Daily Times

Occupation is a multi-meaning word. The immediate understanding is from an employment perspective of what sort of work or business one does. The other meaning is occupying or controlling another territory by force. The occupation of occupying land has been the main cause of war and conflict in human history. Thus, history will either tell us that wars are fought for or against control. World wars and regional wars are all waged with this insatiable desire to gain power. One of the traditional symbols of power is the number of regions that come within a country’s geographical boundaries and are subjugated to the command of the ruling elite of that country. The British Empire and the later US concept of superpower are based on this philosophy of occupation. As the world becomes more aware of the dangers of trying to control and exercise relentless power, and the many treaties and global conventions are made to curb and restrict this danger, the more we see them being overwhelmed by some powerful allies. The latest spree of Israeli aggression is a regular display of how one strong country, with the backing of a superpower, bulldozes infrastructure and human beings and seems to get away with only token worldwide protests.

History shows that the Ottoman Empire collapsed after World War I and the conflict for who owns what piece of land began. Although initially run by the British, it was the UN that suggested dividing Palestine into Arab and Jewish states. The formation of the Israeli state started a war. The refugees in Gaza live in terrible conditions of abject poverty, while strict controls by Israel have made life miserable. Any reaction by Palestinians against these prison-like blockades by the Israelis results in barbaric bombing by Israel, leading to massive damage to infrastructure and innocent lives. In the latest bombing campaign, over 200 Palestinians have lost their lives despite efforts for a ceasefire by Egypt. Palestine was long recognised by the personality of Yasser Arafat but, after his death, there has been a vacuum of leadership. The Palestinian Authority (PA) is blamed for being corrupt and ineffective, giving rise to the popularity of Hamas. Hamas grew out of the Muslim Brotherhood. They in comparison were serving the needs of Palestinians well. They came into power in 2006 forming a coalition government with the Fatah group but tensions remained. As is usual, the US, European Union and Israel consider Hamas a terrorist organisation since it has anti-Israel aims.

The sad story of US duplicity continues as it conveniently classifies rights and wrongs not based on principles but based on what suits its national supremacy and which nations are ready to ally with it regardless of the ethical or human dimension. That Barack Obama said that the US has no better ally than Israel is itself an indication of why Israel can bulldoze people and disregard legal conventions but still have the US looking conveniently the other way. Israel and the US have strategic interests in common. Israel is the curbing factor militarily for the US over Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran in the Middle East. Their philosophy and value system of dominating the world through money and military power is a great binding force. They have stood by each other on every global issue regardless of what the rest of the world is saying. The latest survey on global attitudes on drone strikes is an example. Nearly every country has more people objecting against drone strikes than agreeing with them, with the exception of the US, Israel and Kenya. While in Kenya there is a marginal difference, Israelis are for drone strikes even more than the US. Moreover, Israel has a very sophisticated intelligence system that the US uses for counter-intelligence operations. They have similar philosophies on Islamic fundamentalism and similar values on occupation and expansion. Israel also assists the US people by stimulating trade, spurring technological innovation and creating jobs. Despite a population of just 7.7 million people, Israel is the US’s 20th largest customer in the world, surpassing Russia and Spain.

Google, Microsoft, IBM, Intel, AOL and Motorola are just some of the high-tech companies with major research and development operations in Israel. In addition to providing software and hardware for most US computers and mobile phones, Israel also pioneered the USB flash drive, the ingestible micro-camera, advances in drip irrigation and the portable MRI. Through Better Place, the world’s first comprehensive electric-car system, Israel is poised to help Obama achieve his goal of placing one million electric vehicles on the US’s roads by 2015. After the US and China, Israel is the most represented country on the Nasdaq stock exchange. At a time when US corporations are outsourcing to Asia, Israel is outsourcing to the US: tens of thousands of US citizens are employed by Teva, the world’s leading generic-drug producer, and by dozens of Israeli high-tech, textile and defence plants throughout the US. The nearly 6,000 projects run by three US-Israel foundations have generated myriad US jobs, as does the three billion dollars in US military aid to Israel, $ 2.25 billion of which is spent in the US. So how can a Muslim world that is regularly aghast at these atrocities go beyond token protests?

The answer lies in learning from the US-Israeli model: to be united in their effort to assert supremacy over their opposing forces. The Arab League is only united to boycott Israeli products but is the Arab League united to take on the US when the US imposes anti-boycott sanctions on countries favouring this attitude? The answer is ‘no’. It is this disunity in the Muslim world where powerful countries like Saudi Arabia are too busy trying to get their own Islamic brethren like Iran discredited that gives a chance to the US to use them for its purposes. What is needed is a leader in the Muslim world to challenge this political duopoly and then gain mass support in many other non-Muslim countries to put political, legal and media pressure on them. Reccep Tayyab Erdogan of Turkey has spoken out and said that there is no difference between Hitler and Israel, but this aggressive rhetoric has to be more than an appeasing statement to the rising discontent in his own country. What he needs to do is to use the dormant Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) and gain global support for a series of actions to make Israel accountable for this complete dismissal of legal and ethical violations. Otherwise, the occupation obsession of the superpower and its allies will continue making principles and treaties for the rest of the world while creating super clauses for themselves to have ‘extraterritorial rights’.

The writer is an analyst and columnist and can be reached at andleeb.abbas1@gmail.com