‘When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace- Jimi Hendrix’
Inger Skjelsbæk, a Norwegian professor of Gender Studies at the Centre for Gender Research in Oslo, gave the world a popular quote when she said: “Peace is more than the absence of war”. In essence, for peace to reign, there must be equity and justice. Those two essential ingredients have been missing in the Middle East after the creation of the state of Israel at the end of the second world war. For more than 75 years, the creation of a separate state for Palestine has been largely ignored by world leaders.
Yet, the Palestinian people have been calling the attention of the international community to their plight. Nothing seems to have come out of the years of neglect. The people of Gaza have been fighting with catapult and stones, nothing came out of it other than misery for their people. Now, missiles are raining and they now have the attention of the whole world. Many dare to hope that peace is perhaps in the offing, but remember that there can’t be peace without justice.
Indeed, how can you have peace when you think you can use your military power to suppress others? There won’t be peace in a world that recognises the rights of the Israeli while the Palestinian who are the real owners of the land you occupy are treated like a conquered people. For over 75 years, they’ve been treated like outcasts in their own land. But on October 7, they made a bold statement to the entire world. On that day, the relative peace that had existed in Israel gave way to war when Hamas launched a series of missiles into Israel.
On that date, Hamas, the Palestinian militant group, did what many considered an impossibility. It launched thousands of missiles into Israel, overwhelming the much-vaunted Iron Dome, a defence mechanism put in place by Israel to intercept incoming missiles on its soul. Hamas fighters also overran Israel’s borders, and caught Israeli intelligence by surprise. The Israeli Army, its intelligence services and its missile shield are all considered one of the best in the world. But they were all caught napping. By the end of the operation, over a thousand Israelis were killed.
It is being said that Egypt intelligence officers warned Israeli intelligence officers that something big was being planned by Hamas, but that the warnings were largely ignored. When the attacks came, many Israeli soldiers were part of the causalities. Also, many Israeli non-combatants, including women, children and the elderly, were also killed, with their corpses alleged to have been loaded on trucks and paraded on videos while hundreds of people, including children and women, were abducted and taken to Gaza.
Some of those allegedly abducted were said to be people who were not even Israeli attending a concert. By all parameters, these are clear violations of the international rules of engagement and violate all Islamic rules of engagement as well, which categorically forbids the killing of women, children and non-combatants. But how many Palestine are Muslims? In violating these rules of engagement, the attack bears all the hallmarks of terrorism and can therefore be classified as such. Nothing justifies the acts of terror.
However, the Palestinians see the occupation of their homeland as a violation of their rights, with many of them, ready to lay down their lives in defense of their homeland; their heritage. The attack by Hamas was seen as a fitting retaliation for several years of killings and intimidation by the Israeli soldiers on Palestinians. Again, there can’t be peace without justice and equity.
As expected, the retaliatory attack from Israel has been mind-blowing. Several homes in Gaza and the West Bank have been reduced to rubble, with several souls lost including those of women and children. Over one million residents of Northern Gaza have been directed to evacuate within 24 hours as the Israelis prepare for a ground offensive against Hamas. The United Nations has stated emphatically that it would be practically impossible to move over a million people out of the area within a short period. The humanitarian crisis such a movement would create can’t be imagined. Yet, Israel is undaunted.
Already, essential life sustaining commodities like food, water, light and medicines are in short supply, yet the bombing is not about to abate. Reports from Gaza and the West Bank shows that a humanitarian crisis looms in the areas as Israel imposed a blockage on a people already under occupation in defiance of international laws. Rather than working towards alleviating the suffering of the people, the western world is pumping more weapons of mass destruction into Israel in their bid to ‘teach’ Hamas, and indirectly, Palestine, a lesson they would not forget for a long time.
Already, Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has vowed to wipe out from the face of the earth, all Hamas fighters. How he intends to do that is yet to be seen. Aware that other Arab countries may join the fray, Netanyahu, who has declared that Israel is in a state of war, has set up a war council, and has pleaded with the United States of America and its other allies to impose sanctions on such nations. Are we not on the road to another world war?
The history of Palestine in the last 3,000 years has been that of changes in political status of the area. Jews, Christians and Muslims have their sacred sites in Palestine. But since the last century, Arabs and Jews have made conflicting claims on the land. Some of those claims even have Biblical references. To unravel the complexity in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, it will be unhelpful to start the story with the ‘terrorism’ of Hamas.
The foundation of the crisis could be traced back to the United Nations Resolution 181 of 1947, also known as the Partition Resolution. If we are to go by the resolution, Palestine should have been partitioned into Jewish and Arab States. That directive should have been carried out before May 1948. But only an aspect of the resolution was carried out, which is the creation of the State of Israel. The creation of a separate state for the Palestine as an independent state was largely ignored. And for more than 75 years, the world is still trying to paper over the cracks despite heaps of resolutions by the United Nations for a two-state solution.
We can’t crave peace in an unjust environment. Instead of a state of their own, the Palestinians have lost a good portion of their land before the 1967 war on encroachment by the Jewish settlers, and even after. This failure to make the Palestinian State a reality is squarely at the root of the conflict. But many world leaders are not ready to abide by their own resolution again. And the Palestinians are not going to sit back and accept the occupation without a fight. The conflict remains an open sore on the social conscience of humanity. It fundamentally questions the moral content of western civilisation as well as the integrity of many world bodies, especially the United Nations.
With the State of Israel created, it has embarked on an expansionist drive which has led to a series of war crimes committed against the Palestinians. Israeli Soldiers have murdered thousands of Palestinian women and children and illegally occupied Palestinian territories. It can be said categorically that Israel has also engaged in state terrorism, using extra-judicial killings, coercive violence, the spread of fear and psychological impact, and undermining Palestinian authorities through arrests and assassinations. These too, cannot be justified.
Already, there are fears that the war might extend beyond Israel, Gaza and the West Bank. Israel is watching closely, what is happening in Lebanon with Hezbollah and Iran as well as other Arab countries. The US and Britain are already providing intelligence in that regard to stave off an escalation of the war. Russia, China and North Korea may also use the war to engage the West in another proxy war in the Middle East by providing arms and other logistics to Hamas. There are possibilities that the ongoing conflict may snowball into something bigger and deadlier.
Nigeria and many African countries have made their positions known on the Israel-Palestine issue, with the African Union policy always leaning towards Palestine. In fact, Nigeria, in 1973, severed ties with Israel and only restored these relations in 1992. Since then, it has been a touchy relationship because Nigeria, like the rest of the AU and most of the rational world, believes that a two-state solution is the best approach to peace in the region. Since the war broke, there have been pockets of protests among the Muslim community in Nigeria in solidarity with the Palestine.
However, the two-states proposition has been rejected by Israel. It can afford to, because it has superior military capabilities and is backed by the US and Britain, who will never question Israel nor coerce and implore it to comply. Again, that position will not guarantee peace in the region. How they intend to enjoy the forced occupation of Palestinian territory by the Israeli forever is yet to be seen. What is however certain, is that Israel cannot lord it over Palestine forever. There can’t be peace in an unjust world.
In the meantime, the UN should ensure that a ceasefire is put in place to put a stop to the needless and mindless waste of human lives, while a window should be created to get the much-needed essential supplies such as water, food and medicines to the people of Palestine. War brings no good to anybody, as both ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ will definitely suffer casualties. It is time for both parties to return to the negotiating table with impartial arbiters. It is better to ‘jaw-jaw’ than to ‘war-war’.
See you next week
