January 16, 2025
DAWN
IT is now clear even to Israel’s apologists that Israel’s war has not been undertaken against Hamas but for the creation of the ‘Greater Israel’ project. Gaza is now non-existent, except for its brave inhabitants.
The population of the West Bank is under pressure to leave. Lebanon has been silenced and is compromised for the time being, but Hezbollah is still alive and well. The monarchy in Jordan is a part of the American-European alignment.
Meanwhile, Syria’s defence arsenal has been bombed out of existence; the country has been partially occupied as well. Once again, Israel has emerged as the major Middle Eastern power. It controls the area ‘from the river to the sea’ just as Moses had gifted to the Israelites, and it has been acquired through violence.
The Israeli success has been made possible by its US-supplied air force which has remained intact and cannot be challenged by any other air force in the region. The inaction of the United Nations in the face of the Israeli genocide has been made possible by support for Israel at the UN Security Council by the American and European powers that have also provided the state with arsenal, spare parts, and finances, in violation of international law.
The US alone has committed billions of dollars to Israel for defence equipment on an annual basis. According to one study, in the first year of the war in Gaza, the US spent at least 17.9bn in military assistance for Israel. In addition, the genocide has led to questions about the US role in the Sudan famine and America’s illegal war in Iraq and Syria.
A ‘Greater Israel’ will consist of a population which is solidly against Israel.
However, the genocide has changed many other things. International law, covenants, and institutions no longer have the legitimacy that they once enjoyed. Secularism and human rights, which are the foundation of international law, have been violated, leading to a serious division in the world on a North-South basis.
It is obvious that the white world is in no position to provide leadership to the world at large. It is also obvious that antisemitism and Holocaust laws protecting the Jews and Israel against critical speech or actions are in the process of becoming myths, and are already subjects of ridicule, or at least a source of amusement for the people. It is obvious that the Western media can no longer be believed; its pro-white biases are very clear. Many allege that it is bribed to lie while its correspondents invent stories that favour the positions taken by the US and Europe. It is also obvious that Muslim countries are more interested in protecting their own national interest rather than supporting the concept of a larger Islamic world.
It is obvious to the citizens of the West that elections in the US as well as European policies are governed by large global corporations controlled by pro-Israel elements and that US policy is determined by the state of Israel. In the West, especially in America, there is public anger that the tax dollars paid by the citizens are used as economic aid for Israel and to fund arms supplies to it.
It is also clear that the majority of the youth in the North are solidly behind the anti-genocide movement; this is more than apparent in the huge demonstrations held by young people on the streets and university campuses in cities across the US and in European capitals.
Such demonstrations appear to have few parallels in the history of the West. The youth are also angry that the values they have been taught in schools and universities can no longer serve as a guide for them. There is a search for an alternative to what has been destroyed. The older generation of politicians, on the other hand, is doing everything possible to maintain the status quo with the help of the media.
For the West, the purpose of the genocidal war is the creation of a ’Greater Israel, which can control the Middle East and the immense resources that it contains.
However, a ‘Greater Israel’ will consist of a population in which the majority is solidly against Israel and the policies of the West, and in search of an alternative global order. It would also be a state surrounded by Arab states and an angry young generation, which has seen murder and has been humiliated and tortured. It has also witnessed the destruction of its education and medical infrastructure. The question is, can such a situation last? And if it cannot then what will replace it? And what will be the replacement process given the actors involved in this complex drama?
The writer is an architect.
arifhasan37@gmail.com
www.arifhasan.org
Published in Dawn, January 16th, 2025
Will the fire cease?
Aasim Sajjad Akhtar
AFTER prosecuting the most intense ethnic cleansing exercise in modern history for 15 months, Tel Aviv and Washington have finally agreed to a ceasefire with Hamas in Gaza. The pact, brokered by Qatar’s emirs, provides for temporary cessation of hostilities, alongside vague claims that a permanent settlement will be worked out.
However uncertain, the ceasefire deal has stoked celebrations amongst Gaza’s 2.5 million residents. The world’s largest concentration camp has been largely reduced to rubble, with almost 50,000 Palestinians killed and many more maimed. Even imagining a silencing of guns feels liberating.
For all of the Zionist war crimes perpetrated since October 2023, the Palestinian people continue to exist. Their struggle to survive has been supported by a wide cross-section of people globally, many of whom have been on the streets, putting up encampments and organising other solidarity protests. The ceasefire, then, is not just relief from the brutalisation inflicted by Israel, it is in fact a victory of popular resistance to Zionism and imperialism.
However, there can be no romanticising the lived reality of what remains an ongoing colonial occupation. Over the past 15 months, the Israeli war machine has taken the carte blanche it received from the ‘free world’ after Oct 7, 2023, to intensify its apartheid rule in Gaza and the West Bank, and then extend its violence to Lebanon, and most recently, post-Assad Syria. No friend of the Palestinians should harbour any delusion that Israel and its imperialist patron will relinquish the military gains they have made following the ceasefire.
No friend of the Palestinians should harbour any delusion.
Indeed, all indications are that the Netanyahu regime will do all it can to displace Hamas as the main arbiter of power in Gaza, a position the organisation has occupied for the best part of two decades. It should not be forgotten that Israel has waged war on Gaza numerous times since the turn of the century. It has repeatedly tried to cut Hamas down to size and turn it into something akin to the Palestinian Authority which meekly accedes to relentless settlement-building in the West Bank.
So while the ceasefire may bring a halt to explicit, genocidal violence, the everyday violence of the occupation will remain as exacting as ever. Check-posts to police the mobility of Palestinians litter the occupied territories. The Zionist regime continues to manipulate the supply of essential goods and services to Gaza and the West Bank alike. And huge numbers of Palestinians are still forced into dehumanising forms of labour serving Israeli capital.
Seasoned observers of Palestinian politics have understood Hamas’ actions on Oct 7, 2023, as an audacious attempt to dramatically reconfigure the relationship between the colonised subject by the colonising power. Hamas and the Palestinian resistance at large knew they could not defeat Israel and that the Netanyahu government would respond with excessive, brutal force. But thrusting the cause of Palestinian liberation back into the global consciousness was imperative.
Time will tell whether Hamas and the resistance at large will emerge stronger or weaker than the pre-Oct 7 conjuncture. Either way, the last 15 months have given a fresh lease of life to the project of Palestinian national liberation so no matter which Palestinian faction rules Gaza, it will not be the pliant puppet Israel craves.
Meanwhile the legitimacy of the so-called US-led ‘rules-based order’ now lies in tatters, with more and more people around the world opposed not only to the occu-pation of Palestine but also to their own ruling classes and increasingly bankrupt forms of representative ‘democracy’.
It is, of course, also true that the disillusionment with the international system as well as the contemporary nation-state is not translating into the emergence of progressive alternatives at a global scale. It is the right wing that largely benefits from the excess liberal imperialism and its lackeys. Will this change? Can the solidarity that so many people have expressed with Palestine become the lightning rod for a broader shift in the tone and tenor of politics? Could a new non-aligned movement be on the cards? Might we see the emergence of a genuine alternative to the global capitalist order?
Even if the current state of the world engenders intellectual pessimism, history can still be shaped by people’s will over and above the military-industrial-media establishments that over-determine the mainstream political sphere. In the first instance, this means recognition that the ceasefire is a temporary respite, and that we must in fact double down in support of Palestinian liberation as well as the struggle of oppressed peoples everywhere. We can still build an emancipatory future beyond the rule of capital, imperialism and ecological breakdown.
The writer teaches at Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad.
Published in Dawn, January 17th, 2025
January 17, 2025
DAWN
AFTER prosecuting the most intense ethnic cleansing exercise in modern history for 15 months, Tel Aviv and Washington have finally agreed to a ceasefire with Hamas in Gaza. The pact, brokered by Qatar’s emirs, provides for temporary cessation of hostilities, alongside vague claims that a permanent settlement will be worked out.
However uncertain, the ceasefire deal has stoked celebrations amongst Gaza’s 2.5 million residents. The world’s largest concentration camp has been largely reduced to rubble, with almost 50,000 Palestinians killed and many more maimed. Even imagining a silencing of guns feels liberating.
For all of the Zionist war crimes perpetrated since October 2023, the Palestinian people continue to exist. Their struggle to survive has been supported by a wide cross-section of people globally, many of whom have been on the streets, putting up encampments and organising other solidarity protests. The ceasefire, then, is not just relief from the brutalisation inflicted by Israel, it is in fact a victory of popular resistance to Zionism and imperialism.
However, there can be no romanticising the lived reality of what remains an ongoing colonial occupation. Over the past 15 months, the Israeli war machine has taken the carte blanche it received from the ‘free world’ after Oct 7, 2023, to intensify its apartheid rule in Gaza and the West Bank, and then extend its violence to Lebanon, and most recently, post-Assad Syria. No friend of the Palestinians should harbour any delusion that Israel and its imperialist patron will relinquish the military gains they have made following the ceasefire.
No friend of the Palestinians should harbour any delusion.
Indeed, all indications are that the Netanyahu regime will do all it can to displace Hamas as the main arbiter of power in Gaza, a position the organisation has occupied for the best part of two decades. It should not be forgotten that Israel has waged war on Gaza numerous times since the turn of the century. It has repeatedly tried to cut Hamas down to size and turn it into something akin to the Palestinian Authority which meekly accedes to relentless settlement-building in the West Bank.
So while the ceasefire may bring a halt to explicit, genocidal violence, the everyday violence of the occupation will remain as exacting as ever. Check-posts to police the mobility of Palestinians litter the occupied territories. The Zionist regime continues to manipulate the supply of essential goods and services to Gaza and the West Bank alike. And huge numbers of Palestinians are still forced into dehumanising forms of labour serving Israeli capital.
Seasoned observers of Palestinian politics have understood Hamas’ actions on Oct 7, 2023, as an audacious attempt to dramatically reconfigure the relationship between the colonised subject by the colonising power. Hamas and the Palestinian resistance at large knew they could not defeat Israel and that the Netanyahu government would respond with excessive, brutal force. But thrusting the cause of Palestinian liberation back into the global consciousness was imperative.
Time will tell whether Hamas and the resistance at large will emerge stronger or weaker than the pre-Oct 7 conjuncture. Either way, the last 15 months have given a fresh lease of life to the project of Palestinian national liberation so no matter which Palestinian faction rules Gaza, it will not be the pliant puppet Israel craves.
Meanwhile the legitimacy of the so-called US-led ‘rules-based order’ now lies in tatters, with more and more people around the world opposed not only to the occu-pation of Palestine but also to their own ruling classes and increasingly bankrupt forms of representative ‘democracy’.
It is, of course, also true that the disillusionment with the international system as well as the contemporary nation-state is not translating into the emergence of progressive alternatives at a global scale. It is the right wing that largely benefits from the excess liberal imperialism and its lackeys. Will this change? Can the solidarity that so many people have expressed with Palestine become the lightning rod for a broader shift in the tone and tenor of politics? Could a new non-aligned movement be on the cards? Might we see the emergence of a genuine alternative to the global capitalist order?
Even if the current state of the world engenders intellectual pessimism, history can still be shaped by people’s will over and above the military-industrial-media establishments that over-determine the mainstream political sphere. In the first instance, this means recognition that the ceasefire is a temporary respite, and that we must in fact double down in support of Palestinian liberation as well as the struggle of oppressed peoples everywhere. We can still build an emancipatory future beyond the rule of capital, imperialism and ecological breakdown.
The writer teaches at Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad.
Published in Dawn, January 17th, 2025
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