By A. Faizur Rahman, New Age Islam
31 December 2024
On Oct.25 this year, the United Nations' human rights chief, Volker Turk, issued the grim warning that the "darkest moment" of Israel's war is unfolding in northern Gaza as the "Israeli military is subjecting an entire population to bombing, siege and starvation."[1] Turk urged world leaders to stop the coming genocide because, “under the Genocide Convention, State parties also have the responsibility to act to prevent such a crime, when risk becomes apparent."[2]
His assessment was justified within a week when 15 UN and humanitarian organizations - including WHO, UNDP, UNHCR, UNICEF and Oxfam - revealed how hospitals attacked by Israel were "almost entirely cut off from supplies...killing patients, destroying vital equipment, and disrupting life-saving services."[3]
Their statement also mentioned how schools serving as shelters were either bombed or forcibly evacuated; tents sheltering displaced families shelled and people burned alive; rescue teams deliberately attacked and thwarted in their attempts to pull people buried under the rubble of their homes.
In conclusion, the 15 organisations warned that the situation is "apocalyptic" to the extent that the entire Palestinian population in North Gaza "is at imminent risk of dying from disease, famine and violence." Death is imminent also because on Oct.28 Israel's parliament declared the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) a terror organisation and banned it from conducting any service inside Israel.[4]
To understand the scale of the impending cataclysm it is enough to know that Israel's ruthlessness has been so brutal that it has displaced the entire population in Gaza.[5] More than 2.2 million Palestinians are now living - or waiting to die - in an area of roughly 15 square miles in uninhabitable conditions.[6] In North Gaza alone an estimated 400,000 civilians are hoping to survive amid destroyed buildings and shattered infrastructure.[7] The most recent act of barbarism in this region was Israel's burning of the Kamal Adwan Hospital after forcibly removing staff and patients.[8]
According to Volker Turk, over 150,000 people have been killed, wounded, or missing since the assault on Gaza began. A Nov. 2024 article published in the Israel-based +972 Magazine contains this heartrending quote from a 31-year-old Nermine Labed, who fled North Gaza town of Beit Lahiya on foot with her four children on Nov. 17:
“While leaving the town, I saw many bodies lying on the ground, and dogs were devouring some of them....I also saw men and women who were wounded, still alive but drowning in their own blood, with no one to help them. This is not life; we are dying slowly."[9]
Toshiyuki Mimaki, co-chair of Nihon Hidankyo, a grassroots movement of survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs, which won the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize was so moved by the situation in Gaza that he fought back tears to recount how "children are being covered in blood and living every day without food, having their schools destroyed, stations destroyed and bridges destroyed."
"The people are wishing for peace", he said, but "politicians insist on waging war, saying, 'We won't stop until we win'. I think this true for Russia and Israel, and I always wonder whether the power of the United Nations couldn't put a stop to it."[10]
Is this Genocide?
The US veto appears to have rendered the UN powerless. But it continues to speak out fearlessly. The UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Michael Fakhri, in his July 2024 report on starvation and the right to food in Gaza states there is "clear evidence that Israel has committed genocide against the Palestinian people since at least October 2023."
Fakhri blames "third-party countries and businesses" for not only being "responsible for the illegal supply of weapons for Israel’s starvation campaign and genocide" but also being "complicit for years in the illegal destruction of the Palestinian food and water systems, and the illegal settlements of Palestinian territories."[11]
Fakhri's report confirms the finding of the International Court of Justice which in its Jan. 26, 2024 order had accepted that "at least some of the acts and omissions alleged by South Africa to have been committed by Israel in Gaza appear to be capable of falling within the provisions of the [Genocide] Convention."[12]
Article II of the Genocide Convention lists five crimes and states that the commission of any one of them would amount to genocide if the intent is "to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group." The five crimes include "(a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part."[13]
Scholar of Holocaust and genocide studies Raz Segal believes that Israel is guilty of all these crimes. For him, the assault on Gaza is "a textbook case of genocide unfolding in front of our eyes."[14]
Former IDF soldier and genocide historian, Omer Bartov, agrees. In an Aug. 2024 article he wrote that Israel was indeed acting “with intent to destroy, in whole or in part”, the Palestinian population in Gaza, “as such, by killing, causing serious harm, or inflicting conditions of life meant to bring about the group’s destruction”.[15]
Another genocide researcher Amos Goldberg wrote: "Yes, it is genocide. It is so difficult and painful to admit it, but despite all that, and despite all our efforts to think otherwise...we can no longer avoid this conclusion."[16]
Pope Francis too is now convinced that "what is happening in Gaza has the characteristics of a genocide." In a recent book, he called for a careful investigation "to determine whether it fits into the technical definition formulated by jurists and international bodies."[17]
On Dec. 05, Israeli historian Lee Mordechai released a report in which he alleged that "what Israel is currently doing to the Palestinian population in Gaza is consistent with the definition of genocide."[18]
On the same day, an Amnesty International report alleged that "Israel has carried out acts prohibited under the Genocide Convention, with the specific intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza." Agnès Callamard, Secretary General of Amnesty International said: “Our damning findings must serve as a wake-up call to the international community: this is genocide. It must stop now."[19]
Although Amnesty International's chapter in Israel disagreed with Callamard and refused to call it genocide, it nevertheless stated that “the scale of the killing and destruction carried out by Israel in Gaza has reached horrific proportions and must be stopped immediately.”[20]
The Human Rights Watch also concluded on 19 Dec. 2024 that "Israeli authorities’ and forces’ actions to deprive the population of Gaza of access to water amount to acts of genocide under the Genocide Convention and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Specifically, their actions amount to deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction of the Palestinian population in Gaza."[21]
However, the international community, especially the West, continues to display unbelievable apathy. Its silence, as repeatedly pointed out by the UN, could result in the entire population of Gaza being wiped out in a short time.
In the final analysis, even if the quibbling over the use of the term 'genocide' is ignored, it cannot be denied that what Israel is doing in Palestine and Lebanon is a crime of "horrific proportions" that needs to be stopped for not just being a blatant violation of international law but also for making a mockery of the Bible which is otherwise exploited by the Jewish state to claim the whole of Palestine as its "Promised Land."
The Ten Commandments in the second and fifth books of the Old Testament, Exodus and Deuteronomy respectively, among other things, warn: "You shall not murder"; "You shall not steal"; "You shall not give false testimony against your neighbour"; and “You shall not set your desire on your neighbour’s house or land....or anything that belongs to your neighbour.”[22]
Israel has violated all these injunctions with ghoulish relish as if to say that even the Bible would be atheistically scoffed at if it came in the way of the plot to capture the entire Palestine.
Resettling Gaza
There is good reason to believe that preparations are currently afoot in Israel to empty Gaza of the Palestinians and re-occupy it. In Jan. 2024, long before Israel's campaign of shock and awe had reached apocalyptic proportions, Israel's Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir had asked Jewish settlers to return to Gaza saying, "If we don't want another Oct. 7, we need to return home and control the land."[23]
That this was no empty rhetoric was proved less than 10 months later when in October a two-day conference titled Preparing to Resettle Gaza, was organised on the border of Gaza by members of Netanyahu's Likud party and the extremist group Nahala whose members see themselves as the redeemers of the Biblical 'Promised Land'.
Speaking from this infernal platform, Ben-Gvir warned the Palestinians: "The land of Israel is ours...leave to other countries" because it is "the best and most moral solution."[24]
But Ben-Gvir is not waiting for the Palestinians to leave. According to a news report (in The Guardian)[25], senior IDF officer Brig Gen Itzik Cohen during a press conference on Nov.5 announced that Israeli ground forces were getting closer to “the complete evacuation” of northern Gaza and residents will not be allowed to return home.
An IDF spokesperson tried to downplay the officer's comments saying they did not “reflect the IDF’s objectives and values.”[26] However, Cohen's statement is borne out by facts on the ground that Israel has been diabolically creating since Oct.7, 2023.
Another indication is the recent statement by Avi Dichter, Israel’s minister for food security and a member of the Israeli security cabinet, in which he confirmed that the Israeli military will remain in Gaza "for many years." An Israeli officer reportedly said that he had spent more than two months demolishing houses to clear ground for a series of big military bases in Gaza’s Netzarim corridor, a military zone between the Mediterranean coast and Gaza’s eastern perimeter fence.[27]
And now, the Zionist state is about to pump in $11 million to double the population in the Golan Heights, a region it conquered from Syria in 1967 and annexed in 1981. Netanyahu said: “Strengthening the Golan Heights is strengthening the State of Israel....We will continue to hold on to it, make it flourish, and settle it.”[28]
Total Annexation
Those not conversant with the history of Zionism could be deceived into believing that the angry talk of driving out the Palestinians from Gaza is a reaction to the Hamas attack. But Israel's decision to depopulate the occupied territories did not begin after Oct.7. Zionist irredentism predates it.
In December 2022, ten months before the Hamas attack, Netanyahu had dismissed the right of the Palestinians to establish their independent state by declaring that “the Jewish people have an exclusive and unquestionable right to all areas of the Land of Israel”, and therefore, his government “will promote and develop settlements in ... the Galilee, the Negev, the Golan, Judea, and Samaria.”[29]
Then, at the UN General Assembly on 22 Sep. 2023, fifteen days before the attack, Netanyahu mocked UN resolutions that support an independent Palestine by showing a map of Israel, which included all Palestinian territories, including Gaza and the West Bank.[30] No wonder, Israeli historian Adam Raz believes "Netanyahu is the number one opponent of a two-state solution."
In a recent interview, Raz revealed that since 1996 when he was first elected prime minister, and after winning a second term in office in 2009, Netanyahu has been "working hard to strengthen Hamas" because it is the only Palestinian organisation which does not favour a two-state solution. "Hamas was a tool to maintain the conflict while Israel had the upper hand", said Raz.[31]
In pursuance of Netanyahu's nefarious ambitions, the Knesset on 17 July 2024 overwhelmingly passed a resolution stating that it "firmly opposes the establishment of a Palestinian state west of Jordan" because it will "pose an existential danger to the State of Israel" and "destabilize the region.”[32]
Yet some commentators naively consider the Jewish state's expansionist agenda as nothing more than political posturing by the power-mad Netanyahu regime, as if to suggest that a post-Netanyahu Israel would enthusiastically work for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state on the 11,592 sq.km (42.88% of the original Palestine) allotted for it in UN resolution 181 (II) of Nov.29, 1947.
Among those hoping for this utopia are Hiba Husseini, former legal advisor to the Palestinian peace process delegation, and Yossi Beilin, former Israeli Minister of Justice.
In the name of pragmatic realism, their undisguisedly one-sided proposal 'The Holy Land Confederation as a Facilitator for the Two-State Solution' seeks to fob off on the Palestinians a formula that endorses Israel's brazen land grab by reducing the territory allocated to the Arabs by the UN from 42.88% to just 22.5% (6205 sq.km). The remaining 77.5% is magnanimously gifted to the Zionist state.[33]
Wishful thinkers such as Husseini and Beilin don't seem to understand that Israel would not accept anything less than 100%. In Oct 2024, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich described repeated attempts to reach a two-state solution as wrongheaded. He said there should be an “unequivocal Israeli statement to the Arabs and the entire world that a Palestinian state will not be established.”[34]
Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, agreed with Smotrich and said that Israel must abandon any policy based on concessions and “put up a political iron wall” against international efforts for a two-state solution.[35]
A Brief History
There is nothing new or surprising about these statements. The aim of political Zionism, as announced in 1897 by the First Zionist Congress held in Basle, has always been the establishment "for the Jewish people a publicly and legally assured home in Palestine.”[36] By this, the convener of the First Zionist Congress and founder of political Zionism, Theodor Herzl, meant "the restoration of the Jewish State" in Palestine.[37]
As the First Congress was held fifty years before the UN partitioned the region into Jewish and Arab states, the Palestine it refers to is the historic undivided country that was part of the Ottoman Empire.
Interestingly, it would appear from Herzl's 1902 novel Altneuland (the Old New Land of Palestine)[38] that he sought to establish Zionist sovereignty over the entire territory of Palestine not through violence but by fooling the Arabs into believing that Zionists were not land-robbers but saintly benefactors who will create a veritable Shangri-La in Palestine.
When the Palestinians refused to be taken in by Herzl's paradisiacal inveiglement, the Zionists who came after him first influenced the British into issuing the Balfour Declaration in 1917 for the establishment of a "national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine. Not many knew that "national home" was a euphemism for a Jewish state.
Pro-Zionist historian Benny Morris writes in his book Righteous Victims that representatives of the Zionists, at their first formal post-Balfour gathering in December 1918, called the Eretz-Yisrael Conference, resolved by a vote of 55 to 1 that the Zionist movement intended to establish not a "national home" but a "medina ivrif' (a Jewish state).
To achieve this, under the aegis of the World Zionist Organisation (WZO), they manipulated the British into a acquiring a Mandate over Palestine from the League of Nations in 1922.
The Mandate, which lasted till the creation of Israel in 1948, in blatant violation of the letter and spirit of Article 22 of the League of Nations authorised the British government “to place the country under such political, administrative and economic conditions as would secure the establishment of the Jewish national home.”
The aim was to facilitate the immigration of Jews into Palestine at the expense of the original inhabitants, Palestinian Arabs, who at the time of the mandate constituted 92% of the population. Official records show that in 1946 the Jewish population increased to 608,230 (out of a total population of 1,972,560) from 83,794 in 1922 when the Mandate was approved by the League of Nations.[39]
The response to this forced demographic change was rioting and civil war. When the British government tried to limit Jewish immigration and grant independence to Palestine, the Zionists unleashed an orgy of violence which included the killing of 91 senior officials by blowing up the King David Hotel at Jerusalem which was the seat of the government; the raiding of military stores; bombing Arab market places and homes; even the capture and hanging of British officers.[40]
Unable to control the Zionist terror, the British government in April 1947 formally referred the Question of Palestine to the UN which promptly partitioned it. This resulted in another civil war.
The Zionists responded with what is called Plan Dalet as a consequence of which, claims Israeli historian Ilan Pappe, more than half of Palestine’s native population, over 750,000 people, were uprooted, 531 villages destroyed, and 11 urban neighbourhoods emptied of their inhabitants.[41]
By the end of 1949, according to renowned jurist Henry Cattan (1906-1992), Israel had seized more than half the territory reserved for the Arab State. In exact terms, Israel increased its territory proposed by the UN from 14,500 sq. km to 20,850 sq. km. This was almost 80 per cent of the territory of Palestine.[42]
Guileful Pragmatism
These undeniable facts prove that the Zionists' acceptance of the UN Partition resolution in 1947 was an act of guileful pragmatism. The ultimate aim, as argued above, was the capture of entire Palestine.
Confirming this, Benny Morris informs us in Righteous Victims that Chaim Weizmann and Ben-Gurion, the first president and prime minister of Israel respectively, pressed for a solution based on partition because both saw it as "a stepping stone to further expansion and the eventual takeover of the whole of Palestine."
Weizmann argued: "The Jews would be fools not to accept it, even if [the land they were allocated] were the size of a tablecloth."
Ben-Gurion was more explicit. He wrote:
"[A] Jewish state in part [of Palestine] is not an end, but a beginning.... Our possession is important not only for itself... through this we increase our power, and every increase in power facilitates getting hold of the country in its entirety. Establishing a [small] state . . . will serve as a very potent lever in our historical efforts to redeem the whole country."[43]
Interestingly, the depravity and illegality of their intent forced some Zionists to make seemingly sincere noises every once in a while about understanding the rightness of Palestinian resistance. In 1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War Benny Morris quotes Ben-Gurion's unusual response to the Arab Revolt of 1936-1939:
“We must see the situation for what it is. On the security front, we are those attacked and who are on the defensive. But in the political field we are the attackers and the Arabs are those defending themselves. They are living in the country and own the land, the village. We live in the Diaspora and want only to immigrate [to Palestine] and gain possession of [lirkosh] the land from them.”
He repeated these views during a conversation with Zionist leader Nahum Goldmann after the creation of Israel:
“I don’t understand your optimism. . . . Why should the Arabs make peace? If I was an Arab leader I would never make terms with Israel. That is natural: We have taken their country. Sure, God promised it to us, but what does that matter to them? Our God is not theirs. We come from Israel, it’s true, but two thousand years ago, and what is that to them? There has been anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They only see one thing: We have come here and stolen their country. Why should they accept that?”[44]
We know from the violent history of Israel's brutalities against the Palestinians that, like journalist Piers Morgan's moral quandary[45], the Zionists' candour was too artificial to be taken seriously. Ben-Gurion himself, on another occasion, argued that Palestinians knew the reality. He asked: "What Arab cannot do his math and understand that immigration at the rate of 60,000 a year means a Jewish state in all Palestine?"[46]
But the statement that forms "the crux of Israeli-Palestinian relations", according to Morris, was made in April 1956 by Israeli military leader Moshe Dayan at the funeral of a security officer killed by the Palestinians:
"For eight years now, they [the Palestinians] have sat in the refugee camps of Gaza, and have watched how, before their very eyes, we have turned their lands and villages, where they and their forefathers previously dwelled, into our home ... We are a generation of settlement, and without the steel helmet and the gun's muzzle we will not be able to plant a tree or build a house.. . . That is the fate of our generation. This is our choice—to be ready and armed, tough and harsh—or to let the sword fall from our hands and our lives be cut short."
The last line of this speech - in which Dayan exhorts the Zionists "to be ready and armed, tough and harsh" to achieve their ultimate aim - was quoted by Israeli President Isaac Herzog on 8 Oct. 2023, the day after the Hamas attack, as if to remind the Israelis of the importance of ruthless force in their goal of taking over entire Palestine.[47]
This is what Shertok, the first foreign minister of Israel, meant when he said:
"We have forgotten that we have not come to an empty land to inherit it, but we have come to conquer a country from a people inhabiting it.... Recently, there has been appearing in our newspapers the clarification about "the mutual misunderstanding" between us and the Arabs, about "common interests" [and] about "the possibility of unity and peace between the two fraternal peoples." . . . [But] we must not allow ourselves to be deluded by such illusive hopes . . . for if we cease to look upon our land, the Land of Israel, as ours alone and we allow a partner into our estate— all content and meaning will be lost to our enterprise."[48]
US-Israel Symbiosis
These facts establish beyond doubt that Israel never wanted the Palestinians to have their independent state within the frontiers approved by the UN in its Partition resolution of 29 Nov.1947. And now, thanks to its incremental occupation over the past 75 years, the Zionist state is on the verge of realising its original aim of annexing the whole of Palestine.
Smotrich hopes to make God a party to this ungodly land grab. After having already announced that the Gaza Strip is a “part of the Land of Israel”[49], on 11 Nov. 2024, he said: "The year 2025 will, with God’s help, be the year of sovereignty in Judea and Samaria.[Biblical terms for West Bank]”[50]
Sensing this, 46 UN experts had alerted on 26 July 2023 (two months before the Oct.7 attack) that "a concrete effort may be underway to annex the entire occupied Palestinian territory in violation of international law.” The experts pointed out that in February 2023 Israel transferred most of the governing powers over the West Bank to the additional minister of defence, Bezalel Smotrich, effectively making him the de facto governor of the occupied West Bank."
"Israel’s annexation of the occupied Palestinian territory is obfuscated by political rhetoric, debates and negotiations, which ultimately rest on double standards,” they said.[51]
In June 2020, another group of 47 UN experts had stated:
"We express great regret about the role of the United States of America in supporting and encouraging Israel’s unlawful plans for the further annexation of occupied territory. On many occasions over the past 75 years, the United States has played an important role in the advancement of global human rights. On this occasion, it should be ardently opposing the imminent breach of a fundamental principle of international law, rather than actively abetting its violation.”[52]
This makes it obvious that the USA is the only country that could stop the impending capture of all the land allocated by the UN for an independent Palestinian state. But in a display of complete apathy towards the Palestinians' right to life and sovereignty over their own land, the Biden administration has been doing very little besides watching Israel commit one of the worst massacres in modern history in the name of "the right to self-defence."
On the contrary, when the International Criminal Court (ICC) on Nov. 21, 2024 issued warrants of arrest for Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, "for crimes against humanity and war crimes"[53], President Biden lost no time in describing the warrants as "outrageous" and vowed to "always stand with Israel against threats to its security."[54]
Mr. Biden completely ignored the significance of the fact that one of the experts who recommended the ICC to issue arrest warrants against the Israeli leaders was Theodor Meron, a 94-year-old Holocaust survivor.[55]
Over the last year the US has vetoed several UN resolutions demanding a ceasefire in Gaza[56] forcing at least 12 Biden administration officials to resign and issue a statement accusing the US government of clinging to a "failed policy" that has not only been devastating for the Palestinians but has "deeply undermined" US credibility worldwide "at a time we need it most."[57]
No wonder the US State Department is facing a lawsuit brought by Palestinians and Palestinian Americans accusing the agency of deliberately circumventing the Leahy law to continue funding Israeli military units accused of widespread atrocities in the occupied Palestinian territories.[58]
If the nominations of Mike Huckabee and Pete Hegseth by President-elect Mr. Donal Trump are any indication, the incoming administration's Middle East policy is likely to be no different from Mr. Biden's.
Huckabee, the next US ambassador to Israel, is of the view that “there’s really no such thing as a Palestinian”, and "no such thing as an occupation,” while the new secretary of defence Hegseth is known for his dictum: “If you love America, you should love Israel."[59]
To make matters worse, Israel’s next ambassador to Washington, Yechiel Leiter, is also a hardliner who believes in his country's ultimate “sovereignty” over the West Bank.[60]
This seemingly baffling symbiosis between the world's oldest democracy and an identitarian state pretending to be a democracy is underpinned by two dogmatic assumptions. One, Israel is an indispensable US ally in the Middle East; two, the Jewish state is entitled to its ideological aspirations which are rooted in biblical misinterpretations.
It was the first assumption that made Vice President Biden assure the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in 2013 that Washington's deep commitment to the security of Israel is also "a strategic commitment" because it is "in our naked self-interest, beyond the moral imperative."[61]
Ten years later, President Biden gave us a glimpse of the second assumption when he identified himself as a non-Jewish Zionist,[62] and invoked Ben-Gurion's expansionist fantasy to state that Israel and the US have been working together "so that the dream of generations will be fulfilled."[63]
Not surprisingly, Israeli leaders have made the most of such pro-Zionist expressions from American politicians. During his address to the US Congress on July 24, 2024, Netanyahu sought to convince Americans that "our enemies are your enemies, our fight is your fight, and our victory will be your victory."
The Israeli prime minister even tried to make Americans believe that it was his country that was protecting the USA, not the other way around. He said: "When Israel acts to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, nuclear weapons that could destroy Israel and threaten every American city....we’re not only protecting ourselves. We’re protecting you."
We "help keep American boots off the ground while protecting our shared interests in the Middle East," Netanyahu added to round off his aggressive sales pitch.[64]
The standing ovation he received during his speech[65] indicates the extent to which American politicians and law-makers have bought into the Israeli narrative.
The Way Forward
Cooperation between countries is a sine qua non of human progress. But the US must understand that its unconditional support for Israeli irredentism in "naked self-interest" despite its atrocious acts of commission and omission against innocent civilians in Gaza and Lebanon is a violation of its own Judeo-Christian values, and hence, not a moral imperative.
As shown above, founders of the Zionist state openly admitted that "the Land of Israel" did not belong to them. Nonetheless, the Palestinians, to whom the land belonged, had long back accepted Israel's right to exist in the territory given by the UN even though they considered the Partition resolution illegal.
Yet they are not being allowed to establish their independent state on the remaining land. As recently as April 2024, the US used its veto in the Security Council to stop the UN from recognizing a Palestinian state by making it a full member of the world body.[66]
One hopes President-elect Trump would question and stop the Jewish state’s invocation of mythic theology to subjugate, dispossess, starve and now obliterate Palestinians in total violation of international law.
He must understand that the greatness of America lies in ensuring that its weapons and financial aid are not used by any country to capture and annex territory that does not belong to it. We know from history that violent hatred does not bring peace or security.
Israel has been given billions of dollars in aid and a huge quantity of sophisticated arms from the US ever since its creation in 1948. But it has not brought peace or security to the region. In fact, thinker Nassim Nicholas Taleb believes that Israel's heavy dependence on the US has made it politically and economically fragile.[67]
A perpetual war against the Palestinians would only sustain violent movements such as the Hamas. The only way of ensuring the dissolution of Palestinian resistance is to give them the independent state they deserve. Israel must realise that just as it has the right to exist an independent Palestinian state too has the right to exist.
On 14 Nov. 2024, the UN General Assembly overwhelmingly adopted a resolution (A/C.3/79/L.49) which reaffirmed "the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, including the right to their independent State of Palestine", and urged "all States and the specialized agencies and organizations of the United Nations system to continue to support and assist the Palestinian people in the early realization of their right to self-determination."[68]
This resolution is an endorsement of another UNGA resolution (A/RES/67/19) adopted on 29 Nov. 2012 which inter alia affirmed the UN's "determination to contribute to the achievement of the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people and the attainment of a peaceful settlement in the Middle East that ends the occupation that began in 1967 and fulfils the vision of two States: an independent, sovereign, democratic, contiguous and viable State of Palestine living side by side in peace and security with Israel based on the pre-1967 borders."[69]
Mr. Trump is in a unique position in history to emphatically deliver this message to Israel for permanent peace in the Middle East.
Notes
[1] See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bE7kBOQcwHE
[2] See: https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/10/turk-says-world-must-act-darkest-moment-gaza-conflict-unfolds
[3] See: https://www.un.org/unispal/document/statement-by-iasc-01nov24/
[4] See: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/28/israeli-lawmakers-pass-bill-that-could-halt-unwra-relief-work-in-gaza
[5] See: https://edition.cnn.com/2024/07/06/middleeast/palestinians-displaced-gaza-israel-intl/index.html
[6] See: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/gaza-humanitarian-zones-smaller-than-manhattan-rcna167056
[7] See: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/10/24/israel-northern-gaza-humanitarian-collapse/
[8] See: https://www.thehindu.com/news/international/israeli-troops-forcibly-remove-staff-and-patients-from-northern-gaza-hospital-officials-say/article69035063.ece
[9] See: https://www.972mag.com/beit-lahiya-gaza-rubble-corpses/
[10] See: https://www.reuters.com/world/nobel-laureate-hidankyo-co-chair-worries-about-children-israel-gaza-2024-10-11/
[11] See: https://www.un.org/unispal/document/right-to-food-report-17jul24/
[12] See: https://www.icj-cij.org/node/203447
[13] See: https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/atrocity-crimes/Doc.1_Convention%20on%20the%20Prevention%20and%20Punishment%20of%20the%20Crime%20of%20Genocide.pdf
[14] See: https://jewishcurrents.org/a-textbook-case-of-genocide
[15] See: https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/aug/13/israel-gaza-historian-omer-bartov
[16] See: https://thepalestineproject.medium.com/yes-it-is-genocide-634a07ea27d4
[17] See: https://apnews.com/article/pope-vatican-gaza-israel-genocide-book-62907898cead13dbcfd603592263904c
[18] See: https://witnessing-the-gaza-war.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Bearing-witness-to-the-Israel-Gaza-War-v6.5.5-5.12.24.pdf
[19] See: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/12/amnesty-international-concludes-israel-is-committing-genocide-against-palestinians-in-gaza/
[20] [B] See: https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/amnesty-israel-rejects-parent-groups-report-accusing-israel-of-genocide-in-gaza/
[21] See: https://www.hrw.org/report/2024/12/19/extermination-and-acts-genocide/israel-deliberately-depriving-palestinians-gaza
[22] See: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Deuteronomy%205%3A6-21&version=NIV
[23] See: https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-ministers-join-ultranationalist-conference-urging-gaza-resettlement-2024-01-29/ Also watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riLA5r8D4ac
[24] See: https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/edge-gaza-israeli-settlers-want-back-2024-10-21/
[25] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/nov/06/palestinians-will-not-be-allowed-to-return-to-homes-in-northern-gaza-says-idf
[26] See: ibid.
[27] See: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/nov/29/israeli-military-to-remain-in-gaza-for-years-food-minister-says
[28] See: https://www.timesofisrael.com/cabinet-approves-11-million-plan-to-double-population-of-golan-heights/
[29] See: https://www.wrmea.org/israel-palestine/israels-far-right-government-alienates-even-american-zionists.html
[30] See: https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/politics-and-diplomacy/article-760189
[31] See: https://www.972mag.com/netanyahu-hamas-october-7-adam-raz/?utm_source=972+Magazine+Newsletter&utm_campaign=a6d926f00c-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_9_12_2022_11_20_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f1fe821d25-a6d926f00c-320830489
[32] See: https://www.timesofisrael.com/knesset-votes-overwhelmingly-against-palestinian-statehood-days-before-pms-us-trip/
[33] See: https://ecf.org.il/media_items/1538
[34] See: https://www.timesofisrael.com/smotrich-urges-ramping-up-west-bank-gaza-settlements-pushing-palestinians-out/
[35] Ibid.
[36] See: https://mfa.gov.il/Jubilee-years/Pages/1897-The-First-Zionist-Congress-takes-place-in-Basel,-Switzerland.aspx#:~:text=The%20First%20Zionist%20Congress%20adopted,Jews%20living%20there%2C%20called%20Palestinians.
[37] A Jewish State By Theodor Herzl, Federation of American Zionists, New York, 1917.
[38] See: https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/quot-altneuland-quot-theodor-herzl
[39] Henry Cattan, The Palestine Question (Croom Helm, 1988), p. 28
[40] Ibid., p. 30
[41] See: https://ciaotest.cc.columbia.edu/olj/jps/vol36-141/vol36-141_b.pdf
[42] Henry Cattan, The Palestine Question, p. 69
[43] Righteous Victims By Benny Morris, p. 138
[44] 1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War By Benny Morris, Yale University Press (2008) p. 393. Benny Morris was quoting from The Jewish Paradox By Nahum Goldmann, p.99
[45] See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udBTnCtGg9Y
[46] Righteous Victims, p. 122
[47] See: https://www.gov.il/en/pages/president-isaac-herzog-s-address-to-the-nation-8-oct-2023
[48] See: Righteous Victims By Benny Morris, p. 91
[49] See: https://www.timesofisrael.com/government-ministers-call-for-new-settlements-in-gaza-at-ultranationalist-conference/
[50] See: https://www.timesofisrael.com/smotrich-says-trumps-victory-an-opportunity-to-apply-sovereignty-in-the-west-bank/
[51] https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2023/07/international-community-must-act-end-israels-annexation-occupied-west-bank
[52] See: https://www.ohchr.org/en/news/2020/06/israeli-annexation-parts-palestinian-west-bank-would-break-international-law-un
[53] See: https://www.icc-cpi.int/news/situation-state-palestine-icc-pre-trial-chamber-i-rejects-state-israels-challenges
[54] See: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/11/21/statement-from-president-joe-biden-on-warrants-issued-by-the-international-criminal-court/
[55] See: https://forward.com/news/615961/theodor-meron-international-criminal-court-amal-clooney-netanyahu-khan/
[56] See: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cjr4p9rg8zlo
[57] See: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c725wxky293o and https://x.com/humeyra_pamuk/status/1808231873413538170
[58] See: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/dec/17/palestine-israel-leahy-lawsuit
[59] See: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/25/pete-hegseth-book-attacks-nato-alliances
[60] See: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/nov/08/yechiel-leiter-us-ambassador-israel-netanyahu
[61] https://embassies.gov.il/washington/NewsAndEvents/Pages/Vice-President-Biden's-Speech-at-AIPAC.aspx
[62] See: https://edition.cnn.com/2024/07/15/politics/biden-zionist-speedy-360-interview/index.html
[63] See: https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/biden-full-text-without-israel-theres-not-a-jew-in-the-world-thats-secure/
[64] See: https://www.timesofisrael.com/were-protecting-you-full-text-of-netanyahus-address-to-congress/
[65] Watch: https://www.indiatoday.in/world/video/watch-netanyahu-slams-pro-gaza-protesters-gets-standing-ovation-in-us-congress-2571513-2024-07-25
[66] See: https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/04/1148731
[67] See: https://today.lorientlejour.com/article/1362814/is-israel-a-fragile-state-interview-with-nassim-nicholas-taleb.html
[68] See: https://documents.un.org/doc/undoc/ltd/n24/336/45/pdf/n2433645.pdf
[69] See: https://documents.un.org/doc/undoc/gen/n12/479/74/pdf/n1247974.pdf
-------
A. Faizur Rahman is Secretary-General of the Islamic Forum for the Promotion of Moderate Thought. He can be reached at themoderates2020@gmail.com and on Twitter at @FaizEngineer
URL: https://www.newageislam.com/islam-politics/zionism-annexing-palestine-fulfilment-/d/134206
New Age Islam, Islam Online, Islamic Website, African Muslim News, Arab World News, South Asia News, Indian Muslim News, World Muslim News, Women in Islam, Islamic Feminism, Arab Women, Women In Arab, Islamophobia in America, Muslim Women in West, Islam Women and Feminism