“Oppressed People cannot continue to be so forever. The desire for independence finally comes to fruition”. – Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
The Palestinians of the occupied Gaza Strip called the “largest open-air prison” in the world and have seen the harshest forms of repression for more than 50 years, retaliated against their oppressor last week with a ferocity that shocked the Zionist state.
The most potent military force in the area suffered the worst form of humiliation when they won the fight inside Israel. Since Israel became a state, no other conflict has resulted in more fatalities in a single day. Naturally, the backlash has been incredibly severe.
The Israeli occupation forces have carried out numerous bombings in the Gaza Strip, home to some 2.2 million Palestinians. Still, none have ever been as severe as the one happening right now.
Israeli soldiers kill innocent civilians, including children, on purpose. Numerous numbers of individuals were compelled to flee their residences. The area has been completely blocked off, preventing food, gasoline, or other supplies from entering. A war crime, the siege aims to starve the entire population.
It is unprecedented for the invaders to declare war on the population they have forced under their control. The resistance has not, however, been crushed despite their extensive use of force. Palestinian combatants continue to battle inside Israeli territory.
There are no indications that the conflict will stop soon; instead, there is a risk that it will move to the West Bank, where Israeli forces are already heavily deployed. According to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s response will alter the Middle East.
The ‘civilized world’ does not support the right of the oppressed to resist colonialism. The protracted conflict is altering regional geopolitics. As expected, the United States and other Western countries have supported Israel’s cruel acts. The war has once again shown the hypocrisy of the West.
The Western world has condoned the Israeli bombardment of Gaza, which has murdered many women and children under the pretense of ‘Israel’s right to defense,’ while denouncing Hamas for killing civilians and taking women and children hostage.
According to the so-called civilized world, the oppressed do not even have the right to struggle against the colonization of their territory and for their liberation.While Israel and its Western backers were undoubtedly taken aback by Hamas’s devastating attack last week, the protracted occupation of Palestinian land and ongoing crimes committed by Israeli soldiers are the natural causes of this uprising. The Palestinian population has been steadily dwindling as Israeli settlements have grown.
Over the past half-century, Israel’s atrocities have been concentrated in the Gaza Strip. It’s reached an unbearable level now. The current UN Secretary-General has called Gaza a “hell on earth” because of its high population density. Humanitarian disasters have become emblematic of the blockaded territory.
There is extreme poverty among more than half of Gaza’s population. Youngsters have a high mortality rate; many do not live to see their fifth birthday. Israeli attacks and the subsequent embargo have had devastating effects on children. Israel has repeatedly bombed the Gaza Strip, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of Palestinian youngsters over several years.
Israel’s recent airstrikes have reduced most of the land to ruins. The situation in the rest of the Palestinian areas under occupation is not dissimilar. In Palestine, home demolitions are a common occurrence. The unfortunate people of Gaza are now preparing for an Israeli ground attack.
While enduring its share of colonial atrocities, the West never tires of lecturing us on the importance of respecting others’ human rights. Ignores Israel’s apartheid practices at its peril. Even if Israel and the West deploy lethal force against the Palestinians, it will not be enough to end the resistance movement.
The ramifications of Israel’s declaration of war on Gaza will extend well beyond the region. The most consequential result of the conflict has been the failure of the United States to facilitate peace talks between Israel and Saudi Arabia.
Significant progress has been achieved in the process launched by US Vice President Joe Biden, with the first-ever visit of an Israeli minister to Saudi Arabia last month. The visit was perceived as a thawing of relations between the two countries, even though it had no bearing on normalization efforts.
However, the new outbreak of fightinghas dealt a significant setback to efforts to reach an agreement. Media outlets indicate that Saudi Arabia has informed US Secretary of State Antony Blinken that it is “ending all negotiations” to normalize ties with Israel. The endeavor taken by the Biden administration was taken as a step toward reestablishing the United States’ leadership in the Middle East.
The United States took this step after Beijing successfully mediated an end to the proxy war that had been raging between Riyadh and Tehran for years. Chinese influence is expanding in a volatile region, as seen by this pact.
With the ultra-right Israeli government’s intransigence on the settlements problem, the US-sponsored peace process between Riyadh and Tel Aviv has stalled. Unlike previous US presidents, there has been no direct effort on Biden’s part to promote peace discussions between Israelis and Palestinians. Peace in the Middle East cannot be achieved in the long run by excluding the Palestinians from the process.
There is no way peace talks can be revived between Israel and Saudi Arabia now, as tensions are rising and there is a greater chance of the war spreading. Stopping the Israeli occupation and recognizing Palestinian statehood are necessary to resolve the problem.