From livestream genocide in Gaza to the war on Iran
The Orwellian G7 statement described Israel's military attacks on Iran as "self-defence." By twisting language to fit political ends, the communiqué normalises aggression and offers diplomatic cover for Israel's serial violations of international law. Rather than condemning Israel's dangerous escalation, the G7 resorts to vague calls for "de-escalation," effectively endorsing impunity under the guise of neutrality.
Conspicuously absent from the statement was any mention of Israel's use of starvation as a weapon against 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza, Israeli violation of the ceasefire agreement in Lebanon or its years‑long bombing of Syria. In effect, the G7 has now aligned itself fully with Netanyahu's open‑ended wars.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel. The Iranian nuclear programme was recently confirmed by the head of the US intelligence community, in testimony to Congress, stating that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon. Yet the G7's statement reflects not objective assessment, but political posturing—another expression of Western supremacy towards non-Western nations. Nowhere is this bias more dangerous than in Washington and Europe's tacit endorsement of Israeli attacks on Iran's civilian nuclear facilities—sites that are safeguarded under international treaties. Such actions constitute a blatant violation of Article 56 of the Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions, which prohibits targeting nuclear power facilities.
Striking an operating enrichment plant or spent fuel pool poses a grave danger. Such an act could release massive amounts of radiation, leading to civilian deaths and contaminating aquifers, farmland, and entire ecosystems for generations. The effect would be tantamount to a nuclear attack, regardless of the delivery method. Yet, Western capitals that rightly warn of similar dangers at Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia plant paradoxically endorse Israeli raids under the euphemism of "self-defence."
The spectre of a catastrophic leak is almost certainly why Israel has so far held back from bombing Iran's deeply buried Fordow enrichment complex, where uranium is refined to 60 percent. The environmental, diplomatic, and regional fallout could be incalculable. While Netanyahu wants to see the facility destroyed, he prefers on delegating that risk to the US, betting that the Trump administration will be more willing to shoulder the consequences.
Targeting nuclear infrastructure—civilian or military—sets a dangerous precedent. It ignores lessons from Chernobyl and Fukushima, shatters the taboo against striking nuclear plants, and exposes the hypocrisy of Western states that decry proliferation while tolerating allies flirting with nuclear disaster.
That moral blindness is neither new nor accidental. It is rooted in the same imperial pedigree that nourished slave trade, annihilated Indigenous nations, engineered colonial famines, Holocaust, and twice unleashed atomic bombs on civilian targets. The same so-called Western "civilisation" that supplies the weapons, satellite intelligence, and diplomatic cover enabling Israel to flirt with nuclear catastrophe in Iran and starve children in Gaza. This complicity was laid bare by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who openly admitted that Israel is doing today "the dirty work for us."
Prodding Washington to join a new, made-for-Israel American war, Netanyahu's operatives in the US—driven by an "Israel first" agenda—are working overtime to convince Trump to complete the most difficult phase of Israel's new Middle East demonic venture. Their argument? That Israel has already crippled Iran's defences enough to make American involvement low-risk for US forces and interests in the region
Into this meticulously staged farce steps Netanyahu himself—a master manipulator who understands Trump's psychological vulnerabilities better than Trump's own advisers. All it takes is a single phone call, heavy with flattery and inflated visions of historic greatness. Appealing to Trump's fragile ego—telling him he'll be remembered as the "saviour of Israel"—could be enough to fling open the gates to a catastrophic military escalation.
Much like in 2003, when the "Israel First" Jewish neocons, including Netanyahu's own lies before Congress in 2002, manipulated another gullible US president with the fantasy that regime change in Iraq would ignite a wave of democracy across the Middle East. Over two decades later, the region—and to a significant extent, the US—is still paying the price for being dragged into a catastrophic foreign war built on lies, hubris, and blind loyalty to Israeli strategic interests.
Predicting Trump's decisions has always been notoriously difficult—not due to any strategic genius, but because of his combustible mix of grievance, ego, and impulsiveness. For example, his trade wars began with sweeping tariffs and unravelled into chaotic carve-outs; his hardline immigration policies crumbled into talks about exempting farm and hospitality industries. The same erratic pattern defines his foreign policy: bombastic threats, sudden reversals, and renewed aggression whenever flattery intersects with cable news talking points. His unhinged posts and reckless declarations on Iran are no exception—they're just the latest flare-ups in a long trail of incoherence.
This combustible mix—Israel's ethically reckless strategy paired with a US president prone to impulsive decision‑making—creates a disturbing path to escalation. It risks fulfilling Netanyahu's ambition to "reshape the Middle East," a slogan that already produced the 2003 Iraq war. Twenty years Iraq still bears the scars of that made‑for‑Israel war; American involvement in a new war on Iran would begin yet another chapter of chaos in Netanyahu's "new Middle East."
Western leaders have failed to learn from their catastrophic lessons of history. Time and again, they repeat the same blunders born of arrogance of power—only this time, the stakes are even higher. By offering unconditional support to Israel, they are not merely turning a blind eye; they are actively underwriting Netanyahu's genocidal policies, and Israeli Jewish supremacy.
Western leaders' complicity is not passive. They have become enablers—co-authors in the unfolding genocide in Gaza and active sponsors of a potential nuclear catastrophe in Iran. Despite decades of evidence showing how imperial hubris breeds chaos and suffering—from Africa to Vietnam, from Iraq to Libya and beyond—these leaders continue to embrace the illusion that might makes right, enable today's livestream genocide in Gaza, and pave the way to bring about a nuclear Holocaust in Iran.
This article was first published by Counterpunch.org on June 19, 2025.
Jamal Kanj is the author of Children of Catastrophe: Journey from a Palestinian Refugee Camp to America, and other books. He writes frequently on Arab world issues for various national and international commentaries.
Views expressed in this article are the author's own.
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