EDITORIAL: As Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza entered second year on October 8, conscientious citizens in various countries, including the ones whose governments fuel it with arms and diplomatic support, marked the day with demonstrations demanding ceasefire.
In Pakistan, the government held an all-party conference to show solidarity with the Palestinians people. Purported trigger of the war was an incursion into southern Israel by the Al-Qassem Brigade, military wing of the Palestinian nationalist movement, Hamas, on October 7, 2023 that left some 1,140 people dead and about 240 taken as hostages into Gaza.
That though happened because the Jewish state continues to hold on to Palestinian lands it occupied in the 1967 war. Also, Gaza has been under siege for nearly 17 years. By this October 7, Israel had massacred over 41,870 Palestinians — i.e., one out of every 55 inhabitants of Gaza — and at least 97,303 were wounded.
Thousands of others lay buried under the rubble of bombed-out residential buildings, hospitals and UN facilities. Back in March, the UN said Israel had killed more Gaza children in the preceding months than in four years of conflict worldwide.
Besides rights organisations, the UN General Assembly and the International Court of Justice have called out the Jewish state on causing humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza. Shrugging off all such concerns, it has gone on to expand its war to Lebanon also conducting bombing raids on Syria and Yemen, fully backed by the US and its European allies — all of them never tire of lecturing other nations about human rights.
One mantra used by President Joe Biden, presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris down to the White House and State Department officials to justify the unspeakable atrocities Israel has been committing with impunity is that it “has the right to self-defence”. Deliberately ignored is the ground reality that the Zionist state is in occupation of another people’s land in blatant breach of international law as well as a slew of UN resolutions.
It is worth recalling that president Ronald Reagan and his Republican predecessors were not worried about employing America’s leverage against Israel. In fact, Reagan was quite hard on it. When in June of 1981 Tel Aviv bombed Iraq’s nuclear reactor his administration supported the UNSC resolution that condemned the attack, and also suspended the delivery of F-16 fighter jets to Israel. That has changed drastically during the recent years.
In 2016, for instance, president Obama took a lot of flak for failing to veto a UNSC resolution urging Israel to stop settlement activity in Palestinian territories. Now, it is a case of the tail wagging the dog. Overwhelmed by the influence of the powerful pro-Israel lobby, American leaders are too afraid to step on the wrong side of Tel Aviv. Last month, when Benjamin Netanyahu arrived in the US to participate in annual UNGA session amidst his genocidal campaign in Gaza and addressed Congress he received standing ovation!
Whilst America is unable and unwilling to do anything about the relentless bombings on Gaza, Israel is preparing to launch an attack on Iran, which recently fired a barrage of missiles on it to avenge the killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran and Hezbollah secretary general Hassan Nasrallah in Lebanon.
Instead of advising restraint, President Biden has asked it only to spare oil facilities — out of self-interest, of course — and Donald Trump has suggested targeting nuclear sites. This can easily lead to a wider war in the Middle East region with disastrous consequences no one would want to see.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2024
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