The United Nations, that grand theatre of performative virtue, has once again trained its crosshairs on Israel. The blacklisting over alleged sexual violence in warzones is a masterstroke of selective indignation. One might recall the Victorian era’s obsession with moral crusades, where the British Empire lectured the world on civilisation while its own factories sweated children.
The UN’s list is no different: a confection of geopolitical posturing, not justice. The UK, ever eager to play the righteous prefect, calls for accountability. Accountability?
Let us have it, then. Let us hold every party to the same standard. Let us examine the sexual violence committed by Hamas on October 7, documented in gruesome detail.
Let us scrutinise the UN’s own peacekeepers in Congo and Central African Republic. But no, that would spoil the narrative. The blacklist is a tool of delegitimisation.
Israel is not perfect, but it is a democracy with a robust judiciary, not a theocracy or a kleptocracy. To equate it with the militias of Sudan or the junta of Myanmar is intellectual decadence of the highest order. The Fall of Rome was preceded by such moral equivalence, where the empire’s critics overlooked barbarian atrocities while condemning Roman discipline.
We are witnessing the same decay. The UK’s call for accountability is a welcome sentiment, but only if it applies to all. Otherwise, it is just another lecture from a nation whose own colonial record is stained with far worse.
The UN’s blacklist is a mirror: it reflects the prejudices of its creators, not the realities of the conflict. Let us not be fooled by the sanctimony. The real obscenity is the silence on those who celebrate violence as resistance.
