The UN’s Pathetic Paralysis: Gaza Proves the United Nations Is a Hollow Relic

By: Donovan R. Martin Sr. Editor in Chief

There was a time, in the ashes of World War II, when the United Nations was conceived as humanity’s last, best hope to prevent atrocities, foster peace, and uphold international law. The world had witnessed genocide, imperial conquest, and systematic extermination. The UN’s birth in 1945 was a solemn promise: never again. But here we are, in 2025, watching Gaza burn under a hailstorm of Israeli bombardment while the United Nations twiddles its bureaucratic thumbs. Tweets are not accountability. Condemnations are not justice. And when the bodies of children pile up faster than ceasefire resolutions, it becomes necessary to ask the most painful and honest question: what is the point of the UN anymore?

Let’s not sugarcoat what’s happening. This is a massacre, a relentless siege against a captive population. Gaza is not a warzone—it is a graveyard in real time. And what we are witnessing is not simply collateral damage or wartime politics—it is the slow, public unraveling of an entire people. This is the Palestinians’ Holocaust. And if that word offends the comfortable, it should offend them into action. Because history does not only repeat itself when fascists rise. It repeats when the so-called civilized world stands by and lets it happen—again.

The UN was built to stop this. Its core mission was to protect human rights, uphold international law, and ensure peace and security. But the reality today is a grotesque parody of those principles. Gaza’s agony has dragged on for months with unrelenting devastation. Hospitals bombed. Refugee camps flattened. Schools obliterated. Civilian infrastructure turned to rubble. The UN can call it “ethnic cleansing” and “genocide” all they want—but unless those words are followed by concrete, enforceable action, they are meaningless.

Let’s not take what happened on October 7th as the start of this horrific erasure of human life. It goes without saying—it was horrifying. No person with a conscience celebrates the loss of innocent lives. Israeli civilians, along with internationals, died in a brutal and unforgivable attack by Hamas. War is cruel, and violence against civilians of any background is a human tragedy. But to act as if this happened in a vacuum, as if the conditions that birthed this horror didn’t exist, is either dishonest or willfully blind. Palestinians have been living under military occupation for decades, subjected to daily humiliation, checkpoints, land seizures, home demolitions, and systemic oppression in what even the United Nations itself once labeled an “open-air prison.” This did not start on October 7th. This is the consequence of decades of injustice ignored, denied, and enabled.

And let’s shut down the rhetoric about antisemitism—once and for all. Criticizing the policies of a government is not the same as hatred against a people or a religion. The repeated use of antisemitism as a shield to deflect any and all criticism of the Israeli state’s actions is not just dishonest—it’s dangerous. No government on earth, including Israel, is exempt from scrutiny. If American, French, Chinese, and even African governments can be rightly condemned for crimes against humanity, then so can Israel. To argue otherwise is to embrace impunity.

What we’re witnessing is an unarmed population being subjected to the full might of one of the world’s most advanced militaries. Fighter jets, tanks, artillery—the tools of modern war—are being unleashed on a population that cannot flee, cannot fight back, cannot even breathe without wondering if they’ll see the next morning. No water. No electricity. No hospitals. No safe zones. No mercy. Herded, starved, bombed—and the world dares to debate language while children rot under rubble.

And yes, let’s talk about funding. Hamas is backed by regional players, yes. Just like Israel is propped up by the United States, armed with billions in military aid, endorsed by Germany, supported by Britain, France, Canada, and others. These same nations now issue “strongly worded statements” while continuing to enable the very actions they claim to decry. Hypocrisy has never been this loud. What are we doing here?

Palestinians deserve to live in peace. So do Israelis. This is not complicated. It’s the unwillingness to let go of dominance, of apartheid, of occupation, that makes it complicated. And Benjamin Netanyahu—let’s not mince words—is as monstrous a leader as history has seen in recent decades. His policies have fueled this nightmare, and his name will take its rightful place in the dark annals of genocidal state leaders.

We are tired. Tired of bloodshed. Tired of press releases and empty diplomacy. Tired of seeing children die while world leaders posture. Just as the world grew numb and exhausted reporting mass shootings in the United States, so too are we worn thin from documenting the mass execution of a people whose only crime is being born Palestinian.

The United Nations—the body that could, should, and claims to exist precisely for moments like this—has become a global embarrassment. A spineless, visionless bureaucracy that issues tweets instead of taking action. It is a disgrace. An organization that sucks billions in funding only to parrot concern while the fires of ethnic cleansing rage on.

Where do we go from here? We don’t know. But we look to the winds of change, to the decolonization sweeping across Africa, to the growing rejection of imperial puppeteers. And we hope. We hope that just as Africa is reclaiming its resources and dignity, the Palestinian people will one day stand free—without walls, without checkpoints, without the shadow of a drone circling overhead.

Until the United Nations reforms itself beyond recognition, until it strips the veto, democratizes its power structure, and enforces real justice, it has no right to speak on Gaza. Because when the children cry and no one comes to help, it is not just the bombs that kill them. It is the silence of the world. And that silence has a name—it’s the United Nations.