The mask of democracy and human rights in the Western world has fallen off

Western democracy and human rights are often held up as global ideals—but recent events have exposed the deep cracks in that façade. As the world watches the unfolding tragedy in Gaza, the silence—or worse, the active complicity—of powerful nations reveals a grim truth: justice, humanity, and moral accountability have been sacrificed at the altar of geopolitics. This is not just a political crisis; it’s a collapse of conscience.

The Mask of Western Democracy and Humanity Has Fallen

When a future historian writes about our time, it may seem to them that all international laws had become meaningless. The very notions of justice and humanity had been erased. The mask of democracy and human rights that the Western world wears was torn to shreds.

What more can be said when every waking moment reveals to us the horrifying reality of genocide? When crushed faces of children, dismembered limbs, the cries of wounded mothers, and unidentifiable corpses haunt our vision—humanity and its very essence seem to have vanished.

Those who possess the most advanced weapons of destruction—powerful states—are using them shamelessly, without hesitation. Not only that, but to justify their bloodlust, they manufacture misinformation and distort historical truths.

The Netanyahu government of Israel appears to have been given free rein to carry out this campaign of ethnic cleansing. The destruction of homes, the blockade of food and medical supplies, the deliberate engineering of starvation and death—everything is unfolding with utter shamelessness. And the main sponsors of this brutality are the so-called democratic states of the West—chief among them the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union, and others.

The U.S. is directly sending billions of dollars’ worth of weapons, warplanes, ammunition, and “smart bombs.” From the U.K., surveillance flights are being conducted from a base in Cyprus to assist Israel in identifying targets in Gaza. These reports have appeared in mainstream media, and no government has denied them. Europe—especially Germany and Italy—continues to export arms to Israel without pause.

To most of Israel’s supporters, the Palestine issue seems to have suddenly begun with Hamas’s October 2023 attack. They refuse to see—or admit—that the roots go far deeper: beginning with the 1948 Nakba, the mass displacement of Palestinians. Since then, the occupation has followed. For over 75 years, Palestinians have been consistently denied their rights to land, freedom, dignity, and equality.

The Shameless Brutality of Israel and the Silence of the World

Israel does not conceal its actions. In fact, it operates in a way that seems designed to show the world just how shamelessly and with how much impunity it can act. A recent example is the massacre of 15 emergency service and rescue workers in Gaza, whose bodies were found in a shallow mass grave.

Israel claimed the ambulances were moving in a “suspicious and dangerous” manner—hence, they were targeted. Yet, it offered no explanation for why some of the victims had their hands tied behind their backs.

Among the dead was a medical worker who had initially survived. He was captured, tortured, and then seemingly released—perhaps deliberately—so he could live to tell the world of the barbarism inflicted. Is this the product of a twisted, sadistic mindset?

This scenario brings to mind the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa during the 1980s and ’90s, when there was a global call to boycott the racist regime.

At that time, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher opposed such measures and introduced the term “constructive engagement.” She argued that maintaining trade and relations would allow influence over the regime.

Today, many Islamic and Arab states appear to be following a similar policy. Even as the genocide in Gaza resumed, the UAE ambassador to Israel posted a lavish photo from an Iftar feast in Tel Aviv—tables overflowing with food, guests enjoying the evening. Meanwhile, not a single truck carrying humanitarian aid, food, or medicine was being allowed into Gaza.

Is this the Arab world’s version of “constructive engagement”? Or is it just self-deception? In this context, one is compelled to ask: Have Western democracies and the leaders of the Muslim world stored their conscience away in a freezer? Will that conscience awaken only after all of Palestine has been reduced to rubble?

A World Standing on the Wrong Side of History

As the bombs fall and the cries of the innocent are drowned out by political silence, we are witnessing not just a humanitarian catastrophe, but a moral collapse on a global scale. The language of human rights has been emptied of its meaning. The institutions built to protect the vulnerable have turned their gaze elsewhere. And the nations that once claimed to champion justice now bankroll oppression with deadly precision.

History will not be kind to this era. It will remember the charred remains of hospitals and schools, the shallow graves of medics and children, and the empty promises of world leaders who looked away—or worse, cheered. It will remember the complicity of silence and the cruelty masked as diplomacy.

But history will also remember those who dared to speak, who refused to normalize genocide, who stood on the side of humanity when it was most endangered. In the end, it is not just about Palestine. It is about what kind of world we are willing to live in, and what kind of future we are willing to allow.

Because if this is what justice looks like today, then we owe the future something better.