By Mustafa Makumba

There are moments when silence ceases to be neutrality and becomes complicity. Israel’s recent military offensive against Iran, most notably Operation Rising Lion, launched five days ago, has shattered the pretence of restrained military action once confined to Gaza. With strikes that crippled Iran’s nuclear infrastructure at Natanz and Isfahan, targeted assassinations of senior IRGC commanders and nuclear scientists, and the bombing of Iran’s state media headquarters in Tehran, the operation looms as among the most brazen in recent Middle Eastern history.

These assaults went beyond pre-emptive strikes; they were assaults on sovereignty, on journalists, on the foundational principles of press freedom. Hundreds of thousands of civilians were urged to evacuate Tehran, even as hospitals, residential districts, and media infrastructure came under direct fire. The shockwaves of these actions ripple outward, consequently, igniting fears of radiological contamination and global escalation.

Yet the world’s response has been muted. Official pronouncements have nodded toward balancing wariness of Iran’s nuclear ambitions, but very few have openly condemned what has all the hallmarks of disproportionate aggression. Gaza remains in rubble, and now Tehran faces the same invisible siege, and still, global outrage remains measured or absent. It is not merely a political failure, it is indeed a moral one.

In Islamic ethics, justice (Adl) is absolute and non-negotiable. The guiding principle of enjoining what is good and forbidding what is wrong demands clarity when the powerless are crushed or silenced. Hoarding power, targeting media, and annihilating civilian infrastructure, all while the international order looks away, fits the classical definition of Dhulm, oppression, an act warranting collective condemnation.

The Prophet Muhammad’s (peace be upon him) warning that “whoever wrongs a wordless, helpless being, even a sparrow, will be held to account” rings with renewed relevance. Israel’s strikes, backed by deep pockets of geopolitical alliance, are not isolated tactics, they are symptomatic of a broader erosion of moral coherence in global politics.

What makes this moment particularly painful is the asymmetry of accountability. Nuclear facilities are razed, scientists are eliminated, and civilian lives are shattered, yet no global tribunal convenes, no cascade of sanctions swells, no united chorus of rebuke emerges. Instead, the world’s loudest words are reserved for condemnations of less severe actors.

That silence is a stain. Global institutions that once professed to champion human rights now appear stuck in moral selection, choosing when a death counts and when it does not. And precise as Israel’s drones may be, they cannot mask the broader narrative: power privileges some victims, suppresses others, and drowns conscience in the name of realpolitik.

Faith calls us toward universal justice. It holds that the moral arc of the world must bend toward equity, not expedience. That truth stands stark today, against the backdrop of bombs and broken promises. And if the world won’t judge these acts with courage, then our silence must be broken.