Palestine – What does the new status mean?

This write-up first appeared in the Tuesday, 4th December edition of the Daily Greater Kashmir

In a historic vote, on Thursday 29^th of November 2012, Palestine won its bid at the UN to upgrade its status from ‘entity’ to ‘non-member state’! This was  exactly 65 years after the erstwhile British Mandate of Palestine was divided into a Jewish state and an Arab state vide UN resolution 181. After Thursday’s vote, Palestine became the 194^th ‘state’ to have, at least, this status. While most of the nations of the world voted in favour of the bid, The Vatican (also a non-Member Observer state) hailed the UN resolution. While as countries like China, South Africa and Pakistan co-sponsoring the draft resolution, the response of the US-Israel axis has been, expectedly, unruly. Though, in essence, this up gradation won’t bring about any drastic changes but it is a 2^nd moral & symbolic victory in a row for the Palestinian people within ten days. Apart from the change in seating arrangement of the Palestinian UN representative, who will now sit beside the Pakistani representative ( as per alphabetical order) in the Permanent members benches, the changes which this upgradation might bring can be discussed under the following heads.

Related to Palestine itself: “Not much will change on ground” as the Israeli government was quick to react. The Palestinian diaspora will still require permits from Israel to visit their homeland. The collection of revenue and taxes, as presently done by the Israeli govt., will still be done by the Israeli govt. The capital of the Palestine, Jerusalem, will continue to be held by Israel. However, it will give Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas the much needed political life saver, particularly after the rival Hamas gained immense popularity (and legitimacy) in the International circles during the Israeli attack last week. Hamas, which is deemed a terrorist organization by both Israel and the US, gained political leverage over Abbas’s Fatah due to the visit of high profile Arab leaders like The Emir of Qatar, Egyptian PM as well as the Turkish FM and had given Abbas a reason to worry. Abbas can now triumphantly come back to Palestine with something to cheer about.

Apart from this,  the only appreciable change which this up gradation has brought is that it has enabled Palestine to seek membership of the different UN bodies and possibly strengthen its bid for the membership as a ‘state’ in the International Criminal Court (ICCt), which is not a UN body. However, it is highly unlikely that the Palestinian Authority (PA) will go to the ICCt to demand investigations into war crimes and assassinations orchestrated by successive Israeli governments. The European Union is the major contributor of international aid to Palestine and most of the European countries have warned the PA against dragging Israel to the ICCt, lest they stop the aid. Besides, the US has also warned to terminate all assistance to the PA should they go to the ICCt. The US has also legislated that it would close the Palestinian office in Washington unless Palestine resumes ‘meaningful dialogue’ with Israel, which stands stalled since 2005!

Related to Israel: Israel is going to polls in January 2013 and, I guess, this issue is definitely going to affect the results in a big way. This up gradation seems to undo whatever political mileage Benjamin Netanyahu had gained after bombarding Gaza last week. It was widely expected that the attack on Gaza would tilt the political balance largely in his favour but now the UN vote may affect his prospects in the coming elections. This was evident from his reaction to the UN decision which he termed as ‘not conforming to peace’. The rival Israeli politicians have already begun targeting Netanyahu for his supposedly weak policies. Former Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni who marked a re-entry into Politics with the launch of her own political party termed the Palestinian bid at the UN as a ‘strategic terrorist attack’ despite her being a vocal supporter of the two state solution to the Palestine issue.

Notwithstanding all these factors, this up gradation can be welcomed as a small yet significant step forward towards the settling of the Palestinian issue. After all, Switzerland also existed as a non-Member Observer State at the UN, for 50 years, till 2002!  

Of Politics, Genocide & Solidarity!

“Where should we go after the last frontiers?

Where should the birds fly after the last sky?

Where should the plants sleep after the last breath of air?

The earth is closing on us, pushing us through the last passage,

and we tear off our limbs to pass through.”

-         Mahmoud Darwish

These few lines by Mahmoud Darwish, who was regarded as the Palestinian National Poet in Exile, aptly give an idea about the tragedy of the Palestinian nation. While as for Muslims in rest of the World the Hijri New Year Day heralded hope for a peaceful year ahead, these people were greeted with rockets and missiles (manufactured from the American tax-payer’s money!) on the very first day of the New Year. While as people in most parts of the world are voicing their concern in unison and criticising the offensive (read Massacre), the oppressor seems unfazed whosoever the critic be.

The present continual massacre of civilians in the Gaza strip traces back its root to the cold-blooded killing of a young Palestinian boy while he was playing football by the Israeli defence forces. After this, three more boys were killed in not much different circumstances. Hamas Military fired crude rockets (which hardly make a hole through concrete) in protest/retaliation. Then Israel assassinated Ahmed al-Jaabari (the Hamas military head) who was also the chief broker in negotiations for a lasting ceasefire. Being involved in such negotiations, he was under protection of a no-assassination pact with Israel at the time of assassination. And Hamas had to retaliate (any sane organisation would do that!) giving Israel a pretext for full scale offensive (read Massacre)!

In the midst of all this, one may have expected the much revered world body, the UN, to take effective measures to stop bloodshed. But this time as well, as on all previous occassions, the all-weather friend US ensured that even a weak UN doesn’t harm Israel’s interests. The US has so far vetoed not less than 42 UNSC resolutions (upto 2011) related to Palestine alone! This means, while all other members (non-Permanent ones included) of the UNSC favoured a resolution against Israel, US with its Veto Power ensured that the resolution wasn’t passed. With Russia openly accusing the US of filibustering the issue during UN Security Council deliberations, any immediate action against Israel seems a distant dream. Move over to Syria where Genocide is underway under the Assad regime, Russia and China leave no stone unturned to thwart any UNSC measure against Syria!

This reduces the role of UN to that of just a soap which cleanses dirt from one’s hands, in this case it absolves (cleanses) Israel of all the crimes by not taking any decisive action apart from issuing ‘warnings’! And even if the UNSC does pass any resolutions Israel has had an eventful history of ignoring these, having so far violated most of the 102 resolutions passed by different US bodies like UN Security Council, UN General Assembly and UNRWA. While as the war on Iraq was based on the moral high ground that it had breached a UNSC resolution, and talks about war on Iran are being revolved around the same thing, Israel still has the distinction of being the country which has violated the highest number of UN Security Council Resolutions!

          While condemning the Israeli massacre of the Palestinian people in Gaza without mincing any words, one should keep in mind that we can’t blame the entire Jewish community of the world for the sins committed by Zionists in Israel. There is a pretty sizeable fraction of genuinely humane people among the Jews who unequivocally condemn Israel’s Fascist and Supremacist actions. I have seen on social networks that, in the process of condemnation, we go on to the extent of praising (and thanking) Hitler for exterminating the Jews of Europe during the Holocaust. By doing so, We, Muslims lose a large constituency of people all around the world who would, otherwise, support the Palestinian cause. I have myself seen people (on social networks, of course!) arguing that Muslims have no moral ground to condemn the Israeli onslaught as long as they are happy with the Jewish Holocaust! We are not a legacy-orphan nation, we have inherited the legacy of great Humans & Statesmen like Tariq bin Ziyad, Omar bin Abdul Azeez & Salahudeen Ayyubi among others in addition to the Prophetic legacy of the Noble Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him) and His companions. Where does the need to patronise Hitler arise?

Another interesting fact here is that Bal Thackeray, the recently dead Ideologue of the Shiv Sena was a big fan of Hitler himself and patronised him. While Muslims take Thackeray as a sworn enemy for his tacit role in the anti-Muslim riots and all, the patronising of Hitler by Muslims seems by any means short-sightedness and narrow-mindedness. After all the friend of an ‘enemy’ doesn’t make a friend at all! And by any means, an oppressed nation fits better empathising or sympathising with another oppressed nation and not in being sadistic in other nations’ sufferings. 

"…it was painful to listen to people who have suffered so much themselves, mock others who suffer, in different ways, but no less intensely under the same oppressor. In that slogan I saw the seeds of how easily victims can become perpetrators", writes Arundhati Roy in her book ‘Listening To Grasshoppers’ commenting on the action of Kashmiri protestors taunting the India’s poor with slogans like “Bhooka Nanga Hindustaan”!

In the present case, maybe the oppressor is not the same but their (Hitler's & Israel's) ideology is same - Fascist & Supremacist!