“Dammi Falastini,” The riveting chant proclaiming Palestinian identity continues to reverberate around the globe as tens of thousands of people are taking to the streets to demand a much-needed end to the latest round of nightmares. With casualties soaring past four thousand, half of them children, and Palestinians constantly walking on eggshells to stand tall against a relentless bombing spree, the ongoing Israel-Palestine escalating has become the deadliest of five wars over Gaza. To their misfortune, however, their heart-wrenching cries for help have not made it across oceans. The US sees the deployment of aircraft carriers and navy missions as the only viable solution for the fast-intensifying carnage. President Joe Biden is expected to argue for greater military support for Israel. A seemingly unstoppable diplomatic endeavour is on the rise amid buzzing telephone lines, out-of-the-blue trips to lend support to the supposed argument of self-defenceand perfectly aligned press releases. While one may not expect the frontline warrior for human rights and fundamental liberties to mock international decorum in such a vile manner and wave pompoms for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, it is almost ironic to see the West following the pattern to the dot. As earlier seen in Afghanistan and Iraq, the US administration believes in throwing buzzwords like “de-escalation” and “peace” for mere optics and has repeatedly made headlines for the unbelievable scale of its war crimes. Going by the warnings from legal scholars, most noticeable of which has been the resignation of a senior State Department official, Washington is fully aware of its “short-sighted, destructive (and) unjust (policies which are) contradictory to the very values (it) publicly espouse.” But since its leaders do not share the skin colour with the bloodied and brutalised in the latest instalment of the holocaust, no one would lose any good night’s sleep. The cloak of hypocrisy could not get any thicker! *