What a shame, what a disgrace that Arab-Muslim leaders would not act to defend people’s freedom, rights, dignity, and sustainable future.
by Mahboob A. Khawaja
Looking beyond the Horrors of Insanity and ‘Crimes against Humanity’
Are we, the conscientious people, not witnessing 100 days as 100 years of cataclysmic bloodbath being unleashed by Israel’s aerial bombardments and destruction of Gaza, its people, habitats, and history? The monster of history would contend peacemaking when the reality is far away from the prevalent truth of the planned massacre of 24,100 people, 9,700 children, more than 7,000 women, 117 journalists, and 315 medical doctors and staff. What about the 8,000 or more children still buried under rubble?
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| A Palestinian man carries his daughter’s body near Al-Shifa hospital, Gaza after she was killed by an Israeli airstrike |
There is a mixed sense of intrigued mystery but a visual reality unfolding on screen and the sudden and inexplicable plunge into the tyranny of cruelty and planned killings of civilians and forcible displacement of 2.3 million innocent people that the so-called International Humanitarian Law forbids and others define the violent developments as ‘crimes against humanity.’ President Biden, in his recent statement (1/14/24), expressed worries about the safety of 136 Israeli hostages but showed no concern or compassion for the 24,100 Gazans killed and millions displaced forcibly by Israeli forces.
America, as an ally of Israel’s onslaught, refused to call for an immediate ceasefire despite internal public demonstrations against the war on Gaza. Is there another name for political wickedness and cruelty? Even the hospitals, ambulances, UNRWA school shelters, and graveyards of Palestinians are not spared by the US-sponsored Israeli war machines. Are we at the dead-end of inhuman catastrophe? Not even the Humanitarian Law, the Geneva Conventions, the ICRC, and the Red Cross can ensure the safety of people and hospitals. How else would any rational observers define ‘Crimes against Humanity’?
When facts of life warrant a navigational change, intelligent and effective leaders respond with moral and intellectual ingenuity to voices of public reasoning and rational thinking. Not so, President Biden and PM Netanyahu offer obscure and incomprehensible ideas and taboos to inflict a bloodbath on the innocent people of Gaza who had nothing to do with the October 7 attack on Israel. Sounding alarms, media reports of 120,000 Israeli citizens sitting at Tel Aviv demanding an immediate ceasefire, resignation of PM Netanyahu, and negotiated freedom of 136 hostages from Hamas.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) held the hearing of the South African ‘genocide’ case against Israel in Gaza, but America and a few Europeans questioned the essence of this case. How strange all American and European proponents of human rights, law, justice, and liberty are plagued with dormant ideas and dubious statements of concern.
The so-called Western official humanity succumbs to mysterious ideals of democracy and primitive discourse when the question of right and wrong comes up to face the prevalent reality. The Earth is a living entity and is meant for us – human beings, not for bombardment. ‘Fear God’ and ‘do not violate the covenants of peace and trust on Earth.’ The Divine Message is clear (64:67 Quran):
‘It is God, Who has made for you the Earth as a resting place and the sky as a canopy;
And has given you shape and made your shapes beautiful, and has provided for your sustenance,
Of things pure and good; Such is God your Lord. So Glory to God, the Lord of the Worlds.’
The Earth was not meant to be bombed and destroyed by sheer ignorance and wickedness. The compelling facts of life reflect inner human consciousness (2:10-12 Quran): ‘In their hearts is a disease…When it is said to them: Make not Mischief on the Earth; They say, Why we only want to make Peace! Of a surety, they are the ones; Who make mischief, But they realize it not.’ Those who bomb the Earth and destroy Earth, life, and habitats are not normal human beings, and God will hold them accountable for the consequences of their crimes against mankind.
The Middle East is Militarized, and Arab Leaders living in Complete Disconnect to their Future?
The Western Europeans and the United States of America are former colonial powers and propelling Israel, they have vested imperial and geopolitical interests to control the oil-producing Arab Middle East. In a planned scheme of things, they have divided the Arab world along religious and sectarian lines to control the natural resources and people of the Arabian Peninsula. America and West Europeans exploit and dictate the authoritarian regimes of the Arab world.
The Arab Middle East is militarized and destabilized by the US-Israeli strategic plans. They sell wars, weapons, and poisonous entanglement of sectarian conflicts to divide and rule the Arabian Peninsula. The colonial divides signify national identities carved up by European imperialism against the unity of Islam. To change the future, America and Israel needed a formidable political challenge to stop the onslaught on Gaza, but it was nowhere to be seen on the Arabian leadership horizon. For too long, Arab leaders breathed oxygen into moral and intellectual decadence and a delusional oil-run economic prosperity.
The leaders live in palaces protected by American and European mercenaries while erecting high-rise buildings making no sense, organizing football matches, Olympic games, and COP28 when 2.3 million are being displaced and more than 24,100 are massacred across Palestine. They invest oil revenues in Western entertainment industries. They have no sense of time and history and capacity to defend the interest of Islam as the Israeli Ultra-Nationalists plan to dismantle the 3rd holiest site Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.
America and Israel Defy Global Humanity and Invent New Norms of Global Hegemony
America and Israel have a plan to conquer most of the Arab lands – the Zionist vision of ‘Greater Israel’ is exposed (‘The Zionist Plan for the Middle East -A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties’ By Oded Yinon. Translated and edited by Israel Shaha. Information Clearing House: 1/13/24): The plan operates on two essential premises. To survive, Israel must 1) become an imperial regional power, and 2) must effect the division of the whole area into small states by the dissolution of all existing Arab states. Small here will depend on the ethnic or sectarian composition of each state. Consequently, the Zionist hope is that sectarian-based states become Israel’s satellites and, ironically, its source of moral legitimation.
Changing the regime east of the river will also cause the termination of the problem of the territories densely populated with Arabs west of the Jordan. Whether in war or under conditions of peace…. and we ought to be active to accelerate this process in the near future. The autonomy plan ought also to be rejected, as well as any compromise or division of the territories for… the Arabs to Jordan and the Jews to the areas west of the river. Genuine coexistence and peace will reign over the land only when the Arabs understand that without Jewish rule between the Jordan and the sea, they will have neither existence nor security.
What a shame, what a disgrace that Arab-Muslim leaders would not act to defend people’s freedom, rights, dignity, and sustainable future.
The American-Israeli collaborated war on Gaza and its immediate consequences made the civilized world and all of its institutions shamefully redundant and void in the 21st-century global norms of civility, human rights, freedom, justice, and safety of people – whereas crimes against humanity are captured in obscure impulses and indecision and deliberate inaction by the UNO and the Security Council. Mocking its Charter’s obligations, the UN Security Council failed to protect civilians from the terror of daily bombardments of hospitals and places of worship. A hundred days of onslaught sounds like a hundred years of prolonged insanity that mankind has never witnessed except the TWO WW. The animals live and do not reflect on the imperatives of life, whereas we, human beings, cannot act like animals as we are supposed to be intelligent and responsible species on this Earth. At the edge of reason, the notion of evil leads to the realization of evil, and the tyranny of war must be stopped.
Dr. Mahboob A. Khawaja specializes in international affairs-global security, peace and conflict resolution with keen interests in Islamic-Western comparative cultures and civilizations, and author of several publications including the latest: One Humanity and the Remaking of Global Peace, Security and Conflict Resolution, Germany
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