Rwanda enabling Congo atrocities
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is engulfed in violence — again. The Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group is seizing territory and forcing thousands to flee. It has taken control of Goma, a critical city in eastern DRC, while reports of mass killings and other atrocities surface. The international community is calling for restraint. But the genocidal rampage continues, echoing Rwanda’s own bloodstained history.
Rwanda survived one of the worst genocides of the 20th century. Yet it’s now enabling the ethnic slaughter of Congolese civilians. The irony is almost too perverse for words: a nation that once pleaded for the world to remember its suffering is now bankrolling the same horror it once endured.
But this is the fateful prophecy I lamented two decades ago in commentaries like “Genocide in the DR Congo: Rwanda with a Vengeance” (April 6, 2005).
Israel’s war on Gaza: A mockery of ‘Never Again’
Meanwhile, in the Middle East, Israel is waging its own campaign of mass destruction in Gaza. It’s facing accusations of genocide from other countries, human rights groups, and eminent historians. Historian Amos Goldberg bluntly states that Israel is committing genocide, pointing to mass killings, starvation, and the dehumanization of Palestinians. The parallels to past horrors are unavoidable — yet instead of being haunted by its history, Israel is willfully repeating it.
So forget the “two-state solution.” Especially because no less a leader than US President Donald Trump is openly urging Israel to “clean out” or ethnically cleanse Gaza. Frankly, you can hear Iago Netanyahu enticing Othello Trump with promises to rename the Gaza Strip Trumpville and line its skyline with Trump buildings. The only question is whether Jews in Israel and America will let these two mercenary racists so defile the lessons of the Holocaust.
Like Rwanda, Israel invokes its past suffering as a shield, demanding global sympathy while committing ethnic cleansing in broad daylight. In short, the phrase “Never again” has become an empty slogan, stripped of meaning by those who once relied on it the most.
The world’s silence is complicity
This isn’t just a failure of Rwanda and Israel — it’s a failure of the entire international community. After the Rwandan genocide, world leaders, from Kofi Annan to Bill Clinton, swore they’d never allow genocide in Africa again. And yet, here we are.
To be fair, Rwanda’s Paul Kagame, much like Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdo?an, has never pretended to be a Jeffersonian democrat. Kagame relishes throwing “uncomfortable questions” at Western leaders whenever they criticize his autocratic — or even genocidal — tactics. He deflects by pointing to America’s past military interventions, effectively asking:
- Why should I be held to a higher standard than the United States?
Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu plays the same game, invoking America’s brutal history to justify his rampage in Gaza. In one of his final interviews as president, Joe Biden admitted he tried to no avail to get Netanyahu to temper Israel’s onslaught. Biden said Netanyahu dismissed his concerns, insisting America did far worse in Iraq and Afghanistan.
These aren’t just rhetorical games. They expose a grim symmetry between Kagame and Netanyahu. Both exploit America’s flawed moral authority to excuse their own genocidal actions, shielding themselves from accountability. And neither seems concerned that by betraying “Never forget” and mocking “Never again,” they’ve turned their nations’ moral authority into hypocrisy.
Meanwhile, Germany and much of Europe stay silent as Israel does to the Palestinians what Germany did to the Jews. The West, once eager to claim moral authority on human rights, now looks the other way.
Worse, the US president usually acts as the world’s moral arbiter. But Trump is acting like the godfather of genocidal autocrats. He’s enabling Kagame, Netanyahu, Putin, and Xi to justify their atrocities by pointing to America’s own genocidal complicity and geopolitical predations.
Selective outrage has become the currency of international politics, leaving the people of Congo, Gaza, and Darfur to suffer alone. If “Never again” means anything, the world must stop picking and choosing which genocides it condemns and which it enables. Until then, Kagame and Netanyahu will keep exploiting this hypocrisy to carry out their atrocities with impunity.
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