"When Mercy Fails: Reflections on Gaza and the Human Conscience"
by Shamsul Bahari
Written in sorrow, not in hate. Written in witness, not in silence.
What will become of Gaza?
What will remain after the fire and fury, after the bombs have flattened homes and hearts, after the dust has choked the air and buried children beneath concrete and sky? What does Israel, under the iron will of Benjamin Netanyahu and the Zionist regime, hope to achieve after reducing Gaza to a graveyard with no names left to mourn?
It is now painfully clear that we humans—yes, all of us—are capable of inflicting the very worst upon our own kind. We do so not in secret, but in plain sight, as if morality itself has fled from the world stage. We do so despite international condemnation, despite global protest, despite the cries of mothers and orphans that rise above the rubble like prayers that will never be answered.
And yet, there is something deeper, more disturbing than even the death toll: it is the numbness, the silent complicity of nations, the moral cowardice of global leadership, and the hollow performance of humanitarian concern that does nothing to stop the blood.
The Zionist Project and the Jewish People
Let me say this clearly: this is not about Judaism. This is not about antisemitism. In fact, it is a great tragedy that the Zionist regime has nailed the Jewish people to the cross of history once again—not as victims this time, but as participants in a system that dehumanizes, destroys, and denies.
Many Jews across the world have spoken out, condemned the atrocities, marched in protest, and wept for the people of Gaza. Many Israeli citizens have resisted, refusing to serve in a war they cannot morally defend. These voices are precious. They prove that conscience has not been extinguished completely.
But the regime speaks louder than the dissidents. And its leaders—Netanyahu, Shamir, Sharon, Ben Gurion, Golda Meir—have left a trail of public statements that reveal not just arrogance, but a genocidal logic that has long been woven into the narrative of statehood and supremacy.
To speak this truth is not to hate. It is to mourn. It is to say: this was never the way to peace.
The Arab World’s Deafening Silence
Perhaps more painful still is the impotence of the Muslim world. From the Saudi monarch to the presidents and ministers of the rest of the Arab world, there is hardly a murmur. The leaders sit as if made of wax—comfortable in their palaces, terrified of losing Western approval, unwilling to even raise a hand or voice in defense of their brothers and sisters.
Where is the OIC? Where is the resistance to tyranny? Where is the courage of those who claim to follow the Prophet ﷺ, who wept for strangers and fought for justice?
It is a bitter reality that the Muslim world, despite its wealth, its numbers, and its spiritual inheritance, stands paralyzed—like eunuchs at the feet of empire. Every drop of Palestinian blood cries out not only to Israel, but to the Muslim ummah, whose silence is its own form of betrayal.
On the Edge of Moral Collapse
We are witnessing more than the destruction of a city or a people. We are witnessing the erosion of the human soul.
Are we truly so lost as a species that we allow such atrocities to unfold, recorded in high definition, streamed in real time, while world powers shrug and issue hollow press statements? What has become of our conscience? What do we have the United Nations for? When is enough, enough?
We are not living in an age of war alone—we are living in an age of moral failure, of collapsed empathy, of selective humanity.
And Yet...
Despite all this, I do not write these words from hatred. I write them from grief. From heartbreak. From the echo of a memory I once carried of Jewish friends—ex-IDF soldiers—who wept and confessed and sat in silence with me at a Zen monastery in California. They too, were wounded. They too were human.
So I know: even within the very soldiers who once pulled the trigger, the soul can awaken.
And that is where I place my last hope: not in governments, not in armies, not in summits or sanctions—but in the awakening of ordinary people. Israelis and Palestinians, Jews and Muslims, and every conscience alive enough to still say:
This is wrong. This must end. This is not who we are.
A Final Prayer
I do not know what will become of Gaza. I do not know if peace will come in my lifetime. But I do know this:
Truth must be spoken.
Mercy must be remembered.
And silence, when used to avoid suffering, becomes violence itself.
May we never become numb.
May we never lose our ability to weep.
May we never stop calling out for justice—until it rolls like a river.
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