“Whenever injustice becomes the law with which to govern a people, resistance must become a legitimate duty with which to quest for legitimate survival”. Anonymous
Today’s world seems to be a proverbial ark without any compass that can show its way to a particular destination. Yet, that proverbial ark keeps cruising recklessly on a storming sea without minding the repercussion of a possible capsizing.
Unlike in the remote or recent past, no part of the world can confidently claim safety today and go to bed with the closure of both eyes. Except for self-deception, any euphoria of whatever can be called global peace in the contemporary world remains a property of the remote past. Thus, from all indications, the contemporary time is fast-tracking the pace of mankind towards the end of human existence.
The Palestinian Crises
While millions of Muslims, all over the world, were, last week, eagerly awaiting the physical appearance or pleasant news about the crescent that would usher this year’s Ramadan into the world, the international media waves throbbed with unpleasant breaking news that immediately became an eyesore for some people and a sour taste in the mouth of others.
The news was about an outbreak of a new orgy of violence in Gaza Strip which hurriedly reminded the world of a merciless siege on that same Strip in 2014.
As a onetime Foreign Editor and a student of International Law and Diplomacy who studied in the Arab world and was quite familiar with the situation in the Middle East, yours sincerely had severally given public lectures on the conflicts in that region with detailed analysis of the causes and effects of those conflicts from various conceivable angles.
Below is an excerpt from one of such lectures which I gave in different parts of the country:
“This is not the first time in history that partition would be adopted as solution to a contentious problem. In primordial time, King Solomon ruled between two mothers who were laying claim to a single child thus: “If you cannot give one child to each of the two women claiming to be the mother, then split the child into two and give one half to one and the second half to the other”.
This analogy was re-enacted almost three thousand years after that historic episode in an area disputably called Palestine and Israel at the same time. The only exception in the contemporary case is that the Wisdom of Solomon which brought solution to the historic controversy of the yore is conspicuously absent today.
Partition of Palestine
Like the false mother in King Solomon’s time who welcomed bisection of the controversial child, the Jews quickly accepted the partition of Palestine in 1948 because it gave them something that was not legitimately theirs.
Partition of countries against the wish of the people living in there was not only a social aberration but also a clear evidence of injustice and man’s inhumanity to man.
Wherever adopted as a solution, partition only brings suffering, destruction and tragedy to millions of human beings as in the case of Vietnam, Germany, Korea and now Palestine. Normalcy only returned to Vietnam after the reunification of that country following ten years of a fierce war. Although the conditions of the partition of Germany after the World War II in the 1940s appeared normal, neither that country nor those who partitioned it felt relaxed until Germany became a single country again in the early 1990s. The situation of (North and South) Korea today can be regarded as temporary because reunification of that country is just a matter of time.
The imperial powers which imposed partition on the three countries mentioned above against the wish of their inhabitants were the same that inflicted the tragedy of partition on Palestine without any consideration for the agonizing plight of her long time inhabitants.
Genesis of the Crises
The conflict between the Palestinians and the Jews, which now dominates the Middle East crises, did not start by accident. It was well designed and orchestrated from the very beginning. In 1879 when the Zionist movement was officially launched, an Austrian Jewish lawyer and journalist, Theodor Herzl, who, incidentally, was the founder of that movement published an article in a European popular magazine. In the article he declared: “Let sovereignty be granted us (Zionists) over a portion of the globe large enough to satisfy the rightful requirements of a nation; the rest we shall manage by ourselves”.
Influence of World War I
The outbreak of the World War I came to fertilize the soil for the germination of that tall dream. The year 1916 was disastrous for the allied forces. Casualties on the Western fronts were heavy. Anxiety rose very high. And the only seeming choice left for Britain to escape defeat in the hands of the Germans was to draw America into the war on her side. It was at that gloomy period that an Oxford educated Armenian, James Malcolm, walked in. He was a friend of the then British Secretary of State, Sir Mark Sykes. The latter told Malcolm that the British Cabinet was looking anxiously for American intervention in the war.
Responding, Malcolm who was well connected to the topmost echelon of the American government told Sykes that Britain was going about it the wrong way. He said: “You can win the sympathy of certain politically minded Jews everywhere and especially in the United States in one way only, and that is by offering to secure Palestine for them”.
That was the beginning of a long journey that was to culminate in what has now become the ‘Arab/Israeli conflict’. Of course through Malcolm’s connection, the US entered the war on the side of the allied forces in 1917 and that resulted in a fate accompli for Germany.
To fulfill her own side of the agreement, therefore, Britain made a declaration on November 2, 1917 through her Foreign Minister, Arthur Balfour, giving a substantial part of Palestine to Israel. That declaration has since popularized the name of that Foreign Minister as it has since been known as Balfour Declaration.
Ever since the declaration, the Arabs have never been able to sleep with their two eyes closed. It has always been a matter of war today, ceasefire tomorrow. This is not mainly due to the condemnable usurpation of their land by the Zionists but more because of their own diabolical disunity that has been telling incessantly on Islam as a religion.
The Fault of the Arabs
Viewing the Middle East crises from religious angle, the general belief in many Muslim quarters is that those crises are a religious affair. And for decades, the Arabs have capitalized on that belief to whip up Islamic sentiments among non-Arab Muslims for the purpose of winning their sympathy. But looking at the matter critically, one will discover that such a belief is not only misgiven but wildly misplaced.
The reason is this: long before the Israeli factor came into those crises, the Arabs had been at loggerheads among themselves for centuries in that sub-region. History is there to testify to this fact. But for the internal wrangling among them, the entire Europe would have been fully Islamized today. At least the Umayyad Dynasty which was fully run by the Arabs lasted for about 500 years in Spain where its headquarters was relocated after eviction from Damascus.
Despite that great vintage, they missed the opportunity of planting Islam in the heart of Europe.
Now, the Middle East crises cannot be pinned down to the Arab/Israeli conflict alone. They are a multifaceted conflict that requires multidimensional solution. For instance, the State of Israel was not planted in Palestine until 1948. But Syria and Lebanon only agreed just a few years ago to exchange diplomatic mission for the first time since 1943 when the latter became independent. Why? Are both countries not Arab in language, culture and orientation? And this example can be found in virtually all the Arab countries. The truth is that the Arabs are as much a problem to Islam as they are to themselves. Ironically, the divine religion called Islam originated from them. One can imagine what they would have done to that religion if it had not emanated from them.
Implication of Disunity
Today, with the obliteration of Caliphate which was for many centuries, the central core of Islamic operations, there is no precise leadership for the Muslim Ummah. The implication of this is that there is no universal competent Muslim authority that can be obeyed globally if and when a vital order is given to propel Islam statutorily. Thus every country or community operates at its level to the detriment of unity.
What is more worrisome in all these is the snobbish Arab attitude which places premium on Arabism rather than Islam as if Islam is the property of the Arabs which can be incorporated into Arabism at will.
Except for Libya, Somalia and Sudan, no Arab country bears a name that reflects Islam. Even those three African countries only reflect Islam in their official names for political reasons. ‘THE MESSAGE’ will elaborate on this in full details in the near future.
Arabs’ Economic Strength
The wealth available in the Middle East is valued to be about one fifth of the entire wealth in the world. Yet the size of that sub-region in terms of land area and population is less than 2% of the world’s land mass. But unfortunately, the enormous wealth in the area is being managed and spent directly or indirectly by the West. Every Arab country has her foreign reserve in the US or other Western countries. Their administrative thinking and security strategies are from the West. Most of their investments are based in the West. Yet their most insuperable problem, that of disunity is from the West. How can they survive without the West?
The total Gross Domestic Products (GDP) of the Arab countries was $1,195 billion in 2008. Much of this money kept in Western banks is what those Western countries use to further their own development.
They also use a part of it to finance NGO projects in Africa and some other parts of the world in the name of humanitarian gesture. And most of the beneficiaries are non-Muslims. More will be said about this later.
The Way Forward
Never in the history of man has war been the final determinant of peace. The victor and the vanquished in any war will eventually sit around a table to talk and negotiate the terms of their coexistence.
It happened in Asia and Europe. It happened in Africa and America. It happened in Australia and the Middle East. There is neither permanency of victory nor that of vanquishness. And that is why there is always room for communication even in a war situation.
The war of attrition between Israel and Palestine is not in the interest of humanity no matter the sentiments. And it can never be. If these two countries have fought constantly for 71 years (1948-2019) without much to count as gain, logic must dictate a change of style.
In the last one decade alone, the Palestinian people have lost more than 15, 000 lives; over $70 billion in income opportunity; 20 million square meters of agricultural land; and over 100 million man-hours in crossing either from West Bank to Gaza or vice versa at Ramallah. Much more than that, almost 2.7 million of the 4 million residents of Gaza and West Bank have become refugees in almost inhuman camps. The opportunity cost of conflict for the Middle East from 1991-2019 is estimated to be $22 trillion. In other words had there been peace and cooperation in the Middle East since 1991, every Palestinian citizen would be earning over $4,300 as income per capital in 2019 instead of the $1,500 now being projected. Every Israeli citizen would be earning over $46,000 as income per capital in 2019 instead of about $24,000 now being projected.
Because of an import-export ban imposed on Gaza by Israel in 2007, 95 per cent of Gaza’s industrial operations were suspended. And out of 35,000 people employed by 3,900 factories in June 2005, only 1,750 people remained employed by 195 factories in June 2007. The figures can be imagined today. Blockade has severely hindered health services in Gaza. Between October and December 2007 for instance, the World Health Organization confirmed the deaths of 20 patients, including 5 children due to lack of access to health care. Between 2007 and 2008, 120 people in Gaza died because they were not allowed access to medical treatment.
The Israeli Government’s cut in the flow of fuel and electricity to the Gaza Strip has also been called collective castigation of the
civilian population, which is a violation of Israel’s obligations under the laws of war. Starting from February 7, 2008, the Israeli Government reduced the electricity it sells directly to Gaza. This also had a terrible effect on all spheres of life in the Gaza and West Bank.
War of Amenities
The war between Israel and Palestine is not limited to weapons and diplomacy alone. In the Middle East generally, water is a resource of great political concern because of the desert nature of the sub-region. Thus, since Israel receives much of its water from two large aquifers which are sprawled across the Green Line, the use of this water has been contentious in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Though the major source of the common water lies in the Israeli section of the disputed land, some of the wells used to draw that water are situated within the Palestinian Authority areas. This has limited Israelis’ direct access to drinking water.
But the argument is that Israel herself had prevented substantial volume of water from flowing to the areas occupied by the Palestinians thereby limiting the quantity of water that may be drawn from those wells.
While Israel’s consumption of this water has decreased since it began its occupation of the West Bank, it still consumes the majority of it.
In the 1950s, Israel consumed 95 per cent of the water output of the Western Aquifer, and 82 per cent of that produced by the North eastern Aquifer.
Although this water was drawn entirely on Israel’s own side of the pre-1967 border, the sources of the water are nevertheless from the shared groundwater basins located under both West Bank and Israel. By 1999, the percentage of water available to Israel had declined to 80 per cent. Now, with the continuation of war, neither Israel nor Palestine feels secure even as threat of further war is drummed into the infants’ ears in that area daily.
Historically, the Jews and the Arabs are from the same father (Abraham). If one claims a return to ancestral home to justify land occupation, the other may be right to make the same claim. Thus rather than continuing fighting war which may eventually lead to total loss of the entire land, why not sit together and negotiate peace on a permanent basis? That is perhaps worthier than the shedding of innocent bloods where better alternatives are available.