidation campaign to withdraw arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant.

The global economy of genocide is vast. The very economies that arm Israel are the same who benefit from Gaza’s destruction. Their companies – Lockheed Martin, Elbit, Caterpillar, Palantir, Chevron, BlackRock, Barclays amongst dozens others, profit from a war that has seen the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange rise by over $225 billion since October 2023. This is not simply complicity. It is collusion and it is profitable. 

Francesca Albanese has called it what it is: the economy of genocide. This is where atrocity intersects with commerce – a global corporate ecosystem enabling and profiting from destruction. This is not just about Israel. It is about empire. 

The billionaire age has its own complicity. The age of genocidaires. X under Musk has amplified pro-Israel misinformation and censored pro-Palestinian narratives, showcasing how billionaire-controlled platforms shape the discourse around genocide and resistance. Instagram is run by an Israeli CEO. Facebook and YouTube have censored and shadow banned voices that support justice for Palestinians, while corporate media continue to conceal Israel’s war crimes. 

These individuals are not neutral benefactors. They often cooperate with regimes and amplify systems of dominance under the guise of aid or feign neutrality while reinforcing the structures that profit from death.

The language of multilateralism – “development,” “security,” “reconstruction” – has become the lexicon of imperial maintenance. When war becomes an investment portfolio, and aid becomes a spectacle of control, the genocide is no longer an aberration. It is a feature of the system. And the language used to not only dehumanise Palestinians but also heroise Israel is crafted in media houses that control thought. But the system is cracking. We are at a point of rupture. 

Across the Global South, and within decolonial movements worldwide, the legitimacy of the so-called “rules-based order” is eroding. Gaza has made the unspoken clear: this order was never neutral. It was built to stabilise hierarchy, not to dismantle it. It was built to protect capital, not human life. 

The post-WW2 multilateral system is no longer capable of concealing its contradictions. Institutions like the UN, the Bretton Woods twins, and elite clubs like the G7 and WEF are not broken – they are performing exactly as designed. What we are witnessing is not their failure, but their exposure. This system has served empire, not emancipation. It has secured the supremacy of a few, not the dignity of all. 

State capture is no longer just a South African phrase—it describes the United States itself. Its policy is written by the Israel lobby, and the pretense of democracy is guaranteed only by loyalty to the Zionist project. And when the heart of Empire is captured, all others fall in line. Western democracies now criminalise Palestine, adopting the very tools of repression they once condemned, enforced through surveillance capitalism, and protected by authoritarian drift.

Even in the G20, where the majority are Global South states, structural power remains dominated by Western strategic interests. The colonial continues to reinforce a hierarchy that devalues Global South lives and voices. Instruments like financial institutions, data infrastructure, global media and private capital are still Western controlled. So even where demographics shift, governance mechanisms lag and continue to prioritise empire. 

The question is not whether the system can be reformed. The question is whether we will have the courage to launch a global revolution. Because Gaza is not a crisis. It is the graveyard of our excuses. It strips away illusions and reveals systemic betrayal: the world watches, corporations’ profit, institutions perform, and the dead multiply.

This is no longer about telling the story of Gaza – it is about answering the question Gaza poses to the world:

Will we have the courage to bury this world order and build something radically just in its place? Because until justice becomes the organising logic of multilateralism, these institutions will remain a tomb of promises buried by power. 

Let the world not only mourn Gaza. Let it learn from her. Because this is not simply about what has been done to Gaza. It is about what Gaza has revealed about the world. And the world, as it stands, cannot be saved. It must be remade.

This article was originally presented as a master class at the Thabo Mbeki African School of Public and International Affairs 22 July 2025, broadly focused on the G20 and Gaza.