Global Declaration
The Unfolding Atrocities in Gaza Challenge the Morality of the Entire World
by Intellectuals, Religious Leaders, Public Figures, Writers, and Artists (29th January 2024)
1- With sorrow and anger, we have been witnessing horrendous atrocities targeting over two million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, the majority being children and women. This represents a moral challenge for the entire world – a matter that calls for urgent human vigilance and a thorough revaluation of principles.
2- We reject turning a blind eye to the heinous crimes against humanity enacted against the Palestinian people in Gaza – crimes that are akin to genocide and ethnic cleansing. We vehemently condemn the continuous military, political, and propaganda support its perpetrators receive from international powers.
3- These developments have exposed severe imbalances in our world, a deepening ethical crisis, an intractable values’ dilemma, and deceptive propagandistic practices.
4- We caution against the consequences of side-lining treaties and laws that jeopardise global peace and the interests of nations by undermining international law and international humanitarian law.
5- Endorsing military occupation, policies of oppression, persecution, genocide, ethnic cleansing, and war crimes under the guise of ethics, principles, and humanity is a deceptive packaging that mutates ethical, principled, and humanitarian slogans into a tool to kill, oppress, and persecute.
6- It is unacceptable to selectively invoke, uphold, or inactivate values, principles, and conventions in a belligerent manner according to states’ political priorities and their swaying pendulum of interests. The inconsistency of international powers’ stances according to their interests and alignments undermines the credibility of their positions in general.
7- The ongoing horrendous aggression against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip has eroded the remaining trust of peoples and masses worldwide in the ethics of the international order, in the effectiveness of international criminal justice, and in the impact of values, principles, conventions, and slogans on the ground.
8- One cause for alarm is the celebration of international, political, and media platforms of statements dedicated to justifying aggression, glorifying its perpetrators, blaming its victims and holding them responsible for their terrifying fate of death, destruction, thirst, hunger, and displacement.
9- What is happening in Palestine brings back to mind terrifying chapters from the Colonial Era. This underscores the importance of opening the dusty files of colonialism, holding it accountable both morally and on principle, and drawing the necessary lessons therefrom for both the present and the future.
10- We condemn the hierarchical placing of some humans above others in status, rights, and attention, and we denounce any explicit or implicit violation of the dignity of any people and all human communities.
11- The atrocities unfolding in Gaza are an expressive example of a world suffering from severe imbalances at the expense of the southern hemisphere and its peoples and societies. This requires an urgent and unyielding corrective approach.
12- We warn against the approach of monopolising the truth, confiscating values and principles, and selectively employing them according to the interests of international powers, and imposing a unilateral narrative on the world based on bias, arrogance, snubbing, and subterfuge.
13- A world that decides to selectively employ its values, principles, and laws – where human lives are not equal in rights, freedoms, and dignity – is an unjust world that sows anger and discord among generations that notice the gap between high slogans and terrifying practices.
14- Succumbing to speeches justifying genocide, ethnic cleansing, and war crimes that have been spewed from international, political, and cultural platforms poses a threat to humanity as a whole, not just to the Palestinian people.
15- We caution against attributing terms such as “civilisation”, “civility”, “humanity”, “goodness”, and “light” to policies of genocide and war crimes, and from justifying atrocities by stripping humanity from oppressed peoples, as well as poisoning the atmosphere of human coexistence and cultural interaction in a diverse world.
16- Our world lacks a compass of ethical accountability that repels arrogance, dominance, the violation of treaties and conventions, genocide policies, ethnic cleansing, war crimes, and persecution.
17- It has now become imperative to engage in a global philosophical, intellectual, and cultural discourse to assess the readiness of our world, in principles and ethics, to adhere to international and humanitarian conventions and to stand up against campaigns of genocide, ethnic cleansing, and the usurpation of the rights and freedoms of peoples.
18- Advocates of philosophy, thought, culture, literature, art, and religious and civil societies must rise to fulfil their principled and ethical roles in advocating for rights, justice, freedom, and human dignity in Palestine and throughout the world, and stand against all injustice, oppression, persecution, genocide, ethnic cleansing, and racist policies.
19- The voice of human conscience must be elevated, courageously, before it is too late as crimes against humanity are a violation against humanity as a whole, not just against its direct victims who are deprived of their rights to life, security, freedom, and dignity in Palestine.
20- A world that decides on its stance towards atrocities and violations based on the identity of the perpetrator and the identity of the victim is a world with no security, rights, or justice. Its nations and armies will not hesitate to annihilate some humans to enable certain policies that prioritise their interests over their declared commitments.
Early Signatories
by Intellectuals, Religious Leaders, Public Figures, Writers, and Artists
Aljabali, Hamadi
Former Tunisian Prime Minister, Tunisia
Altikriti, Anas
Head of Cordoba Foundation and Deputy General Secretary of United Against Sectarian Fanaticism Organization, UK
Al-Somait, Ahmed
Researcher in history, Kuwait
Alhamidi, Tawfik
Lawyer and human rights activist, President of Sam Organization for Rights and Liberties, Yemen
Almassri, Tareq
Writer and Researcher
Abdul Hamid, Mohd Azmi
President of Islamic Malaysian Consultative Council, Malaysia
Abdul Wahid, Zafry
Leadership Council Member, National Front for Good Governance(NFGG) Member, Sri Lanka
Abunabaa, Nardeen
Novelist and writer, Palestine
Acosta, Susana Peñafiel
Deputy Coordinator of the Human Rights Documentation Center “Segundo Montes Mozo SJ” (CSMM) – Ecuador
Aktay, Yasin
Professor, Turkish Academy of Science, Türkiye
Al-Arian, Sami
Director of Center For Islam and Global Affairs, Palestine
Al-Awa, Mohammad Salim
Lawyer, Egypt
Al-Maleh, Haitham
Judge and lawyer, Syria
Al-Rifai, Osama
Grand Mufti of the Syrian Arab Republic, Syria
Al-Shinqiti, Muhammad al-Mukhtar
Researcher and university professor, Mauritania
Al Safadi, Hassan
Head of Jordanian Democracy Observatory and Spokesman of United Against Sectarian Fanaticism Organization, Jordan
Early Signatories
by Intellectuals, Religious Leaders, Public Figures, Writers, and Artists