https://ninkilim.com/articles/gaza_in_ruins/en.html
Gaza lies in ruins - but it is not alone.
With it lie the remnants of never again,
the myth of Western values,
the shreds of international law,
and the shattered image of Israel in the eyes of the world.
The physical destruction of Gaza has become one of the defining images of our time: whole neighborhoods reduced to dust, hospitals turned into graveyards, families erased from civil registries. Beyond statistics lies a deeper tragedy - the erasure of continuity, of culture, of everyday life. Gaza’s ruins are not simply the product of war; they are the outcome of decades of dehumanization and blockade, a slow-motion catastrophe that the world has watched with weary eyes and fading outrage.
The ruins speak not only of bombardment but of abandonment - of a people trapped in a geography of despair.
“Never again” was once a moral vow - a universal pledge forged in the aftermath of genocide. But in Gaza, those words ring hollow. The lesson of the Holocaust was meant to bind humanity to the defense of all life, not to be monopolized by one nation or used to justify the suffering of another.
When the same world that vowed to prevent mass atrocities looks away as they unfold on live screens, never again becomes not a promise but a relic - something mourned rather than believed.
For decades, Western nations have projected themselves as guardians of democracy, liberty, and human rights. Yet the response to Gaza has laid bare a selective morality: one standard for allies, another for the rest. Governments that speak of “rules-based order” have endorsed siege and starvation; those who claim to defend freedom have criminalized protest and silenced dissent.
In Gaza’s ruins, the myth of Western values meets its reckoning. What remains are not ideals, but interests - geopolitical, economic, electoral. The moral vocabulary survives, but the meaning has decayed.
When the Israeli ambassador held up and tore the UN Charter at the General Assembly, it was more than a gesture - it was a symbol of a system already unraveling. International law, born to constrain power, has been reduced to paper: cited when convenient, shredded when it matters most.
War crimes are documented in real time, yet accountability remains deferred to the distant future. Institutions meant to uphold justice are paralyzed by vetoes and double standards. What lies in shreds is not only a charter but the credibility of the global order itself.
Israel once presented itself as a democracy under siege - a nation fighting for survival. But as the images of Gaza’s destruction spread, that narrative has fractured. Around the world, growing numbers see not defense but domination, not security but impunity.
The moral capital that shielded Israel for decades is dissipating, even among its traditional allies. The myth of exception - that Israel stands above the norms it demands of others - has broken against the stones of Gaza.
What lies in ruins, then, is more than a city. It is the architecture of moral order - the belief that humanity learns, that power can be restrained, that words like justice, law, and values still hold weight.
Gaza is the mirror of our age. To look into it is to see not only the destruction of a people but the collapse of the world’s conscience.