Daily Trust Editorial of Monday October 7, 2024
Exactly on this day some operatives of the Palestinian Hamas group breached the border between the Gaza Strip and the State of Israel and reportedly killed over 1,200 Israeli citizens holding an outdoor event. More were taken hostage in the incident which drew outrage and condemnation around the world.
This incident served as a casus belli for the Israelis as days later Israel launched a war against the Palestinians living on Gaza Strip. No one, not even children, women, the old and infirm were spared as Israeli air force flew continuous sorties raining deadly ordinance on defenceless Palestinians. Not only did the Israelis kill tens of thousands of Palestinians, in the process they targeted schools, hospitals, care and shelter homes, and public infrastructure.
Weeks after inflicting this carnage on the Palestinians, against overwhelming world condemnation and appeals for restraint, the Israelis proceeded to dispatch Special Forces and columns of armoured tanks supported by heavy artillery into the Gaza Strip, ostensibly to root out operatives of the Palestinian Hamas resistance and to free Israeli hostages held by the latter.
The world rightly condemned the outrageous act by the Hamas and called on them to release the hostages forthwith. Many countries also followed that with a call for Israel to exercise restraint in its intent to exact retribution following the incident. Many well-meaning countries and individual offered to mediate and help secure the release of the hostages.
But the Israelis would not be placated. They saw in the incident an opportunity to go for the final solution on the Palestinian occupants of the Gaza Strip. Some hardline Israeli political figures like former Prime Minister Naftali Bennet and former Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman publicly called for the total removal of the Palestinian inhabitants of the Gaza Strip and its annexation. In plain terms, what this means is the expulsion of the two million Palestinians resident in the territory using unrestrained and merciless genocidal terror.
In pursuit of this action of unjustified retribution, Israel has waged a ferocious and brutal war of annihilation on the Palestinian people following the urgings of the most extreme elements of Israel. Within a year of this carnage, some 41,870 Palestinians have been reportedly killed with about 17,000 of them being children. The toll of the injured Palestinians, many in life-threatening conditions runs up to nearly 100,000. Those missing with many presumed dead are conservatively in the range of 10,000.
The Israeli action has not been limited to Gaza alone. Hundreds have been killed in the Israeli-occupied West Bank as the Israelis have continued their scorched earth campaign against the Palestinian population.
In the course of the year against the tide of world opinion, Israel escalated its ongoing year-long genocide against the people of Palestine to neighbouring Lebanon where it targeted the leaders and operatives of the Hezbollah group with electronic devices killing scores of them. It followed that with saturated bombing raids dropping thousands of deadly ordnance on southern Lebanon, killing defenceless children in their schools, women and old men. The indiscriminate attacks in Lebanon have so far claimed the lives of hundreds of Lebanese innocent citizens, creating another humanitarian crisis following the one in Gaza which the world is still grappling with.
If Israel carries out its full ground attack on Lebanon, as it has threatened, thousands more lives will be mindlessly lost. Already, a well-armed State of Israel has been engaged in wars against Syria, Yemen, Iraq and now Lebanon.
As it is now, Israel’s latest actions in Lebanon, have drawn Iran into the fray with the latter’s missile attack on Israel last week in retaliation for the killing of scores of the leaders of the Lebanese Hezbollah resistance group, and Hassan Nasrallah last week along with some of his associates. Right now the world is holding its breath as Israel has threatened to launch retaliatory attacks against Iran, which it considers as its most dangerous adversary in the region.
This will likely precipitate a regional war in the Middle East and the possibility of drawing outside powers that are in alliance with the regional players. Should this happen the world will be drawn dangerously to a global confrontation between the superpowers in a replay of the First World War in which the system of alliances at the time led to an all-out war between the major powers then.
Although Israel has sought to justify its aggression against its neighbours as acts of self-defence, the world is not convinced. The world is not convinced that a country armed to the teeth with an array of the latest and deadliest weaponry including nuclear weapons and well supported by three global superpowers can justify its actions against irregular, non-state actors and defenceless women and children as acts of self-defence.
Also, the world does not see Israel’s attempts to claim victimhood from the historical experiences of the Jewish people over the centuries and especially during the Second World War, as justification for its attempts at genocide against the Palestinian people and neighbouring countries.
With these acts of mindless aggression, many countries see Israel as an outlaw country acting in disregard of international laws and conventions and in defiance of world opinion.
This much was demonstrated at the recent United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) when many countries voted to roundly condemn Israel’s actions. Indeed, when the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took his place at the podium to address the Assembly, he was boycotted by representatives of a number of member countries in condemnation of Israel’s actions.
It now behoves on the world to rally round and stop a nuclear-armed Israel on its dangerous path to plunging the world into a global confrontation. The world must not just stop at condemning Israel’s actions, it must take concerted diplomatic and other actions to rein in Israel’s tendency towards acting outside the borders of laws that guarantee peaceful co-existence in the comity of nations.
Accordingly, we call on the United States of America and its allies to stop giving Israel a carte blanche both in diplomatic and military terms in its defiance of international laws and its aggressions. In this regard, we believe that Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan, the closest Arab allies of the United States of America have more to do than they are currently doing in putting pressure on America to rein in Israel. We believe these countries have the necessary diplomatic and economic leverage to not just prevail on the United States directly, but also to rally other countries of the world towards checkmating Israel’s aggressive actions in the Middle East and elsewhere.
