Relentless Israeli bombardments have been killing civilian Palestinians in the range of scores to hundreds every day. By now one per cent of the 2.3 million Palestinian population in the Gaza strip has been annihilated. At the rate the indiscriminate attacks are being carried out on a daily basis, before long the decimation of the trapped people in their own enclave may leave only a smaller number of survivors compared to the dead. As long as the Biden administration supplies arms and ammunition, the Jewish state seems to be happy-go-lucky in treating the Palestinians as games the way wild mammals and birds were once hunted.
Today, hunting wild animals as games is almost a thing of the past. But not so when it comes to hotspots like Israeli occupied Gaza even in peace time and now its declared war on Hamas, the acronym for Harakat al-Muqawana al-Islamiya (Islamic Resistance Movement), targets innocent civilians as if they are games. Devastated, Gaza is unliveable and lives including those of 1.1 million children are at risk. Deplorably, the entire world has been witnessing this barbaric crime against humanity. Can the present civilisation claim it to be a civilised world community at all?
Accepted that Hamas has started the conflict through its bloody incursion in Israeli territory but the innocent Palestinian civilians including women and children are not to blame. Yet, shockingly, they are falling victim to Israeli attacks in a greater number. The world stands as a silent spectator to the carnage. Why?
It is more because, the world was never sane ever since the West's predatory colonisation of Asia, Africa and Americas. The two World Wars began in Europe and had their origin in the competition of looting wealth and resources from colonies which subsequently took the industrial and commercial form with the plundered money fuelling invention and its practical use in industrialisation. Even the Middle East problem, that of Palestine in particular, is an offshoot of the great wars in Europe.
The emergence of Soviet Union and the rise of communism in East Europe forced the exploitative economic system in the West to turn not only pliant and also to some extent humane. In the Cold War era when the US and the Soviet Union glowered at each other, the deterrence had its beneficial impacts on smaller countries lest the rival disapproved of either of the rivals' intervention anywhere. That premise has vanished with the disintegration the Soviet Union and the crumbling of communist regimes in East Europe. Although the fulcrum has shifted to Sino-American cold war, Russia is still a superpower so far as intercontinental weaponry system is concerned.
Now the West and the Sino-Russian alliance have become used to siding with warring parties at conflict-ridden spots openly or overlooking one's direct intervention. Afghanistan and Iraq have witnessed this at a heavy cost. Similarly, Syria and Sudan have turned into such war theatres. Ukraine presents the ultimate case of aggression and tolerance. Had it not been the case, the Russian annexation of Crimea and attack on Ukraine would act as the incendiary for a Third World War.
This explains why the United Nations has turned into a paper tiger. It certainly bodes ill of the world facing --- or has already faced --- challenges like economic recession, Covid-19 pandemic, widespread inflation and food insecurity. The Biden administration has made the most of its advantage its currency --- the widely acceptable foreign exchange all across the globe---enjoys. So pervasive is its impact on other currencies that countries are now too busy to look beyond domestic affairs.
Thus civilisation stands stunted and demoralised in a confrontation with the big powers supporting brazenly Israel accused of committing genocide. South Africa alone has the mettle to bring the charge of genocidal crime against Israel with the International Court of Justice (ICJ). But when the big players are the backers of Israel and the geopolitics is governed more by economic and commercial interests, Israel has little to fear. Sale of weapons serves the mutual interests of the big powers no matter if they are in the rival camps. A stupendous affront to the advanced civilisation, Israeli massacre in Gaza may go on until the Gaza strip --- and maybe, the West Bank too --- get viciously depopulated.
nilratanhalder2000@yahoo.com