{"id":154361,"date":"2026-01-27T17:37:28","date_gmt":"2026-01-28T00:37:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=154361"},"modified":"2026-01-27T17:37:28","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T00:37:28","slug":"the-monstrosity-as-a-system-the-war-on-palestine-and-the-moment-the-world-lost-its-moral-gravity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2026\/01\/27\/the-monstrosity-as-a-system-the-war-on-palestine-and-the-moment-the-world-lost-its-moral-gravity\/","title":{"rendered":"The Monstrosity as a System: The War on Palestine and the Moment the World Lost Its Moral Gravity"},"content":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Laala Bechetoula<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Amir Nour\u00a0<\/a><\/em><\/span>Global Research, January 24, 2026<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

Today more than ever, Arabs and Muslims must become aware of the terrible maneuvers and plots being hatched against them by lighting the fires of discord and sedition among the members of the Ummah, between Sunnis and Shiites, Arabs and Kurds, Arabs and Berbers, and Muslims and Christians.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Proof of this is the turpitudes suffered by the central cause of the Arabs and Muslims, that of plundered Palestine.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I highly recommend reading Amir Nour\u2019s book because of the judicious choice of carefully documented writings by authoritative authors and studies, the sagacity of the analysis, and the clairvoyance of the foresight.\u201d<\/em> \u2014 Ahmed Taleb-Ibrahimi, former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Algeria (1982\u20131988)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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To read this article in the following languages, click the Translate Website<\/strong> button below the author\u2019s name.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u0639\u0631\u0628\u064a, Hebrew, Espa\u00f1ol, \u0420\u0443\u0441\u0441\u043a\u0438\u0439, \u4e2d\u6587, <\/strong>Portugues, <\/strong>Fran\u00e7ais, Deutsch, Farsi, Italiano, \u65e5\u672c\u8a9e, <\/strong>\ud55c\uad6d\uc5b4, T\u00fcrk\u00e7e, \u0421\u0440\u043f\u0441\u043a\u0438. And 40 more languages.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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There are endorsements that adorn a book, and there are endorsements that place it inside history. The words of Ahmed Taleb-Ibrahimi do not merely recommend The Monstrosity of Our Century: The War on Palestine and the Last Western Man<\/em>\u201d<\/strong>; they situate it within a long tradition of intellectual vigilance against division, manipulation, and moral corrosion. They also state\u2014without euphemism\u2014what many governments, institutions, and editorial boards prefer to dilute: Palestine is not merely a political cause; it is a truth test.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amir Nour\u2019s new book does not approach Palestine as a conflict,\u201d a cycle,\u201d or a file.\u201d It approaches it as a historical rupture\u2014the point at which the contemporary international system ceased to reconcile power with principle, law with alliance, and narrative with reality. One year after the full return of Trumpism to the center of global machtpolitik<\/em>\u2014might politics\u2014this book no longer reads as a polemical incursion. Rather, it reads as a forensic document.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indeed, the question is no longer whether Nour went too far in his analysis of contemporary geopolitics and their lasting implications. The real overarching question is whether reality itself has already gone further than his words.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gaza Is Not the Event\u2014It Is the Mirror<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Right from its opening pages, Nour\u2019s book dismantles the most comforting illusion of modern diplomacy: that Palestine in general, and Gaza in particular, represents an aberration in an otherwise functional international order. He writes\u2014without rhetorical excess and with devastating precision:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is unfolding in Gaza is not a tragic deviation from the international order; it is the moment when that order reveals its true hierarchy of lives.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This sentence is not a metaphor. It is a diagnostic instrument. Gaza, in Nour\u2019s analysis, is not the breakdown of the so-called rules-based order;\u201d it is the place where those rules finally stop pretending to be universal. The book\u2019s title itself draws from the formulation of Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, who described Gaza as the monstrosity of our century.\u201d Nour adopts this phrase because it names a condition, not an emotion: a world capable of witnessing mass destruction in real time while simultaneously organizing its justification.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That is why Richard Forer, in the foreword, states unambiguously,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For logistical reasons, Israel could not act alone. It needed the blessing and the military assistance of the United States, Britain, and Germany.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is not an accusation from the margins. It is an observation grounded in arms transfers, sustained funding, diplomatic cover, and repeated vetoes. Gaza exposes not only violence but also complicity structured as policy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Double Standards as an Operating System<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

One of the book\u2019s most meticulously documented sections is devoted to what Nour identifies as the institutionalization of double standards. This is not moral indignation; it is comparative analysis. While Ukraine is framed as a sacred cause of sovereignty, legality, and civilian protection, Palestine is consistently stitched up as complex,\u201d contextual,\u201d and indefinitely postponed. Forer writes,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In its unrestrained codependency with Israel, hypocrisy plays a major role,\u201d adding, Confusion and dissembling occur when a nation acts contrary to its publicly stated values.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These lines matter because they identify hypocrisy not as a lapse but as a governing logic and behavior. International law has not disappeared; it has become selective. And selectivity, Nour shows, is no longer a flaw\u2014it is the design.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This diagnosis is reinforced by Chas W. Freeman Jr.<\/strong>, former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense, who writes that Amir Nour eloquently and unflinchingly shows how the course of events in Palestine has discredited the moral authority of the West and devalued international law, while changing the world order and isolating Israel, making its survival increasingly doubtful.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When such words come from within the Western strategic establishment, they are not radical. They set alarm bells ringing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Justice Becomes a Target<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps the most chilling section of the book concerns international justice. Nour does not romanticize the ICJ or the ICC; he treats them as fault lines where the system\u2019s contradictions surface. Forer notes how Western officials responded to the ICJ\u2019s finding of a plausible genocide\u201d:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Criticism is answered with \u2018Israel\u2019s right to defend itself,\u2019 without explaining how killing children by the thousands makes Israel more secure.\u201d And Nour\u2019s conclusion leaves no ambiguity: Even in the midst of a \u2018textbook case of genocide,\u2019 the West continues to shield and thus bolster the actions of Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is not rhetoric. It is a description of procedural reality. When international justice approaches protected actors, it ceases to be celebrated as law and begins to be treated as a threat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The book documents the intimidation of the ICC prosecutor and the explicit warning: Target Israel, and we will target you.\u201d What Nour analyzed as pressure has since hardened into policy through sanctions and institutional retaliation. The system does not merely ignore justice; it disciplines it. Hence, as the foreword states bluntly, The West has abandoned its responsibility to the world order and made a mockery of its alleged respect for international law.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Full Story The Monstrosity as a System: The War on Palestine and the Moment the World Lost Its Moral Gravity – Global ResearchGlobal Research – Centre for Research on Globalization<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Laala Bechetoula\u00a0and\u00a0Amir Nour\u00a0Global Research, January 24, 2026 Today more than ever, Arabs and Muslims must become aware of the terrible maneuvers and plots being hatched against them by lighting the fires of discord and sedition among the members of the Ummah, between Sunnis and Shiites, Arabs and Kurds, Arabs and Berbers, and Muslims and Christians. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-154361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=154361"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154361\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":154362,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154361\/revisions\/154362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=154361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=154361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=154361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}