A BRIEF pause in small portions of the targeted territory before the death knell sounds again. That`s what Israeli concessions of a temporary 10-hour gap in its daily genocidal endeavours amount to. Far too few trucks delivering lifesaving aid are being permitted through the Zionist barriers, and the Jordanian/Emirati airdrops are seen as both grossly inadequate and somewhat risky.

This week, Israeli organisations B`Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights both belatedly acknowledged the ongoing genocide. This matters. A small but growing number of Israeli citizens, both Arab and Jewish, have been protesting against the atrocities being committed in their name. But, like the aid that is being allowed to go through, they are little more than a drop in the ocean.

Much the same could be said about the Western allies that decry Israel`s egregious actions without taking any measures to halt them. France`s impending recognition of a Palestinian state has been greeted with horror by Israel and the US, but wonders why Emmanuel Macron left it until the UN convenes in September. After all, more than 140 UN member states recognise a Palestinian state since 1988. Much of Europe has been reticent, however, despite the knowledge that it would not make much difference.

Europe was instrumental in backing the Zionist project nearly 80 years ago, when a new colonial-settler state was established even as previous ones were beginning to be dismantled. There was a degree of absurdity in the notion that the recompense for the Nazi-led Holocaust lay in occupying Palestinian land, and that murdering or driving out many of its inhabitants was the obvious means of achieving this objective. But its sponsors have always forgiven Israel`s deadly excesses.

Token gestures have never made much of a difference, and the French vow of eventual recognition falls pretty much in the same category, while exposing the even more blatant hypocrisy of nations such as Australia and the UK, which occasionally spell out their horror at Israeli actions without offering to take any steps that just might interrupt the genocide.

Ceasing to supply Israel with the means of perpetrating its deadly designs could be an initial step, but would even that make much difference as long as the US wholeheartedly backs its chief Middle Eastern protégé? Even Donald Trump`s concession this week that `those children look very hungry ... that`s real starvation stuff`, is meaningless unless the US stops facilitating the genocide. The so-called GazaHumanitarian Foundation it has sponsored has served as a means of mass murder. There is little prospect of a reversal.

Images of emaciated children from Gaza that echo the horrific visions of Auschwitz survivors are here to stay.

Holocaust scholars such as Omer Bartov have left no doubt where they stand today, even if it took them long to recognise what seemed obvious in the immediate aftermath of Oct 7, 2023, when Hamas and its associates broke out of Gaza and faced little resistance in committing crimes that initially went uncontested, but eventually unleashed a genocide by those who had faltered in defending their kibbutzim, partly because they focused on backing the Zionist offenders in the West Bank.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is not expected to pronounce its verdict on whether Israel is committing genocide until late 2027 or early 2028, ie, after the killing is done and the ethnic cleansing is complete. What would be the point of that, beyond an acknowledgment that historywill not absolve Israel`s collaborators? Its enablers range across the globe, but the Middle East stands out as a particularly egregious transgressor. And while India is one of the few nations in the GlobalSouth that deplorably stands solidly behind Israel`s genocidal intentions, Pakistan is on the same page as Israel in proposing a Nobel Peace Prize for the US president.

Pakistan was among the 30 or so nations represented in Bogotá this month at a conference intended to halt the genocide, alongside the likes of Qatar, Oman, Iraq, Lebanon and Turkey. Colombia and South Africa, though, have been the leading lights of the initiative. A few decades ago, India might have fit into that category.

Onceit stood outas astaunch defenderof Palestinian rights, but today it prefers the Zionist narrative.

What the future might hold for Palestine is uncertain, but any notion of resurrecting a two-state solution that was buried long ago by Israel and its western backers is absurd. A Palestinian-free Gaza Riviera along the lines proposed by Trump and backed by much of the genocidal Netanyahu cabinet might prove unachievable, but tens of thousands of lives could be lost in the process, long before the ICJ musters up the courage to acknowledge what is thus far this century`s worst crime against humanity. • mahir.dawn @gmail.com