R2P RIP-; ITS GRAVE IS IN GAZA

Responsibility to protect—protect whom? The vulnerable, facing imminent death.

- By Ameen Izzadeen

We had heard the term before. It was once fashionable in political discourse to invoke the concept—stylishly abbreviated as R2P—when powers, both big and not so big, cited it to justify interventions ostensibly on humanitarian grounds. To be seen as benevolent, after all, they thought, would enhance their international standing as do-gooders.

When did we last hear a nation invoke R2P? The answer eludes us—especially if R2P is defined by a genuine intent, solely rooted in humanitarian grounds, free from any geopolitical ulterior motives. The term remains vulnerable to abuse by big powers with geopolitical agendas. The last time the hallowed R2P principle was publicly and shamelessly politicised and abused to serve geopolitical objectives was when the Western military alliance, NATO, intervened militarily to oust Muammar Gaddafi from power in Libya. His crime: he sought to liberate African nations from the Western neocolonial yoke.

But the crisis in Gaza was a million times more catastrophic than the so-called and almost nonexistent humanitarian crisis the West politicised to justify its military intervention in Libya.

When, in Gaza, one in three people has not eaten a meal in over three days, with Al Jazeera reporting recently 19 malnutrition-linked deaths in one day, where are the Western leaders who parade themselves as paragons of virtue and speak so highly of their values, which they proudly claim are rooted in humanitarianism? The waning wails of starving Gaza children may not reach the ears of Western leaders, but the images and video footage we see daily on Al Jazeera—and selectively, on Western television channels—are surely loud and powerful enough to awaken these leaders, as they trudge, zombie-like, along a path shaped by the sinister influence of Zionism.