Engineered Wars, Begged Ceasefires, & Humanity Sold For Profit

When wars are no longer triggered by military provocations but by silence, capital, and manufactured narratives, they stop being regional conflicts—they become a test of civilisation.

West Asia in 2025—especially Gaza, Iran, and Israel—is a chilling testament to this shift. In today’s world, tanks arrive after sanctions, media fabrications, and conspiracies disguised as ‘peace missions’.

The decades-long US sanctions on Iran, Israeli cyberattacks, the assassination of General Qasem Soleimani, and mounting geopolitical pressure—these weren’t isolated incidents but parts of a strategic script authored by the West, branding Iran as an ‘expansionist threat’.

But when Iran responded with restraint and dignity, and then decisively in 2025 with missile strikes on the US base at Al-Udeid (Qatar) and Israeli radar installations—those very powers who engineered the war suddenly begged for a ceasefire.

For the first time, forces intoxicated by dominance and capital found themselves rattled by a resistance built on self-respect. The message was clear: self-defence is not a Western privilege, it’s a universal right.

Muslim world capital directly or indirectly fuels investments tied to every bomb falling on Gaza, revealing that the most brutal dimension of this war lies not in bombs and missiles, but in investment figures and trade profits.

Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) invested millions of dollars in Israeli insurance company Phoenix Insurance via US-based Affinity Partners.

By January 2025, this investment had, however, yielded approximately ₹191 crore (around USD 19 million).

• UAE’s Mubadala invested $1.1 billion in Israeli gas fields,
• Qatar poured in $275 million, and
• Saudi Arabia added another $30 million to Israeli high-tech firms

Additionally, Saudi Arabia’s Al-Rajhi family, through MithaQ Capital, acquired a 20.4% stake in Israeli mobility company Otonomo, valued in the billions.

What does this mean? That wars today are not just fought with weapons—they are funded. They are born in boardrooms and rain down as bombs over refugee camps and crowded neighbourhoods.

These billion-dollar partnerships provide not just economic strength to Israel, but also moral cover.

The massacre in Gaza was not just the outcome of a rogue state’s policies—it was the collapse of a global moral order.

The Abraham Accords (2020) redefined Arab-Israeli relations. Countries like the UAE, Bahrain, and Morocco—once vocal advocates for Palestinian liberation—now collaborate with Israel on culture, technology, and defence.

By 2025, this collaboration had, however, evolved into trade, arms deals, and cyber intelligence sharing. Emirati firms like G42 have partnered with Israeli surveillance companies like NSO and Cellebrite, despite serious human rights violations linked to these firms.

This alliance reflects not only economic opportunism but also profound ethical decay.

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In this entire equation, the average consumer is unknowingly complicit. Israeli companies like Strauss Group, SodaStream, Teva Pharmaceuticals, Ahava, and Netafim sell products across Arab and Muslim markets under Western or neutral branding.

Snacks, skincare, mineral water, medicines, and apps—all rebranded and sold.

Consumers across the region widely use digital platforms like Waze, Fiverr, and Wix—often unaware that these very platforms originate from the country dropping bombs on Gaza. Branding blinds while business blooms.

It would be wrong to describe the tragedy in Gaza merely as a war.

A calculated genocide—over 40,000 lives lost, including 17,000 children and 12,000 women. Al-Shifa Hospital, the largest medical centre in Gaza, bombed. Power cut. Newborns suffocated without oxygen. Schools, mosques, and marketplaces—flattened. And the world? Silent.

The UN, OIC, and Arab League all issued press releases. No decisive action. This silence is not neutrality—it is complicity.

Meanwhile, organisations like the OIC weep for Palestine in speeches, yet invest in Israel behind closed doors. This duplicity doesn’t merely create confusion—it dismantles the very idea of morality.

On one hand, there are sermons about protecting the Qibla (sacred Islamic direction), while on the other, investments are made in regimes defiling that very sanctity. This is not confusion; it is calculated hypocrisy, and Palestine is paying the price.

Israel’s strength lies not in its military or weaponry, but in our silence. That silence emanates from the quiet approval of Arab leadership, from the branding-induced blindness of consumers, and from the inaction of global institutions.

This silence is no longer a choice—it has become a crime.

Now is the time for decisions. Will we remain mute shoppers in a profit-driven marketplace, or will we rise as conscious citizens to resist injustice?

As consumers, we must identify and boycott Israeli products. We must support media that expose the reality in Gaza, not those paid to bury it.

Civil society, NGOs, writers, and intellectuals must bring global movements like BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) to the streets.

The fight for Palestine is not just theirs—it is the fight of every human being who believes in humanity. This is a battle between power and truth, between capital and compassion, between imperialism and justice. If we don’t speak now, tomorrow when another city burns in our silence, no one will ask “Who bombed it?”—they will ask, “Who stayed silent?”

Silence is sin. Resistance is redemption.

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Author: Shahid Sayeed (Senior Journalist, Author & Social Activist)