The Persistence of Savagery

Israeli Misadventure: Can this stop the march of History?

The schizophrenic explanations given by Israel to the butchery in Gaza are beyond condemnability. The latest assault on UN school to kill more than forty children is the act that is not enough to render the commissions of Israel the war crimes for the neo-fanatics in the west. It is still the ‘conflict’ or the ‘incursion’ by the Israel which is to be merely placated to minimize the humanitarian crisis. It is indeed shameful for us to stay calm in our dwellings thousand kilometers away from Palestine. But this does not apply for the so called leaders and the diplomats of the world.

The uproar in the aftermath of the recent Mumbai assault by the terrorists that killed close to 160 people including few Americans and Israelis can be contrasted with the lukewarm response by the authorities worldwide to current Israeli assault in GAZA with more than 800 Palestinians killed and the killing spree still continuing. How is the terror to be defined? Is it the monopoly of those who hate the US and the establishments worldwide? This appears to be the belief of at least the ruling elites worldwide with few exceptions like Chavez who has acted promptly by expelling the Israeli ambassador from Venezuela.

It was barely shocking to hear from an Israeli diplomat how the massacre of the children in the UN school was justifiable. It was in a sharp contrast with the views expressed by a former Israeli pilot Yonatino who demanded all the actions of Israel to be stopped immediately to avert the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. But all these sentiments of the common folks are to be simply disregarded so long as the elites have no fear of loosing elections or being deprived of power due to their actions. This irony represents the most unfortunate tendency of the modern world: those who have some regard for humanity do not reach in powerful executive posts and those who can do so sacrifice their humane ideas before ascending to the thrones.

The discourse that will be increasingly prominent now in this terror haunted world is this: what exactly constitutes terrorism? Much to the dislike of the ruling elites everywhere, and amidst the increasing failure of the US and allies to combat terror in many fronts, this new discourse is going to deprive them of an important legitimacy that they are still enjoying amidst the vacillating perceptions of the ordinary people. If the military might and the Jingoism of the media houses are with you then you can kill innocents and then prove them to be guilty. You can bomb the terrorized civilians intentionally and later prove that they were used as the human shields by the terrorists. The international humanitarian laws and protocols are nothing but the nuisances to be bypassed by all the means. This is exactly where the state terror converges with the ordinary terrorism throwing all its guises of respects to human rights and the like. The self perpetuating cycle of confrontation that thus begins takes its toll in the civilians who can only step in the death traps. But how long will this last?

This reminds us of the WW I that the powers had fought ‘to end all wars’. But that begot a more violent and barbaric WW II. The ‘wars on terror’ that are being fought today with indiscriminate use of the violence and intimidation of the civilians also seem to be headed to similar destination. Labeled by Pervez oodbhoy, chairman of physics department in Quaid-e-Azam university, as ‘the illegitimate offspring of the union between the US under Ronald Reagen and Pakistan under Zia-ul-haq’ , the radical extremism was well nurtured by the superpower so long as it served its purpose. The devastation of the civilian lives and the properties during the ill-famed ‘war on terror’ expanded the scope of confrontations as never before.

The current Israeli assault on Gaza is all set to break all the records of savagery in the recent history. Israel’s intention to settle the scores of the strategic setback it suffered in its assault on Hezbollah last time appears too obvious. But is this attempt going to prove to be the ‘once and for ever’ remedy to rocket attacks by Hamas as claimed by Israel? If the history were to end whenever a favorable moment for somebody came, as foolishly announced after the collapse of the USSR, this could be the case. But the events in the last two decades are enough to show how history marches despite the wishes of some to stop at a point. This call of history is the thing the US and its allies including Israel are reluctant to comprehend. History has also shown that it has its own way to punish those who refuse to learn from it. Let’s see how this task is executed this time if a war plane does not drop a cluster bomb onto our home before that.

7^th Jan 2009, BHAIRAHAWA