Sadeq Khan
At last the world’s conscience, eyeless in Gaza, has been able to speak up loud and clear, undaunted by big power swaggers in merciless pursuit of ‘strategic bargains’ at the cost of human life and dignity of peoples of the Third World. The United Nations Human Rights Council has voted overwhelmingly to set up a commission of enquiry to investigate “war crimes” committed in the unequal war being waged by Israel against Palestinians in the besieged Gaza strip.
Already reduced to subhuman existence by military siege over the years since 2007, Gaza residents are now finding their homes, schools and hospitals raged to the ground by Israeli bombardment from the air and the sea, Israeli tanks invading their defenceless territory, Israeli shells killing their women, children and the elderly who cannot run fast enough to safety. Israeli military, unable to find the “tunnels” that hide the Hamas resistance in Gaza, are targeting patients, nurses and doctors in hospitals filled with dead and wounded, by perverse logic passing the blame to the victims for “shielding” Hamas fighters.
OIC condemned Israeli attack
Big powers look the other way, the USA and the erstwhile colonial powers of Europe expressly invoking Israel’s “right of self defence” by military offensive against hidden rocket launchers in the imprisoned Gaza strip. In the British parliament, a member of parliament reminded the House that the Palestinians in Gaza, 1.8 million people held in 140-square-mile (363-square-kilometer) open prison not unlike a concentration camp, also had a “right of self-defence” against Israeli military siege and the Zionist settlers’ atrocities. He was dubbed “irresponsible” by friends of Israel on both sides of the British parliament.
But world leaders could not ignore the indignation and protests being voiced by conscientious citizens all over the world in the streets, in social media and in barrages of public statements issued by rights organisation and philanthropists. The Israeli assault on civilian targets in Gaza began on July 8.
“On July 10, an expanded meeting of OIC Foreign Ministers’ Executive Committee strongly condemned the ceaseless brutal Israeli raids in the Gaza Strip, with the use of fighter jets and heavy weapons, strongly condemned the settlement activities of Israel, and the transfer of its citizens to the occupied Palestinian territories including Eastern Al-Quds, condemned crimes perpetrated by settlers, and reiterated OIC support for the National Consensus Government under the leadership of the Palestinian president.
“On 12th July organisations in Palestine gave a call with the appeal and demands that: “We Palestinians trapped inside the bloodied and besieged Gaza Strip call on conscientious people all over the world to act, protest and intensify the boycotts, divestments and sanctions against Israel until it ends this murderous attack on our people and is held to account.
We call for a final end to the crimes and oppression against us. We call for: -Arms embargos on Israel, sanctions that would cut off the supply of weapons and military aid from Europe and the United States on which Israel depends to commit such war crimes; – Stop any kind of collaboration or exchange programs – Support the boycott and disinvestment campaign against Israel.”
World demands arms embargo
On July 20, five Nobel Laureates including Professor Mhammad Yunus of Bangladesh responded as follows: “As Nobel Peace Laureates, we join others worldwide who are calling on the international community to secure an immediate ceasefire to prevent any further deaths among Israelis and Palestinians. As the situation continues to deteriorate and the disproportionate number of deaths in Gaza mounts, we are called by conscience to speak out in every way possible not only to end the current violence, but to address the roots of violence.
“There have been attacks on Gaza before. There have been cease-fires declared before. And yet the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territory grinds on. One million and seven hundred thousand Palestinians continue to live under Israeli siege in Gaza. Immediately after the last cease-fire in 2012, calm did return to Israel, but Israeli attacks did not stop in Gaza. Peace is more than the absence of outright war. “Those who would be brokers for peace must first acknowledge and address the coercive and corrosive power that Israel wields over Palestinians.
“The conflict between the Palestinians and the Israelis will only be resolved when Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territory is ended.”
On July 21, sixty-four public figures, including seven Nobel Peace Prize winners, called for an international arms embargo on Israel for its “war crimes and possible crimes against humanity” in Gaza: “Israel has once again unleashed the full force of its military against the captive Palestinian population, particularly in the besieged Gaza Strip, in an inhumane and illegal act of military aggression.”
Among the signators were Nobel peace laureates Desmond Tutu, Betty Williams, Federico Mayor Zaragoza, Jody Williams, Adolfo Peres Esquivel, Mairead Maguire and Rigoberto Menchu. Also signing were academics Noam Chomsky and Rashid Khalidi, filmmakers Mike Leigh and Ken Loach, musicians Roger Waters and Brian Eno, writers Alice Walker and Caryl Churchill, and journalists John Pilger and Chris Hedges. Two Israelis, academics Ilan Pappe and Nurit Peled, joined international colleagues in calling for an arms embargo against Israel.
UNSC collaborators: Turkey
On July 22, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey officially denounced “cruel” Israel for its attacks on Gaza, and dubbed the indifferent UNSC as collaborators of new crusade against Islam. Meanwhile, pro-Palestinian demonstrations continued in Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Amsterdam and other European cities, and anonymous cartoon of President Obama shielding Israel from worldwide resentment as it stomped on Gaza was making the rounds on social media networks.
On July 23, however, the UN Human Rights Council voted to launch an independent inquiry into Israel’s offensive in Gaza, as Israel continued its bombardment of the Gaza Strip and ground invasion.
The vote came hours after the UN rights chief, Navi Pillay, placed before an emergency session of the council evidences collected by UN officials and examples that suggested “a strong possibility that international humanitarian law has been violated, in a manner that could amount to war crimes. “147 children have been killed in Gaza over the past 16 days. They had a right to life, just like children in any other countries.”
The 47-member council adopted the investigation under a draft resolution at the request of Palestine, which has UN observer status. 29 states voted in favour of the investigation. 17 abstained, including many EU states. There was only one voted against lonely USA.
Over 715 Palestinians – the vast majority of them civilians – have been killed in Israel’s 18-day campaign in Gaza. In the same period, two Israeli civilians have been killed by rocket fire into Israel, and 32 Israeli soldiers have died in Gaza.
UNSG demand end of occupation
In his first comments since the Israeli invasion, Khalid Mesaal, the Hamas political leader, said in a news conference in Qatar that Hamas would never agree a ceasefire plan that did not offer the ending of the Israeli blockade of Gaza. The Israelis want a two-step solution – a ceasefire, then talks on any easing of restrictions. In Jerusalem on July 23, Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary general, pointedly called for “an end to the occupation and the daily humiliation and anger that comes with it.” He repeatedly criticized condemned as “atrocious” the Israeli strikes on the Shejaiyah neighbourhood in Gaza which destroyed a whole residential block and killed 72 men, women and children.
Earlier, Modi’s India had “diminished itself” by refusing to discuss the Gaza inferno in parliament on the plea that India was friend to both Israel and Palestine. Indian public, however, mobilised in force responding to Hamas call for denouncing and boycotting Israel to end its occupation of Palestinian lands, and the Modi administration corrected itself by voting for UN enquiry into war crimes in Gaza.
Like India, Bangladesh was slow in reacting to the inhuman pounding of Gaza by Israel. The official reactions fell short of the OIC stand on the issue, being limited to comments of the Foreign Minister calling for justice and peace in Gaza, as well as a cabinet resolution condemning the savage Israeli raids on Gaza and calling on the international community to halt Israeli aggression, which would only amount to return of statusquo.
But the public and socio-cultural bodies burst out in anger all over the country. Public reactions were often bypassed by the media, busy with political intrigues. And then amazingly, something extra-ordinary happened. All the political party leaders, in the government as well as in the opposition, seemed to have a simultaneous shake-up of their conscience, and were in unison in their denouncement of Israeli “genocide” in Gaza. Although they did not flinch from their usual rituals of blame game even on this issue, the phenomenon is nevertheless an embodiment of rare national consensus.
Source: Weekly Holiday
