Ibne Siraj :
Israel’s murderous crimes upon the Arab Muslims, particularly the Palestinians, started since the day this small inhibition of Jew got a settlement in 1948 under the direct patronization of the United States and the United Kingdom. Still these two colonial and imperialist powers with helps from other anti-Muslim counties have been providing Israel with most modern arms and related logistics to continue its killing spree through many horrific pogroms on the Palestinian people. The most sordid experience for all is that Saudi Arabia and other Arab and Muslims countries of the world have been silently witnessing how their Islamic brethren are dying in bombings and gunfire from Israel for decades. The latest incident in Gaza is the most blatant outright genocidal aggression in the contemporary world. Hundreds of innocent Muslims, their wives, daughters and small kids are dying in Israeli bombings while Obama and his friends elsewhere are enjoying it from their distanced warm spots. For Israel, they have created these smokescreen airliner events with lapdog American complicity, which has cooperatively upped the rhetoric, and distraction, with their anti-Russia sabre rattling.
The recent incursion into Gaza is by far the most blatant and obvious yet, and many are seeing it. To raze a captive populace based on a supposed kidnapping and a few mortars by a defenseless imprisoned people is as obvious as it gets. The asleep followers whose noses are turned at the latest blush of distracting news instead of realizing what is really happening are the culprits. Not the beasts, but all human beings must rise now not to be hypnotized anymore by the sweet words of anyone form the West, but to activate and stand up for what is true and right.
In the West and especially in the US, one of the least known elements of the story of the Israel-Palestinian conflict is the ugly story of how the Palestinians were uprooted from their land leading up to and through the creation of the state of Israel in 1948. The heroic story of how the Jews, ‘a people without a land’ came to occupy ‘a land without a people’, was always based on a false premise. Palestine, far from being a largely unoccupied wasteland, was a bustling place, home to many people whose ancestors had lived there for millennia.
This ended in 1948 with their forcible expulsion when over 700,000 indigenous people were expelled by the armed Zionist militia that later became the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) to make room for the influx of Jews from Europe. This event is referred to as the ‘Nakba’, meaning ‘catastrophe’, and its details are little mentioned in the western press to put the truths into dark.
The moment Gaza is burning, creating one of the most horrific humanitarian catastrophes in the Middle East, Barack Obama’s mysterious silence is raising eyebrows the world over since the global community hope that he would take the lead to avert further escalation of hostilities. Human Rights Organizations also wonder about Obama’s silence when they accuse Israel of using chemical weapons against the Palestinian people. The chilling descriptions of the intensity of injuries and deaths in Gaza should have signaled immediate response from Obama, but he is perhaps thinking of igniting another Arab spring to destroy the Muslims. These horrific accounts of wholesale killings in Gaza are making peace seekers wonder why Obama is so silent.
However, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) agree on a two-state solution for the long-running Israel-Palestine but their differing responses to the Gaza crisis reveal that they are far from being united. With the US publicly backing Israel’s use of force in the Gaza offensive and pushing all sides towards an Egypt-brokered ceasefire without preconditions, the emerging nations have assumed alternative and divergent positions on the best way to resolve the fighting. India has sought to maintain its long-established neutrality when it comes to Israel. While the Indian parliament heard Israel described as a “terrorist” committing a “genocide” from the opposition lawmakers, the Indian leadership has stood its ground. Rooted in trade ties, especially in defence, New Delhi’s neutrality on the Gaza offensive is unlikely to change.
Israel is the second-largest arms supplier to India, behind Russia. Those economic ties merge with a support for Palestine that does not explicitly support Hamas. India’s position is summed up neatly by External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj. “India fully supports the Palestinian cause while at the same time maintaining its ties with Israel,” she said in parliament.
Embroiled in the Ukraine issue, Russia has remained on the fence regarding Israel’s Gaza offensive. A far more experienced player on the international stage than India, Russia wields a veto at the United Nations Security Council. That roughly translates as “Moscow has serious geopolitical clout”. While the Soviet Union heartily support Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian Liberation Organization, Moscow has distanced itself somewhat from the Palestinian leadership in its current guise.
Russia strongly condemned the 2008-09 Israel-Gaza conflict but its messaging over the current crisis appears to show a more neutral position, in which it backs the Egyptian ceasefire proposal. “Now we need to urgently bring an end to the suffering of peaceful Palestinians and Israelis and the destruction of civilian infrastructure,” the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement.
The other BRIC with a permanent spot on the UN Security Council is China. Following the latest escalation in fighting, Chinese President Xi Jinping has toed the line of neutrality and encouraged the Israeli and Palestinian leaders to meet halfway. “We support the mediation efforts by the UN, regional countries and the Arab League,” said Xi.
China has a history of backing the Palestinian movement in 1960s and 70s but its support lessened as Deng Xiaoping led the country, economically more so than politically, into the orbit of the US and the West. China established full diplomatic ties with Israel in the early 1990s, ushering in a new era of economic cooperation.
Annual trade between the countries rocketed from around $51m in 1992, to almost $11bn in 2013. China is Israel’s second-biggest export market and third-largest trading partner, while military cooperation between the two sides has become entrenched. Israel is China’s second-largest supplier of military arms and technology. The strengthening of trade ties between the two sides has coincided with a public distancing between Beijing and the Palestinian leadership. However, China backed the Palestinian resolution at the UN General Assembly, which upgraded Palestine to non-member observer state status within the UN. Eager to keep both Israel and Palestine on side, Xi’s current stand is a neutral position. Yet, it shows that Beijing wants to see a ceasefire that takes Palestinian political aims into account, rather than backing the Egyptian proposal that calls for a ceasefire without preconditions.
Brazil and South Africa are openly criticizing the offensive in Gaza and its potential repercussions for the whole region. Brazil urged Israel to consider the humanitarian consequences in Gaza as such acts could have serious repercussions for the increased instability in the Middle East and exacerbate the already dramatic killing spree in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Brazil also asked the Israeli forces to strictly respect their obligations under the International Humanitarian Law.
“Furthermore, we consider it necessary that Israel put an end to the blockade on Gaza immediately,” a statement of the Brazilian government said. Brazil has officially recognized the Palestinian state and has supported an end to the Gaza blockade for years. Brasilia and Tel Aviv maintain close political, military and economic ties. The relationship between South Africa and Israel has been framed by Tel Aviv’s quiet cooperation with the apartheid government. Nelson Mandela once noted that upon his release from prison, he was invited to visit “almost every country in the world, except Israel”. The relationship has remained frosty, with South Africa reprimanding Israel’s ambassador after the Gaza flotilla raid in 2010. South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma recently condemned Israel’s “disproportionate” use of force in the Gaza offensive.
(Ibne Siraj is a regular contributor to The New Nation)
