The Necropolitics of a Secular International Order: Western Modernity, Arab-Muselmann, and the Arab-Israeli Conflict

The secular sovereign architects of the post-World War II International Order are necropolitical. By envisioning modernity as a telos directed by the authority of secular sovereigns, the global order enacts a necro-logic—the imperative to divide ‘pre-modern/uncivil’ from ‘modern/civil’ societies, legitimizing the death of the former to preserve the life of the latter. Within this realist episteme, the post-World War II order necessitates excluding Arabs (Ishmaelites) from the juridical order for ontological security by deeming their slaughter and humiliation as not constituting homicide, but necessary for the ‘order of things’. Drawing on necropolitics as a sociopolitical theory, the manuscript examines Israel’s exercise of sovereignty—particularly after 7 October 2023—as manifesting episodes of necropower dehumanizing Palestinians as Arabs. It further contends that the International Court of Justice indicted the secular international order in the South Africa v. Israel case, even as some sovereigns sought to preserve the inclusive-exclusive logic of Western modernity by absolving Israel. The manuscript concludes by placing the Gaza war within a broader geopolitical restructuring. It highlights the coordinated efforts of the Arab League, UNGA, EU, and BRICS advocating for an epistemic shift. Such a shift will demand that academic institutions recognize the limitations of post-modern ideologies that reject objective morality, particularly in their ability to offer a truly inclusive moral resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict upholding the principle of ‘never again’.