Sunday July 20th, I woke up to shrill and urgent screaming by the American media, two American/Israeli soldiers have been killed in the Gaza fighting by Hamas. Max Steinberg 24, and Nissim Sean Carmeli 21, were both part of the Golani Brigade that was ambushed by the Hamas fighters in Gaza. The universal sentiment was that these two bright young people died for a good cause, nay, a great cause. I think all deaths are tragic and lamentable. This is especially true of the unnecessary deaths of young people. However, let’s contrast the reaction to these two deaths to the killing of some 620 people (mostly civilians) by the Israeli Defence Forces. The attribution seems to be that the Palestinians deserve to be hunted down like wild animals and killed with maximum efficiency. The world will not say a word. So far the world has been picking its collective nose as IDF runs amok in Gaza.
Let’s take another view of the deaths of young people. Let’s assume that these two guys are now named Mohammed and Ahmed and they are Palestinian/ American. They also want to contribute to growth and preservation of their Fatherland. So, they volunteer for the only standing Army in Gaza, aka, Hamas. I am sure the reaction from the US media and the government will be swift in terms of denunciation and labelling the two young people as terrorists. There would be no mention of their youth, their families, their education or any of their other human achievements. They will simply be labelled as terrorists and consigned to the trash can of history without a mention ever again. The government will set task forces so that other young people of their ilk do not follow the same path. There will be FBI agents, local police, the snitches working overtime to stop such an outcome. Billions will be spent to thwart the “terrorists”. All because the US does not agree with the methods and goals undertaken by an oppressed people who have been under the Israeli boots for over 60 years!
So, who is a terrorist? If you look at the World English Dictionary they will say, “A Terrorist is someone who intended to cause death or serious bodily harm to civilians or non-combatants with the purpose of intimidating a population or compelling a government or an international organization to do or abstain from doing any act.” Seeking an independence and a just society is the birthright of all humans. So, in the eyes of my government these two hypothetical Palestinian/Americans will be terrorists deserving of contempt and the death. Whereas, the two Israeli/American young men who were part of the unleashing of the terror on Gaza, killings of hundreds of civilians would be, um, patriotic and great act of sacrifice. Such is the hypocrisy that our government perpetuates. I used to have great expectation of Barack Obama but he turned out to be yet another Lilly-livered political coward. His administration is hopelessly mired in the politics of denial and blindness. So much for, “yes, we can”. No you can’t because you do not have a moral compass worth a damn!!
Now, how about the other players. Are they all hypocritical and talk from both ends? I think Bibi Netanyahu is no hypocrite. He has stated clearly the goal of subjugating the Palestinians in all his speeches and writings. He believes that peace for Israel needs to be the Peace and Silence of the Lambs, aka, the Palestinian population. His desire for Israel’s so called total security completely negates the concept of viable Palestinian state. This guy means what he says. By the definition of a terrorist he will qualify but people of Israel has given him a political mandate through an open and fair election. The present conflict can be traced back to Bibi’s botched attempted assassination of current Hamas leader, Khalid Mishal. As Paul McGough tells the story, “The year was 1997; the place was Amman, Jordan. Israel had identified the little-known Hamas operative Khalid Mishal, then 41, as a likely future leader of the movement.
When Netanyahu, then in his first term as prime minister, called for a list of Hamas targets to avenge a series of suicide bombings in Jerusalem, he is said to have personally placed the bull’s-eye on Mishal, overruling intelligence advice that a more high-profile Hamas operative should be taken out.
The plan was absurdly complicated. Instead of the clean snatch or sniper shot at which the Mossad excelled, it called for an Israeli agent to sidle past Mishal as he arrived for work at his Amman office. That agent was to create a kerfuffle by popping a pre-shaken can of soda while an accomplice would amble past in the opposite direction, using a special device to deposit a slow-acting killer drug in the distracted Mishal’s ear.
The idea was that Mishal would go about the rest of his day and would respond to a feeling of tiredness by taking a nap—from which he would never awake. The drug was a powerful derivative of the surgical painkiller fentanyl, which the Israelis expected would dissipate so quickly in Mishal’s body that there would be no trace of it by the time a postmortem was done.
The plot succeeded as spectacularly as it failed. The poison was in Mishal’s ear, but his two bodyguards witnessed the attack and one of them gave chase, capturing the two Mossad men after all three engaged in bloody hand-to-hand combat.
Their capture forced Netanyahu to fess up to a furious King Hussein of Jordan.
The monarch had gone out on a limb, signing a peace treaty with Israel against the wishes of his people; and he was exceptionally irritated by Netanyahu’s behavior as prime minister. Now the Israeli leader’s resort to cloak-and-dagger games in the streets of the Jordanian capital had presented him with the exquisite pleasure, for an Arab leader dealing with his Israeli counterpart, of having two Israeli prisoners to barter for an outcome that would humiliate Israel.
The poison did its job—within hours Mishal was at death’s door. Warning that if Mishal died, the Mossad duo would be hanged, the king called in the big guns—then U.S. president Bill Clinton and his Middle East team. Hussein’s two demands were extraordinary: he required the Israelis to cough up a vial of the antidote to the poison, the only means of saving Mishal’s life; he insisted that Netanyahu order the immediate release, from Israeli prisons, of a number of Palestinian prisoners, including the ailing Sheik Ahmed Yassin, the wheelchair-confined founder and spiritual leader of Hamas who was one of Israel’s most notable Palestinians in their custody.”
Mishal was saved with the anti-dote with two hours to spare and Sheik Ahmed Yassin was freed from the Israeli prison only to be assassinated by Mossad on Bibi’s orders in 2004. So, now Khalid Mishal is the head of Hamas and you can see why there can be no quarter given by either side. It is a blood feud that goes beyond just ideological warfare.
How about the other Arab leaders and populations of various Arab countries. Oh, well they are too busy killing themselves. They are reviving 1,400 year old grudges about being Shia or a Sunni and slaughtering people at the drop of a finger. If one is looking for true terrorists then look no further than the Islamic State in Iraq, Al Nusra in Syria, Taliban in Afghanistan, TTP and twenty other groups in Pakistan. These groups are truly murderous and lacking any consciences or even traces of humanity. These various and sundry groups are being supported by the paragons human rights such as Saudi Arabia, Iran and Qatar!! I recently saw that Al Azhar University has awarded King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia an Honorary Ph. D degree in Courage. Yes, you are reading it right. A Doctorate in COURAGE! Go figure! This sounds like a cruel joke but there it is in Al Arabia Online with a picture of this coward. While the carnage is going on in Palestine, this Lilly-livered one is being given a degree in Courage! Do I need to elaborate anymore as to what hypocrisy is all about!!
I am sure there will be yet another ceasefire and in two years there will be yet another war in Gaza. That is because the world is blind to the legitimate aspirations of the people of Palestine and the leaders that could make some changes are all doctorates in hypocrisy.
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Kayes Ahmed runs a small yet global apparel and design business based in Boulder, USA.
Source: bdnews24
