Back to madness

Call from world community to cement the ceasefire into a perpetual peace falls on deaf ears

As world leaders huddled in Dubai to save Planet Earth at the COP28 Summit, Palestinians were once again on the verge of extinction. Israel is back to its madness and has bombed Gaza relentlessly after the end of a ceasefire with Hamas. Reports say more than 200 Palestinians have been killed and thousands more maimed as civilian installations, especially hospitals and schools, were bombed by the Jewish state with the stated adamancy that it will continue to do so for ‘securing’ the Zionist state. US Vice-President Kamila Harris’ consolation words that Washington will “not permit forced dislocation of Gazans” was nothing but window-dressing as more than a million Palestinians are in a renewed state of diaspora and are seen languishing at the Egyptian borders, and thousands more besieged inside the enclave awaiting their death and destruction.

The call from the world community to cement the ceasefire into a perpetual peace fell on deaf ears. No proactive diplomacy was witnessed and behind-the-curtain efforts were not enough to apparently convince the power-intoxicated Israel. The exchange of prisoners will go down in the footnotes of history as a failed attempt to secure an uneasy and incredible thaw, as no relief is there for the stateless and dispossessed nation. We have been here. What was the rationale behind silencing the guns for merely hundred hours, and then going back to the theatre of bloodshed? Likewise, reports that Israel has pulled back its negotiating team from Doha is worrisome, and hints at the escalation of the conflict.

Israel’s demand that it will seek a “security envelope” to safeguard itself from Hamas is a ploy as it wants to obliterate the Gaza Strip into a no-man’s land by throwing out its two million inhabitants. It is one more step towards a Greater Israel. This is why French President Emmanuel Macron was on the mark as he remarked that Israel’s “aim of eliminating Hamas” risked unleashing a decade of conflict. Will someone make Israel realise that it is going over the brink, thereby endangering world peace?

 

Published in The Express Tribune, December 4^th, 2023.

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