Tehran – Beyond its tragic humanitarian aspects, the ongoing war in Gaza has become a major test of the international order. This is the order that emerged after World War II based on institutions such as the United Nations, the human rights system, the rule of law, global justice, and the responsibility for protection.
However, the devastating development of the Gaza Strip since October 2023 has deeply challenged this order. The systematic killing of civilians, the continued attacks on civilian infrastructure, including hospitals, schools, refugee camps and sacred sites, and the silence or accomplices of Western countries in these crimes have created a deep rift between the theoretical claims of the free order and earthly reality.
In this context, Gaza was merely a besieged territory, not a victim of Israel’s occupation policy, but rather a moral, political and institutional rupture point of the global liberal order. The order was established primarily under US hegemony after World War II and was built on principles such as human rights, democracy, free market economy, multilateralism, and international organizations. Especially after the Cold War, it was promoted as a dominant model of international relations, and many institutions and systems were established to strengthen it. However, the liberal order has been consistently criticized by realists, Marxists and postcolonial theorists to replicate Western domination and strengthen structural inequality.
Within this framework, the war in Gaza serves as a historic litmus test of the fidelity of the liberal order to declared values. Liberal principles argue that attacks on civilians, medical infrastructure, blockades and bombing tactics of starvation constitute a serious violation of international humanitarian law, but in Gaza we see these actions carried out on a persistent basis without serious rebuttal from major forces, particularly the United States. On the contrary, we have witnessed political, financial and military support from the US and several European governments. This blatant double standard fundamentally undermines the moral legitimacy of liberal order.
International organizations have also lost their effectiveness during this crisis. The UN Security Council has repeatedly failed due to the US veto, despite efforts by some countries to pass binding resolutions for a ceasefire. The General Assembly passed a symbolic resolution, but there is no enforcement mechanism to stop violence. The International Criminal Court has proven unable to deal with war crimes quickly under political pressure. This institutional failure broadens the gap between formal and actual justice, erodes the public’s trust in the international legal order.
A particularly surprising aspect of the Gaza crisis is the dysfunction of international organizations, such as the UN Security Council, which curbs this humanitarian catastrophe. The solution is rejected and published in an ambiguous, ineffective language, or at best expresses mere concern. If global order is truly based on rules, human rights and accountability, how can Gaza genocide continue for months without the activation of legal, diplomatic, or symbolic deterrent tools? This implementation not only question the legitimacy of these institutions, but also makes it clear that the liberal order only works when it coincides with the interests of the great powers.
This is where the concept of protection responsibility (R2P) introduced in the aftermath of the Rwandan and Bosnian genocide in the 1990s faces a critical challenge. The R2P argues that global communities have an obligation to protect their population from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crime against humanity, even when they need to intervene in national internal affairs.