Simon Mohsin-
It may lead one to consider that Western policymakers and media are mentally retarded when they constantly turn a deaf ear to any atrocities that Israelis inflict on Palestinians. Whenever the Palestinian plight is mentioned, they immediately rush to defend Israel’s right to defend itself. They always respond to such discussions and questions with the same narrative of Israel’s right to self-defense like a broken record. They never give a direct answer to any question about the war crimes, human rights violations, and injustices that are committed by Israelis against the Palestinians. Instead, they keep supporting the Israeli “right to defend” and dubbing Hamas a terrorist organization. We just get the same answers in various semantics.
The Western media funded, owned, and run by pro-Israelis is the mouthpiece for these Western and Israeli policymakers making this broken record sound more effective while normalizing the atrocities against Palestinians to the point that they contribute to the dehumanizing efforts of Israelis against the Palestinians. Through various tactics and strategic use of language, these mass media and their presenters make it seem as if only Israel is facing dangerous terrorist circumstances and it’s all because of the Palestinians.
It is incomprehensible how a people whose land, home, and property are usurped by an occupying force could be the aggressor. The occupying force is by definition in the posture of attack, while those occupied are the victims and in need of defending themselves. The word “usurper or occupier” literally means someone who seized another’s land using force and other means of attack. It is by default that an occupier will always be on the offensive and aggressive towards
The occupied. So, how can the Israelis need self-defense in a situation where they are the perpetrators? Even if the West concedes that Israel has occupied Palestinian lands, then it would be obvious that Palestine would need to protect itself and/or need support for protection or defense. Instead, it is Israel that has been consistently being protected and defended. This irrationality of the West towards international laws, human rights genocides, and tyranny is justified as long as their selfish interests are fulfilled. We have numerous examples to this end, especially in the UN forum, which is, by the way, the West prescribes a global governance structure.
The UN has adopted several resolutions against Israel and its occupation of Palestine. However, they remain on paper only, while none has been implemented even an iota. When the ICJ accused Israel of committing war crimes and decided to take action, US President Donald Trump threatened to cease the tribunal’s funding. Biden stands against everything that denotes Trump and is working to revert every Trump policy. However, he remains steadfast on all Trump policies regarding Israel. So, the implication is crystal clear. Israel can do no wrong. It can do anything and everything in the name of protecting itself.
While Palestinians are crying out for help the Western hypocrisy and double standards are blatantly exposed. We all knew that for a long, but many Western citizens were oblivious to the Palestinian plight. The situation is changing as more and more are becoming aware of the truth.
In the 9/11 aftermath, the US had successfully prevailed in an anti-Muslim mindset across the globe to the point that even we Muslims became doubtful of ourselves. However, that anti-Muslim mindset is waning. Abusing that mindset, the US and its allies labeled many Muslim groups that they did not like as terrorist organizations. They conveniently forgot that Hamas was an elected group that came to power in Gaza through democratically held elections. Although Hamas has carried out most of its activities by arming itself, they were forced to do so for the more than 15 years of siege that Gaza has been put under by the Israelis. They were trying to defend themselves, and they had the right to do so, being an occupied party. That does not mean that what Hamas did on October 7th is justified. Death of any non-combatant civilian, child, or woman is abhorrent, and Hamas carried out a deplorable act of violence. Killing of innocent civilians is unacceptable. However, Palestine has been faced with the killing of such innocent civilians for about 80 years now. Those who would have been the voice, the representatives of the Palestinians, are either dubbed terrorists, or not allowed any forum to speak, or their words fall on deaf ears. This further shows that the international laws and forums are nothing but tools for the Western powers to achieve and fulfill their vested interests, and nothing more. The West had never done much, and is neither much now in the name of diplomacy; rather, they always use diplomacy for stalling and managing the situation for favoring the Israelis.
Any sane person, any individual with half a brain would agree that there is little difference between the situations prevailing now in Ukraine and Palestine. On the same note, the atrocities that the Gazans are inflicted with are similar to those that the Rohingyas had to endure just a few years ago. We all have to concede that the similarities are stark. A few years ago, 1.1 million Rohingyas were displaced from their homes because of a military onslaught. Now, the Israelis are treating the same number of Palestinians to evacuate Northern Gaza because the Israeli forces will carry out a barrage of air, land, and sea attacks there.
Westerners accuse Russia of terrorism for allegedly targeting civilian infrastructure that could deprive men, women, and children of food, water, and power. It would deprive the Ukrainians of heat while winter is almost here. The Western powers termed these alleged acts of Russia as terrorism and accordingly a warrant was issued by the ICC against Putin. Meanwhile, Israel is doing the same – cutting off power, food, and water in Gaza and it has been doing so intermittently for the last decade and a half. It is doing so now through official announcements. But the West is not bothered to even consider it as an atrocity let alone a war crime, which it is veritably. Rather, they show their open support for the Israelis.
The aforementioned Israeli activity is undoubtedly a war crime, as is the collective punishment that Israel inflicts on Gaza, and the attacks it carried out on humanitarian and lifesaving infrastructures.
Israeli armed forces have bombed about 22 hospitals all across Gaza, and now even the last hospital has been destroyed. They claim that it was a Palestine-based organization Islamic Jihad that had shot a rocket by mistake destroying the hospital. They even produced various evidence, circumstantial at best, to establish the fact. The Western media mouthpieces have continued to bring in experts to analyze that so-called evidence and they too say that the rocket was shot by “the other team” as termed by Biden.
However, independent expert analysis of the so-called evidence has already reported that the evidence that the Israelis brought is disingenuous. Moreover, three days before the hospital’s destruction, the hospital was bombed once earlier damaging two storeys of the building and the church adjacent to the building. Naturally, the priests of the church came out to protest against the bombings. Now, Christians are quite influential in the Western world, although not as
much as Israelis. Yet, Israeli forces called them over the phone every day for the next three days ordering them to vacate the church and three days later, the hospital was bombed again and was destroyed. If the Israelis didn’t want to bomb the hospital, then why did they ask the priests to vacate their church? Many other aspects prove that Israel was behind the bombing of the hospital.
An Israeli minister has even stated on TV that if Hamas surrenders unconditionally, then Israel will allow the fuel, water, and food to be supplied to the Gazans. Punishing an entire group of people for acts committed by one or a few is the very definition of collective punishment, and the Israeli minister himself defined it so that Israel’s current strategy is that of collective punishment. The journalist who said this on TV and demanded an answer and accountability from the Israeli minister must be appreciated and commended for his work.
Israel wants the people of Gaza to move out of the land to punish Hamas. But, Gaza is blocked, under siege. There is nowhere for them to go. Israel will not allow them in, and the only place they can go to is Egypt, which is unwilling to accept so many Palestinians. Western powers are negotiating with Egypt to open its borders. While this situation continues, Israel also bombed the Rafah crossing, the only path to the Egyptian border, and killed hundreds of Palestinians. Now, it has allowed for humanitarian aid to come into Gaza from Egypt. Some respite for Palestinians, but this is as best as it gets for them. There is no respite or relenting of the Israelis anticipated in the coming days.
Such inhumane, barbaric incidents have occurred countless times for about 80 years against the Palestinians. The question that comes to mind is what can we do? At the state level, our position is not strong enough. So at the individual level, what should we do?
We have to remember that the world has changed now. Israel and the entire Western world’s injustice towards Palestinians can no longer be hidden as it used to be most of the time in the 80s and 90s. The Western media may alter the facts to change the narrative, but we now have the privilege, facility, amenities, and resources to verify and make judgments about whether what they are reporting is accurate or not. And that is where we need to start. It is possible to feel like this has happened before, people have tried doing so, but nothing has changed. I do not deny that. But, in the past, there was no scope for us to dig deeper for the truth and pose questions, because we simply did not have the chance. Now we do and it can have an impact.
Last time, when Israel bombarded Gaza, the then-Israeli Defence minister sought Western leaders’ help in stopping the #Palestine #FreePalestine spreading all over social media. The minister sought their help because Israel was losing control of the narrative that was based on their fake propaganda. They feared that if enough people in the West came to know the truth, then they could force their governments into not supporting Israel.
Today, the inhuman conditions in Palestine caused by Israel are being exposed to the
world more so than ever. We not only see a flood of support for Palestine from across the globe but also see several protests taking place in the Western world to the point that the pro-Israeli governments had to ban pro-Palestine protests in their countries. Talk about freedom of speech and the right to protest!
Support for Palestine among the Western people is more than ever today and it will continue to rise if we continue our efforts to ensure that the truth remains circulating in today’s interconnected world. Maybe this will not change the final result of the ongoing atrocity but the process and effort of establishing justice will sustain. Given the current world order, it is the Western countries that hold the economic, political, and military power. Thus, the general people in the Western countries must see the reality, and learn the truth, so that they can pressure their government into doing what is right. A very recent survey results came out in the US, and the results are showing us just that. The elderly generation, people in the vicinity of 50 years of age, their perception is skewed in favor of the apartheid Israel. However, the millennials, the youth – more than half of them are sympathetic to the Palestine cause. Would we have even imagined such a demographic perceptional change in the US, the staunchest ally of the Israelis, even a few years ago? The tide is changing. We see atrocities and hopelessness now, but things will change.
Speaking of what else we can do, I must underscore that we need to begin realizing our power as a collective consumer base. A large part of the Western economies are dependent on us. The trade imperative is in our favor. This issue may seem trivial to many, wondering what one person can do by not purchasing Western goods. We can do plenty. First and foremost, the list of alternative goods that are not Western is long and increasing. Second, I would argue, that those who know and understand business, can tell us that if a company’s goods sales drop drastically for three consecutive months, how it can impact the overall company in the short and long run.
I must remind everyone that the struggle of the Palestinians is a two-pronged battle. One is the physical battle that the Palestinians are forced to endure, and we should help them, and extend our support with all the resources and aid that we can muster. At the same time, there is a battle of the minds, ideology, media, and perception. While we sit in our homes, we can participate in this battle and not allow the space of influence that the apartheid regime is trying to gain in this battle of the minds. We need to do our part as best as we can to ensure that the Palestinian’s physical battle and the barbarism they face and endure are not for nothing. They are showing the height of human perseverance, patience, emotional endurance, and resolution. While we sit in the comfort of our homes, with challenges of our own sociopolitical, family, and economy, ours is in no way comparable to the challenges that the Palestinians have been facing for the last 80 years. Nor is it comparable to the plight of any other people that have faced such odds; May it be Rohingya, or may it be the Ukrainians. Thus, we have to contribute to, or at least try to do so. During such inhumane crises, our national, group, and individual ideals must be the same. We must be able to ensure absolute accountability to our conscience so that when we look in the mirror, we can tell ourselves that we have done what we could. And lastly, we must make sure that all the West remembers this situation; we must ensure that they know that we will by no means forget this injustice nor will we let it be forgotten.
Simon Mohsin is a Political and International Affairs Analyst
Well said and also in good english