Pharaoh can do as he pleases

I don’t usually like to discuss international politics. But I have to say something about the way Trump is behaving. Seen from Gaza, we can understand perfectly well what he is doing with regard to Europe and the rest of the world: exercising the law of the jungle. For it to prevail, he needs only one thing: silence.

If we exclude a few courageous countries like Spain, Europe has not really protested. Which is a way of letting Trump and Netanyahu know the sky’s the limit. Despite the double talk, there is an implicit acceptance of what is about to happen.

That’s the attitude that spawns tyrants. We have a saying which goes : “How did you get so powerful, Pharaoh?“ ”Because nobody stood up to me!”

The Gaza genocide, the ethnic cleansing, have exposed all the hypocrisy about human values, international institutions, international law… The rulings of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) are respected only when they concern rulers of a certain ilk. And of course never when they deal with Palestine.

No serious action from the West

During the first Intifada, the initial uprising, stones were thrown at the army of occupation. Israel announced its tactics : “Break the protestors’ bones”. There was no real red light from the West. So Israel understood it wasn’t crossing any red line. During the second Intifada, they moved the cursor a bit further.

I can well remember the first time Sharon gave the order to bomb a whole building in order to eliminate a leader of Hamas’ armed wing. Dozens of people were killed. It was the first time there were so many victims of an operation meant to kill one man. Once again, the West said nothing. Israel could go right ahead.

During the second Intifada too, there was an assault on the West Bank refugee camp at Jenin, which was largely destroyed by bombs from F16 jets.

And then there was the “separation wall” which transformed the West Bank into a series of little islands surrounded by settlements. Again there was no international reaction worthy of the name. And today, whole families disappear when their homes are bombarded without Israel even trying to justify its actions.

The Gaza genocide has continued in the same deafening silence. The Israeli army has carried out mass bombings whilst denying the numbers of civilian victims; yet its lies are never really denounced by the Western powers or in any media.

Today, the Israelis claim to be respecting a ceasefire while they kill more Palestinians every day: some 470 since the truce began on 9 October 2025. This so-called ceasefire was only accepted because of US pressures, which does show that the United States can influence the Netanyahu government when it wants to. But that fiction is enough for Trump. Just as he makes do with the announcement of a “second phase”, supposed to include the arrival of an international force and the installation of a kind of board of technocrats to run the Gaza strip.

Once again, no Western State dares admit the truth: that board, if it ever exists, won’t run Gaza. It will simply rule over a space between the sea and Israel’s “yellow line”, behind which there are no inhabitants and no houses, Israel having levelled everything. An area which Israel has effectively annexed, a fait accompli which Netanyahu is unlikely to give up.

That yellow line is gradually moving forward, as the Israelis regularly shift its markers. When the ceasefire went into effect, the Palestinians of Gaza already lived on only 47% of their land. No reaction from the West. Today they have less than 40%. Still no reaction. The ethnic cleansing goes on, little by little. The Palestinians are being pushed towards the sea. And everybody pretends to believe we are heading “towards peace”.

That’s how we arrived at the state of ethnic cleansing in which we are now living. Again, apart from a few statements, no serious measures from the West. Which means impunity, the law of the jungle. Trump, Israel’s godfather, has understood the message perfectly: those “values” the West trumpets every day, simply don’t exist. He could see that no one really wanted to stop Netanyahu, neither in Gaza nor the West Bank, nor in Lebanon. So he, Trump, can do the same thing with the rest of the world.

The West can just keep talking

He began with Venezuela, he is threatening Panama, Colombia and even Canada, he declares his intention to take over Greenland which belongs to Denmark, despite its being a NATO member. And always the same line : if we can’t get it through negotiation, we’ll use force. As the Israelis are doing with Palestine. There again, the world reacts with declarations of principle and symbolic gesticulations.

What else can we expect when we see that France, for example, has issued no official reaction to that video of a press conference where Trump mimicked Emmanuel Macron, treating him like a child and implying that the French President was afraid to raise the price of medicines because he feared the French population, but in the end caved in to orders from the White House?

All of that is utterly false. But if the Elysée is incapable of protesting such buffoonery, why should we be surprised that France remains silent when faced with the systematic expulsion of the inhabitants of Gaza?

Pharaoh can do as he pleases. Unfortunately however, the West will pay heavily for its silence. It has already lost its unofficial status as guarantor of international law and human rights. But if the truth be told, this is nothing new.

In the Europe of the 1930s, no-one lifted a finger when the Nazis began persecuting the Jews and annexing neighbouring countries. International law as we know it today came out of WW2, but it hasn’t done away with the colonial mindset. It played a role in the creation of Israel, and today is spreading everywhere again. Those who invoke international law against the invasion of Venezuela find themselves accused of “wanting to protect a dictator”.

The law of the jungle has become the new normal. For Trump, war brings peace and he feels he has the right to intervene wherever he likes, mostly for economic reasons. He says so himself : what interests him in Venezuela is the oil. In Gaza it’s a real-estate operation.

Yet it’s never too late to make amends. The Gaza genocide is still going on. The West can still speak out. Denounce it. Resume its role as defender of human values. If those in the West go on keeping their eyes and mouths shut, if they fail to stop the elephant which is trampling everything underfoot, I think this is going to end very badly for them, and that everyone is going to pay dearly.

Translated from French by Noël Burch.

This article was originally published by our partners at Orient XXI.

Rami Abou Jamous has been keeping a diary for Orient XXI since February 2024. He is the founder of Gaza Press, an agency which provided assistance and interpreting for Western correspondents, but in October 2023 he had to leave his apartment in Gaza City with his wife Sabah, her children and their three-year old son Walid under threat of the Israeli army. They sought refuge in Rafah, then in Deir el-Balah and later in Nusseirat. After another move caused by Israel’s violation of the cease-fire on 18 March 2025, Rami and his family returned home on 9 October 2025.

Have questions or comments? Email us at editorial-english@newarab.com

Opinions expressed in this article remain those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The New Arab.