How long will the Palestinian's suffer?
There have been lots of seminars, conferences and meetings on UN declared International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian peoples on 29 November 2007. But what will be the outcome? How long this problem will continue and where lies the solution of the conflict, nobody knows. How long will the Palestinian people suffer?
"When pretext is far worse than crime, it amounts to something far more dangerous and then justice loses all its meaning and words lose the limits of depiction, and where killing becomes diligence, and calamity terms into a tradition, without any reaction against it, and where sheer coincidence never applies to the methodic action, and where voice is stifled in condemnation statements that are no more than ink on paper, and where conduct disregard consciousness, nothing can humanity have to boast of or be proud of." This is the first para of the Introduction of a book (CAIN'S APPLE) written by Zakaria Shahin (Journalist of the London-based AL- Arab newspaper).
Well-meaning people around the globe agree that the world is witnessing two models of killing culture; they are the USA & Israel. America which had exterminated 60 millions of the indigenous Red Indians, became a role model for Israel which has adapted American heritage and followed the same pattern for the same end.
Hartzel, the founder of the Zionist movement, wondered how the occupation of land could be achieved and what to do about the local communities, that is: what could the Zionist do with the Palestinian people who own the land?
In America, the conquest of the open New Land was a primitive way, where settlers used to gather on the borders and would advance violently and rapidly at the same time to occupy as much lands as they could conquer and grab. But this method is naive, he would say, and is no longer valid in the era of arms & colonialism. Hertzel thought that it would be no good to pick up a spear & a bayonet and go after bears, but....... 'we' will have to form a tough team of hunters and 'we' would gather the whole herd in one place, then 'we' would throw a destructing bomb on them. The Hartzel-plan is still being followed by Israel through the killings of the Palestinians and the horrible massacres that cannot be condemned enough.
In the tumult of daily massacres in Palestine and Iraq, President George W. Bush once mentioned about the relationship between the USA and Israel. He said 'Our nation is more powerful and secure because Israel is a true ally on whom we can rely.' This message does not differ much from Sharon's own words declaring bluntly that 'Israel is the greatest and the best foreign investment.'
This expression, which Bush used to open his speech, did not prevent him from relying on the 9/11 events that were exploited by Israel to the highest degree. Bush reaffirms that what happened in America and what is happening in Israel now imposes the need for a partnership in means and goals and requires common action through an alliance that brushes away differences. What unites America and Israel is not only partnership but also a similar situation. As soon as the Americans brought to perfection the killing means in Iraq and Afghanistan, the scene in Palestine ignited. This ignition is not sheer coincidence, since the mindset is one, weaponry is one and the objective is one. The US army commanders do not hide the fact that they send their troops for training in Israel and the US Defense Department 'The Pentagon' relies for its ammunitions in Iraq on Israeli factories and is planning to establish joint strategic military plants there.
During the last decade, the settlement, code named 'New Middle East', was going through presenting a solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict, but nowadays, coded as 'Broader Middle East', it means that stability of affairs for America and Israel no more requires any settlement but circumvents and jumps over it in order to reshape the region.
March 20th 2005 was the day when the American plans for the region were unmasked. After two and half years of occupation of Iraq, the US administration could not convince anyone of the justification it tried to circulate as the reasons behind its conquest of Iraq.
The so-called New World Order of the 'Pax Americana' maintains that 'we are the central position, and should maintain this position. The US has to take the lead of the world bearing the torch of the right and might morally, politically and militarily, in order to be the model for all the people of the world.' (See Jesse Helms).
Just after the collapse of the Socialist Block following the first Gulf War, the multi-polar old world order came to an end, only to be replaced by the so-called New World Order. The USA considers 9/11 a turning point between the past and the future in matters related to the political, strategic, economic and legal affairs and their mode of handling these affairs. All the nations of the world need to be conscious of the fact and take this into consideration. By occupying Iraq the USA in fact laid its hand on the Iraqi oil resources estimated at some 112 billion barrels, that is ¼ of the world's proven oil reserve, in addition to the oil of the other Gulf Countries.
It should be remembered, Twentieth Century was not the replica of Nineteenth Century and the Twenty First Century will be quite different from Twentieth Century. Oil and gas will dominate the present century as long as no alternative energy source is invented. The world is changing every day; we can recall why Saddam Hossain was hanged: because he wanted to replace dollars with Euro. Now the president of Iran, Ahmedinizad, is demanding oil price be paid in Euro, so America is contemplating to crush Iran.
In brief, it should be noted that what is happening in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine and many other places in the world is not an exception or an isolated incident but falls within the larger premeditated expansionist imperialistic American project and a capitalistic conspiracy of which Britain, Israel and many other powers are parties to. Political pundits are contemplating making a call to the world to try Bush, Blair and Sharon, but it is in fact a call to try the American history, the imperialist British history and the criminal racist and Zionist history.
The author is DG, Bangladesh Foundation for Development Research.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel.
Comments