It is difficult to describe the tragedies hitting the Palestinians. When all they want is to live on their own homeland, which was robbed from them, and were made to sit like refugees on their own land.
Can’t believe we humans are living in a developed civilized world, amidst all the propaganda of peace forums and platforms!
What is happening in Gaza is sheer genocide! Yet none of the so-called world leaders have shown any urgency for a ceasefire or even for truce talks. Tell me, how many more Palestinians will have to perish in targeted attacks before these ongoing killings can be halted.
It is difficult to describe the tragedies hitting the Palestinians. When all they want is to live on their own homeland, which was robbed from them, and with that they were made to sit like hapless refugees on their own land. Today, even that basic right to survive seems ripped off, snatched from them, as hundreds are dying, if not already dead!
One is left asking: Where are the superpowers? Can’t they hear human cries! Can’t they see dead forms of babies and adults and the elderly? Can’t they see entire buildings and homes and hearths destroyed? Can’t they visualize the offshoots of this genocide? Can’t they grasp the far-reaching consequences of these ongoing killings of hapless people?
It’s just too shocking to see the balancing acts of the rulers of the day. Several heads of State have even sided with Israel; perhaps, because of the rather too obvious political motives and expansionist plans. But in their synthetic speeches, these rulers should confine their preferences to themselves and to their governments. Why drag the masses? After all, the masses are not naïve and are mature enough to see the brutalities and killings spreading out. They are also well aware of the just and legitimate demand of the Palestinians. Yet, there is complete bypassing of the human tragedy of this level.
Each time I see television shots of hundreds killed in explosions, homes and buildings bombarded, dying children and fleeing families, entire settlements razed to the ground, I have been asking myself: Who is behind these mass scale killings! Who all are in the collective lot, destroying humans in every possible way.
And as Noam Chomsky had said during the course of an interview with me – “In the Reagan years alone, the US-sponsored state terrorists in Central America left hundreds of thousands of tortured and mutilated corpses, millions orphaned and four countries in ruins. In the same year, Western-backed South African depredations killed 1.5 million people. I need not speak of West Asia or much else …All of this, however, is barred from the annals of terrorism by a simple device, the term ‘terrorism’ like most terms of political discourse has two meanings — a literal one and a propagandistic one. Needless to add that the propagandistic version is preferred and pursued by the US. Terrorism is terrorism that is directed against the US and its friends and allies.” Chomksy had also drawn parallels between the US and the Nazis, “The Nazis, for example, bitterly condemned terrorism and conducted what they called counter terrorism against terrorist partisans. The US basically agreed and it organized and conducted similar counter terrorism in the post war years.”
And during the course of an earlier interview with me, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan’s grandson, Asfandyar Wali Khan, had come up with this rather simplistic explanation to the growing turmoil in today’s world: “If you have two badmashes (bad guys) in a village it’s okay, because the two will be busy settling scores with each other. But there will be chaos and confusion if there is only one badmash left! That’s the trouble in today’s world. There is only one badmash left! Also, where’s the leadership of calibre in today’s Muslim world. Religion was used by Americans in Afghanistan to create their base, otherwise Afghan struggles had been based on nationalism and not religion. Also, the ongoing atrocities against the Palestinians are hurting the Muslims the world over. Post 9/11, the situations in Iraq and Afghanistan are being looked at as if they are similar, which is not the case. The true essence and meaning of Islam is being overshadowed in this chaos which is unfortunate, for Islam stands for justice and peace. … it’s a known fact that way back in early 90s, madrasas and other religious institutions under the various camouflages, had been set up by the CIA, along the Afghan- Pakistan borders!”
And if we were to focus on Latin American countries, it’s best to hear what the well-known Mexican writer and columnist Juan Miguel De Mora had to tell me during the course of an interview whilst he was visiting New Delhi in 2004. When I had queried about the US, he began by quoting two former Mexican presidents: “Mexican president General Porfirio Diaz had said way back ( he was president till 1910 ) ‘Poor Mexico so far from God and so close to the US.’ Then another Mexican President – Adolfo Lopez Mateos –had said that the biggest problem faced by Mexico is ‘the US.’ Together with that Mora came up with his own comments: “But in my opinion both Mexican presidents were too diplomatic. President’s Bush‘s democracy is like Stalin’s and I have been writing in my columns that Bush’s policies are a danger to humanity.”
And in 2001, when I had interviewed Libya’s erstwhile ruler Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s son, Saif – EL Islam, I had asked him to comment on the ‘terror tags’ heaped by the Western Powers on his father and on his government, along the strain that they are funding terror groups. He had told me, “It all depends on your perception. Many liberation leaders were viewed as being terrorists but later they became heroes. In the sense when Nelson Mandela was in trouble we helped him out, when Mugabe was having problems we helped him too, so does that mean we helped terrorist outfits! Mind you, both these men fought liberation wars and later emerged as heroes. In fact, in my own country’s war for liberation from the Italians we had lost about three-quarters of our population, so realize the problems involved …it’s all a matter of perception and image.”
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Getting back to the people of Palestine, there ought to be an urgent call for ceasefire, truce talks, and together with that a lasting solution to the demands of the Palestinians.
Leaving you with this verse of the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish:
‘The war will end/
The leaders will shake hands/
The old woman will keep waiting for her martyred/
son/
The girl will wait for her beloved husband/
And those children will wait for their hero father/
I don’t know who sold our homeland/
But I saw who paid the price.’
