Anyone who follows current events, even at the casual level, knows who Benjamin Netanyahu is. They’re familiar with the October 7 terrorist attack on Israel, and how Israel has retaliated with extensive bombing of Gaza. But ask someone about the ongoing atrocities in Sudan that began in 2023, and chances are that they won't even be able to identify the two conflicting forces in the civil war that's torn that nation apart and caused widespread misery among the civilian population.
While the Left’s called the bombing of Gaza “genocide,” they have little to say about the greater horrors perpetrated upon the people of Sudan. There's a number of reasons for this blind spot, but when “the Jews” are involved, there's always a different set of rules in play.
The current three-year-old civil war in Sudan pits two former allies against each other. It’s the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF), the nation’s regular military, versus the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a powerful paramilitary force that's the current iteration of the Janjaweed (“devils on horseback”) militia that was responsible for the original Darfur-region genocide in the early-2000s that resulted in 300,000 deaths and the displacement of around three million people. Back then, celebrities such as George Clooney, Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, and J.K. Rowling spoke out about the atrocities, but their collective voice has lost its urgency at this point.
The Left portrays Gaza as an open-air prison, but the U.N. has called the conflict in Sudan—driven by tribal, religious, ethnic, and political differences, with international meddling thrown into the mix—as the world's worst humanitarian crisis. The markers of genocide are everywhere—targeted ethnic murders, unspeakable sexual violence, wholesale destruction of villages, and attacks on medical clinics. Only 14 percent of Sudan’s hospitals are operational.
Both the RSF and, to a lesser extent, the SAF, are using starvation as a tactic of war. Sieges cut off food, water, and medical care to soften resistance prior to a drone-heavy assault. The real atrocities come after the takeover of the village, aimed at specific groups (in particular, non-Arab communities) via killings, rape, and displacement to alter ethnic composition or clear land.
The stories are terrifying. There's a report of a man who was hung over a fire with a rope around his ankles. His torturers threw chilis into the fire to burn his eyes as he was roasted like a chicken on a spit. Unlike in the Gaza conflict, in Sudan women are the targets of sexual abuse. One witness reports RSF soldiers cutting the fetus out of a woman's belly and throwing it into a fire. The U.N. has estimated that 12.7 million people in Sudan—mostly women and girls—are in need of gender-based violence support services. Even 10-year-old girls aren’t safe from rape.
The Left portrays the Palestinians in Gaza as the victims of colonialist Israel and the United States, suggesting that their repression is rooted in racism. Those buying into this narrative see Arabs and Muslims as eternal victims, but in Sudan the Arabs and the Muslims are the ones doing all the killing, torturing, and raping. The Left says Israel is doing ethnic cleansing in Gaza while failing to point out that that's what Arabs and Muslims are doing in Sudan.
In the Darfur region, the RSF has targeted the Fur, Zaghawa, and Masalit ethnic groups repeatedly with barbaric violence. A U.N. fact-finding mission concluded that the RSF committed various atrocities against non-Arab communities in and around El Fasher in 2025. Videos have documented perpetrators celebrating their rapes and torture. Some military commanders in Sudan have commented that the brutality of their own troops often surprises them.
The SAF now controls central, northern, and eastern Sudan, while the RSF, which seeks legitimacy beyond its militia status, controls the West. The south is still up for grabs. The RSF has established its own government in South Darfur as a bargaining chip, but the SAF appears to be uninterested in stopping short of total victory. This is bad news for the people of Sudan, who are bearing the brunt of the nightmare.
There's been foreign intervention in this civil war, but not the kind that will help the long-suffering Sudanese. On the contrary, it's prolonging it. Sudan, the third largest country in Africa by area, is rich in gold and other valuable minerals. External actors, including Ethiopia, Egypt, Russia, Iran, and Turkey are working to exploit the internal war by providing arms, funding, logistics, and mercenaries.
The United Arab Emirates, a major foreign presence in Sudan, is a strong backer of the RSF, although it denies all ties to the group. The UAE, where much of Sudan's gold is sent to, is providing weapons, financial resources, and diplomatic cover to the RSF. Egypt and Saudi Arabia, which support the SAF, provide a counterbalance to the UAE's influence. Russia officially backs the SAF, but it plays both sides.
The consensus is that there have been from 60,000 to 150,000 deaths from direct violence in this war. If deaths from indirect causes (starvation, lack of medical care, etc.) are factored in, the plausible number could be up to 400,000, with 14 million Sudanese displaced since 2023.
Sudan’s an ancient civilization in the Nile valley once known for its pyramids and temples. But the nation has a bloody past it hasn't escaped, and the West has forgotten about it now. There's no identifiable “good guys” to get behind. Donor nations, lacking a strategic stake in the war, send their money elsewhere. There are no student protests for the Sudanese.
Humanitarian outrage is often driven more by the political causes people choose to advance than the scale of suffering. Sudan’s outside of any of the prevailing political narratives, so the Left turns its back on a nation in great need of attention.
