It has been almost a year since Israel began bombing Gaza. Their attacks have not only killed nearly 42,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, but also displaced hundreds of thousands and destroyed the infrastructure of the enclave. Israel’s War Cabinet, led by Benjamin Netanyahu, is now expanding the war on Gaza to neighboring Lebanon, and nearly 600 people have been killed in airstrikes on civilian areas so far, while thousands of others are injured and displaced. Israel’s relentless attacks on civilian areas, schools, hospitals, humanitarian convoys, journalists and United Nations personnel have seen no limits.
This week, world leaders have convened for the 79th session of the U.N. General Assembly meeting in the organization’s New York headquarters in the U.S. The atrocities and genocide taking place in Gaza, the ongoing tragedy in Sudan and the Ukraine-Russia conflict were some of the key topics of the speeches.
"Israel's attitude has once again shown that it is essential for the international community to develop a protection mechanism for Palestinian civilians," President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said during his historic and powerful speech he delivered following the speech of U.S. President Joe Biden.
In contrast to Biden’s speech, which was rather ambiguous on a path forward and how to tackle the current conflicts, Erdoğan delivered a speech that criticized the international community’s idleness in the face of the Gaza genocide, called for reform to the U.N., and raised questions about Western values and the sincerity of Western leaders.
"Just as Hitler was stopped by the Alliance of Humanity 70 years ago, Netanyahu and his murder network must be stopped by the Alliance of Humanity," Erdoğan said, urging the international community to take action. He also called on the states backing Israel, namely the U.S., to stop their one-sided approach that sides with Israel in the conflict. “For how long will you continue to bear the shame of looking on this massacre, of being its accomplices?” The Turkish president said.
Since Oct. 7, Israel has been violating countless human rights protections and committing documented war crimes in Gaza. And now, it is expanding the war to Lebanon before the world’s eyes as if it has immunity from all the crimes it can commit. Where is the end of Israel’s borders as it continues the ongoing expansion of the occupation? Where will the next target be after Lebanon? In addition, the important question is, will the U.N. and the international community continue to send mere condemnation messages instead of tangible steps?
The human tragedy does not end. In the early and mid-years of the 20th century, the world witnessed two bloody wars. According to a common consensus, more than 16 million were killed during World War I between 1914 and 1918, and it ultimately led to the fall of four great empires. In the aftermath, the League of Nations was formed in 1920 “to promote international cooperation and to achieve international peace and security.”
The Nazi invasion of Poland in 1939, however, drew the final straw following a series of events among Western/European states and World War II began. Following World War II, the U.N. was established in 1945. The U.N.’s Charter has four main purposes: “to maintain international peace and security; to develop friendly relations among nations; to cooperate in solving international problems and in promoting respect for human rights; and to be a center for harmonizing the actions of nations.” In other words, in the face of global crises and challenges, it is the international body’s duty to intervene and find solutions to avoid or minimize human costs.
Yet, recent history has explicitly shown that the global governance system that was established in the post-World War II era has not been able to proactively manage crises or intervene in a timely and effective way to stop conflicts. Moreover, the U.N. was established to serve the Cold War era global system and the lack of reform has led to failures in tackling the new problems that emerged following the fall of the USSR, post-9/11 and even the hard military conflict disasters that have emerged since the Arab Revolutions. Of course, human suffering is not solely due to military conflicts and the international community must find solutions to minimize the effects of climate change, poverty and inequality between the Global South and the Global North.
The current situation in Gaza, coupled with rising risks of the war spreading to the region and leading to a worldwide war, the ongoing developments in Sudan, Syria, Myanmar and Ukraine show that the world system is failing to find solutions and reform is necessary. The U.N. Security Council structure is dysfunctional with the current "veto" power of its permanent five members, where the members vote solely based on their own interests rather than the interests of the international community and humanity as one family. The U.N. Charter gives the UNSC the “primary responsibility for maintaining international peace and security.” Yet, we have seen in recent history that this has not been the case. The conflicts do not stop, peace is not the priority and human suffering is maximized.
The calls for reform to the U.N. system are increasing, especially from emerging powers in the Global South. “It is time for reform or rapture,” the outgoing secretary-general had said about the current U.N. system in the face of current global challenges.
Erdoğan is also among the pioneers of the new wave of reform of the current global governance, as the world order is no longer a bipolar system. There is uncertainty about how the current multipolar world order will be designed. In this phase, it is time for a reform of the U.N.-led global governance system for a "fairer world" and more just system where the rights of all members of the international community and not only the powerful will be protected.
We need the values represented by the maxim “The World is bigger than five," more and more nowadays. We witness that international peace and security are too important to be left to the arbitrariness of the “privileged five.”
Otherwise, in the absence of such change and reform for more effective global governance that would protect the rights of the victims against aggressors like Israel, many more Gazas would emerge and it is inevitable that new genocides would continue to take place. Lastly, it should be underlined that it is the duty of all the members of the international community, not only a few, to ensure that this reform is actually realized.
