Peace is a fantasy when faced with a war machine addicted to dominance

ISRAEL has gone completely rogue, making it the greatest threat to world peace. Having all but obliterated Gaza, it is now turning its aggression towards the Islamic Republic of Iran. Iran is defiantly responding with its Iron Dome penetrating Fattah-1 hypersonic missiles.

- DR RENEVA FOURIE

Defiance is a characteristic of most in West Asia. Its people have paid dearly for daring to assert their political independence, safeguard their resources, and give their support to Palestine.

The cost has been staggering: millions of lives lost - victims of Western-instigated wars cloaked in the language of human rights, democracy, and counterterrorism.

Over the past few months, that same machinery of destruction has intensified its focus on Gaza. Israel, the US' key proxy in the region, has unleashed devastation on a shocking scale. Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been massacred with impunity.

It began when Hamas, the governing party of Gaza and a key component of the Palestinian liberation movement, launched an attack in response to Israel's decades of repression. What followed was not proportional 'defence'. It was genocide.

Civilians mostly women and children were annihilated or buried under rubble. Survivors were starved and denied clean water. Humanitarian aid was blocked, hospitals were bombed, and neighbourhoods were razed.

While the world fixated on hostages taken by Hamas - many of whom were later killed by Israel's indiscriminate bombings the real humanitarian catastrophe was being ignored. Israel detained thousands, including children, and subjected them to systematic torture and sexual violence as it continued its military rampage, emboldened by unconditional US and European support.

International outcry, court rulings by the ICJ, and arrest warrants from the ICC were brushed aside. Nothing could stop the West's killing spree; not law, not diplomacy, not conscience.

But Israel's aggression extends beyond Gaza and the West Bank. It has steadily eroded Syrian sovereignty, assassinating Iranian advisors who were legally assisting the Syrian government.