The Gaza Crisis

INTRODUCTION

As a person who holds facts superior to emotions, I often find myself perplexed by matters of conscience. This usually leads to a plethora of research and analysis to unfold the truth and often ends in a conclusion that in an issue, it is not a matter of one side being entirely correct and the other entirely incorrect; rather, both sides may possess their own valid points and shortcomings.

The tear of a mother stains more than the blood of a soldier, the brunt of a war's consequences is borne by the common man not the elites. World leaders make decisions behind closed doors in their air-conditioned rooms. They are safe but a farmer, a potter or a corporate worker is not. War cries often turn into screams of children. In short, a battleground is the total sum of the blood of the soldiers, tears of mothers, screams of children and misguided choices made by those in power.

The current controversial topic is the Israel - Palestine war in which supporters of both sides are putting up compelling arguments. However, something to be noted is that many individuals who are engaged in this widespread awareness movement are acting and speaking solely based on emotions. A just and equitable justice system cannot work solely on the basis of emotions which are of course, very subjective, but that does not mean that the system does not care for and doesn't consider emotions. Simply, in the matter of conscience, the law of the majority has no place. In confusing situations which are laden with moral dilemmas, only one thing is to be done; follow the law. When we look into things, taking into account just the facts, our primary source of information is history. But as all approaches, this one also has its shortcomings. The wording "History is written by the victors" attributed to Winston Churchill questions the credibility let alone the "infallibility" of historical documentation.

Taking the aforementioned arguments into consideration, I researched and tried to unfold the reality, morality and factuality of the situation, and moreover present my take on the Gaza crisis.


History's Favourite Chapter

Let’s look a bit into the history of the land that is being fought over. Around 1700 BC, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob settled in the Canon region (approximately present-day Israel, West Bank and Gaza Strip). In around 1000 BC, King Saul established the Israelite monarchy, which was later ruled by King David, by whom Jerusalem was made the capital of the kingdom. King David’s son Solomon was the one to build the first temple in Jerusalem and, after the death of King Solomon, the kingdom was divided into two parts: the Kingdom of Israel in the north and the Kingdom of Judah in the south.

The regions were subjected to numerous conquests which resulted in the decrease of the Jewish population. A major conquest to be noted that brought significant changes is the Roman conquest, which changed the name of the Kingdom of Judah to “Palestine” merely just to remove the Jewish influence and relations with the land of Israel. The Roman Empire was coming down and around this time Christianity had found its way to the top and had become a dominant religion. After the rise of Islam, there was an Arab conquest which led to the construction of the dome of the rock in Jerusalem in 691 CE. What was the result of this aforementioned storyline? Jerusalem had ultimately become the holy land of the three Abrahamic religions; Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

The human mind is quite fascinating, no matter how much we advocate harmony or egalitarianism, we crave the 4 Ps: Power, Pride, Pelf and Pleasure. The first P, the thirst for power is seen abundantly throughout the globe. History is exhibit no.1 to the havoc caused by this greed. Lust for power has very evidently disintegrated families, communities, societies, nations and kingdoms. A prime example of this is when the Christians in Jerusalem were bitterly tyrannized by the Seljuk Turks in the 11th century. The Seljuk Turks were a Turkic Sunni Muslim dynasty that ruled parts of Central Asia and the Middle East (Great Seljuk Empire, 11th - 14th century). An attack is often responded to with retaliation, so the Christians in Europe launched several crusades to regain control over the holy city. During this time, many Jews were killed. From 1517 till World War I, the holy land was under the control of the Ottoman Empire and the land was unofficially called Palestine.

At the beginning of the 20th century, there was a mass resettlement of Jews from Europe to the ancient holy land, which was caused by a movement in the 19th century that aimed for a Jewish national state, and thus this gave birth to Zionism.

After World War I, under the Balfour declaration of 1917, the British agreed to establish a national home for the Jews in Palestine. The friction between the Jews and the Arabs was only increasing and the Nazi reign in Germany did not help the situation. During the 1930s, many more Jews settled in Palestine, fearing oppression by the Nazi government, and this was welcomed by an anti-immigration policy by the British, which further enhanced the discord between the Jews, Arabs and the British, but the British had to back down after things got out of hand when more and more Jews moved from Europe to Palestine after the holocaust.

After World War II, the United Nations proposed a plan to partition Palestine into two independent states, one for the Jews and one for the Arabs, with Jerusalem becoming an International zone. The plan proposed by the UN gave a majority of the land to the Jews, who only accounted for one-third of the population, and the plan was hence rejected by the Arabs. Shortly after the British completed its withdrawal from Palestine, Israel declared itself as an independent state on 14th May 1948.

The very next day, after Israel had been declared independent, the neighbouring Arab countries, Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Palestine, waged war on Israel and this war is known as the Arab-Israeli War of 1948. Israel won the war and captured parts of the land that was allotted to Palestine during the partition and Egypt occupied the Gaza Strip and Jordan occupied the West Bank. Many Palestinians hence became refugees in the Arab countries.

The Palestine Liberation Organization was formed in 1964 and was recognized as a terrorist organization by Israel and the United States of America. The second Arab-Israeli war started after the Israeli air force attacked the Egyptian air force on 5th June 1967. This war only lasted for six days and Israel captured a huge chunk of land from Egypt (Gaza Strip, West Bank, Golan Heights, Sinai). On October 6th 1973, when the whole of Israel was celebrating Yom Kippur, the Arab coalition launched a surprise attack on Israel. In 1974, the UN assembly recognized the PLO as the official representative of the Palestinians and in 1979 Egypt made a peace treaty with Israel and recognized Israel as a country and, in return, Israel gave back the land it had captured from Egypt.

Even though Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin recognized the PLO and gave back the Gaza Strip and West Bank area, the Israeli settlements in those areas and the cultural diversity between the Jews and the Palestinians did not favour their dream of an independent nation. Even the most sought-after ideology can be ruined by extremist thinking. Similarly, when Palestine was finally recognized as a country, extremists from both sides found it hard to swallow as the pill of peace was alien to them. Jewish extremists who despised the formation of Palestine assassinated their own prime minister for making peace with the Palestinians and, in 1987, Muslim extremists formed a group called Hamas that wanted to completely wipe out Israel and was also against the PLO as it was making peace with Israel.

Hamas has launched numerous attacks on Israel and in 2006 the elections were won by Hamas defeating the PLO. This led to a civil war. In 2007, the PLO took control of the West Bank and Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip.

This Day

On 7th October 2023, the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah, Hamas launched 5000 missiles on Israel, which led to the tragic death of thousands of people. Despite having one of the best air and missile defense systems, it couldn't handle 5000 missiles at once. The attacks were not just by missiles; armed men openly fired into the public and women were made to parade naked through the streets. War crimes and crimes against humanity were committed, including murder, rape, torture and kidnapping. Around 1200 men, women, the elderly and children were murdered on that Shabbat day. This is the beginning of the current Gaza crisis.


Conclusion

As I mentioned before, attacks are often responded to with retaliation. Israel retaliated against the attacks by Hamas, but as I said, the brunt of a war’s consequences is borne by the common man not the elites, and even though Hamas launched the attacks on Israel, the consequences are suffered by the innocent lives in Gaza. Targeting Palestinians for Hamas' actions is just as misguided as blaming all Saudis for Osama bin Laden's birthplace. From an evolutionary perspective, no individual can claim true native status to any location. Therefore, if there exists a formal agreement acknowledging nations, it stands to reason that adhering to this framework is more sensible than clinging to historical roots (either group). Even though it is not practically possible to pinpoint every Hamas member and deal with them individually, it still raises an ethical question: is it acceptable to sacrifice a few innocent lives if it means the guilty ones will be gone with them? Anyone with common sense would say no with a look of disbelief, but why is it still happening? The answer is Power, Pride, Pelf and Pleasure.

The primary responsibility of a government is to safeguard its citizens, whether this stems from genuine concern or not. However, we observe nations worldwide making efforts to uphold their citizens' right to life, even if it paradoxically involves infringing upon the rights of individuals in other countries. The state has no business in an innocent’s right to live. Misguided choices made by the ones in power should not result in innocents losing their lives.

National development should not compromise international welfare. Your right might be someone’s justice. Observing the events unfolding globally, sleeping soundly without fearing whether your loved ones will be alive tomorrow feels like a true privilege. The total cost of a war is joint defeat.




         “In war, there are no winners, only widows.”

                                                                      - Liu Shaoqi

  

                                                                                                                     Meval Thomas