Before we celebrate the West’s sudden concern for Palestinians, we need to examine what is happening. Across Europe, a rhetorical transformation is underway: political leaders who, until recently, refused even to whisper criticism of Israel are now denouncing Netanyahu in strong terms. They speak of “consequences,” of “accountability,” of the need to isolate him diplomatically. Ireland, Belgium, and Spain have led the calls for sanctions.
This shift is important to end this genocide. But it is not grounded in justice — it is grounded in strategy. And we have seen this script before.
In South Africa, F.W. de Klerk, the last white president of the apartheid regime, was removed from power through what was internationally hailed as a democratic transition and a collective moral awakening. In reality, his removal was part of a highly controlled negotiation process. Under growing pressure from mass boycotts, international sanctions, and an economy on the brink of collapse, de Klerk initiated a series of reforms, including legalising the African National Congress (ANC), releasing Nelson Mandela, and engaging in talks with liberation movements. These moves were crisis management strategies — designed to safeguard the deeper architecture of white power.
And we must remember: for decades, the West actively supported that power. Europe and the United States maintained profitable economic, diplomatic, and military ties with the apartheid regime. Banks, corporations, and governments did business with South Africa, reaping the benefits of cheap Black labour and a resource-rich economy governed by a white elite. The media downplayed the brutality of apartheid, presenting it as a “complex” political situation rather than the racial dictatorship it was.
Only when it became too costly — economically, diplomatically, reputationally — did the Western consensus begin to shift. Suddenly, the same governments that had once normalised apartheid began speaking of human rights. Media narratives flipped. Civil society actors were encouraged to push for boycotts and divestment. Not because the West had found its conscience, but because it needed to protect its long-term interests in the region by ensuring that the transition would be safe—for capital, for trade, for white property ownership.
The 1993 Transitional Executive Council, for example, was a temporary multiparty body established to oversee South Africa’s transition from apartheid to democracy. It included representatives from both the apartheid government and major liberation movements, including the ANC. While its official purpose was to ensure a peaceful and orderly political transition ahead of the 1994 elections, its authority was narrowly defined. The TEC had no mandate to restructure the economy, redistribute land, or dismantle the deep institutional privileges held by the white minority. Instead, it was tasked with managing the optics and logistics of change, not the substance of power. In this way, it was structured to guarantee that the end of formal apartheid would not mean the end of white dominance.
Even after the 1994 democratic elections, de Klerk served as Deputy President under Mandela — a symbolic gesture of “reconciliation” that preserved political influence for the old regime. His legacy remains deeply contested: seen by some as a reformer, but by many as a skilled tactician who helped manage the decline of apartheid while ensuring that its structural benefits for the white elite — and their Western partners — would remain largely intact.
Europe, Canada and the other allies are now applying the same formula to Israel.
By casting Netanyahu as the problem—as the excess, the aberration, the bad apple — Western governments can protect everything else.
Trump, now leading U.S. foreign policy again, has made it clear: he wants the war in Gaza to end to protect U.S. interests. The first and most urgent reason is the threat of a regional war with Iran, which the US wants to avoid. This escalation — that Netanyahu wants — risks pulling the United States into a full-scale Middle East conflict, something Trump deeply opposes. Trump doesn’t want boots on the ground. He wants deals, not expensive wars.
The second reason is even more telling: Trump wants to revive the Abraham Accords, the U.S.-led normalisation process between Israel and key Arab states. Before October 7, 2023, Saudi Arabia was reportedly on the verge of formalising relations with Israel. But since the genocide in Gaza, Riyadh has frozen everything. Additionally, Syria is back on the regional chessboard and can initiate the normalisation process, while Jordan and Egypt are under pressure. No Arab government wants to be seen shaking hands with an Israel slaughtering children on live television.
In this context, Netanyahu is toxic. His removal is a precondition for business as usual.
As a Palestinian living in Europe — in Italy — I experience this moment as a violent contradiction. On the one hand, I want this shift to succeed. I want the genocide to stop. I want pressure to grow, alliances to break, and the machinery of death to collapse under the weight of international scrutiny.
But I also feel angry. I feel sick watching European liberals, after nearly two years of silence or ambiguity, suddenly co-opting our fight — out of self-preservation. These are the same people who called us “too emotional,” “too angry,” “too partisan,” who believed and shared the fake news on October 7. It makes me furious. Because when Palestinians told the truth, they looked away. But now, when Western liberals say the bare minimum, it becomes acceptable.
This moment brings to mind what Yasmine Hajar wrote in al-Jumhuriya about the deep contradictions of transitional justice. Reflecting on the Syrian context, she explains how the pursuit of justice after mass violence is rarely pure — it is almost always shaped by political needs. Justice, she argues, often becomes a space of compromise, where the desire for peace, moving on and ending mass violence collide with the moral obligation to hold perpetrators accountable. Sometimes, victims are pressured to accept apologies they don’t believe in. In these cases, justice is not healing at all— it is just containment to make life go on.
And so here we are. The war may end. Netanyahu may fall. But if justice is shaped by power, then Palestinians are not having justice. We are being managed.
What is the cost of late solidarity? When recognition arrives only after the devastation is complete — after the mass graves, the amputated children, the carbonised hospitals — it is no longer a tool of prevention. It becomes a tool of self-preservation. Europe’s new moral posture will likely result in the prosecution of Netanyahu and a few selected generals. Perhaps some low-ranking soldiers will be held up as examples. And this, we are told, will be justice. But it will not touch the foundations of Israel’s genocidal machine. It will not dismantle the military economy that profits from occupation. And most of all, it will not hold accountable the European governments, institutions, and media systems that enabled this genocide to unfold in real time — and will continue enabling it under new language, new leaders, new lies.
This is the function of delayed outrage: to create a controlled catharsis. One that punishes the visible monster, but protects the system that fed him.
Dalia Ismail is a Palestinian-Italian journalist based in Europe.
