World Media on Gaza and Israel Part - 14
Compiled By New Age Islam Edit Desk
07 August, 2014
• Gaza: Are The Arabs Divided?
By Abdulateef Al-Mulhim
• Israel and Hamas Have Both Lost
By Semih İdiz
• Will Netanyahu Empower Palestinian Moderates?
By David Ignatius
• Gaza's State Of Exception
By Ammar Rashid
• Israeli Terrorism
By S P Seth
• My Own Private Palestine
By Shambhu Rahman
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Gaza: Are the Arabs divided?
By Abdulateef Al-Mulhim
6 August 2014
Are the Arabs divided over the war in Gaza? If so, then why are they divided? And if not, then why we don’t see the unity in the official statements and media talks the way we used to see and hear during past confrontations with Israel?
Since the establishment of Israel, the Arabs have maintained unity regardless of their differences or at least they have demonstrated that unity in public, especially whenever there is a direct confrontation between Israel and any Arab country or Palestinian organization. In other words, enmity between the Arab countries and Israel is known worldwide. So, have there been any changes in the general attitude of the Arab masses or governments?
Since the start of the latest bloody confrontation between Israelis and Palestinians in Gaza, Arab countries and people have maintained different approaches to the conflict.
There were many talks and talkbacks between Arab politicians, analysts, columnists and media commentators. Many blamed the Israelis, but few wondered if Hamas was to blame. And this is a first in the Arab world. In the past, it was impossible for any politician or the media to point a finger toward the Arab side as the one to be partly blamed.
Nowadays, things are changing for many reasons. It is true that there are over 1,900 casualties on the Palestinian side and the whole world saw the amount of destruction and barbarity unleashed by Israel in Gaza, but, many observers are referring to the human side of the conflict and not the conflict itself.
Many in the Arab world are even saying that they have seen far worse killings and atrocities during the past three years of the so-called Arab Spring than in all wars and battles between the Arabs and the Israelis during the last 66 years. Also, many in the Arab world are questioning the killings, devastations, displacement of people not only in Gaza, but the entire Arab World.
Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Libya all have a huge number of refugees and suffered destructions. The number of deaths due to Arab Spring is in hundreds of thousands and the number of refugees, displaced and missing persons is in millions. So, many in the Arab world are simply too busy grappling with their own problems and chaos they had never experienced before. Besides, the IS (Islamic State) announced that Israel is not its enemy, but it is the other Arabs and Muslims. And the Syrian Air Force had flown more sorties against its own people than it did in all its wars with Israel.
Iraqi and Libyan air forces had never fired a shot against Israel, but they sure did many turkey shoot runs against their own civilians. This is why many in the Arab world are sick and tired of seeing more blood being spilled and more destructions of an already dysfunctional infrastructure. So, many in the Arab world are divided with regard to the killings in Gaza not because they lack patriotism or are not sympathetic toward the Palestinians, it is just a question of then what?
The battle of Gaza will hopefully come to an end with the truce that went into effect Tuesday morning, but, no one will know for sure the actual number of dead and injured. The scars and the hatred between all parties concerned will become more severe. Palestinian and Israeli children will grow up with more hatred in their hearts.
Most likely there will be another conflict(s) and with simple calculation, if the money that was spent on weapons and the money needed to rebuild what has been destroyed were used to build schools, roads and hospitals, then there would have been more people alive and the children maimed would have been playing in the streets and attending schools learning to live together in peace. This is why there is a division among the Arab masses.
Arabs are frustrated because they see the world progress and advance while their countries are being destroyed. But, at the end of the day, maybe the key problem is that Arabs have never been united, some of them even hate each other than they hate Israel. Of course I did not mention the crocodile tears that many shed at the Palestinians’ miseries while at the same time they are the beneficiaries.
http://www.arabnews.com/news/columns/612161
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Israel and Hamas Have Both Lost
By Semih İdiz
August/07/2014
The Egyptian brokered cease-fire in Gaza may or may not hold, but this is an opportunity to assess who won what as a result of this carnage. Militarily speaking, “it is already clear that there have been no winners” according to the BBC’s defense correspondent Jonathan Marcus.
Given the sad predictability involved with this view only confirms what many said at the start of the Israeli operation. But is there a political winner? It is also clear that both Israel and Hamas have lost in this respect.
As usual, the West did its best to bend over backwards and allow Israel the leeway it needed against Hamas, despite the large number of women and children killed. But the Israeli slaughter of the innocents finally forced even the U.S., Israel’s staunchest supporter, into moral outrage.
Washington could not hold back in the end and referred to the deadly Israeli shelling of a U.N. school in Gaza, which was sheltering 3,000 displaced Palestinians, as “appalling” and “disgraceful.” This had a five megaton psychological effect on Israelis, showing them there is a limit beyond which they cannot push without serious condemnation from even those whose support they need.
Worse than this, however, Israeli actions, more than ever before, were likened across the world to those of Nazi Germany’s. This is unjustified of course, but few will be bothered about factual distinctions when they see Palestinian children killed with the same moral indifference among Israelis that Jewish children were killed under the Nazis.
Inhuman remarks about Palestinians uttered by some Israeli politicians, on the other hand, merely added grist to this mill. Israelis and Jews across the world supported this operation overwhelmingly, but there must be some who feel it is tragic to see the Jewish state being equated with Nazi Germany.
There must also be some concern that such analogies carry the germ of a revisionism, which may over time diminish the sense of historic horror over what befell the Jews in the past.
When it comes to Hamas, for all the sympathy it enjoys among radical Muslims, as well as Islamist governments like the one in Turkey, it too is a political loser in this crisis. It has ended up once again providing nothing but death and destruction to Palestinians and gaining little if anything in return.
Worst of all for Hamas is this conflict revealed just how isolated it is among Arab regimes. The simple fact is there is no sympathy for this group in Cairo, Amman, Riyadh or any other capital in the Middle East that matters, because of its radical Islamist outlook.
There must, therefore, be some in Gaza who regret having ever voted for it and who are wondering how much longer they can carry the burden that it has placed on them. There must be Palestinians who realize this group promises nothing unless it moves to a more reasonable track.
The main problem in this conflict remains injustices against the Palestinians in general and the siege of Gaza in particular. Hamas has failed thus far to have the siege lifted by militarily means. There is only the political track left and this can only be pursued under the Palestinian Authority, which the world accepts as its interlocutor, while Hamas takes a back seat.
Meanwhile Israelis have to realize they will never have peace until they meet the demands of the Palestinians, which the international community considers to be just. The prevalent right-wing mindset that has taken over Israel will reject this, of course.
But what is the alternative?
Horrible as it was to hear, we have even seen some right-wing Israelis suggesting what amounts to a kind of final solution to the Palestinian problem. That, however, is impossible. There is only one reasonable way out and Israelis have to realize this. Otherwise it will be more of the same down the line with little having been achieved, other than more bloodshed, in the end.
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/israel-and-hamas-have-both-lost.aspx?pageID=449&nID=70067&NewsCatID=416
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Will Netanyahu Empower Palestinian Moderates?
By David Ignatius
Aug. 06, 2014
Now it’s Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s turn to show that he has the vision and leadership to build a durable cease-fire that could empower Palestinian moderates and begin building a pathway from the hell on earth that is Gaza.
Many people, including me, sharply criticized U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry a week ago for seeking a quick Gaza cease-fire that would have strengthened Hamas and its allies, Qatar and Turkey. But the fighting resumed, and the process had the effect of undermining moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Kerry was widely attacked, especially in Israel.
Kerry isn’t the problem today, however. Over the past week, he has been crafting a cease-fire plan that seeks to stabilize Gaza under the leadership of Abbas and the moderate Palestinian Authority. After an initial truce, negotiators would gather in Egypt for talks about Gaza’s future. Abbas would select the members of the Palestinian delegation, and the PA (with the support of the international community) would have overall responsibility for the rehabilitation of Gaza. The Palestinian delegation is already in Cairo, waiting for the talks to begin. It’s headed by Azzam al-Ahmad, a leader of Abbas’ Fatah movement and the person who brokered the reconciliation agreement last April between Fatah and Hamas.
Israel wants quiet in Gaza, but it seems undecided now whether it wants to negotiate a broader peace agreement. The Israelis agreed to a cease-fire Monday, and there were press reports that the country had agreed to an additional 72-hour truce. But the Cabinet had reportedly decided over the weekend against joining the Cairo talks. Hopefully, Netanyahu will seek a broader deal that might reduce the likelihood of future conflict.
The thrust of Kerry’s new plan is to leverage Hamas’ unity pact with Fatah and its pledge to transfer authority in Gaza to the PA. As a first step, the PA and its U.S.-trained security service would assume responsibility for policing the Rafah crossing from Gaza into Egypt, as well as the passages into Israel. That’s a big deal, as it would give Abbas’ security chief, Majid Faraj, control over the most strategic ground in Gaza.
The PA would begin paying the salaries of Palestinian civil servants in Gaza, assuming the details could be worked out. The agreement might also move toward disarmament of all terrorist groups in Gaza by building on a promise Hamas made in a 2011 unity plan that the PA’s security service would be the only armed force in Gaza. This would also uphold Abbas’ own insistence on “one government, one law, one gun.”
In all these ways, Kerry is now headed in the right direction – away from strengthening Hamas and toward empowering the moderates on whom hopes for a more stable and secure Gaza depend.
The question is whether Netanyahu has the courage and political clout to move in the same direction, toward a new framework for Gaza, rather than return to the battered status quo ante – with continued Hamas rule and the recurring wars that some Israelis have described as “mowing the lawn.”
It will be hard for the Israeli leader to embrace this new vision for Gaza, because he would have to reverse his earlier opposition to the Fatah- Hamas reconciliation agreement, which he denounced as an embrace by Abbas of Hamas’ terrorist ideology. Netanyahu would also have to be prepared to truly open Gaza to the free flow and people and goods, in return for disarming the terrorist groups.
Netanyahu faces a real leadership dilemma. He has prevailed over Hamas and its tunnels in Gaza, albeit at a terrible cost to Palestinian civilians. But his popularity at home is dropping, with his approval ratings down 20 points from their peak of 82 percent when he ordered the ground invasion. Though Netanyahu may not realize it, he needs Kerry’s diplomatic help to consolidate the gains of the war. The question is whether the Israeli leader has the boldness to leverage his military success in a way that brings greater lasting security for Israelis, and reduces the Palestinian suffering in Gaza.
Israel’s continued refusal to attend the peace talks in Cairo would mean returning to the status quo ante and waiting for the next round of fighting. It would be a mistake. Netanyahu could open new opportunities by treating Abbas as a real partner – starting by helping him to gain control of Gaza. Netanyahu can go down in history as the statesman who achieved greater security for Israelis as well as a measure of dignity for Arabs.
History shows us that in the aftermath of Arab-Israeli wars, there are rare opportunities for diplomacy. Kerry, stung by the criticism that his peacemaking was helping Hamas a week ago, appears ready for such a creative moment now. Is Netanyahu?
David Ignatius is published twice weekly by THE DAILY STAR.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/Opinion/Columnist/2014/Aug-06/266176-will-netanyahu-empower-palestinian-moderates.ashx#ixzz39dioiH8p
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Gaza's State Of Exception
By Ammar Rashid
August 06, 2014
In the wake of the response to the ongoing massacre in Gaza, leftists, liberals and ethno-nationalists of Pakistan have raised some important concerns about the nature and moral legitimacy of mainstream Pakistani support for Gaza.
Pakistan, it is said, has its own Gazas — an array of excesses committed by state and non-state actors against ethnic and religious minorities. These routinely go ignored by much of society.
On the global level, Muslim societies are criticised for ignoring the brutal transgressions of militant Islamists (like ISIS) and Muslim dictators (like Assad), while frothing on about Israel’s actions in Gaza.
There is merit in these arguments, definitely, and particularly so in the case of Pakistan. As many others have pointed out, Pakistan embodies strains of religio-fascist violence remarkably similar to Israel’s.
The examples are numerous: collective silence over the disappearances of students and activists in Balochistan; denial of the widespread slaughtering of Shias; societal navel-gazing and theological justification every time mobs attack Ahmadis and Christians for ‘blasphemy’; dehumanisation of Pakhtuns for misguided strategic designs; and the popular trend of labelling any local religion-inspired violence a 'foreign conspiracy'. The list could go on, still.
In all cases, there is evidence of widespread denial within Pakistani society about the reality and magnitude of injustices within our borders.
Many Pakistanis simply find it easier to be outraged over the crimes of religious ‘others’ like Israel than reflect on the barbarity displayed by their very own 'self'.
There is, however, a perverse distinctiveness to the ongoing assault in Gaza which deserves consideration.
The situation in Gaza is one of the last instances of 'violent settler colonialism' in the entire world. The forms of systematic domination and control applied to the people of Gaza, find their most direct precedents in the bloody history of Asian, African and Latin American colonialism.
The physical, economic and military blockade of the Gazan people reminds of the ugliest of colonial excesses. Not too long ago, colonising powers would trap, starve and eliminate entire populations to satisfy the economic and strategic whims of their racial and civilisational ‘superiors’.
Much like the Nazi concentration camp of Auschwitz, Gaza is a physical embodiment of what Italian philosopher Gorgio Agamben called the ‘state of exception’ — a space where lives are deemed unworthy of living; a space deliberately kept away from political recognition and teetering at every whim of the ascendant sovereign power.
The nature of the Israeli occupation is all the more distinct because of its ethno-racial underpinnings. The Palestinian people are kept occupied, stateless and structurally segregated because they are Arab and not ethnically Jewish. Most remain without the right of return to the land they were displaced from, because their ethnicity precludes them from returning to their homes, according to the laws of the Zionist state project.
In almost all other parts of the world, such forms of racially-determined exclusion from citizenship have been rightly confined to the dustbins of history. In Gaza and Palestine, they are forcibly kept in place by the might of the sole superpower and its allies.
The closest historical example for such systematic ethno-racial dispossession and exclusion is, as many have pointed out, the South African apartheid.
The popular dismantling of apartheid in South Africa was not just a hard-won victory for the country’s black population. It was a global victory which effected a worldwide consensus that institutional segregation based on race or skin colour would no longer be acceptable, much less on the state level.
When a just settlement in Palestine puts an end to this colonial enterprise and state of exception, it will serve a similarly demonstrative purpose. It will signify the dismantling of a colonial structure established through violence by the global centres of power, and held in place with imperialist might underpinned by racist assumptions of civilisational superiority. It will mark the end of the principles of exclusion, collective punishment and mass deprivation on disenfranchised populations by colonisers purporting to serve the interests of democracy and freedom.
Its potential effect on resistance movements around the world, on the weakening of the imperialist authoritarian apparatus, and on the undermining of the logic of violent fundamentalism, including in Pakistan, cannot be overstated.
None of this is to suggest that the struggles for justice in Pakistan (and elsewhere in the Muslim world) are less important. On the contrary, the hegemonic excesses occurring inside our own country need to be at the centre of the Pakistani society’s otherwise conservative political consciousness.
'Across the Muslim world, there needs to be a reckoning about the internal roots of its conflicts, and serious self-reflection about the all-too-familiar political, moral and intellectual crises most of it is faced with. In particular, the constant vacillation between violent, exclusionary and misogynist fundamentalism and repressive state authoritarianism has to be intellectually and politically dealt with. Crucially, there needs to be concerted political engagement by progressives in Muslim society to mobilize the structurally de-politicized working masses in the Muslim world on these issues of justice and inclusion.
But none of this needs to distract from the struggles of Gaza and Palestine. What is needed is to retrieve the language of resistance from the exclusionary, millenarian and anti-Semitic foundations of the religious right, and reclaim once more the global struggle for Palestine in the terms of humanity and justice that emphasize its undeniable universality. For a struggle so humanly fundamental, the forging of a concerted humanist and internationalist solidarity can be the only apt response.
For Agamben, the concentration camp of Auschwitz was the pinnacle of the logic of state sovereignty: it illustrated the logical conclusion of the state’s combination of biopower (power over peoples’ bodies) and sovereignty (an exclusive political community).
Aushwitz marked the point of no return, revealing the excess of state power for what it really is. It thus marked the starting point of a new politics.
When it achieves justice, Palestine will do the same.
http://www.dawn.com/news/1123463/gazas-state-of-exception
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Israeli Terrorism
By S P Seth
August 06, 2014
The people of Palestine did not want to be displaced and replaced from where their forefathers had lived forever. They, therefore, put up strong resistance and their consequent struggle only resulted in greater misery
Whether or not there is a ceasefire, Israel wants to continue the massacre in Gaza. Of course, there is the excuse/justification that Israel is simply exercising its right of ‘self-defence’ against incoming rockets fired from Gaza by Hamas and other associated groups. But there are only two Israeli civilians killed by rocket firing, while the Israeli bombing, at the time of writing, has killed over 1,800 Palestinians (and rising). And 80 percent of those killed are civilians, many of them women and children. In other words, Israel is using the civilian population as ransom to crush the resistance movement spearheaded by Hamas. Undoubtedly, most Palestinians share the aspiration to become masters in their own homeland. Who would not when their territory is besieged from all sides and the people are confined to a vast prison-like existence with all movements of humans and goods dependent on Israel’s mercy? There is no hope in hell of any redemption, unless the world wakes up to Palestinian misery. By and large, the Arab world and the larger international community have abandoned the Palestinians. This is what Israel wants. Every time it pounds the Palestinians in Gaza and/or the West Bank, its narrative presents itself as the victim and much of the world seems to buy it.
What is this narrative? Essentially, it preys on the holocaust visited on the Jews and other pogroms they were subjected to when they lived in Europe. The stereotypes created about them, reproduced also in the US, have been a part of mainstream European literature and culture. Its culmination by way of a final solution under the Nazis, and European and American indifference to their plight, finally persuaded these countries to salvage their conscience by creating a ‘homeland’ for these people. And since the Zionist movement wanted to reclaim their homeland in Palestine, it did not seem a difficult proposition as the Palestinians were among the most powerless people in the world. This would explain why the creation of the state of Israel got the stamp of approval from the UN Security Council. Against this backdrop of victimhood in which, incidentally, the Palestinians had no role to play, the state of Israel emerged as a ‘heroic’ tale of a people managing to return to their ‘lost’ land. And when this story had supporters among almost all members of the Security Council, it was not difficult to see how it became an acceptable narrative.
The problem, though, was that the people of Palestine did not want to be displaced and replaced from where their forefathers had lived forever. They, therefore, put up strong resistance and their consequent struggle, backed by some of the Arab countries, only resulted in greater misery. Israel, created and nurtured with US support, money and weaponry, proved too powerful for the Arab coalition. And in the six days war of 1967, Israel exponentially expanded its occupied territory, leading its defence minister, Moshe Dayan, to declare that Israel was now an empire. Since then, the basic fact that Israel is an occupying power acting at will and constantly altering ground realities, is a constant.
Notwithstanding the Oslo Agreement of 1993, creating a framework for a peaceful resolution to the Palestinian issue, and subsequent efforts in that direction, the most recent one by John Kerry (whom the Israeli government found so annoying), Israel simply does not want a political solution that will accommodate Palestinian aspirations. The entire facade over the years of a political solution is a gimmick to drag on the process to a point where it becomes pointless and fruitless. Israel wants total capitulation with the acceptance of an even deeper state of apartheid than exists today. Better still, they would like to make the Palestinians’ existence so miserable that they would just exit their homeland like many did before.
Just look at what they are doing to Gaza. Gaza is a vast open air prison with its 1.8 million people kept like prison inmates, surrounded on all sides by Israel. Some Israelis have, at times, urged that it be reduced to the Stone Age or simply flattened. And, at best, its residents should be kept at a bare subsistence level to keep them occupied with their sheer survival. However, the problem is that, despite periodical flattening of parts of their territory and mass murder of their people through Israeli bombing and missile attacks, they still have not submitted to Israeli terror. Egypt sought to bring about a ceasefire on Israeli terms, which amounts to total surrender on Gaza’s part. In essence, it would mean the demilitarisation of the Gaza Strip under Israeli control.
Hamas has not been willing to go so easily and has kept up its barrage of rockets falling in Israel but without causing any real damage while Israeli bombing is killing people on an industrial scale. Watching women and children in the throes of despair is heartrending. Netanyahu reportedly described them as the “telegenic corpses” of the Palestinian children. How sick! The Israeli narrative, however grotesque and cruel, still is that they are bombing and killing Gazans as a defensive measure. And that is not the end of it. Its ground invasion is intended to destroy, according to Israel, the network of tunnels that are, in some ways, Gaza’s alternative lifeline. Israel wants to destroy the entire infrastructure that makes Hamas continue its resistance.
And Egypt under Sisi, like his predecessor Hosni Mubarak, is facilitating this task with even greater enthusiasm. Some of its journalists, working for the state-controlled media, reportedly are even appreciative of Israeli efforts to eliminate Hamas. Indeed, the defeating silence of the Arab world on the Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip is a sad reflection on its state of affairs in the wake of the so-called Arab Spring. Egypt, Saudi Arabia and other Arab monarchies have no love lost for Hamas, regarded as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood. This, in turn, has been banned as a terrorist organisation in Egypt, with its entire leadership in prison and many of them sentenced to death or long prison sentences. Saudi Arabia is right behind the Sisi regime in its crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood. Against this backdrop of politicking within the Arab world targeting the Muslim Brotherhood, it is not entirely surprising that Hamas finds itself so isolated. Israel is getting away with murder and mayhem. Still, Israeli forces might find the going hard to pacify the Gaza Strip as even the inveterate Israeli warhorse Ariel Sharon found when he finally withdrew Israeli occupation and settlements from there.
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/opinion/06-Aug-2014/israeli-terrorism
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My Own Private Palestine
By Shambhu Rahman
6 August 2014
Imagine a country where troubles started with British rulers. Drawing lines, separating people, making “country.” Map makers who visit the location for a day, or perhaps not at all. Drawing a red line in impossible spaces.
The only response to the madness is to become mad in return. Others tried to raise the flag they believed should have been given. But a day later, armies arrived. Principles and “we have lived here for generations” was no match for a rifle pointed at your son’s chest.
After the World War, Europe in survival mode, an exhausted Empire in retreat – new post-colonial nations are created. For geo-strategic reasons, borders become permanent and people find themselves in another country.
Now, my troubles begin
The original inhabitants of that land now become a problem. They have no documents proving legal ownership of the land they lived in for generations. Nobody had thought that land documents would be needed. Now, with a new state, suddenly they neither have the documents, nor any path to procure them.
Slowly, they start to see settlers – new arrivals subsidised by an invisible, far-away government. Ironically, the settlers come from a people who have been historically oppressed, and have just emerged from a historic genocide. But they fail to see the contradiction in their own action. Victims become killers very easily.
Soon, very soon, the original inhabitants find themselves becoming a numeric minority. More settlers take over land and build settlements. Large construction projects also arrive, displacing entire villages. The gentle days are over.
The inevitable happens. The original inhabitants lose their gentleness. A charismatic leader rises and unites the disparate groups – groups that formerly had no cohesion, structure, or politics.
An armed guerrilla group is born, the stated intention is to defend rights and win freedom. They carry out attacks that grab headlines.
For a time, the world is enamoured of the figure of the romantic guerrilla. But soon, other headlines dominate, and they move on. Neighbouring states also support the movement for a time. Less out of solidarity, more out of a desire to make trouble for their enemy.
Mahmoud Darwish said in a Godard film: “The world is only interested in us because of who our enemies are.”
Eventually the neighbouring states stop supporting the guerrillas. The settlers are also increasingly well-protected. Lighting strikes that cause damage become difficult.
Exhausted and under-funded, the guerrilla movement drops the demand for full independence. Now they want autonomy, some even say partial autonomy would be acceptable.
The charismatic guerrilla leader comes out of hiding. In an open clearing, his helicopter lands and he emerges into light. Secret talks have prepared the path for this day. To everyone’s surprise he recognises the right to co-existence. Some praise his maturing political approach, others remain suspicious. After marathon talks, a historic peace treaty is signed. Handshakes all around. A peace dove is released.
Some observers are jubilant: An end to the fighting at last! But among the guerrilla movement’s own ranks, there are cries of betrayal. The movement splinters into two. The more radical group rejects the treaty, and vows to continue fighting. And so they do, until they too run out of energy, weapons, spirit.
The second inevitable happens. Now the two factions start fighting each other. Brother against cousin against friend. Fratricide is the order of the day; the movement for independence and rights is long forgotten.
The indigenous people are at a twilight crossroad. Independence is a shattered dream, many are so exhausted they want peace at any cost. Their children scatter all over the world – Australia, England, America, any place that will give a visa. A new diaspora is created. The next generation is exhausted. “Give us freedom” becomes “Just give me a job and some dignity.”
The once proud guerrilla movement is corroded by corruption. A random kidnapping happens, and the former guerrilla group always gets blamed by the state.
Joto Dosh Nondo Ghosh. No faction claims credit, thus every person is a suspect. Even those who have assimilated and taken mainstream jobs are not protected. It all depends on the way you look, the colour of your skin, the shape of your eyes, your last name.
Meanwhile, the military of this nation grows and grows in size. They become the recipients of advanced technology. The disputed territory becomes the site for “training” exercises that never end. The military hardens, the level of violence they are willing to apply grows. When you use an army against a civilian population, they will, they must, start seeing every civilian as an enemy combatant.
Everything I wrote above, it did happen. Not far away in the Middle East, but inside our own homeland.
Our voices rise high against the government of a faraway state, but we dare not speak against our own state and its will to power. Our hearts bleed for Palestine, but when will it bleed for our own people?
This is an elegy for the Chittagong Hill Tracts.
http://www.dhakatribune.com/op-ed/2014/aug/03/my-own-private-palestine#sthash.qt4rfUD9.dpuf
URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-west/world-media-gaza-israel-part-14/d/98458