Column by Mahfuz Anam: Another veto prolongs genocide in Gaza
My last column on this subject (November 17, 2023) was titled "Israel's 'right to self-defence' and Palestinians' fate to be slaughtered." Three months later, the fate of Palestinians has become worse. The killings have carried on unabated, and now millions wait in Rafah to be decimated en masse. Bombing is going on and ground assault has been warned about.
Israel has been allowed to carry on a genocide in Gaza, killing at least 29,410 Palestinians and injuring 69,465 (between October 7, 2023 and February 22, 2024), according to Palestinian sources. But the figure that stands out most shockingly is the killing of at least 10,000 children since it started, making for more than 70 children killed every day over the last four and a half months. As of writing this column, Israeli bombing of Rafah has intensified.
The latest veto by the US of an Algerian ceasefire resolution—supported by 13 of the 15 Security Council members, with the UK abstaining—reveals that, whatever US President Joe Biden may say, the US is not that concerned about civilian deaths, including deaths of children. The excuse given was that such a resolution would obstruct the ongoing negotiations among Israel, Egypt, and Qatar. Doesn't that mean that killing in Gaza can continue—including that of women and children—while the negotiations drag on? In fact, one could argue that the agreement could deliberately be delayed by Israel so that the butchery can continue and many more Palestinians can be killed. After all, there is enough evidence on the ground to surmise that Israel wants as many Gazzans dead as possible and then push the rest to Sinai in Egypt, emptying the Gaza Strip of all its inhabitants. This is genocide and ethnic cleansing coming together, the precedent of which is very rare. The goal is clearly to take over this land.
When the ground operations started, the Israelis asked the Gazzans to move from the northern half to the south, doubling the latter's population. With continued bombing, it razed most of the north. After the move to the south, some areas were designated as "safe" and Israel bombed the rest. Rafah, the southern tip (point) of the Gaza Strip bordering Egypt, where millions of Palestinians gathered, is now being threatened with ground assault within two weeks (by Ramadan) if the hostages taken by Hamas are not released. Even then, Israel will not withdraw from the territory, demanding which has been termed "delusional."
Over the last 75 years, the process has been one of relentless expansion of Israel into Palestinian land and pushback on the inhabitants to abandon their birthplace. Before the UN partition, Jews were a minority in Palestine. The UN partition in 1947 gave 55 percent of the territory to the Jewish state and 45 percent to local Arabs, which was opposed by all Arab states. In the first Arab-Israeli war of 1948, Israel took 78 percent of Palestine's land, which further expanded to nearly all of Palestine in the 1967 Six-Day War. Since then, all of the West Bank, Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights and East Jerusalem were considered as occupied territories by the world, but Israel acted as if they were theirs. Through its policy of illegal "settlements," especially in the West Bank, Israel brought about a change on the ground that practically amounts to Israel taking over Palestinian lands flouting all international laws, conventions and UN resolutions. The Golan Heights and East Jerusalem have already been swallowed with US approval.
The brief overview above should explain to our readers that taking over the Gaza Strip and killing and forcing Palestinians to Sinai is a part of Israel's grand design which the extreme right, headed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is pursuing with unspeakable atrocity.
What, perhaps, is the ghastliest revelation from the present indiscriminate killing is the hatred the Netanyahu government and its supporters have for ordinary Palestinians. It has the hallmark of the most bestial type of racism. It reminds us of the Nazis' treatment of the Jews. It is ironic that Hitler's Holocaust, which the whole world condemned and continues to do so, and for which the Jews enjoyed global sympathy ever since World War II, is now being enacted by the ultra-right Zionists on the Palestinians. Anti-Semitism cannot and must not find any place in our thinking, just as racism in all its forms should be most vehemently rejected, as should all forms of stereotyping and ethnic profiling.
Having said that, the continued genocide and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians, including women and children, and the planned destruction of Palestinian homes, schools, and even hospitals speak of a level of dehumanisation we haven't seen except during the Holocaust.
A simultaneous loss—and a very heavy loss for us all—is the erosion of the prestige, importance, dignity, and credibility of Western powers, especially those of the US, in allowing this to continue for so long and in such a shameful, inhuman and incomprehensible way. All issues of human rights, child rights, women's rights, and all the rest, and the whole range of international laws built patiently over the decades, following the death and destruction of World War II, stand today ridiculed and thoroughly, deeply, and overwhelmingly mocked by Israeli actions and the West's unquestioning support for them.
The retort that "Israel is only fighting Hamas and not the Palestinians" appears to be accepted by the West without any question. When confronted with facts of massacre and indiscriminate destruction of houses, the reply is that Hamas uses civilian establishments to shield themselves, so killing them all is okay. When asked why hospitals are bombed, they "reveal" only to their chosen few the underground tunnels that Hamas allegedly use, and hence destruction of all hospitals with patients in them is justified. Of course, announcements are made to evacuate, but evacuate to where and how? How can totally paralysed, bedridden patients move? How can children and adults with severed limbs move? Where ground troops can enter anytime, what is the need for indiscriminate bombing?
An equally important loss is the credibility of the Western media. As journalists, this phenomenon is of particular concern to our community as the loss of credibility of Western media in an indirect but important way impacts the credibility of media on the whole. The unsubstantiated stories against the Palestinians, the one-sided stories in support of the assault, and half-hearted criticism of the extreme brutalities have all created such a deep and all-encompassing lack of trust in the media in general and Western media in particular that they are casting doubt everywhere and giving more space to fake news and untruths.
The whole world must unite and rise to save the Palestinians. Might must not be allowed to win over right, if we want to hold on to the fundamental values that our civilisation stands on. Defence of the Palestinians is the most important and relevant moral task before humanity. The price of failure in this instance will see the rise of brutality, illegality, and inhumanity everywhere.
Mahfuz Anam is the editor and publisher of The Daily Star.
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