IN A NUTSHELL Author's Note...Gaza may be remembered not only for its destruction, but for what it revealed: the exhaustion of a global order that can no longer reconcile its claims with its actions. The United States and its allies may retain power, but legitimacy has been profoundly eroded. Emerging powers critique but do not transform. What lies ahead may be uncertain and unstable—but also transformative: a transition toward a post-oil, post-hegemonic world grounded in interdependence, ethical coherence, and grassroots action...
By Juan Garay
Co-Chair of the Sustainable Health Equity Movement (SHEM)
Professor/Researcher of Health Equity, Ethics and Metrics (Spain, Mexico, Cuba, Brazil)
Founder of Valyter Ecovillage (valyter.es)
By the same Author on PEAH: see HERE
Gaza and the End of a Moral Order
Energy, Power, and the Emergence of a Post-Hegemonic World – and the Prospect of a New Global Life Expectancy Decline
The destruction of Gaza is no longer only a humanitarian catastrophe; it is a historical rupture. What is unfolding has been increasingly described, in legal and academic arenas, as genocide, and it is reshaping the global order with a clarity that decades of diplomacy failed to produce.
According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and data referenced across the United Nations system, reported deaths have exceeded 30,000. However, this figure is widely considered an underestimate due to missing persons under rubble and indirect deaths from starvation, disease, and collapse of health systems. Analyses published in The Lancet and other academic sources suggest that the true death toll could plausibly exceed 100,000 when indirect mortality is included. The International Court of Justice has already determined that claims under the Genocide Convention are “plausible,” ordering provisional measures to prevent further destruction. The legal process continues; the moral collapse is already evident.
War, Oil, and the Machinery of Control
To understand Gaza is to move beyond Gaza. The strategic alignment between the United States and Israel reflects a broader architecture of military and economic control over the Middle East—still central to global oil reserves and maritime trade routes. These routes remain essential not only to Western economies but also to energy flows toward China.
The United States maintains a vast global military infrastructure—over 750 overseas bases—ensuring its capacity to project power across these corridors. This system has long underpinned both the dominance of the U.S. dollar and the stability of fossil-fuel-dependent global trade.
Yet this architecture is now under strain. Regional escalation, including tensions involving Iran and disruptions across key maritime chokepoints, has contributed to volatility in oil markets (International Energy Agency) and growing uncertainty in global supply chains. The result is not simply higher prices, but the exposure of a fragile, overextended system.
A Decadent Convergence: West and East in Fossil Dependence
Paradoxically, the emerging global divide does not represent a clean ideological rupture. Instead, it reveals a shared dependency. On one side, the U.S.–European Union axis remains deeply tied to fossil-fuel consumption and military enforcement of supply lines. On the other, the Russia–China alignment rests on its own fossil-fuel interdependence.
This is not a clash between systems, but a convergence within a declining paradigm. Both poles are structurally embedded in a fossil-fuel order that is ecologically unsustainable and geopolitically destabilizing.
This diagnosis echoes classical philosophical warnings. Plato cautioned that societies collapse when excess—of wealth, power, or desire—surpasses ethical limits. Modern industrial civilization appears to have crossed such thresholds.
Institutional Failure and the End of Credibility
The paralysis of the United Nations Security Council has rendered it ineffective in preventing or halting mass atrocities. International legal mechanisms lack enforcement capacity when confronted with geopolitical power.
Human rights organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch continue to document violations, yet accountability remains absent. The gap between normative frameworks and political action has rarely been so stark.
For many across the Global South, this moment confirms that the post-war order is not universal, but selectively applied.
Fracture, Realignment, and the Limits of Power
Countries such as Brazil have emerged as vocal critics, yet lack sufficient leverage to reshape the system. Meanwhile, Russia remains absorbed in Ukraine, and China prioritizes economic continuity.
This creates a vacuum: a declining hegemonic order without a coherent successor.
Economic Contradictions of Late Capitalism
The current crisis reflects structural tensions within global capitalism. Amartya Sen emphasized that development must be measured in human capabilities and freedoms. Thomas Piketty demonstrated the systemic concentration of wealth and power.
The devastation in Gaza reflects a system where strategic and economic priorities override human well-being.
The Energy Shock and the Beginning of the End
The weakening of stable oil flows from the Middle East reinforces price volatility, disrupts trade, and accelerates fragmentation of globalization. At the same time, it exposes a deeper contradiction: both Western and Eastern blocs remain locked into fossil-fuel dependency.
This shared reliance signals not strength, but systemic decadence.
A New Global Health Signal: Toward Another Decline in Life Expectancy?
This geopolitical crisis unfolds after an unprecedented global health setback. Data from the World Health Organization indicate that global life expectancy fell by approximately 1.8 years between 2019 and 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, disproportionately affecting vulnerable populations.
Although a partial recovery has occurred after 2022, analyses aligned with the Sustainable Health Equity Movement show that global health inequities have widened, and overall burden of disease remains elevated.
The next release of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs World Population Prospects—reportedly postponed to 2027—will be critical. It may reveal whether the combined effects of pandemic aftermath, war-driven economic disruption, rising energy prices, and reduced global trade are triggering a second, structurally driven decline in global life expectancy which will probably link to the progressive impact of global warming into the second half of the XXI century, marked by human life decline parallel to its ecocidal impact on other life in the planet.
Ethics of Peace and the Failure of Power
The present moment stands in stark contrast to ethical traditions of nonviolence and justice. Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., and Nelson Mandela articulated visions of peace grounded in justice, dignity, and reconciliation—principles largely absent in current geopolitical strategies.
Beyond Hegemony: The WISE Paradigm and Grassroots Futures
Emerging alternatives are being articulated outside traditional power structures. The WISE paradigm—Wellbeing, Inclusion, Sustainability, and Equity—outlined in WISE paradigm article and expanded in We Have a Dream proposes a systemic shift away from extractive and hierarchical models.
This aligns with the work of the Sustainable Health Equity Movement, whose webinars emphasize ethical coherence, sustainability, and equity.
Across the world, grassroots networks—low-consumption communities, localized economies, and cooperative systems—are beginning to embody these principles.
A World After Legitimacy
Gaza may be remembered not only for its destruction, but for what it revealed: the exhaustion of a global order that can no longer reconcile its claims with its actions.
The United States and its allies may retain power, but legitimacy has been profoundly eroded. Emerging powers critique but do not transform.
What lies ahead may be uncertain and unstable—but also transformative: a transition toward a post-oil, post-hegemonic world grounded in interdependence, ethical coherence, and grassroots action.
References
United Nations OCHA. Occupied Palestinian Territory – Gaza emergency reports. https://www.ochaopt.org
United Nations. Gaza crisis updates. https://www.un.org
The Lancet. Counting the dead in Gaza: difficult but essential. 2024. https://www.thelancet.com
International Court of Justice. Application of the Genocide Convention (South Africa v. Israel). https://www.icj-cij.org
World Health Organization. Global life expectancy losses due to COVID-19. https://www.who.int/news/item/24-05-2024-covid-19-eliminated-a-decade-of-progress-in-global-level-of-life-expectancy
Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. Global Burden of Disease Results. https://www.healthdata.org
United Nations DESA. World Population Prospects. https://population.un.org/wpp
International Energy Agency. World Energy Outlook. https://www.iea.org
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Military Expenditure Database. https://www.sipri.org
Garay J. The WISE Paradigm. PEAH. 2023. https://www.peah.it/2023/12/12800/
Garay J. We Have a Dream. PEAH. 2026. https://www.peah.it/2026/01/we-have-a-dream/