The catastrophic collapse of the Francis Scott Key bridge in Baltimore was shocking. Local people expressed dismay at the sudden disintegration of a familiar landmark they had known all their lives. The post-1945 international order is a bit like that bridge. It was always there. Its authority, rules and resilience were taken for granted. Now, alarmingly, the entire global edifice is in freefall as the usual supports are kicked away.
The sense of things breaking apart is profound – and the negative ramifications are everywhere. The UN charter, bedrock of international law, is routinely flouted. The UN security council finally agreed an “immediate” Gaza ceasefire last week, only to see it contemptuously ignored.
In Ukraine, Myanmar and Sudan, war crimes and alleged genocide go unpunished and unchecked. Russia, Iran and India, among others, send assassins overseas to eliminate political opponents. Undeclared cyberwarfare knows no bounds.
Perceptions of permanent, lawless rupture are especially strong in the Middle East following the 7 October attacks and the Israel-Hamas war. The scale of the atrocities is alarming. So, too, is the impunity with which they have been met. UN court of justice orders to prevent famine receive mere lip service.
The relationship between the US and Israel, a regional keystone, is at breaking point. President Joe Biden and Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, barely speak. Biden demands more aid deliveries, a stop to threats of assault on Rafah, where 1.4 million Palestinians cower in fear and hunger, and postwar talks on a two-state solution. Netanyahu, dubbed Israel’s self-harming “agent of destruction”, blocks him at every turn.
Israel’s internal crisis waxes existential as Netanyahu, his anti-democratic extremist allies and far-right settler groups turn insurrectionary. If critics are right, and Netanyahu is prolonging the war to stay in power, it follows he may escalate in the West Bank and Lebanon. This is already happening, judging by last week’s Israeli attacks.
The US volte-face at the UN, when it finally allowed a Gaza ceasefire resolution to pass, was encouraging, up to a point. Yet neither the US nor the UK has taken steps to enforce it. Permanent security council members Russia and China prefer grandstanding to pursuing peace and justice. The Arab states are a study in impotence.
The US belatedly shifted ground not because it suddenly noticed that more than 32,000 people, including thousands of children, have been killed in Gaza or that food is being used as a weapon. State department lawyers are in denial about that. US pressure is growing because Biden is haemorrhaging support in an election year and feels humiliated by Netanyahu. Israeli commentators suggest the rift may prove irreparable.
“Senior US officials complain they don’t understand what Netanyahu wants. But [it] is quite clear. Political survival is his top priority. And if continuing the war, even amid growing claims that Israel is violating the laws of war, is what will keep him in office, he’s completely prepared to do so. All means are kosher, apparently, including further delay in finalising a hostage deal,” wrote Amos Harel in Haaretz.
Biden’s Middle East policy – whether the issue is Iran’s nuclear programme, Chinese influence-peddling, reviving Islamic State terrorism, a grand bargain with Saudi Arabia or the future of Palestine – is in tatters. The same might be said of Britain, another staunch ally of Israel which, in these meagre post-Brexit days, follows Washington’s lead on almost everything.
David Cameron, the UK foreign secretary and former prime minister, has taken a tougher line as the Gaza war drags on. He has confronted Netanyahu over aid and floated recognition of a Palestinian state in a future peace process. Britain went further than the US by backing last week’s UN ceasefire.
All this provides a welcome contrast to Cameron’s lazy, incompetent Foreign Office predecessors, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Dominic Raab. Yet Britain is still supplying arms to Israel; has penalised the UN aid agency in Gaza, Unrwa, on spurious grounds; and, incredibly, will still not officially declare that Israel’s actions breach humanitarian law. Cameron is an improvement but hardly a radical.
The UK, as a permanent UN security council member and G7 country, shares responsibility for the overall breakdown in international law and order. Britain, for example, should be pushing for a more forceful Nato response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It should be leading efforts to punish China for Hong Kong and abuses in Xinjiang and agree safer, humane ways to manage international migration.
The UK should be increasing, not cutting, foreign aid. It should be setting an example by reducing its nuclear weapons arsenal, in line with treaty obligations. It should call out oppressive regimes like Saudi Arabia and Ethiopia. And it should be bolstering democracies around the world, not divorcing itself from those next door in Europe – which, of course, is the hapless Cameron’s lasting, indelible legacy.
What might be rescued from the wreckage in Palestine that could help reverse nihilistic global trends? Netanyahu’s unthinking aggression is boosting, not beating, Hamas politically. He has transformed genuine revulsion at the terrorists’ atrocities into swelling support for the cause they supposedly espouse and he detests – an independent, sovereign Palestinian state.
This is the moderate Palestinian majority’s chance. As a divided, traumatised, ill-led and ostracised Israel tears itself apart, as its historical, ideological and democratic credentials shred, re-establishing a credible negotiating process with the explicit, internationally endorsed aim of two states co-existing side by side may – ironically – be the best and only way of saving Israel from itself.
It may also be the best hope of saving the community of nations from further descent into lawlessness. The world badly needs a win. The bridge in Baltimore can be rebuilt. But who will rebuild global trust?
• Simon Tisdall is the Observer’s foreign affairs commentator
Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 250 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at observer.letters@observer.co.uk
