Dr. Firoz Mahboob Kamal
The problem and the pathology
Morality or immorality never remains hidden. Like a flame of a fire, it has its robust expression. Morality is the inherent ability to abstain from crimes and the utter readiness to condemn any crime. Immorality is the complicity in committing or condoning any crime. The USA and its allies have failed the morality test on both counts. Because of the same rabid moral failure, evil ideologies like colonialism, imperialism, fascism, ethnic cleansing, genocides, white supremacism, racism could get a vast number of foot soldiers in the western countries in the past. And today, because of the same moral failure, the Israeli war crimes enjoy substantial political, economic, and military support in the ruling circles in countries like the USA, the UK, France and Germany. And the UNO fails to pass a resolution to condemn the Israeli war crimes. Because of the same immorality, the USA could show its intense propensity to commit the worst crimes on the earth. The dropping of two nuclear bombs on Japanese cities, the occupation of foreign countries like Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq, bombing cities to rubbles, genocides in the occupied lands, torturing captives in all terrible ways give testimony to that deep moral deprivation. Do these thugs possess any appetite for peace in any part of the globe, let alone Palestine? They have shown their skills only in making catastrophes. So, killing 75 million people in two World Wars didn't need any wild beasts.
The USA –the latest civilizational power of the West, has a known pathology for all these moral diseases. The USA is built on evils like ethnic cleansing against the Red Indians, exploitation of the Black slave labourers, white supremacy, racism, and stealing resources from the weaker countries. The legacy still thrives. Therefore, the tendency to committing crimes and supporting crimes is not new in USA history. So, the Israelis find a perfect ideological match with the USA.
Israel was created on Western imperialists' recipe of occupation, ethnic cleansing, genocide, and settlement colonization. Only there exists a difference in the target population. In the case of Israel, the victims are the Palestinians. So the US Presidents –whether Democratic or Republican, don't make any difference in their policy towards Israel. Every US President gets enough ideological inspiration to support every crime of the Israelis. So, while the Israeli war machines were busy committing war crimes, President Biden's administration announced a quick delivery of 735 million dollars to support Israel. Thus it ratifies the notion that Israel and the USA are two different countries on different continents but represent the same ideology.
Is committing a war crime the defence-right?
Residential buildings, clinics, medical labs, shops, unarmed men, women and children, water supply lines and sewerage drains never take part in any offence against Israel. But Israel made this innocent human and non-human entities the legitimate target for its defence. These were bombed to rubbles. As per international laws, such destruction is a pure war crime. Failure to punish the criminals is another crime. And the USA is complicit in crimes on both counts -by financing the crimes and abstaining from punishing the criminals. The UN Human Rights Watch has labelled Israeli atrocities as war crimes. The International Criminal Court (ICC) announced the prosecution of Israel for its war crimes. But the USA, the UK and Germany have declared their opposition against such a trial by the ICC. These are enough to expose their immorality. Not only has it uncovered their pro-Israel bias, but also their complicity in the crimes. Those who created Israel and gave it the unlimited license to kill now take the full responsibility to protect it from prosecution.
The perfect jungle
The world has turned terrible place for powerless people. Those who have no power have no right. A country's military might give the right to commit any horrible crimes and protect it from any prosecution. Therefore, in the name of self-defence, Israel executes so-called rights to commit every crime inside or outside Israel. Even killing nuclear scientists in Tehran and Baghdad also falls under its defensive right. And there exists none to punish the Israeli criminals.
Most war criminals have powerful patrons to give them complete protection from any prosecution. Israel has the USA, the UK, France and Germany. And Syria has Russia. International Chemical Weapons Watchdog told the UNO Security Council that the Assad regime of Syria had used chemical weapons 17 times. But no one could punish Assad because Russia stands against any prosecution. So the defenceless people of Syria, like Palestine, have no other option but to suffer and die. This is the current world order. The world has turned into a perfect jungle; its mighty beasts have all the rights. Israel is now putting obstacles against the reconstruction of Gaza. Like its right to destroy any part of Palestine, it executes its right to obstruct the rebuilding.
Israel is a perfect embodiment of crimes that the colonialists committed in Asian and African countries. At the end of colonialism, the colonialists were forced to withdraw from almost all their colonial possessions. But to keep a powerful watchdog in the wealth-rich heartland of Islam, they devised another crooked strategy. They implanted the Jewish population from all over the world in the occupied land of Palestine. So morality or humanity doesn't work here. The policy of colonialism with its ugliest form runs Israel. Hence, all old colonialists are united to protect their illicit child state and their cherished colonial values. They also used their international watchdog club -the UNO, to legitimize their illicit act by recognizing it in 1948. So the old colonialism got new life in the land of the Palestinians.
Is fighting against occupation a crime?
Throughout the whole human history, fighting against any foreign occupation has been applauded. It has always been praised as a heroic job. But such an ethical standard doesn't work in the case of Palestinians. It is called terrorism –both in Israeli and in the western press. And the condemnation of Israeli atrocities against the civilians and the support for the resistance of the Palestinians against the Israeli occupation is labelled as supporting terrorism. It is also called anti-semitism. In the west European countries and in the USA, criticism of Israel is viewed as a crime. The political carrier of Jeremy Corbin –the former Labour Party leader and Ken Livingston –the former Mayor of London was destroyed by the British Jews and the conservative media for their opposition against the Israeli atrocities.
Ridiculously, anti-Zionism is blamed as equal to anti-Semitism by the pro-Israeli media in the West. In contrast, anti-Zionism has a clear difference from anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism is a crime; it is about hating the Semitic (Jewish) tribe. On the contrary, anti-Zionism is about opposing the establishment of Israel in Palestine with ethnic cleansing and genocides against the native Palestinians. The illegal settlement colonization on other people's land leads to the construction of an apartheid state –as the Europeans built in South Africa. So Zionism causes war crimes, and Israel is built on that. A man with an iota of morality can't support such toxic ideology. This is why many orthodox Jews and many famous Jewish personalities like Professor Noam Chomsky, Professor Ilan Pappe, and Professor Norman Finkelstein are well-known anti-Zionists.
The only option
As long as Israel and the USA survive on the earth, there is no hope of peace through negotiation in Palestine. The dialogue never works to end any enemy occupation. Criminals never compromise on their right to commit crimes against the weak. Because they survive on that, the European colonialists never compromised on such rights of ethnic cleansing and genocides against the more vulnerable natives like the Red Indians in the USA, the Aborigines in Australia and the Maoris in New Zealand. So the Israelis, grown-up amidst the colonialists of the West, is not in a mood to make any compromise with the Palestinians. They don't like even an investigation and prosecution of their crimes. So, Israel opposes UN Human Rights Council's resolution to investigate the Gaza war. The USA has no appetite for it either. So, the USA also opposes the UNO's investigations on the Gaza war. With such a criminal mindset, can anyone become a partner in peace? Israel, the USA and other western countries argue that Hamas is an obstacle in the way of peace. Why was there no peace when there was no Hamas? Hamas came into being only in the nineties. Why was there no peace in the sixties, in the seventies and the eighties? Israel and peace can't co-exist together.
Israel, the USA, and other western countries have their own narratives on the Palestinian crisis. They consider Israel as an innocent state. They also argue that whatever Israel does against the Palestinians is only for its defence. To them, the only problem is the Palestinian resistant movement. The occupation of Palestine, the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people, stealing their lands, demolition of their houses, destruction of their olive trees, and Israeli killings of Palestinian men, women, and children have no mention in their narratives. Hence, their peace formula is also straightforward: the Palestinian must stop all protest rallies against Israel and fully surrender to the Jewish occupation. In addition, the Palestinians must accept Israel as an exclusive state for the Jews. If such a surrender to Israel is not palatable, the Jewish leaders are pretty explicit on the other option for the Palestinians. The Palestinians must take the same route as 6 million Palestinians now living in the diaspora. In a nutshell, this is indeed the Israeli peace formula that gets support from its western allies.
A man with an iota of dignity can't swallow such an Israeli suggestion. But the situation is changing. The polarization is taking place all over the world; the Palestinians are not alone. It was not 1948 when the Palestinians left their homes empty-handed under Israeli intimidation hoping that they would return soon to their homes. But Israel made laws to prohibit their return. Since surrendering to Israel is not an option, there exists only one option. It is Jihad until victory –the only Islamic prescription.
The Palestinians must pay the price of peace by their own blood. This is the only effective strategy –taken by Salah Uddin to end the crusaders' occupation. Although it takes time, All-Powerful Allah's help and the ultimate success come only through this way. If the Palestinians can pursue such a strategy, only then will Israel return the land to the real owner -as the USA is doing in Afghanistan.
And Israel is not stronger than the USA.