Desperation is the driving force

October 22, 2025

Requiem for Gaza could just as easily be reimagined as Requiem for the Rules-based International Order. Desperation is the driving force. Here in the West we are beset by desperation on so many levels. There is the desperation of climate change, a looming development we do our best to ignore. There is the desperation of a debt-driven financial collapse, another looming development we are also doing our best to ignore. And there is the desperation of military inadequacy which the wars in Palestine and Ukraine have shown.

In Israel, the desperation is fuelled by the above compounded by the knowledge that Israel is predatory by nature, and history does not forget.

Our actions give the lie to our lofty pronouncements of human rights and equality. So much bluster! Assurances are evaporating. People are scared, and being scared, they embrace the illusion of force and lash out in all directions.

Absent in the West’s approach is dialogue. I can detect much less desperation in those countries which have aligned themselves with BRICS and/or the SCO. Perhaps we could initiate a good-faith dialogue with these bodies. Perhaps, heresy of heresies, they know something we don’t.