(Alagan Elavalagan, October 11, 2023)
While the Russian invasion of Ukraine is burning with a large flame, here comes yet another Israel-Hamas fight with flames that have almost pushed the Ukraine war to second place. Come back in the year 5000 or 10000, and humans, the deadliest animal of all, will be fighting for something. If humans landed on Mars, the fight would continue there too.
The theme of the Ukrainian-Russian war and the Israel-Palestine war are almost the same; invasion, occupation, war, and terror. But some of those who call them civilized in the west has a double-standard: they can terrorize others but others cannot terrorize them.
President Zelensky of Ukraine in a speech to NATO on October 10th asked the world to support Israel. He simply ignored the fact that Palestinians are also fighting for their ‘freedom’ and ‘independence’ like him. For Zelensky, Ukrainians taking arms to achieve their ‘freedom’ and ‘independence’ are justified. That is not terror. But Palestinians taking arms is not justified. Is it simply terror for him?
One must note that most of the Hamas attacks are done in occupied Palestinian lands. Under international and UN laws, these lands are illegally occupied lands, as it is with Russia occupying eastern Ukraine. Does Zelensky consider Israel-occupied lands as a part of Israel? Is it like saying Donbas region is part of Russia now.
After hundreds of right-wing settlers ransacked Palestinian villages like Huwara and killed a 37-year old Palestinian man on February 27, 2023, even Israel Defence Forces called it “an action of terror”.
Zelensky describes Hamas taking Israeli women and children from the occupied land, as taking people from “another nation”. On the other hand Palestinian women and adolescents are taken from these occupied lands and placed in jails without any charges. Zelensky is being contradictory. Isn’t this like Zelensky calling Ukraine capturing Russian women and children from the Donbas region as terrorism, but supporting Russia capturing Ukrainian women and children from the Donbas region?
Zelensky should understand that UN Resolution 2334, adopted by the Security Council on 23 December 2016, stated that Israeli settlements are “a flagrant violation under international law”.
Zelensky is almost saying “terrorize them, not us”. Unfortunately it is a double-standard exercised by most humans, regardless of their nationality, race, religion etc.
Most of the western politicians also say “we stand with Israel” all the time and that is fine. But they also say “Israel has the right to defend”. For them, Palestinians have no right to defend themselves? Do they expect Palestinians to unconditionally surrender and be subjects of Israel occupation forever?
Will any of the NATO nations accept to be occupied by another nation and live in an open jail like Gaza? If not, then why do they expect Palestinians to live like subjects of Israel?
UN says 11 teachers and 30 students of UN-run schools have died in Gaza to ongoing retaliation by Israel. War is terror, there is no war without terror. Can you name one war that had no terror in it?
I Love Terrorists