New Year's gift for the Palestinians

The beleaguered and battered Palestinians received two gifts on new year's eve and one on the first day of the new year. The greetings on the eve of new year were in stark contrast while the one the day after was an extension of what has been meted out to the Palestinians since October 7 last year, courtesy the occupying power Israel and its backers in the West.

The gift that pleased the hearts of Palestinians and lifted their spirits in their darkest hours came from an unexpected quarter, South Africa. Its government sent a letter to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), formally requesting it to initiate proceedings against Israel for carrying out genocide against the Palestinians since October 7,2023. Many important world figures, organisations and countries have condemned Israel of war crimes after it declared war against Hamas but so far none has formally filed a case before International Criminal Court (ICC) for indictment. South Africa is the first country to formally accuse Israel of genocidal acts before the ICJ which has jurisdiction over all member countries of the UN. While a case filed in the ICC would have been pooh poohed by Israel since it does not recognise the Court, the case referred to ICJ has rattled the rogue country because it is a internationally recognised body. Not unsurprisingly, the formal accusation to the Court drew the ire of and angry reactions from the Israeli prime minister himself. What is surprising is that South Africa should be the country to come forward with the formal accusation of genocidal acts by Israel in Gaza. Earlier, soon after the invasion and all out war unleashed brutally by Israel, South  Africa  became one of the few countries to severe diplomatic relations with the occupier-aggressor condemning its wanton destruction of lives, livelihood, residential buildings and all civic infrastructures in Gaza where 2.2 million Palestinians live under blockade since 2005. This act of South Africa is surprising because it is not a neighbour of occupied Palestine, nor have racial, religious and economic ties, not to speak of political ones, with the people of Palestine. The country has come forward to condemn Israel and pave the way for eventual indictment because majority of its people can still feel the pain and myriads of sufferings caused by occupation and discrimination in the form of apartheid by outsiders.  Chile and Uruguay in faraway Latin America have also severed their diplomatic relations with Israel after its devastating invasion of Gaza, though they share almost nothing with Gaza or the West Bank. They, too, were prompted by the sense of common humanity and spurred by their conscience.

The humane and empathetic response guided by righteous indignation of South Africa and the Latin American countries is in sad and shameful contrast with the conduct of the countries in the Middle-East which share historical, racial, religious and even political relations with the Palestinians. In fact, the Arab countries in the neighbourhood of occupied Palestine are responsible for their plight by their acts of omission and commission as evidenced particularly in their military failure in 1948 and 1967. Egypt and Jordan even signed peace treaty with Israel in lieu of some territorial concessions along their border by Israel and generous largesse by America. Other Arab countries, prodded and 'lubricated' by America, has in recent years made a beeline to normalise relations with Israel under the new fangled Abraham Accord. In making these overtures for so called peace and co-operation, the Arab countries ignored the sufferings of the Palestinians under the yoke of Israeli  occupation that subjected them to the indignities of restricted daily life under an apartheid regime. All that the Arab countries have done is to visit in delegations the capitals of major powers to garner support from them. Nothing worth mentioning came out of these globetrotting junkets of Arab foreign ministers except giving them some photo-pops with their counterparts in host countries. If they could not muster enough courage to severe diplomatic relations, the least they could do is to recall their ambassadors from Israel, ban over flights by Israeli civil aircrafts and stop selling oil and gas. In fact, if they had used their oil power Palestinians would have their own state long ago.

On the diplomatic front the Arab countries visibly have been very active, submitting resolutions in the General Assembly and Security Council of the United Nations (UN). But it should have been evident to them that without flexing of muscles (oil, military power etc.)  such posturing are anodyne and futile. They could mobilise their armed forces in the name of joint military exercise and that could send a chill down the spine of Israel and its staunchest ally America. Caught in the labyrinth of an urban warfare, it would be nothing less than a nightmare for the Israelis to have the prospects of wars on several fronts, including Iran. Even if it was a bluff Israel would not dare to call it so, its nuclear hardware notwithstanding. But this seemed to have never been thought of as an option. That brinkmanship pays off, if crafted ingenuously, never occurred to the neighbours of the Palestinians. Or maybe they did never consider the Palestinians' cause as important enough to take any risk that may jeopardise their own narrow interests. So, the new year came to the Palestinians with no gift from their close neighbours and blood brothers.

The same criticism of being empty handed cannot be made against America, the world's number one superpower. To shorten the agony and suffering of the Palestinians, the Biden Administration bypassed the Congress, using executive power, to send arms and ammunitions to Israel worth over $14 billion in the last week of 2023. This new year's gift by America for the Palestinians was preceded by similar emergency approval of military aid to Israel on  December 9 of the last year. Such emergency military aid, bypassing the Congress , has been given through presidential  executive order  only four times since 1979, twice by Biden administration in the month of December 2023 to help Israel fight militant groups in occupied Palestine. The Palestinians cannot gripe that America did not play Santa Clause on the eve of new year.

America gives $4.5 billion worth of military grant every year to bolster the defence ( offence ?) capability of Israel not only because it has an agreement, but also because it believes that like America in the days of the Wild West, Israel, too, has a 'Manifest Destiny' to expand the territory of settlers. It is an ethos that prompted America in the past to exterminate the original inhabitants, the Red Indians,   with superior military might, used brutally and murderously. Envisaging a similar role for Israel in Palestine, America has not demurred a whit in loosening its purse strings whenever the need has arisen.  As a result, Israel now is the mightiest military power in the Middle- East, playing ducks and drakes with the lives of those it considers expendable as they are now doing with the Palestinians. The Palestinians are the Red Indians of the Middle-East and the survivors of the current genocide should consider themselves lucky if they end up in 'Reservations' like the American Red Indians living the life of invisibles. The extremist ministers in the present Israeli cabinet have a better and a more generous idea, offering the Palestinians what they describe as 'voluntary emigration' to neighbouring countries. Though Biden Administration is going through the motion of vehemently opposing this solution this plan, in all probability, has been jointly scripted for the final scene of the Three Act play that is named Israel.

As for the wily prime minister of Israel, to prove that he is not a scrooge when it comes to giving new year's gift, Netanyahu promised on the first day of  January that the present war in Gaza will continue through 2024. A gift appears valuable and worth remembering when it lasts long and this dictum is not lost on the pugnacious prime minister who has the rare distinction of declaring war against a ragtag group of militants which is not a regular army and has no tank, planes and naval ships. Gaza is not even a state yet it qualified to have a full scale war declared against it. If the dead and dying Palestinians needed a consolation for their sacrifice this distinction should be enough.

Europe, the citadel and fount of moral values embedded in the Renaissance and Enlightenment, has not been parsimonious in presenting gift to the Palestinians on new year's eve. The gift is a long silence on what is going on in Gaza, right under their nose, which speaks volume. The only time this deafening silence is broken is when their leaders, confronted by media, repeat the mantra taught by their leader America, 'Israel has the right to defend itself'. Nothing can stand up against this profound pontification wrapped up in an infallible international credo. Forget about the right to life and livelihood of a people. Forget also about moral clarity because morality is relative, open to interpretation by the rich and mighty. Is there any doubt that the West, led by America, rules the roost?

Three cheers for democracy and human rights, seen through the prism of the almighty West.

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