Russia's war against Ukraine and the extermination or genocide of Palestinians at the hands of Israel have filled us with news—with stories—of crimes committed by the military against the civilian population, under the ever-vague excuse of the need to defend the homeland.
In the case of Gaza, the international community has watched, between powerless and impassive—both adjectives are terrible, applied here—as schools and hospitals are bombed; health workers, journalists, and even Israeli hostages are killed by their own soldiers; as people have been burned alive inside their tents; as they have been killed. All the norms of international treaties have been broken and scuttled, and it is no secret that within the fundamentalist, far-right government headed by Netanyahu, this is seen as the definitive opportunity to eliminate the population of Gaza and seize control of it. They see the moment as ripe for implementing the Final Solution, and they use precisely these words because their cynicism is so immense.
If Netanyahu and his government occupy the ninth circle—the lowest—of war criminals, Putin and his allies (with Trump's US at the forefront) are right in the previous circle. Aside from thousands of crimes in the form of murder, rape, and looting on Ukrainian territory, the Russian army has been reinforced by a paramilitary group like Wagner, murderous mercenaries hired to wage a dirty war. After the strange episode of their mutiny against Putin (in which they occupied the city of Rostov and even marched with tanks toward Moscow), and the foreseeable death of its founder and leader, Putin's eccentric former friend Evgeni Prigokhin, the Wagner Group has only disappeared, but the criminals who haven't been, have been formally integrated into the Russian army. Russia officially acknowledges having lost more than 100,000 soldiers since the beginning of the conflict (although there are reasons to believe it's more than double that number), and from the beginning, Putin has also placed the threat of a nuclear attack in the spotlight. Other countries, such as India and Pakistan, have recently invoked the specter of nuclear terror.
In this context, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, officially progressive but always willing to align himself with global conservatism, embraces the war-mongering rhetoric and announces the multiplication of his arms budget, while urging his country's citizens to prepare for war. When? Against which enemy? Needless to say, fear makes humans docile and resigned, and few things are more frightening than the threat of imminent war.
