By Junaid S. Ahmad
The bombs fall in Gaza. Day after day, night after night. Schools collapse into dust. Hospitals—those sanctuaries of mercy—become morgues. Children, the most fragile units of human existence, are pulled from the rubble, their names never to be written on school registers. Water turns scarce, food impossible, electricity a rumor. And yet, while Gaza is burned into ash, the world’s capitals break into applause—applause not for courage, but for gestures.
We are told to cheer when Western governments “recognize the State of Palestine.” To applaud when Saudi princes and Pakistani generals ink new defense pacts, as though signatures on paper could shield a child from a missile. We are urged to stay riveted by the soap operas of the West—the feigned “martyrdoms” of men like Charlie Kirk—while the true martyrs, those without choice, those without cameras, are buried by bulldozers in Gaza.
It is all theatre, masterfully staged. Recognition ceremonies. Defense alliances. Manufactured outrage. Each a scented veil over the stench of mass death. Each designed not to halt the genocide, but to distract us from it.
Recognition Without Rescue
What does it mean to “recognize” Palestine at this hour? To recognize a state that has been bombed into near nonexistence? To recognize a people who are denied the very conditions of life? Recognition has become the diplomacy of the lazy: expensive in rhetoric, cheap in action.
A foreign minister stands at a podium. A parliament votes. A resolution is passed. The press applauds. And then? The arms shipments continue. The military contracts remain signed. The Israeli army receives more weapons, more fuel, more diplomatic cover. Recognition is not a lifeline; it is a consolation prize, handed out to those dying of thirst.
Recognition is an opiate—designed not for the Palestinians but for Western consciences. It is a way of declaring: ‘we see you,’ without the burden of helping you live.
Defense Pacts for Palaces
Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, we are told, are forging an “historic” defense alliance. Commentators marvel. Analysts speculate. The monarchs and the generals beam for cameras. But let us be honest: what, precisely, are they defending?
These pacts are not about defending Palestine, or Muslim dignity, or the oppressed. They are about defending privilege, palaces, and personal power. They are insurance policies for regimes terrified of accountability, terrified of their own people. Saudi princes trade oil wealth for guarantees of protection. Pakistani generals, ever entrepreneurial, offer up their armies like a mercenary service. Together they celebrate a pact that defends everything but justice.
What the masses receive: no bread, no jobs, no dignity. What the rulers receive: more arsenals, more prestige, more excuses to do nothing while Gaza is immolated. These treaties are security blankets stitched from hypocrisy. They secure the rulers, not the ruled.
Martyrs Made for TV
And then, the diversions. Western media offers us a steady diet of culture-war pantomimes. Charlie Kirk is painted as a “martyr.” Another pundit is cancelled or un-cancelled. Social media erupts, hashtags trend, the outrage machine hums.
Meanwhile, Gaza’s morgues overflow. Yet the world is glued to the spectacle of invented controversies, as if these were the battlegrounds of morality. It is tragic, yes. But it is also comic in its absurdity. The theatre is elaborate. The script is polished. The actors are convincing. But the set is built upon the graves of children.
The goal is always the same: to substitute soap opera for struggle, sentiment for substance, entertainment for ethics.
What Real Action Looks Like
If the world were serious—if rulers were sincere—then the path forward would be unmistakable. It requires not gestures but rupture. Not polite resolutions but radical measures:
• Cut the weapons. An immediate halt to all arms transfers to Israel. Without weapons, the bombs stop. Without bombs, Gaza breathes.
• Sanctions that sting. Freeze the assets of war criminals. Ban their travel. Cut their trade. Isolate the apartheid state until its machinery of death is dismantled.
• Un-recognize Israel. Withdraw recognition until apartheid, occupation, and genocide end. If recognition is moral currency, stop spending it on criminals.
• Name and shame profiteers. Citizens must ask their governments: whose bombs fell today? Which company made them? Which minister signed the deal?
• Solidarity with teeth. Less tweeting, more organizing. Less posturing, more material aid. Solidarity must be measured not in slogans but in lives saved.
Generals and Princes: The Merchants of Betrayal
The betrayal is not only Western. The betrayal runs deep within the Arab and Muslim world itself.
Pakistan’s generals, eager to posture as defenders of the oppressed, in reality behave as subcontractors of empire. Their loyalty is not to the people of Pakistan, nor to the children of Gaza, but to their Swiss accounts, their Washington liaisons, their own careers. They will issue fiery speeches, then retreat to air-conditioned villas, unmoved by the ash clouds over Gaza.
Saudi Arabia’s princes, meanwhile, speak of Muslim solidarity while signing contracts with the very powers that arm Israel. They build golden towers while Gaza’s towers are reduced to rubble. Their pacts are not about Palestine; they are about securing their thrones. They defend their palaces, not Al-Aqsa.
And then there is the so-called revival of a farcical version of the earlier “Non-Aligned Movement”—now a masquerade of monarchs and generals who wear the language of anti-imperialism like a borrowed costume. They align themselves with wealth, not with justice. They align themselves with empire, not with liberation.
This is not solidarity. It is betrayal, dressed in ceremonial robes.
Why the Farce Works
These diversions succeed because they are easy. Recognition costs nothing. Defense pacts produce headlines. Outrage over pundits is fun, entertaining, shareable. They all give the appearance of motion without the burden of change.
What is hard is cutting off weapons to Israel. What is costly is imposing sanctions. What is dangerous is dismantling apartheid and confronting the ruling structures that uphold it. Gestures are free; justice is expensive. And the world, it seems, prefers to remain bankrupt in justice.
Ending: The Reckoning Cannot Be Delayed
Let us be clear: every empty recognition is a fraud. Every defense pact signed while Gaza starves is a betrayal. Every Western distraction is an accomplice to genocide.
History will not remember the resolutions passed in European parliaments. It will not remember the handshakes between monarchs and generals. It will not remember the televised martyrdom of pundits. It will remember, with fury, that while Gaza bled, the world applauded itself for gestures.
If recognition is to mean anything, it must be linked to rupture: the closing of the arms spigots, the imposition of sanctions, the refusal to normalize apartheid. If solidarity is to mean anything, it must risk comfort, risk alliances, risk wealth.
The world must choose: Gaza or spectacle. Justice or gestures. Action or complicity.
And let it not be said, when the rubble is counted and the graves are full, that no one knew. We knew. We saw. The theatre was dazzling, yes—but the bombs were louder.
Prof. Junaid S. Ahmad teaches Law, Religion, and Global Politics and is the Director of the Center for the Study of Islam and Decolonization (CSID), Islamabad, Pakistan. He is a member of the International Movement for a Just World (JUST – https://just-international.org/), Movement for Liberation from Nakba (MLN – https://nakbaliberation.com/), and Saving Humanity and Planet Earth (SHAPE – https://www.theshapeproject.com/).
24 September 2025