RECENTLY, listening to the political commentator and satirist Bill Maher’s take on the Palestinian-Jewish conflict, I realized the hollowness of justifications for the ongoing massacre, in the killing field that is Gaza. “Deal with it”, Maher said. Loss of home and land had happened to others, not just the Palestinians. The native Americans had lost land to the European colonizers; Bethlehem was once a Christian majority city, but no more; Mexico lost a huge part of their land to USA. None of them were expecting their land to be restored. So, why should the Palestinians? The allies had carpet-bombed Germany and nuked Japan into submission. Therefore, it was acceptable in Palestine too. The deplorable rationale at best, is the excuse of a petulant child who whines, “he did it too!”
On 7 Oct, 1200 Israelis were lost in a merciless massacre. The grief for that murderous rampage has been sullied, by the brutal extermination of over 21,000 Palestinians. No matter the posturing of Israeli government, Palestinian lives are equally precious and cannot be trivialized. Each loss, caused as much hurt as any one of those 1200. Israeli government is accountable for the Palestinian lives lost, as is Hamas for the Israeli loss. The killed Palestinians are overwhelmingly innocent civilians, women and children who had nothing to do with the events of Oct 7th. The brutality of killings including by 2000 lb bombs, paid for by US tax dollars, raining upon the defenceless, has outdone and is no less reprehensible than the instigating event. The criminality may be greater, because it is undertaken deliberately by a government bound by international law. By its conduct, the Israeli government has lost the moral high ground that it attained when it was wronged.
It was a strange, poorly reasoned rationale that Mr Maher put forth. Was it because the rationale for Israel vis-à-vis the Palestinians, rests on thin ice? Consider this: If someone came along, took over your house and chased you away, what would you do? Most likely, you will use the means available to have your property restored to you. That may happen soon or, it may take time. However, no just system will declare that you shut up and accept the dispossession when, you are the rightful owner and have proof of the same. That right to ownership upheld by the rule of law through history, civilizations and cultures, somehow is suspended in Israel when it comes to the Palestinians and their lands. The anomaly is maintained by an influential part of the international community. If Israel is the emperor without clothes, there are countries thatho are the bystanders praising the naked emperor’s fine attire. If usurped land was fait accompli, then Ireland was wrong to struggle for independence; while Pakistan and India should have accepted their lot and remained duly subservient under the British Yoke. And what was all that fuss about re-uniting East to West Germany? Abstract religious mythology trumps concrete proof of possession in Palestine.
Hence, those of European domicile since time immemorial and preceding the origin of Christianity, simply dispossess without an iota of ownership proof, the native Palestinians of their hereditary lands. By that logic, the European colonizers of Africa were returning home and, did no wrong in taking what they did. Afterall, Africa was where our species was born and then, emigrated. Currently or in future, a native American with the wherewithal, will be in his rights to walk over to a house and force one of European, Asian, or African descent, to move out because the land originally was his forefathers’. Never mind the specific yardage, or where his ancestors may have lived or roamed! Then, there is this matter of the once Christian majority Bethlehem.
It was not during the Crusades, but the Naqba of 1948 that Christians were dispossessed of their homes, reducing them from 85% of populace to the current 12%. The Dispossessors were the Jews carving out the state of Israel. The dispossessed Christians did not docilely accept their fate. They are amongst the wronged and protesting Palestinians. It would appear that the term “Palestinian”, is misleadingly equated with Muslims alone. The corner of the world that is Israel and Palestine, is a painful, unhealed boil that keeps bursting. It will not be cured by imposing unjust remedies. How can it be just to wrest land from the natives and then confine them to a fraction, a lá Bantustans of South Africa? If it is morally acceptable, then so is apartheid. If apartheid is unacceptable, then so must be the plight of Palestine. Ironically, the Palestinians are reduced to this condition, by those most intimately familiar with existence in a Ghetto. It is the abused child, grown into the abuser. How does one continue to sympathize with those who force their victims into conditions tantamount to “Ghettos”, and who instigate images that cause recollection of the infamous Abu Gharib? “Never again,” they said. Yet, it is they who have become the offenders.
What about the ground reality? While one could seek answers of those who came and plundered, their children who were born and raised in the land, have the right to remain and thrive. The closest parallel to the Palestine situation, is that of South Africa. So, why force a different remedy in Palestine? For peace in the world, Palestinians must be done right by. The creators of the mess in the Middle East, as they were in South Africa, the British have a historical and moral obligation to bring about a just resolution. It cannot be denied that the British Empire did global good such as, in education, science and technology. It also perpetrated great wrongs not only during usurping lands, but also when beating hasty and unceremonious retreats. Just like they caused a genocidal slaughter in the Indian subcontinent, by being a dishonest broker and leaving helter skelter, they repeated the same in Palestine. As ‘icing on the cake’, they manifested remarkable ignorance of situation, by seemingly taking the subcontinental “Two state solution” and fitting it in Palestine.
Unless it wants to go the way of the League of Nations, the United Nations must strive to come to a just solution, rather than one where the majority are confined to an open jail. For the sake of its global prestige, it is also time for the United States to be the impartial mediator and facilitator. Otherwise, voids tend to be filled by those waiting in the wings. Most importantly, Israelis and Palestinians must recognize that both are there to stay. Either side attempting annihilation of the other, is living in a fool’s paradise. Peace will come when the saner minds prevail on both sides, put their heads together, for a solution that is fair to both.
—The writer is a neurosurgeon based in Michigan, US.
Email: khan@sasktel.net
views expressed are writer’s own.
