On May14, the world witnessed the most bloodshed Gaza has seen in a single day since 2014. The death toll was estimated to have reached 60 after the Israeli forces mercilessly used live ammunition on Palestinian protestors, resulting in over 2,700 people getting injured.
These protests coincided with President Donald Trump’s strategic and planned move to inaugurate a new American embassy in Jerusalem. Trump had already announced that he would recognise Jerusalem as the Israeli capital back in December. Ironically, in a video message which was played at the embassy inauguration which took place just 70 kilometres from the bloodshed on the Gaza border, Trump said that he remains committed to ‘facilitating a lasting peace agreement’ between Israelis and Palestinians. This was after he had tweeted that May 14 would be a ‘great day’ for Israel.
Soon after the internet was blasted with images in which Ivanka Trump, her husband and Netanyahu were all seen in smiles beaming with delight while Palestinian protestors could be seen trying to flee Israeli bullets and teargas for daring to demand their human rights. Throughout the day, sirens wailed across the area as the wounded were carried to nearby ambulances. Groups of young activists repeatedly approached the fence, but were quickly scattered by gunfire and tear gas.
While the White House blamed Hamas for the Gaza casualties, the heavy death toll drew expressions of alarm globally. Jordan’s King Abdullah II took to Twitter to say how the embassy move would have ‘dangerous implications’ for security and ‘provoke Muslims and Christians.’ Thousands gathered in Turkey to protest the US embassy move. Several nations said they were pulling their ambassadors from Israel to protest the deaths in Gaza.
It seems as if the so-called peace talks are just a cover for the ongoing dispossession of Palestinians in slow motion, until they are driven out altogether by the encroaching Israeli state
But now as we enter the second week since the atrocity took place, it seems as if the monstrous truth behind the massacre has been buried deep inside a maze of diplomatic double speak. The UN Security Council in all solemnity only managed to observe a minute of silence during the emergency stating how the deaths were a result of the conflict that has endured far too long. But mind you this was no conflict, but a one-sided massacre.
The embassy’s move badly damaged Washington’s position as a mediator between parties in the worst possible manner, highlighting unpredictable consequences. The day fuelled global concern about how US policies are tipping the broader Middle East into deeper, intractable conflict rather than peace.
None of the speakers at the embassy ceremony made any mention of the violence in Gaza, even as television networks carried the two events simultaneously in a jarring split screen.
Trump’s endorsement of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory — including East Jerusalem — is now official. Palestinians and international law designate Jerusalem as the future capital of a Palestinian state, a decision supposedly arrived at through negotiations with the Israelis. The Trump administration is now blatantly complicit in the illegal annexation of Palestinian territory by Israel.
Nearly 25 years after signing the Oslo Peace Accords, under President Bill Clinton, the Israelis have continued to expand their illegal settlements and repeatedly carried out countless massacres against the Palestinian population, who are confined to open-air concentration camps like the Gaza Strip. They have benefited from Washington’s acquiescence every step of the way.
The executive director of the Middle East division of Human Rights Watch has stated, “The policy of Israeli authorities to fire irrespective of whether there is an immediate threat to life on Palestinian demonstrators in Gaza, caged in for a decade and under occupation for a half-century, has resulted in a bloodbath that anyone could have foreseen”. And yet again, given this audacious unmasking by Trump of the US’ role as a brazen accomplice to Israeli crimes, the American president has the audacity to come forward and say that Washington is still committed to ‘full and lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians’.
The Palestinians are actually supposed to gain statehood out of these balkanized shards of land in the future. But given the current state of affairs, this seems like a pipe-dream that neither the Israelis nor the US really believe in. It seems as if the so called peace talks are just a cover for the ongoing slow-motion dispossession of Palestinians until they are driven out altogether by the encroaching Israeli state. However, this hypocrisy shouldn’t shock anyone.
Now the US embassy’s move to Jerusalem has been anointed with the blood of the innocent people shot down by Israeli snipers. This massacre is without a doubt a grotesque sign of the iniquitous and very dangerous times in which we are currently living in.
The writer graduated with an LLB Hons, University of London International Programmes. Twitter @fizzaalik
Published in Daily Times, May 24th 2018.