AFTER the Hamas attack of 7th October the Fanatical Israeli regime struck back with everything they have in their arsenal. The onslaught of the Israeli armed juggernaut is now in its fourth month with no sign of abating. Women and children are being mercilessly massacred, the entire population of the Ghaza Strip is now homeless and almost 25000 Palestinians have lost their lives with over 50000 grievously injured.
The specter of famine is hanging over the population of over two million because hardly any food aid is trickling into the bombed areas of Ghaza. The international community and particularly the Muslim countries have failed miserably to rein in the bloodthirsty Israeli forces and end this horrible genocide of the Palestinian people. Almost all the 57 Muslim countries of the world have so far remained silent spectators to this gory drama and restricted themselves to issuing statements of condemnation.
The USA and the European Union are backing the actions of the Israeli Govt. and the silence of the Arab nations is deafening and inexplicable. Most Arab states are not even in a mood to endorse a case filed by South Africa against the Govt. of Israel in the International Court of Justice accusing Israel of crimes of genocide against the people of Palestine.
The inaction of the world community and the silence of the Muslim world has encouraged Israel to expand the conflict with attacks in Lebanon and the Israeli Govt. has completely ignored the resolution passed by the UN general assembly by 150 member states of the UN calling for an immediate ceasefire. Prime Minister of Israel has made his aim clear to evict all the inhabitants of Ghaza and resettle them elsewhere.
The happenings in Ghaza should be of immense concern and worry for Pakistan because after Indonesia it happens to be the second largest Muslim Country of the world that has stood by the Palestinians since the birth of Israel in 1948 and opposed to many Arab states has still not recognized the state of Israel.
Israel is now getting bolder and bolder, there is news that Israeli agents assassinated Saleh Arouri, a senior Hamas leader, who was living in Beirut. He was second-in-command of Hamas’s political office. He was the guest of Hasan Nasrullah, the head of Hezbollah, a militant group that has the support of Iran and is a part of what Tehran calls the “axis of resistance.” As the bloodshed in Ghaza continues the Muslim world remains severely divided and all countries with a majority of Muslims in population have shown no unity of purpose or any unified action in support of Palestine and there remains an enormous chasm of differences between them and with these differences none of them seem too eager to get involved directly or even indirectly to assuage the sufferings of the Palestinians. Iran is the only Muslim country that is involved indirectly by engaging with and providing material and political support to Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Ghaza along with the Houthis in Yemen. Ironically no Muslim or Arab country had the guts to take the case to the International Court of Justice and it is South Africa that has taken the initiative and now the top UN court will now start hearing the petition that the state of Israel is in breach of the 1948 Genocide Convention and the petition has asked for the immediate suspension of military operations in the Ghaza strip.
Arab and Muslim countries have all condemned the barbaric actions of the Israeli forces in Ghaza but have not agreed to any joint action or even punitive economic and political steps against Israel over its actions in Ghaza. Even at the Joint summit of the Arab League and the OIC concluded in Riyadh the regional divisions were quite apparent over how to respond to this war even when fears were expressed that this war could draw in other countries of the region. Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who before the war was considering establishing formal diplomatic ties with Israel, told the summit he “holds the occupation (Israeli) authorities responsible for the crimes committed against the Palestinian people.”
Iran was the only Muslim country to ask for practical measures to counter the Israeli offensive. Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, on his first trip to Saudi Arabia since the two countries mended ties in March, said Islamic nations should designate the Israeli army a “terrorist organization” for its conduct in Gaza. Some countries, including Algeria and Lebanon, proposed responding to the devastation in Gaza by threatening to disrupt oil supplies to Israel and its allies as well as severing the economic and diplomatic ties that some Arab League nations have with Israel, the diplomats said. However, at least three countries — including the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, which normalized ties with Israel in 2020 — rejected the proposal. In a statement issued from Gaza, Hamas called on summit participants to expel Israeli ambassadors, form a legal commission to try “Israeli war criminals” and create a reconstruction fund for the territory. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said a lack of concrete punitive measures against Israel would render the summit toothless.
“If we do not have real tools for pressure, then any step we take or speech we give will have no meaning,” said Assad, who was welcomed back into the Arab fold this year after an extended rift over his country’s civil war. The Israeli action n Ghaza has been called “Genocide” by Pakistan but ironically Pakistan has not shown any inclination of joining the South African petition to the ICJ. Pakistan needs to play a more active role and to mobilize the international community to end the death and destruction at the hands of Israel in Ghaza. Some statements by the caretaker Prime Minister leave a lot to be desired and so far our policy on this issue appears to be rather confused and unclear.
—The writer is Professor of History, based in Islamabad.
Email: tariq.aqil@headstart.edu.pk
views expressed are writer’s own.
