When the United States and Iran announced a two-week ceasefire on 7 April 2026, relief swept across much of the world. According to Antigua News Room, that relief was reflected almost immediately in a sharp fall in oil prices by 8 April, following weeks in which the conflict had shaken energy markets, threatened Gulf States, and unsettled the wider global economy. Markets moved quickly, but they were registering a deeper reality: people everywhere prefer peace to war, stability to fear, and development to destruction.
That instinct has been plainly at odds with the conduct of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose political course has been one of widening conflict rather than containing it.
It is important to recognise that the Ayatollah-led regime in Iran has been deeply repressive toward its own people. Recent United Nations reporting and human rights organisations have documented severe restrictions on freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association, arbitrary detention, persecution of women, girls and minorities, and the excessive use of force against civilians and protesters. It is equally well established that Tehran has long provided material backing to both Hezbollah and Hamas as part of its regional strategy against Israel.
No fair-minded account can ignore the horror of Hamas's attack on Israel on 7 October 2023. That attack was murderous and indefensible.
But what followed in Gaza has long ceased to be explicable as a proportionate exercise of self-defence. Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been killed, including great numbers of children, and vast areas of Gaza have been reduced to ruin. Whatever military justifications Israel has advanced regarding Hamas's use of civilians as cover, the resulting devastation has been immense and morally indefensible in its scale.
Nor has the violence been confined to Gaza. Israel's government has pursued a harder line in the occupied West Bank while massively escalating operations against Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Even as Washington and Tehran moved toward a truce on 8 April, Israel launched its heaviest strikes yet on Lebanon. The United Nations condemned the reported casualties as "appalling", and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk described the destruction and deaths as "horrific".
The day the US-Iran ceasefire was announced, many hoped the region might be stepping back from a wider war. It remains regrettable that disagreement persists over whether Lebanon was covered by that ceasefire. Israel and the United States have said Lebanon was not part of the arrangement, while Iran and a number of other governments have taken the contrary view. What is clear is that Israel continued bombing Lebanon after the ceasefire was announced. According to Lebanon's Civil Defence, at least 254 people were killed and 1,165 others wounded in strikes on 8 April alone. Those attacks have placed further strain on an already fragile truce. Recent analysis has described Israel as entrenching itself in a "forever war" through buffer zones in Gaza, Syria and Lebanon.
It is in that context that Netanyahu's conduct must be assessed. Chatham House has stated plainly that he has calculated that war will improve his chances of political survival in Israel. Recent reporting has also noted that, with the halt in attacks on Iran, Netanyahu's corruption trial will resume, and that his coalition is predicted to lose the October elections. The reasonable conclusion is that the prolongation and widening of conflict have served Netanyahu politically, even as they have damaged Israel strategically and morally.
This dynamic also explains why the broader confrontation involving Iran appeared to offer political advantage to Netanyahu. A regional crisis provided diplomatic cover, widened military latitude, and shifted international attention. It created space for continued operations in Gaza and Lebanon while reducing immediate pressure for restraint.
It is difficult to argue that this course enjoys broad international support. Public language from governments may be measured, and some may remain silent, but growing unease and widespread alarm at the scale of civilian suffering are evident across the world. The gap between formal diplomatic caution and underlying global sentiment has become increasingly clear.
In the Caribbean, we carry a unique experience. Jewish communities have been part of Caribbean life since the seventeenth century, and Lebanese communities have been established in the region for well over a century. They have lived among us and contributed to our societies without religious or communal clashes becoming a feature of Caribbean life.
That equilibrium matters. We have no desire to see it disturbed by hostilities imported from the Middle East. Our own experience affirms that people of different histories, faiths and traditions can live together in peace, and that hard-won balance must be protected.
The peoples of the world understand something that ideologues too often ignore. War consumes lives, distorts priorities, and robs whole societies of a future. The market reaction to the US-Iran ceasefire was only the most visible sign of a deeper human instinct. People want resources devoted to human development, not destruction.
The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu. The Court states that the warrants concern alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity, including starvation as a method of warfare, murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts. These are not findings of guilt, but they do represent a judicial determination that reasonable grounds exist to believe such crimes were committed.
In more normal circumstances, such a development would have triggered far-reaching diplomatic consequences. That it has not done so to the full extent reflects the realities of contemporary geopolitics rather than any absence of concern.
The destruction of Gaza, the spread of conflict beyond it, the global disruption it has caused, and the loss of tens of thousands of lives point to one unmistakable conclusion: these wars have not strengthened Israel. They have diminished it morally, weakened it diplomatically, and made its long-term security more uncertain.
(The author is Antigua and Barbuda's Ambassador to the United States and the OAS, and Chancellor of the University of Guyana. The views expressed are his own.)
