Colonialism and imperialism are not relics; they remain the most recognizable forms of oppression, persisting for centuries. The Zionist genocide of Palestinians draws upon the same biblical justifications that fueled earlier conquests. Image by Emad El Byed.

There is no end in sight for the massacre in Gaza. Nearly two years after the start of Al Aqsa Flood, the United Nations Human Rights Council has—finally—declared Israel’s war in Gaza genocide. Seventy-two pages, with hundreds of footnotes, and a litany of atrocity stories catalogue the devastating human destruction. The details are gruesome. Extermination, torture, sexual violence, and starvation are not outliers but the systematic instruments of genocide.

And yet, anyone with an internet connection and a conscience is witness to these horrors in real time: videos, livestreams, photos, and eyewitness testimony streamed straight to our palms. The evidence was always there.

So why did it take this institution to speak in plain terms? Why, after months of slaughter and daily images of devastation, did this international body only now name what many already knew for so long?

So far, the United Nations has been unwilling and unable to stop the genocide. Member states have also seen what we have seen., And yet, notwithstanding the actions of the Palestinian resistance, including Iran and Yemen, there has been no direct military intervention to stop it.

The United States has led a campaign to normalize and obscure the........

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