Daily Times

The visuals from Gaza are peremptorily gruesome, petrifying and ghastly. Every single day, infants are left incinerated, geriatrics annihilated and women obliterated. Israel has unleashed this brutal assault on the Palestinians and has made their already miserable life more calamitous.

The hopes of Palestinians and those of Gaza’s people especially are pulverised. The atrocious onslaught by the Israeli military has left millions chagrined. Israel is the largest patent of terrorism and is adamant upon wiping Palestinians off the face of this planet. Its blatant and impudent disregard of international humanitarian laws is more than poignant.

The truly lamentable fact is that despite Israel’s flagrant abnegation to act humane, nobody holds it liable for its contravention to international law. This conflict has divulged the West’s insincere and feigned attitude. The countries which are so tumultuous about civil values all year round, have been acting oblivious since the Israeli blitz. It received no potential admonition from the US and Europe and consequently continues to act ferociously. The IDF has proved to be a hound of savage vultures quenching their wrath with innocent Palestinian blood. Israel has already killed almost five Palestinians for one Israeli killed since October 7. What else proportionate response is it looking for?

But the guilt does not lie entirely in West’s pavilion. All those countries and forces which were acting all ostentatious and pretentious before the beginning of the conflict are also responsible. Countries like Iran and organisations like Hezbollah that manoeuvred Hamas into carrying out this attack should also be blamed. They convinced Hamas and assured it of full compliance and support, militarily and otherwise, but now as devastation befalls upon Gazans, there’s no one to help. Palestinians face an existential crisis and Hezbollah and Iran seem to be figuring out an appropriate time and way to respond. Countries like Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, etc., are all words and no action. How many world powers has Pakistan tried to convince, to make them pressurise Israel to stop. The United Nations never seemed so helpless and desperate as it is now. Israel vocally questions the legitimacy of the UN and unabashedly denies its resolutions. Netanyahu has his Delawarean friend to veto all resolutions calling for a ceasefire. If this continues, UN might end up like the League of Nations. The only nation that has benefited from the October 7 attacks is Israel as it gained a licence to carry out its long-awaited lethal ambitions of annexing Gaza.

The truly lamentable fact is that despite Israel’s flagrant abnegation to act humane, nobody holds it liable for its contravention to international law.

The only non-Israeli thing except the Mediterranean to proximate Gaza is Egypt. And Sisi has clearly rejected refugee influx. Perhaps it’s the memory of Black September or the over 80 billion dollars it received in aid from the star spangled banner, but whatever it is, it means more hopelessness for the Palestinians. The world is not ready to think beyond or behind the October 7 Hamas assault. It does not like to discuss the ’48 Nakba massacre or the more than 7,000 Palestinians dead since October 7. The world was justifiably horrified by the fake propaganda of 40 decapitated Israeli babies, but seems not to care for the over 3,000 children killed in Gaza. There’s literally a child death in Gaza after every 15 minutes. Hospitals, mosques, churches, schools, refugee camps and what not, Israel is sparing no one. It’s unequivocally carrying out a systemic pogrom of Gazans; first banishing them to the southern tip and then dropping bombs there as well. Children in Gaza suffer from PTSD [Post-traumatic stress disorder], they wet their beds at ripe ages, they’re afraid to sleep alone. Palestine’s plight is unfathomable. Israel is the biggest threat to international peace and tranquility.

If fighting for one’s homeland, for liberation and for independence qualify for terrorism, then many people cherished in Western culture qualify well for it. And if tyrannising innocent unarmed defenceless people qualifies for self-defence, then perhaps there was nothing wrong with what Ramses II, Genghis, Stalin and Hitler did. This way of perceiving things is certainly wicked. Biological research has advanced beyond imagination at present. Why don’t the Western countries make their biologists come forward and make them state that Palestinians or Muslims do not qualify as Homo Sapiens. If that isn’t the case, then why this chauvinism?

It’s about time the world ends this parochialism and terminates its unbinding support for Israel. Since the Balfour Declaration to date, hundreds of thousands of innocent people have been slaughtered, expatriated or compelled to live in circumstances worse than hell. And if this mess is not resolved soon enough, this is gonna turn into something far gargantuan. The US seems all ready to wage a war at Israel’s call, but will it be able to bear the consequences of another transcontinental conflict. The demographics of the situation will change in an enigmatic and dramatic way if the US gets involved. But at the end of the day, it’s just the Palestinians suffering. Words cannot describe their agony and it’s regrettable that we can do nothing to help them in a potential way.

The writer can be reached at: me.ahmed.sultan@gmail.com.