The Foreign Office has finally stirred from its slumber to condemn the Israeli airstrikes that left 22 dead in southern Lebanon, as the ceasefire—such as it was—shatters into a thousand pieces. One must ask: what did they expect? The entire debacle has the unmistakable whiff of the Thirty Years' War, a conflict that began with a defenestration and ended with half of Europe a charnel house.
Today, we have no defenestration, only the slow, grinding collapse of international order. The British government, with its sanctimonious press releases, might as well be King Canute commanding the tides. Do they imagine that a sternly worded statement will make Hezbollah and the IDF lay down their arms?
Or perhaps they believe that, like the Congress of Vienna, a few gentlemen in frock coats can redraw the map. This is not 1815. This is the 21st century, where the great powers have become mere spectators to the barbarism.
The real tragedy is not the collapse of the ceasefire, but the illusion that it ever held. We have become a nation of moralisers, clucking our tongues while the world burns. The Victorians, for all their faults, at least had the decency to act.
We merely tweet.
