War in GAZA: A War on a Holy Land.
War is Blood War
is Death War is Evil!
The world has
never been completely devoid of wars, has it? Since ancient times, adversary states
had always involved themselves in wars either directly or indirectly to secure
various interests such as expanding kingdoms, imposing religion, spreading cultures, advancing economic interest inter
alia. During the ancient eras, kingdoms never ceased to aspire to expand their
territories by conquering others. Remember the biblical story of King Nebuchadnezzar II conquering Jerusalem, Nazi’s Third Reich invasion of European powers, followed by
occupation of Palestine by Zionists and colonization of third world countries
and most modern one annexation of Crimea by Kremlin among many others that you might
know? Presently, the world is bruising from several real wars and conflicts
from Africa, to Middle East and Europe. This article will put special focus on
the current war in Gaza, a long-standing conflict between Israel and
Palestinian Hamas, conflict whose origins can be traced back 75 years ago since
the Catastrophe. Whereas several attempts have been initiated to broker peace
in the region, last year’s wretched October 7th Hamas attack undoubtedly
eroded all hopes to ever restore peace between the two. While the aggression continues to soar divisions in the global community as indicated by support and opposition from
people, groups, world institutions, everyone agrees that there is need to end the grotesque existential humanitarian crisis in Gaza caused by endless exchange of missile
strikes between the warring parties. However, quite sadly, the bombings, the
strikes, the starvation, and murder of children is yet to dissipate. Instead, the
conflicts have continued exacerbating humanitarian crisis. With US continued
support to the state of Israel in this war, and murder of thousands of
causalities majorly children, Hamas, US, Israel and pro-Israel countries have
come under sharp criticism by large sections of their
citizens and the rest of global community. This is an issue that have continued
to cast significant controversy in the arena of public discourse and therefore it is
imperative to understand what really is the root-course of this conflicts that
got the entire world hooked onto it. For instance, with US
elections just 21 days away, Israel’s continuous aggression in Gaza is
featuring significantly in the ongoing campaigns as both candidates pronounce
their policy proposals should they occupy Whitehouse next year Jan.
But first it is important to understand these concepts;
Anti-Semitism, Zionism and Palestinian Nationalism.
Since the departure of Jewish people from original homeland Judea up to the lead-up period to early 20th century, Jewish communities most particularly in Europe experienced horrific hostilities in form of pogroms, persecution and isolation. They went through tough experiences of hostilities directed against them. Owing to these pogroms and sheer discrimination by majority communities, Jewish people formed World Jewish congress which succeeded American Jewish congress with a view to represent Jewish populations across the globe in international platforms. Parallel to this, the concept of Zionism was born. Zionism was a political movement that was underpinned by the idea of re-establishing the state of Israel, a national home of Jewish people. A group of influential European Jews from political and business class founded the movement with an aim of rallying the rest of the world especially the triple entente; Great Britain, France and United States to re-establish Israel. The movement was marked by significant milestone after what is known as the Balfour Declaration of 1917, a British statement of support of reestablishment of Jewish national home in Palestine. In the course of time, there was a growing need and justification for Zionists to push their agenda as rapid rise of anti-Jewish sentiment was spreading across Europe. Especially, after the birth of and entry of National Socialist German Working party-NAZI party into government, a nationalist party formed on basis of sheer desire to resurrect the Germany’s lost glory during the First World War. Reviving German glory to Nazi meant majorly two things in significance; first was to rebuild the Germany’s military might into a Third Reich and secondly, by cleansing non-German race population, mainly the Jewish population. A nationalist ideology that promoted alienation of no-Arial race inspired by desires to conquer Europe morphed into the infamous Poland invasion which consequently led up to Second World War.
The war paved the way for the implementation of the Final solution, the NAZI’s elaborate plan designed to eliminate Jewish people in the Third Reich's European territories implemented in various concentration camps, the infamous one being the polish Auschwitz-Birkenauin claiming more than six million Jewish lives at the end of the war. The Holocaust! The Genocide! The Second World War aftermath opened a series of conversations geared towards bringing into reality formation of national home of Jewish population. In contrary to Sykes Picots agreement, the allied powers in duplicity forged agreement that finally led to the re-establishment of state of Israel in 1948. The revival of Jewish state consequently started to series of massive returns of Jewish people to the land of Palestine. However there was a pre-existing population in the land who are non-Jewish communities. The Arabs. Whereas massive immigration of Jews into Palestine was historically significant events for Zionists, the Arabs regarded and still think them as historically wicked events thus naming the re-establishment of Israel the Al nakba-the Catastrophe. It was characterized by forceful displacement of Arab population to give space for the incoming Jews returning from anti-Semitic Europe. In this context, in course of time, people confuse meaning of anti-Semitism and Zionism. Do they mean the same thing or different thing? They are two different words with two different meanings. First, as defined earlier, Zionism is a political ideology that aimed and promoted the re-establishment of Jewish national home in Palestine. Although, the concept of Zionism lost relevance in reestablishment in the aftermath of Al nakba, it still exist to date, in context of continuous conflicts between Israel and her enemy states and organizations majorly in the middle east. Conversely, Anti-Semitism is the hate against Jewish people. The confusion that exist thereof is the hate against Jews parallel to opposition against existence of Jewish state. Let’s say you are a Jew and you hate existence of Jewish state, does that makes you anti-Semite as well as anti-Zionist. More interestingly, the division on the question of legitimacy of Israel exist even in the Jewish community. Orthodox Judaism and Neturei Karta hold countering views in regards to re-establishment of state of Jewish. The former being in support and the latter not.
The Status quo: The defiant adversaries
Fast-forward to
the current tensions in the middle-East. While people tend to very easily take
sides in contentions between Israel and Gaza-based Hamas, they tend not to comprehend
historical context of these disputes. These conflicts are originated from the
1948, which saw massive immigration of Jewish population to the land Palestine.
The occupation that consequently led to the displacement of Arab communities.
With Gaza and West bank being key territories for contentions, conflicts in
Gaza has been marked with Israel’s military involvement compared to occupied
West Bank.
Series of agreements
have been proposed and passed to quell these historical territorial disputes,
the famous one being the Oslo accords which was brokered by Hillary Clinton,
then president of the US, birthing a peaceful treaty symbolized by the silver
handshake between then Israel’s Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and the leader of
Palestinian Liberation Organization{PLO}, Yasser Arafat, two ferocious adversaries
then. Other treaties to pacify Gaza has followed since. These agreements have
been altered overtime by populations of these territories’ and hence yielding
feeble success in addressing these conflicts.
Israel, a small fast-growing liberal democratic country with high pace of technological advancement and strong military establishment has attracted strong and fierce enemies in the hostile region of middle-East. A cluster of adversaries objected towards defeating Zionism. Currently, Israel is involved in several direct war fronts both soft and real ones; in Lebanon with Hezbollah, In Yemen against Houdhis, against Iran and in Gaza against Hamas. The leadership of Israel believes that whoever is against the existence of Israel is an extreme danger to Jewish people. Amidst these aggressions, it has enjoyed overwhelming military support from militarily advanced and economically powerful western liberal democracies led by the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany among others . These support is attributed to the nature of their strategic partnerships with state of Israel in securing their country-specific interests. Mainly Oil!
Why these conflicts will persist to the long
run?
In my opinion, as the globe pursue hope to the end this conflicts now and in the future, it is imperative to understand factors protracting it. Key ones among them include:
Israel has the international moral support.
Jewish State of Israel as highlighted
earlier was resurrected as a result of tears, horrors and discrimination of
Jewish population across the world, notably during the Holocaust/ Genocide in
the course of Second World War . As an
empathetic human being, as at then you would have also endorsed Zionist’s push
to re-create Israel. I want you to position yourself in that immediate post war
period context. You read in mass media that more than 15million people of the
same ethnic and religious background had been subjected to annihilation efforts
through horrific measures such as mass shooting, gassing and being overworked
in concentration camps. And then a discourse on re-establishing state for
those who survived the genocide and others who are facing a lesser form of the
same discrimination in other places in the world furthers. Wouldn’t you support
it? The humane you will support it. It is the same feeling shared across generations
legitimizing re-establishment of Jewish national home hoping to preclude a possible repeat of those
tragic pogroms and eventual annihilation attempt by any group, regime and
country that pleases. Conversely,
Israel’s enemies, the largely the Arab community does not enjoy this advantage as they are
easily dismissed of their unpalatable aim against existence of State of
Israel. From the streets of Tehran, Iranians
chanting ‘Death to Israel’, to Lebanon based Hezbollah singing the same chant,
to Gaza’s Hamas. Also, being that this conflict have been somehow overtime
marred by religious divisive overtones and narrowed down into conflicts between Judaism
and radical Islam fundamentalism. The latter being a religious concept that in the past inspired rapid rise of
radical Islamic extremism leading up to rise of jihad-justified terrorism.
Marred by those religiously extreme terror conflicts in the past, their moral
stock on the global stage have deteriorated overtime.
The right to self-Defence
If there is one thing that have justified Israel’s military aggression against its perceived aggressors in the region is the right to self-defence .It is a fundamental legal shield granted in international law that everybody, every territory and every country have the right to defend and protect itself from nefarious intentions of territorial disrespect advanced by foreign adversaries. The larger section of the globe believes that existence of State of Israel is at stake justifying their support for Israel’s war endeavours. This is heavily reflected in the ongoing retaliation against Hamas.
Implausible demands from Hamas
As contextualized earlier, Hamas
extremism is based on the idea that existence of Israel is illegitimate and
regards the resistance against occupation of Gaza religiously necessary referring
it as Jihad- a holy war. Their open aim is to wipe out state of Israel with a view of
reclaiming their land for the Palestinian people. These demand seems to be
unrealistic given that Israel is an established internationally-recognized sovereign
state that have no option to disband itself.
Comments