It is cynical to use war as a way of beefing up chances of winning an election. This is exactly what Israel’s leader Lapid did in Israel’s latest aggression on the besieged Gaza strip. Two hard facts define what this war sought to achieve. First, it wanted to tug at the unity of the Palestinian resistance. Second, and equally disparaging, the international community went into silent mode. There was not an ounce of protest from the western world which so liberally, otherwise, pontificates about international law and human rights when it suits them. The message is patently clear – Palestinians lives don’t really matter. There is consistent hypocrisy on matters of war and peace from western quarters. It is clear that Palestinians will have to fend for themselves and not rely on the major political blocs or even the so-called emerging economies to act. It will have to be the grassroots, whether in the West or in the Global South, that will have to lead and support the resistance.
The Global South has also adopted reprehensible positions. They have not merely adopted silence and indifference; they have tacitly chosen the side of Israel. Consider growing trade relations between Israel and the larger countries in the Global South. The question is where is the backbone of these countries that barely 70 years ago were scrambling to get the colonizers out. The principle of Decoloniality is important to reassert when it comes to the Question of Palestine. In what is deemed to be the age of civilization, Israel chooses to pretend it is a democracy – the only one in the Middle East- which it does not even remotely resemble. It chooses the vilest and most brutal of political methods.
Israel is also creating dependence in the Global South by evolving as a supplier of armaments and military hardware to these countries. It ingeniously selects countries that are confronted by justice movements for liberation and even trains militaries in these countries alongside trade in armaments. For Israel it is a win-win situation as of now. How long with this last? It has been suggested that if Israel were to attack Gaza again, it might have to face the wrath of Iran. While the West, in its wishful thinking, might dismiss such a choice with nonchalance, deep inside there exists fear of a nuclear-armed Iran. Israel will soon have to also face the upsurge of resistance in the Palestinian territories and solidarity movements in the West and the rest of the world. China and Russia have never compromised on Palestine and that is an important foothold.
Israel’s apartheid profile grows even as it allows settlers to promote it on buses and on streets in proximity to Palestinian villages. Israel even obstructs civil society organizations who visit Palestine to study ways of heightened humanitarian and human rights solidarity.
Ranjan Solomon is a human rights activist, political commentator who believes that peoples’ power is a non-negotiable instrument to further democracy and justice.
