Civilian deaths due to armed conflicts have risen by 72 percent in 2023. This was stated by United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk. He was inaugurating in Geneva, the fifty-sixth session of the UN Human Rights council. He expressed his concern about the increase in the percentage of women and children among the victims. The killing and wounding of civilians and the destruction of the vital infrastructure are now daily occurrences. Children are being shot and hospitals are bombed. Since Israel escalated its operations in Rafah in early May, about one million Palestinians have been forcibly displaced. Meanwhile, the process of the delivery of aid deteriorated. There are conflicts in different parts of the world; in Sudan, Ukraine, the Republic of Congo, Syria,Thailand and so on. This war has resulted in the deficit in funding humanitarian aid that reached, according to Turk, $40.8 billion at the end of May.
But global military spending increased to 2.5 trillion dollars in 2023 which represents an increase of 6.8 percent in actual terms compared to 2022. Governments, especially the United States, U.K, France and so on talk about humanitarian aid and their aspirations for peace. But they ship bombs to the warring parties and remain biased. This is illogical and morally unbalanced. Recently, the British newspaper “The Guardian” published an article written by its legal affairs correspondent Haroun Siddiq. She referred to the statements of “British Oxfam” that criticized Britain's supply of weapons to Israel while simultaneously providing humanitarian aid to Gaza. The writer pointed out that former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher had stopped arms exports to Israel during the war with Lebanon and former US President Ronald Reagan had suspended shipments of cluster munitions in July 1982 as he was shocked by the images of Palestinian children being killed during the bombing. Moreover, it was recorded that Reagan had warned Israel that the entire future US-Israeli relationship would be at stake if that situation continued.
The author concluded his article by noting that the government figures published last week showed that Britain issued 108 export licenses between the October 7 attack and May 31, to dispatch weapons to Israel. The British government has refused to comment on the details mentioned in the article! America always advocates peace, justice and human rights. But what we experience is contrary to what it says. While I am scrawling these lines, Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Galant is in Washington, to meet with senior foreign policy and Defence officials to discuss regarding the delay in the dispatch of the American weapons. In fact, it is only because of the US support that Israel is waging the war.
John Kirby, coordinator of strategic communications, defended the Biden administration’s record in providing military, logistical and political support to Israel. Then, how can there be peace? Now, being committed to Israel’s security, America is stressing the importance of avoiding further escalation in Lebanon and reaching a diplomatic solution. God knows what would happen! Geopolitical tensions tempt nuclear-armed countries to modernize their arsenals. According to the report published by the “International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons“ there are nine countries that possess nuclear weapons. They are the United States, Russia, China, the United Kingdom, France, India, Israel, Pakistan, and North Korea. They spent $ 91 billion to modernize their arsenals.
The report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute also indicate that these countries have dramatically increased their spending for modernizing their weapons. Throughout human history, we find that radical transformations are brought into society by leaders. This applies to the roles of political and intellectual leaders. Unfortunately, the present-day leaders present a paradox: though they enjoy the privileges of leadership, they do not represent the conventional models. This dissonance calls for a re-evaluation of their role for bringing the world to this brink of disaster.
Think about the issue of Gaza. It is a most heinous war of genocide in history against the defenceless Palestinian people. It is a disgrace to the whole world. Yet, most Western countries took a criminal stance by absolutely supporting the Zionist entity. After the war reached its level of barbarity, now they say it should stop. But, they are unable to impose anything on the Zionist terrorists. If Western countries had a leader with the weight and influence that a proper leader should have, then they would not have supported the genocidal terrorist Netanyahu.
Now, our leaders are unproductive and incompetent. They are self centered, trying to get ahead at the expense of everyone else. The hue and cry heard from UK is another example of how the leaders provoke wars. Nigel Farage, leader of the British Reform Party told BBC in an interview that the expansion of the European Union and NATO in the East provoked Russian President Vladimir Putin to invade Ukraine. He added that he had been anticipating a war in Ukraine since 2014. NATO’s continued eastward expansion gave Putin a reason to attack Ukraine. The intense criticism from across the British leaders cannot undo the mistakes committed by their own masters!