When aggressor turns mediator of peace

The dark episode of the human civilisation involving the Jewish people has become darker with the descendants of the holocaust victims turning the perpetrators of the same crime. A state for the Europe's displaced Jewish was created at the initiative of former US President Harry S Truman under the Balfour Declaration of 1917. The British who had a colonial mandate for Palestine until May 1948 did not approve of creation of either a Jewish or an Arab state there and even opposed unlimited immigration of Jewish refugees to the designated location. But it reluctantly conceded to the US demand. Since the creation of Israel and recognition of the state by Truman on May 14, 1948, America has remained a staunch patron as well as an accomplice of all the evil acts committed by the Jewish state.

The Jewish issue is linked to the two world wars. During the World War I, the Balfour Declaration was made by then British foreign secretary Arthur Balfour, which provides for the basis of the Zionist state and also the seed of Arab-Israeli conflict. Although the United Nations Special Commission on Palestine recommended the division of the land into two separate states and adopted Resolution 181to this effect on November 29, 1947, the Palestinian state was left in the limbo. So here is an endemic political problem created by the UK and the US, which gained support from the Western powers under the North Atlantic treaty Organisation (NATO) umbrella. The NATO allies did so in order to restrict Soviet influence in the Middle East and control the fuel oil sources.

Clearly, the US unreserved support backed up by its European allies led to Palestinian uprising called Intifada the first of which was organised during 1987-93, the second during 2000-2005. But it was the Arab-Israeli wars in 1948, 1956 and the six-day the six-day third Arab-Israeli decisive war in 1967 that proved crucial. Now the Arab neighbours like Egypt, Syria and Jordan know their limit and would not be involved in a war against Israel.

So Israel knows its enemy Iran well because it is the only country that has been supporting the cause of the Palestinians and the Hamas. Yet it is unbelievable that Israel would have invaded Iran without the green signal from the US. President Donald Trump known for his denial of facts and mistrust of his country's intelligence reports was the main aggressor in this war. In fact, the negotiation on Iranian nuclear programme the US insisted on earlier was a preamble of what was to follow. The US intelligence agencies were categorical in reporting that Iran was not developing nuclear arsenals at its facilities, so did the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). But such reports were brushed off by Trump and bought what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu harped on the issue in a Goebblesian pattern. It concerned Iran's achievement of nuclear weapon capability within weeks. A white lie it was.

Trump who calls himself a man of peace, actually used this as a ruse for attacking Iranian nuclear facilities. The use of the largest ever fleet of B-2 bombers for dropping the 30,000 bunker-buster bombs for the first time was yet another needless American military campaign against countries the Jewish lobbies in the US and Israel consider their enemies. After the unprecedented bombing of the Iranian nuclear facilities, Trump's volte face from an aggressor to a peace broker sums up the unstable president's character. Not only did he brag over his success in obliterating the nuclear facilities targeted but also took credit for accomplishing the truce between Iran and Israel.

Can a party to a war mediate peace? Trump who could not undermine more the international organisations including the United Nations which he hardly considers better than a lame duck thinks he has performed a historic obligation. But had the international conventions and laws been in force, both Netanyahu and Trump would have stood trial for invasion of Iran and the routine killing of Palestinians including those among them seeking food aid from UN agencies.

The Palestine Liberation Organisation or for that matter the Hamas would not even emerge had the UN Resolution 181 of 1947 been honoured to create two separate states in Palestine. Now the creators of the problem are posing to be peace negotiator of an unjustified war on Iran. The president of the most powerful nation has no qualms about claiming that the targeted nuclear facilities have been obliterated, although preliminary US intelligence and independent information contradicts his claim. According to this, the three nuclear facilities, including Fordo, hit were not destroyed. They were extensively damaged and the Iranian nuclear programme has been pushed back by only six months.      

An aggressor who tends to paint him as a peace lover and still trying to steal the show at the NATO annual meeting in the Netherlands hardly deserves the status of the free world's leader. In fact, the majority of his predecessors also had similar contradictory mindset problems. It is because of this, the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq could happen. Similarly, the Vietnam misadventure was unleashed with the consequence of great tragedies. If the UN had been allowed to function independently and impartially, the 'might is right' principle would not take charge of world affairs. The crimes Israel and the West are committing cannot be condoned. Unless such crimes, particularly against the Palestinians, are legally addressed at the International Court of Justice, the international order will not be equal to the task of protecting the people's rights everywhere on the planet.   

nilratanhalder2000@yahoo.com