IN an era defined by hypocrisy and imperial arrogance, the recent wave of Israeli aggression against Iran and the ongoing annihilation of the Palestinian people serve as a stark reminder of a world order in crisis.
A world where power, not justice, determines legitimacy.
A world where international law is selectively applied and selectively enforced.
A world where the oppressed are criminalised for resisting, while the oppressor is rewarded for destroying.
The Israeli state has made it its mission to sabotage, destabilise, and dominate its neighbours through both overt and covert warfare.
It has bombed Iranian installations, assassinated Iranian scientists on sovereign soil, and coordinated cyberattacks with the assistance of the United States and its Western partners.
This is not just a conflict between two states—it is part of a much broader strategy to maintain Western dominance in the Middle East by targeting any state or movement that refuses to bow to Zionist and imperialist interests.
Let us be clear, Iran has every right to defend itself. Sovereignty is not a privilege for the few; it is a fundamental right of all nations.
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Iran, like Palestine, like Syria, like Venezuela, like Cuba, is being punished for the simple sin of asserting its independence in a world still run by colonial logic.
The narrative pushed by the Western media and echoed by their intelligence agencies casts Iran as the “aggressor” and Israel as the “defender”.
But this is a perverse inversion of reality.
Iran has not assassinated Israeli scientists on Israeli soil.
Iran has not dropped bombs on Tel Aviv.
Iran has not sent malware to destroy Israeli infrastructure.
Yet time and again, it is Israel that strikes first, often celebrated in Western newspapers as acts of “defence” or “pre-emptive” brilliance.
This language is not just dishonest; it is dangerous.
It legitimises lawlessness and criminalises resistance.
To understand this moment, we must situate it within a longer history of settler colonialism and resistance.
Israel was founded in 1948 through the violent displacement of over 750 000 Palestinians, an event known as the Nakba.
This was not a peaceful process; it was a bloody, deliberate act of ethnic cleansing.
Since then, Israel has refused the right of return to Palestinian refugees, continued to expand illegal settlements on stolen land, and institutionalised apartheid through a system that privileges Jews over non-Jews in nearly every facet of life.
For decades, Palestinians have resisted in the face of tanks, bullets, bulldozers, and drones.
They have faced imprisonment without trial, home demolitions, sniper fire at protests, and now, total war.
In Gaza, an open-air prison with over two million people, Israel has dropped thousands of tons of bombs, targeting hospitals, mosques, refugee camps, and schools.
More than 35 000 people have been killed in the last year alone.
And yet, the world is told that it is Hamas that must be stopped.
The logic is as clear as it is grotesque: colonisers have the right to kill; the colonised have only the right to die quietly.
Iran’s support for Palestine, Hezbollah, and other resistance movements across the region makes it a permanent enemy of Israel and the West.
It is not Iran’s nuclear programme that threatens global peace; it is Iran’s refusal to become another client state of Washington and Tel Aviv.
When Iran helps Syria fight foreign-backed jihadists, when it provides missile defence systems to allies, when it forges regional partnerships through trade and diplomacy—it is not exporting terror, it is asserting sovereignty in a region long treated as a playground for imperial conquest.
Those who claim that Israel is simply “defending itself” are either ignorant of history or wilfully complicit in its erasure.
Can the coloniser claim defence against the people it has dispossessed?
Can the apartheid state claim to be under siege by the people it cages, walls off, and bombards?
Can the state that receives over US$4 billion in US military aid every year, aid used to fund its occupation and war crimes, truly play the victim?
Let us also be honest about the role of the United States and Europe in this machinery of violence.
Without US vetoes at the United Nations, Israel would be facing international sanctions and war crimes tribunals.
Without billions in arms and diplomatic cover, it could not sustain its occupation or regional aggression.
The West funds and fuels Israeli impunity. It is not an observer; it is an enabler.
And yet, the hypocrisy is breathtaking.
The same Western powers who decry Russia’s invasion of Ukraine remain silent—or worse, supportive—of Israel’s attacks on Gaza and Iran.
The same pundits who cry foul at Iranian-backed militias have nothing to say about the hundreds of illegal Israeli settlers burning Palestinian villages.
The same institutions that call for human rights in Venezuela or China refuse to even use the word “apartheid” when describing Israel, despite global consensus—from Human Rights Watch to Amnesty International to former Israeli officials themselves.
The question is not whether Israel is violating international law. It is.
The question is whether the international community has the courage to do anything about it.
That courage must come from the Global South. From Africa. From Latin America. From Asia.
From indigenous peoples and working-class movements across the world.
From those who have lived under occupation, colonialism, and military dictatorship—and who know what it means to resist.
The struggle of the Palestinian people is not an isolated conflict; it is a mirror held up to the world.
It reflects the continuing brutality of empire, the dispossession of the many for the comfort of the few, and the lie that some lives are worth more than others.
In the same way, Iran’s defiance is not about missiles; it is about sovereignty, dignity, and refusing to kneel.
In Africa, we know this history too well.
From the Rhodesian settler state to apartheid South Africa, we have fought and bled for our right to self-determination.
We know the cost of silence in the face of tyranny. And we know, too, that resistance is not a crime, it is a sacred duty.
Today, we must speak with clarity.
We must call Zionism what it is: a colonial project built on blood and displacement.
We must call Israeli aggression what it is: terrorism backed by empire.
And we must call resistance what it is: liberation in motion.
To stand with Palestine and Iran is not to condone violence, it is to recognise the violence that has already been done.
It is to stand with international law, with human dignity, and with a vision of a world where all peoples are free to determine their destiny.
The time for neutrality is over.
Neutrality in the face of genocide is complicity. Neutrality in the face of apartheid is betrayal.
Neutrality in the face of imperial aggression is surrender.
From Gaza to Tehran, the oppressed are rising.
The question is: Will we rise with them?
