With TONY OKOROJI
On October 7, 2023, the perennial carnage in which the Israelis slaughter the people of Palestine, exploded again, this time, on a scale unknown in human history. On television, we have seen over and over again the gory images of the mayhem caused by the massive Israeli military machine that has ripped to shreds the women and children of Gaza and their brothers and husbands wherever they are found.
At the last count, more than forty-two thousand Palestinians, old women and mere children are reported to have been slaughtered like cattle in a never-ending bombardment. Most of the people suffering this incredible misery are innocent people caught up in the struggle for power and domination. Massive buildings have come crashing down like a pack of cards as the structures that support human life in Gaza are wasted. No school, hospital, mosque, church or market has been spared. You see as the people are chased away from their homes like rodents and bombed relentlessly on the road as they run to nowhere in particular. And this is happening in 2024? I am traumatized.
My understanding of war is a confrontation between two armies, both reasonably well trained and equipped, each battling the other. What kind of war is this in which one side is very well fed, has all the bombs, the jet fighters, the missiles, the machine guns and the iron dome? Meanwhile, the other side has no food, no medications no roofs over their heads and no weapons of any significance?
In the meantime, the people responsible for this massacre and their friends justify this horrific killing field. They explain it with a lot of grammar on CNN and at the United Nations. Those who have the big guns also own the big loudspeakers and the sophisticated PR specialists. So, they activate their propaganda machinery to dominate the narrative. Nothing is true or false anymore. It is all a matter of how you coin it and spread it. So, they justify the carnage by announcing that they are defending their people!
I have watched the repeated announcements by U.S. President, Joe Biden, that there will soon be a ceasefire in Gaza to stop this true-life horror happening before our eyes. Which cease-fire? Of course, each expectation has been shattered. You don’t have to be clairvoyant to know that Benjamin Netanyahu, the hawkish Prime Minister of Israel, has simply been playing games. He has broken every promise he made to Biden. Bibi Netanyahu never wanted any cease-fire. His true intent is a war without end in which he annihilates the Palestinian people, seizes their land, and his many infractions, as Israeli Prime Minister, are buried with the thousands of dead Palestinians. Bibi is desperate to be seen as the greatest Prime Minister of Israel ever, and nothing will be allowed to stand on his way.
Many of my Christian friends who read the bible upside down, will tell you that Netanyahu is doing the work of God. They will point to some scripture text which they are reading out of context, and insist that what is happening is written in the Book. Excuse me, Netanyahu is not doing the work of the God that I worship. Palestinians are also children of God.
Some others will justify the madness going on, insisting that it was started by Hamas who on October 7, 2023, went over the wall that separates Gaza from Israel and killed about one thousand two hundred people and abducted more than two hundred people who they took as hostages to the Palestinian enclave.
I wish to make it clear that I verily do not support the taking of the lives of any innocent human being, whether Jewish or Arab, black or white. I certainly do not support the killing of the young people who were simply having a good time at a music festival in Israel. But to conclude that what is going on is as a result of what happened on October 7, 2023, is to turn history on its head.
This is not the first time the Israelis have tried to bomb the Palestinians into submission. What have the Palestinians been asking for? Simply, to have a state of their own like other human beings. What is so wrong with that?
Much of the world has proposed a two-state solution to the Arab–Israeli problem. It is clear that Netanyahu does not want that solution. He clearly prefers a situation where Israel continues to control and dominate the Palestinians forever. What is the difference between this situation in Palestine and Apartheid? How can the Jewish people, victims of the atrocious holocaust, be seen to engage in this kind of behaviour?
While still bombing Gaza, Benjamin Netanyahu has turned his bombs and drones to Lebanon, expanding the destruction and killing field and the suffering of thousands of more innocent men, women and children now sleeping on the streets of Beirut. It appears that nobody can stop him, not even the United States of America.
The world is on the edge. Anything can happen, any time now. Benjamin Netanyahu does not seem to be listening to anybody, not even his own people. He is flexing his muscles. This is not the first time in human history that a leader who has convinced himself that he has the might and that his might is right, has unleashed mayhem on humanity.
Has Bibi Netanyahu lost his soul?
See you next week.
Leave a Reply