In search of options in Gaza

Meanwhile innocent blood flows freely without intervention to stop the massacre. Middle Eastern history may be replete with such ruthlessness and genocidal undertakings justifying the impunity but for Heaven’s sake we are out of medieval times and claim unmatched progress of both civilisation and value-based existence of human societies the world over. Israel is razing Gaza to ground and snuffing life out of all living humans. Whatever angers Zionism isn’t yet quenched sufficiently at the altar of innocent blood. Hamas, in the meanwhile, seems to have simply melted away as is the won't of any militant group. We don’t even know how many of them have died, but we do know the number of Palestinians killed in this relentless Israeli campaign would border around or over ten thousand, and still counting, by the time this gets to print. The original sin lost to another story of biblical rendition of the past in this land of common inheritance.

Israel holds the cards to when it may decide enough blood has been shed. So, where is Hamas? Why has it ceded this control away to Israel? If it began an operation and did what it did, where was the subsequent plan? And to what end an ill-thought aggression or defiance or freedom-fight, call what favours your palate, was undertaken? What of the 57 Islamic countries and their purported organisation, the OIC, as hellfire rains from the skies and from across the land? The sentiment may be extreme and inflamed on the streets — in some countries only, please note — but other than wishing ill-will and pleadings to God to bring disaster on Israel, there is little else that these 57 nations have forged together or singly to stop the loss of innocent life in Gaza.

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From Palestine belongs to the Palestinians, to a separate homeland, to stopping the illegal expansions, to fighting for freedom, to peace deals, to the notion of a two-state solution, we have now descended to the bottom of the ladder of intended notions to one of stopping innocent blood under a relentless and ruthless Israeli military campaign. Call it what you may, genocide, ethnic cleansing, a garb to expand and assimilate more territory to Israel, it is the innocent who pay the wages for someone’s tactical and strategic blunder or a one-off extravaganza and show of power which could not last beyond its initiation. Wars win freedom, not ill-timed and ill-thought undertakings. And war is cold-blooded calculus. You measure your strength against an intended adversary’s and choose your options from a menu of possibilities. If that work did not go in before the magnificence of imposing a time-restricted shock and awe on Israel, the results were bound to be what has ensued since. So, shun the rhetoric.

Where are the leaders in the Muslim world? Saudi Arabia has just broken ground in Neom in search of a progressive socioeconomic model from the orientalist one they have been holding on to for decades. Star singer Shakira ran a concert as more bombs rained over Gaza. Beyond that there has been little leadership emerging from there. Why would a whole nation give up its potential for a notional and uncertain idealist venture? Cold-blooded calculus. Same for Turkey and Egypt — the latter closed its Rafah crossing to avoid gathering escaping refugees in their midst. Indonesia, the largest Muslim nation of them all holds its nook in the woods discretely keeping out of trouble. It is on the verge of another revolutionary turn-around, yet again. Pakistan has no government so we can only add to the rhetoric of brotherhood in Friday sermons.

Iran is the oddity. It holds Israel a bigger enemy of all and yet keeps itself safely out of the fray. It has six billion USD waiting to be handed over in Doha and would not like to jeopardise that promise of enrichment. Syria has been bombed out of contention while Egypt is a perfect poodle these days. That ends the promise of any translation of the anger on the streets. Some are sensible; they don’t let streets get out of hand. I like the humanised version of empathy emerging out of western capitals and some campuses in the US where contrarianism still stands out, but it hasn’t and will not stop the free-flowing blood of the innocent in Gaza. They must keep paying the wages for the collective incompetence of Muslims in all spheres of life. It may be an interdependent and greatly more interconnected world, but it isn’t a stupid world. Nations pursue their agendas with great skill and cunning.

Here is a bit of help. In 1973, after the Yom-i-Kippur War, the oil producing Arab nations agreed on an oil embargo to those countries who had sided with Israel in the war. The effect was devastating, beginning the long process of agreements and accords facilitated by principally the US and supported by all who had been bitten hard by the disruptions in oil supplies. What ensued were the Oslo Accords and the likes till we reached what is these days largely touted as the default solution to the Palestine problem — the two-state solution except that it was never operationalised. The ongoing war will lead to another reiteration but with Gaza eviscerated and Palestine enfeebled. A fait accompli of an imposed fig-leaf state will be on offer, likely composed of only the West Bank as starters with a promise to add more when circumstances permit. It shall be the Hobson’s moment rammed into acceptance under duress. Gaza slowly would be lost to time over decades of improvised control till it ripens to fall in Israel’s lap.

Till that happens and when it happens, let’s find the oomph to change that consequence. Winter is around the corner as it was when Russia went to war in Ukraine. Some forty per cent of oil and fifty per cent of Europe’s gas flows through Russia, the tap she intended to turn off. She tried but were failed by the oil and gas exporting Arabs who kept the supplies going. If these Arab Muslim nations and Iran were to decide to repeat the 1973 embargo on Europe, their principal customer, the winters will be too harsh to bear forcing them to influence the US and Israel to cease fire on the hapless Gazans. This too will have consequences: the world is barely fighting off a recession and struggling to regain growth hastening to winterise global economic prospects. The affected western nations will entail on the errant Muslim nations a geopolitical and geoeconomic cost. But it just might help save innocent lives in Gaza. The trade-off is clear and doable if Palestinian lives still hold some premium. Or shall only rallies, demonstrations and rhetoric suffice? Lip service?

The choice is for the Muslim world to make. The situation in Gaza needs concerted and consensual political action. Or shall we simply take the Hobson option?

Published in The Express Tribune, November 3^rd, 2023.

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