Make no mistake, this has nothing to do with returning Israeli citizens to their homes. While Hezbollah often fires rockets into Israel, most are intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome.

All the parties to the conflict know that Hezbollah’s main strength is its deterrence, Hezbollah’s main strength is deterrence, not because it could defeat Israel, but because the cost of war would be too great for Israel, as it learned in 2006.

That calculus changed on October 7th. Hamas’ attack gave Israel the perfect pretence for its most brutal campaign against Palestinians, backed by western politicians eager to appease Israel.

Hostages? What hostages?

Israel’s bombing of Gaza has forced even impartial observers to conclude that it is not acting in good faith. The world can see that the emperor has no clothes, but the emperor isn’t too bothered. Its reputation and its economy are already in tatters, so its leaders figure they might as well expand the war. The U.S. – the world’s most powerful failed democracy – ensures Israel’s impunity through weapons and diplomatic pressure, allowing it to continue its destruction unchecked.

So much for securing the release of the hostages or destroying Hamas. Every notable killing of a Hamas leader has happened outside Palestine, and the number of saved hostages is barely enough for a football match. No – the priority is now to dismantle Hezbollah, a group that was born from within Lebanese society in part as a reaction to Israel’s first invasion of Lebanon. They may not be the most reasonable, but it’s not like Israel has given them many reasons to believe it will act in good faith.

Netanyahu gave the same deadpan, English-language warning to “the people of Lebanon” that he gave to Gazans. After three days of intensive bombing, the death toll stands at roughly 600, more than half the number of Lebanese civilians killed in Israel’s 2006 month-long war on the country. Footage of residential buildings reduced to rubble, of families pulling their loved ones, or parts of them, from the wreckage mirrors the despair we’ve seen in Gaza. The playbook is being rolled out in much the same way and with Israel likely to ignore please for moderation, the number of casualties can only increase.

In response to the escalation, the US has said that it will be sending more troops to the region. That’s right, despite giving Israel billions of dollars worth of military equipment and repeatedly calling on Israel not to start a war with Hezbollah, the best it can do is make sure it hangs around just in case Israel’s relentless baiting results in any consequences.

The US portrays itself as a global leader and the architect of the international rules-based order, but this couldn’t be further from the truth.

Over the last year, all attempts to stop the violence through democratic channels have been blocked by the U.S. Whether it’s vetoes at the United Nations or undermining the International Court of Justice and International Criminal Court, Israel’s enabler in chief has made it abundantly clear that it is willing to do, or not do, anything it takes.

When the US undermines these institutions, the very foundations of the global rules-based system buckle. Why is it one standard for Putin and another for Netanyahu? Imagine preaching about democracy and rule of law while passing legislation to sanction international prosecutors and ban their families from entering the U.S.

Yet, a broader question remains: Must we really keep paying for this American “leadership,” where entire regions are destroyed to maintain control? Where countries – like Malta – are cowed into toeing the U.S. line when it matters the most?

What options are left when the political tools we’ve been taught to trust fail? When every institution designed to protect human rights and justice is rendered powerless by those who claim to defend them?

Why should we, or anyone outside of this elite power structure, stand with the U.S., when the cost is the pulverisation of our Mediterranean brothers and sisters? Are we really benefiting from giving American companies unfettered access to global markets?

The terrifying truth is that the regional war we now find ourselves in may be the least of our worries. The real danger lies in how easily those in power have used their influence to discredit, silence, and destroy opposition.

It will be impossible to rebuild a semblance of global justice after this. What would be the point? So that we can continue discussing atrocities at the UN while doing absolutely nothing about them?

That’s what should truly frighten us. The collapse of global justice, or rather, the illusion of it. Once it’s gone, it won’t be rebuilt. We’ll be left in a world where might makes right, and the loudest, most violent actors set the rules.

Hamas escalated its actions out of a sense of desperation—its people have been marginalised and ignored for decades. While their methods are unacceptable, the right to resist occupation is enshrined in international law. Israel’s decades-long occupation is not. The legal position is both clear and irrelevant – as it has no grounding in fact.

Citizens around the world who oppose this war, who have marched, protested, and written in vain, now find themselves asking a similar question: What else can we do? How many more peaceful protests must be ignored before people lose faith in the system?

We find ourselves asking what comes next—not just for Gaza or Beirut, but for every corner of the globe touched by U.S. dominance. When the rules no longer apply, when justice is an illusion, is it any surprise that global resentment builds?

The citizens of Gaza and Beirut aren’t just fighting Israel; they’re battling a system that enriches the few while dehumanising the many and a system that will dispose of anyone standing its way.

Maybe the Chinese and Russians are right to question U.S. hegemony. Perhaps the priority should be to forge a new global order, one that isn’t built on American imperialism, but on something that resembles genuine equality and respect for sovereignty.

The question now is not whether Israel will stop, but whether we, as a global community, will finally hold the United States – the true enabler of this chaos—accountable. Perhaps the time has come to seriously reconsider the world’s subservience to a power that has shown itself, time and again, to care only for its own interests – and a narrow set of interests at that.

They have come for Gaza. And Beirut. Now what?