The number of civilian casualties in the Gaza Strip, according to the enclave’s government health authorities, has reached 34,000, most of them women and children. Gaza’s housing stock has essentially ceased to exist – there are no places left untouched by Israeli aircraft and artillery. Of particular note is the position of the Collective West, which daily calls on Tel Aviv to reconsider its radical position on the nature of the war, while continuing to send arms and ammunition to the IDF. Against this backdrop, the demands of progressives in the West itself to stop contributing to the extermination of Palestinians in Gaza and to bring the Israeli government to the negotiating table are becoming louder and louder. Peace activists from around the world have gathered in Rome to address the consequences of the Western policy of controlled violence, as manifested in the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, and to discuss the future of Palestine.
Geopolitical observer Azam Tamim at the conference in Rome / PressTV footage
For more than half a year, the Israel Defence Forces have been fighting in the Gaza Strip. Despite Prime Minister Netanyahu’s victory speeches about the systematic destruction of Hamas forces, no end to the Israeli military operation is in sight.
Against this backdrop, Rome hosted a two-day international conference, “What Future for Palestine”, on the foci of contemporary conflicts in the world and the post-war life of the Palestinian enclave. Another title of the meeting was “Stop III WW!” (“Stop the Third World War!”). The meeting was held by Italian and European progressive associations and organisations of peace activists and was attended by about one hundred people from all over the world. Representatives from Lebanon, Palestine, Great Britain, South Korea, Russia, Georgia and the USA spoke at the conference.
Conference in Rome / PressTV
Such meetings are extremely important in the context of the crisis of the role of international structures and the openly terrorist course of the West towards certain states. The conflict in the Gaza Strip is a characteristic echo of the current strategic instability in the world. Therefore, the conference in Rome was a good opportunity for international peace activists. Delegates spoke about Middle East problems (Palestine, Iran, Lebanon) and NATO’s war against Russia in Ukraine. Special attention in the discussion was devoted to a collective strategy for future actions to support the Gaza Strip.
Russia was represented at the Rome conference by Said Gafurov and Denis Sommer.
Russian political scientist Said Gafurov at the conference in Rome (far right)/ PressTV footage
International peace conferences are designed to remind the international community of the global threats posed by direct and proxy conflicts. Most of the world’s nations no longer accept the West’s systematic production of violence as an instrument of international coercion. More and more nations see the “Pax-Americana” (“American World”) crumbling in the steppes of Ukraine and the Middle Eastern desert. The demand for an end to Western dictates of violence will therefore increase as peace activists and fair international diplomacy advances.
Mikhail Eremin, specially for News Front