Over the past decades, the Palestinian people have endured all forms of targeted violence—physical, psychological, humanitarian, and more—often in silence. In the past year and a half, Israel has carried out deliberate acts of violence and extermination against Palestinians, both inside and outside of Palestine.

This includes mass violence and destruction aimed at wiping out the population of Gaza. Homes, hospitals, and universities have been destroyed. Water, electricity, and food have been cut off. Journalists and humanitarian workers have been targeted. Entire neighborhoods have been flattened—along with the people who lived in them.

And it is all happening in plain sight. For the first time in history, we are witnessing genocide streamed online. It’s clear that we are unable to stop it and even clearer that we are powerless.

Behind the missiles lies a network of global power, while people we know are being bombed day and night, year after year. The kind of power that has risen in recent years seems to belong only to those capable of inflicting the greatest destruction.

This brings us to the eternal human dilemma: power breeds violence, and violence only leads to more violence.

The violence and aggression seen in recent years across the world reveals a pattern of targeted aggression against the will of the people. It suppresses those who dare to oppose their governments and political leaders who support ongoing genocide—whether through arms deliveries or political and diplomatic backing.

The rise of violent movements is not a result of confidence; it coincides with the rise of far-right-wing politicians across the world. Even conservative politicians, in order to protect their positions, have become more extreme than the extremists themselves.

In Germany, which has been led by conservative parties for decades, this has been clear in its response to the Palestinian political situation. Over the past few years, whenever Palestinian demonstrations have taken place in Berlin the police have responded with clear violence and aggression, making it obvious to participants that they were being targeted not only for who they are, but for how fragile, powerless, and useless they are made to feel.

Germany has not stopped at banning Palestinian demonstrations from taking place in public spaces. It has launched another wave of violence, targeting businesses, homes, and events simply because individuals express political views opposing the ongoing genocide in Gaza—whether on social media or at public talks.

This wave of violence against Palestinians—both within and beyond Germany—is being driven by conservative parties that continue to supply arms to Israel and support the most extremist and genocidal regimes—one that has been openly calling for ethnic cleansing for years—freely, through every media channel. And they don’t stop at military deliveries, but also provide full diplomatic and political cover.

All of this is happening in parallel with the rise of the far-right party, AfD, whose growing influence in German politics has made it the second-largest party and the largest opposition force in the 21st Bundestag.

This is just one example of so-called conservative—democratic—parties steering a country through an era defined by violence, all while increasingly aligning themselves with, or even adopting, the extremist ideology and policies of fascist far-right movements.

There is little difference between these kinds of regimes and other police states regimes like Egypt, which has used violence since the very first day of its rule. As we’ve seen, Egypt has already imprisoned many people simply for demonstrating in the streets or advocating for protests without any legitimate reason to keep them in jail to this day.

All of this is happening without any limits—just regimes asserting their authority through violence, establishing a rule: that violence is reserved for those who can both enforce and justify it.

The growing use of terms like national security, self-defense, militarism and instability reveals how these words have become part of a regime strategy to normalize violence, surveillance, and occupation. They are weaponized to justify actions that grant regimes the authority to carry out any act of violence.

Violence has always been—and is increasingly becoming—a global tool used by regimes both large and small, regardless of whether it is necessary or justified. It has become a strategy that allows politicians to maintain their grip on power for the long term and to impose fear on their own citizens.

The voices of extremists have become stronger, louder, and more influential than those of moderates—raising the risk of an escalating cycle in which extremist voices dominate and clash with one another.

But this also points to the absence of moderate voices. Is it that they are not being raised loudly enough, or are they being systematically deplatformed? In recent years, it has become increasingly clear that moderate voices and ideologies have failed to take actionable, strong, and viable steps to counter extremist narratives or to offer alternatives to the current political situation.

It is also clear that media platforms have become heavily politicized, giving space to extremists to project and promote their ideologies. But just as clear is that we—the people—have been unable to take a collective stand to push back against these voices. Until we do, extremist narratives will continue to gain ground and fill the void left by our inaction.

What has been happening in Palestine and Gaza for years is a political mirror of global politics where ethnic cleansing and genocide are carried out in full view of the world, without intervention or even the intention to stop it.