More pain in Palestine

Israel and Palestine are words rarely out of the headlines and it is never for reasons of good news. The creation of the state of Israel as right and just as it may have been has blighted the lives of millions and continues to do so daily. The Palestinians have suffered the most as they see their ancestral lands eaten away by Israeli settlements and the Gaza Strip has become little better than a concentration camp, the inmates starved of resources. The Palestinians fight a slow-burn guerilla war against the vastly superior Israeli forces, which have no qualms about inflicting disproportionate casualties on those that throw stones and fly incendiary kites over the battle lines.

Holy places are in no way exempt from the fight and the Al Aqsa mosque, the third holiest shrine in Islam, is the latest to suffer when Israeli troopers entered it in pursuit of stone-throwers on Friday, July 27^th. The mosque is surrounded by a compound that is a frequent flashpoint but it is extremely rare for the Israelis to enter the mosque and marks a new low in their relations with the Palestinians. Around 20 youths were detained and four Israelis injured.

Elsewhere a woman doctor in Gaza found her husband among the casualties, a 14-year-old boy and an unidentified man were reported dead and the toll now stands at 134 since the current wave of protests by Palestinians started on 30^th March. Internationally, there is a collective inertia towards the conflict and there is no meaningful process in train aimed at peace. America and none of the European powers want involvement and the conflict is going to fester on for years, the well of resentments of all sides deepening by the day. There is an anodyne condemnation of violence by external powers as to the Israeli handling of the Gaza crisis which Israel can safely ignore secure in its impunity. Neither side is going to rest until it sees the extinction, by whatever means, of the other and the legacy of the 20^th century and its wars is going to infect the 21^st for generations to come.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 29^th, 2018.

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