OTTAWA—Summer is normally a good time for trying to write lighter, diversionary columns that might provide a break from the usual pressing issues of the day. But there hasn’t been a summer like this one in many years.
One of the most grievous of the many atrocities consistent with the transformation toward a world increasingly steered by rights-ignoring leaders are the horrors being visited on the people of Gaza.
God knows the Jewish people deserve to live in a homeland free from constant threats of death and destruction. And there’s no doubt that Hamas touched off this current round of violence in the long-volatile region with its vicious Oct. 7, 2023, attack killing 1,200 Israelis and taking 251 hostages. And Hamas’ treatment of, and refusal to release, the hostages from that incursion into Israeli territory no doubt justifies in the minds of many Israel’s disproportionate response.
But letting the people of Gaza face starvation and allowing those desperately seeking food to be killed as they try to access what little aid is being distributed is clearly way outside the scope of any justifiable response. It is an obvious breach of human principles that should not have been tolerated in the months before dozens of countries began to forcefully speak out against it.
Thousands of Palestinians are going without food and, according to the United Nations human rights office, about 1,000 people have been killed while seeking aid in Gaza, including many shot down by Israeli troops near aid points operated by a private United States aid distribution group.
Meanwhile, as western elected leaders stepped up pressure on Israel to address the mounting starvation of Palestinians, U.S. President Donald Trump played golf in Scotland. Having distanced his administration from the long-held U.S. policy favouring creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel and endorsing the ethnic cleansing of Gaza, he—until the weekend—had little to say about the plight of Gazans. He has instead stood behind Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s continuing attempt to root out Hamas’ leadership at all costs, with Trump even musing about the use of more military force despite risks to the remaining hostages. On July 27, Trump finally realized the situation in Gaza is beyond intolerable, but was still ambivalent about Israel’s role in the development of the crisis.
Some 3,000 kilometres away, Russia continues to defy international law and widespread condemnation with its deadly invasion of and continuing nightly attacks on Ukraine, which has seen an estimated 400,000 casualties since Moscow opened the war in 2022. Trump, who more than anyone has the potential to bring Russia’s Vladimir Putin to the bargaining table, has never been frank about the illegality of Putin’s unprovoked assault on its neighbour. Unbelievably, the American president at times has twisted reality totally out of shape by echoing Putin’s claims that Ukraine’s leaders were the ones responsible for the invasion. This past weekend, the Trump said he was fed up with months of Putin’s double-talk, and shortened his deadline for Moscow to actually seek peace or be hit with extreme sanctions.
In the wider perspective, it’s important to remember that the U.S.—for better or worse—has in most cases in the past 75 years sought to work with other nations in an effort to create a more peaceful, prosperous world with increased dignity for all, in keeping with the lasting response by many around the globe to the calamity of the Second World War.
But the commitment to democracy and individual rights at the core of this effort has been and continues to be badly eroded, in part because of U.S. regression under its current president. Amnesty International calls it the “Trump effect.”
“The Trump administration’s anti-rights campaign is turbocharging harmful trends already present in 2025, gutting international human rights protections and endangering billions across the planet,” the organization warned ahead of its latest annual report, The State of the World’s Human Rights.
In its assessment of the situation in 150 countries, the survey found “vicious, widespread clampdowns on dissent, catastrophic escalations of armed conflict, inadequate efforts to address climate collapse, and a growing backlash globally against the rights of migrants, refugees, women, girls and LGBTQ people.”
In addition to Israel and Russia, Amnesty’s list of countries of deepening concern included China, Myanmar, Turkey, Iran, India, Sudan, Afghanistan, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
“Year after year, we have warned of the dangers of human rights backsliding. But events of the past 12 months—not least Israel’s livestreamed but unheeded genocide of Palestinians in Gaza–have laid bare just how hellish the world can be for so many when the most powerful states jettison international law and disregard multilateral institutions,” commented Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s secretary general.
“At this historical juncture, when authoritarian laws and practices are multiplying the world over in the interests of very few, governments and civil society must work with urgency to lead humanity back to safer ground,” Callamard added.
Les Whittington is a regular columnist for The Hill Times.
The Hill Times