THIS is with reference to the report ‘Paid in blood: Gaza ceasefire announced’ (Jan 16). One can only hope that the agreement will hold, and there will be some chance for sanity to prevail in a world that is going through strange times at the moment. A live genocide has gripped the world for more than a year in this day and age, but the world powers have done nothing to stop it.

In fact, they has supported it in all possible ways. The International Court of Justice (ICJ), set up on the pattern of Nuremberg trials post-WW II, was subjected to criticism and it even faced sanctions for calling a spade a spade.

Elsewhere, a convicted felon has been elected to run the affairs of a global super power. Also, the world’s biggest democracy, with a total population of over 1.4 billion, re-elected for the third consecutive term a man under whose watch over 2,000 people were killed, majority of them being Muslims.

There was a time when Narendra Modi was barred from entry into many countries in the West for being complicit in Gujarat deaths. That is no longer the case.

The so-called sole democratic country in the Middle East, which was declared by former US president Jimmy Carter as an apartheid state, is headed by a prime minister with a history of being involved in corruption.

Benjamin Netanyahu considers it kosher to kill thousands of men, women and children in Gaza, although the United Nations has called it a genocide.

All this does not seem to bother the conscience of the sole global super power whose founding fathers included men like Abraham Lincoln, who stood up to abolish slavery, and talked about human rights way back in the 19th century.

All this reminds one of what happened during WW II, and events preceding the war, when the League of Nations was dissolved. Where are we headed?

Malik Tariq Ali
Lahore

Published in Dawn, January 18th, 2025