THE MONSTER IN THE MIDDLE EAST

Israel’s ongoing offensive against Palestinians in  Lebanon and the Gaza Strip is plunging millions into impossible situations, exposing the fairness of all in war as an atrocious injustice.

Who is the monster in the Middle East? It should be Hamas, the militant iran-backed pro-Palestine group. On 7th October 2023, it launched an unprecedented attack against Israel, breaching its supposed impenetrable security, killing 1200 Israelis and taking many others hostage.

The monster in the Middle East should be Israel, which has since the attack launched an unprecedented crackdown against the Gaza Strip. More than 42,000 people have been killed, thousands more injured, and life irreversibly altered even for unborn Palestinians.

The monster in the Middle East should be the US and UK, which continue to back the devastating Israeli offensive — and the International Community, which choosing the easy escape route of international law,  prefers largely to stand by. The monster in the Middle East could yet be Iran, which backs Hamas, and Hezbollah in Lebanon, which has been drawn into an increasingly complicated war.

The monster in the Middle East could yet be the vagaries of history, which seems to give each of the parties in the renewed hostilities a slice of justification for digging in their heels and putting millions of women and children in harm’s way.

The monstrous conflict in the Middle East is a product of warped histories and complicities which are conspiring to sentence innocent Palestinian women and children to a living hell. But of all possible monsters in the conflict in the Middle East, Israel stands out for its complicated engagement with the history of the region and its egregious refusal to countenance any arrangement that may bring lasting peace to the region. Israel has starkly and strenuously refused to make significant concessions for peace, stubbornly clinging on to the land it has annexed, and blindingly branding all who disagree with it as enemies.

 In this expedition of enmity, it has been actively backed by the US in what is actively a collaboration of death against many innocent women and children.

No matter how superior a party to a war is, once the first shot is fired, there is no certainty how it will end or who would suffer what casualty. This is what makes the unpredictability of war so dangerous.

But what is going on in the Gaza Strip cannot even rightly be described as a war. Rather it is a genocide perpetrated by the colonizer against the colonized. This oppression and operation streaked with blood has been decades in the making.

Israel’s annexation and subsequent occupation of Palestinian lands did not inspire as much horror in the rest of the world as it should because of the staunch support of the USA and UK, and the unflinching hypocrisy of the international community.

But it was always going to inspire fierce resistance from a people suddenly turned to strangers and slaves on their ancestral lands. That is undoubtedly what has happened.

Through invasions, displacement, curfews, embargoes, airstrikes, horrific psychological and emotional persecution, generations of Palestinians have been born into the struggle, lived through it and died in becoming generations of martyrs for their cause.

There have also been poets like Mahmoud Darwish and Fadwa Tuqan who have deployed literature as resistance, resilience, and rebellion against a ruthless foe with Darwish  famously asking,”where should we go after the last frontiers, where should the birds fly after the last sky?”

Much like the Rohingya who have been left at the mercy and butchery of the  immeasurably cruel state of Myanmar, the Palestinians have been left at the mercy of Israel, a state that does not know what mercy is.

Peace is the only option that can guarantee lasting security for Israel in the region. Experience has shown that those fighting for their land are willing to continue writing their names with scarlet steam to achieve their cause.

The hostility and humiliation of the world will not break them neither will the hypocrisy of the international community.

Kene Obiezu,

keneobiezu@gmail.com