ISLAMABAD – Never before has the rift in Western conscience over Gaza yawned so wide, so raw, so undeniable. For decades, the halls of power in Western capitals dismissed the Palestinian story of dispossession and siege as exaggeration, political theatre, or partisan noise. Yet now, the sharpest condemnations come not from Tehran’s minarets or Islamabad’s assemblies, but from within the West itself — from its own scholars, jurists, and diplomats who can no longer turn away.

Professor Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University, a long-time UN advisor, was among the first to pierce the silence. In a 2024 television interview, he asked a question that rang like an alarm bell: “Does the United States want to be complicit in genocide?” He followed with a starker warning: “Stopping Israel from engaging in genocide could end the global opposition it now faces; its desire to rid Gaza of Hamas isn’t about winning this war.” His remarks punctured decades-old narratives portraying Israel’s actions as defensive, reframing Gaza not as a battlefield against militants but as the deliberate unmaking of an entire people.

Omer Bartov, an Israeli-born genocide scholar at Brown University, was equally blunt: “As an expert on genocide, I know it when I see it, and that is exactly what Israel is trying to achieve.” This was no activist slogan, but the judgement of a man whose career has been devoted to studying the darkest chapters of the twentieth century. The bombardment of civilian areas, the destruction of life-sustaining infrastructure, the rendering of Gaza uninhabitable — all, in his view, meet the UN’s definition of genocide.

The United Nations has echoed this assessment. In March 2024, Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories, told the Human Rights Council there were “reasonable grounds” to suspect Israel of genocide, urging sanctions, an arms embargo, and prosecutions. The International Court of Justice, in a case brought by South Africa, found a “plausible risk” of genocide — a legal determination obligating states to act to prevent such crimes, not to shield them with weapons and diplomatic cover.

These scholarly voices have done more than pierce the walls of official denial; they have shifted public perception across the Western world. When figures like Sachs, Bartov, and Albanese spoke with the authority of evidence and the weight of moral conviction, they stripped away the veneer of “self-defence” and exposed the deeper aims of Israel’s campaign — the dismantling of Palestinian society itself. This clarity has resonated from university campuses in Australia to protest squares in North America, where ordinary citizens, moved by the testimony of these experts, have marched, rallied, and organised in solidarity with Gaza. Across cities as distant as Sydney, London, Toronto, and San Francisco, crowds have carried Palestinian flags and placards quoting these very scholars, turning academic truth-telling into a grassroots chorus demanding justice.

Yet even as solidarity swells on the streets, Western governments barter away their moral standing. They speak of a “rules-based order” while vetoing ceasefire resolutions and sending the bombs that level Gaza’s neighbourhoods. In such a climate, neutrality is no longer distinguishable from complicity.

Other capitals have spoken with greater clarity. China has called for an immediate ceasefire, warning against double standards in applying international law. Russia has condemned Israel’s “indiscriminate” use of force and accused Washington of enabling war crimes. For both, Gaza is not an isolated atrocity but part of a larger pattern in which Western states enforce moral norms selectively, when it suits them.

From Tehran to Islamabad, the positions on Gaza are defined by moral clarity and historical consistency. On 22 July 2025, Iran’s Foreign Ministry denounced “the horrific crimes committed by the Zionist regime in the Gaza Strip,” warning that 90 percent of the territory was now uninhabitable, with over one million people facing starvation. It condemned Israeli plans for Gaza City as acts of ethnic cleansing and called for an emergency meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.

Pakistan’s stance is equally firm. From the earliest days of the state, Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah rejected Israel outright, calling it “an unlawful state, created by usurping the land of Palestinian Muslims,” and famously declaring: “Our souls are not for sale.” Every government since has upheld this position, refusing recognition until Palestinians achieve self-determination with East Jerusalem as their capital. For both Iran and Pakistan, the Palestinian cause is not a distant diplomatic file but a litmus test of the Muslim world’s commitment to justice.

If defeating Hamas were truly the aim, the destruction of Gaza’s homes, hospitals, schools, and water systems would be inexplicable. This is not collateral damage; it is deliberate policy. Much of it unfolded under the cover of the Iran–Israel clashes, when the world’s attention was elsewhere. According to the Gaza Health Ministry, as the Iran–Israel war raged in June 2025, Palestinian deaths had already surpassed 55,637, with more than 129,000 injured. By the end of July, the toll had risen to 60,785 — including 217 journalists, 120 academics, and 224 humanitarian workers, among them 179 UNRWA staff. At least 80 percent of the victims were civilians; 70 percent of residential-area fatalities were women and children. These figures make plain that after the Iran–Israel war, the killing in Gaza not only continued — it escalated.

The willingness of Western voices to use the word “genocide” is significant not merely for validating Palestinian testimony, but for shattering a decades-old architecture of denial. When Jewish scholars, Israeli experts, UN officials, and international courts converge on this language, the space for evasion collapses. For citizens from Melbourne to Montreal, this convergence has given moral legitimacy to what the streets have been saying for months: that Gaza’s struggle is humanity’s struggle.

Yet moral clarity without political action is mere theatre. Sachs and Albanese have both argued that ending complicity requires cutting off arms, imposing sanctions, and prosecuting those responsible. Anything less is an admission of guilt.

Which brings us back to where we began: to a West divided against itself, its conscience laid bare. Gaza’s cry has breached the lecture halls, the courtrooms, and the city streets; whether it can penetrate the seats of power will decide how this age is remembered. The Qur’anic tradition holds that the cry of the oppressed is not a lament, but a summons. History will ask whether, when the West faltered, the East stood firm and whether those who heard the word “genocide” acted before it became only an epitaph.