PORTLAND - Recall the horrors of the indigenous people of South Africa. In 1652 Dutch settlers along with German and French Huguenot followers established what later became the Boer Republic—a horrific land where the native black population was subjugated under a system of racial segregation, commonly referred to as apartheid.

The world largely turned a blind eye to the suffering of the natives for centuries, eventually Western conscience was slowly awakened through the imposition of economic sanctions in the 1960s. However, international pressures did not initially bite in large part because of U.S. reluctance to take a moral stand, thereby favoring short-term economic interests over humanity. Still the world did not stand still. 

In 1974 South Africa was suspended from participating in the United Nations General Assembly, by a vote of 91 to 22. South Africa had no voice or vote in the UN until it was readmitted in 1994 at the end of the apartheid regime and a transition to non-racial democracy. While the stand at the UN was one pillar of the turnaround in this abhorrent episode of human history, the other was a change of heart in the United States to forego short-run economic gains in favor of a longer view and a moral stand for decency and humanity with pressure from the U.S. Congress and its adoption of the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1988.

Today in 2025, the world is facing a much more horrific savagery in Palestine—the expropriation of land belonging to Palestinians from the early 1900s, systematic apartheid that has been more horrific than what prevailed in South Africa, thousands of Palestinians incarcerated with little or no justification, and after the attack of October 7, indiscriminate bombing of hospitals, schools and homes, the destruction of most buildings, mass starvation using famine as a weapon of war resulting in at least 65,000 casualties that can be seen above ground (thousands more likely buried under the rubble) with the majority of the dead women and children. There is unimaginable suffering before our very eyes. Israel’s onslaught of Palestinians cannot be called a war as Israel is equipped with the most lethal weapons and the best intelligence against a rag tag militia of Hamas fighters.

Yet the world does very little. The United States, along with others, continues to arm Israel with lethal weapons to continue its carnage and destruction. America casts vetoes at the UN Security Council to protect the Zionist genocide. America sanctions the International Criminal Court along with its justices and threatens the International Court of Justice to protect Zionist crimes, in the process making a mockery of all international institutions and the last vestige of the international rule of law. There is no suspension of Israel at the UN. All the while, the United States is even destroying the sacred right to free speech within its own borders by labeling any criticism of Israel as antisemitic. The world has not progressed but instead regressed since WWII.

The world is fast losing its humanity, decency, compassion and the moral compass to separate right from wrong. In the 1970s, America eventually found its North Star and supported the people of South Africa toward freedom. Today, America is doubling down in supporting the genocide of Palestinians and in the process destroying the hardly effective international legal system we have had. While America could end this carnage with a telephone call to the Israeli Prime Minister, Europeans largely tow the U.S. line and Arab despots stay mum so as not to anger their main supporter in Washington. 

America and the world will pay a heavy price for this episode of inexplicable complicity and moral decay!  

Hossein Askari is an emeritus professor of business and international affairs at George Washington University