Sheikh Jarrah
Realities do not remain same in politics but in terms of Washington’s support for Tel Aviv, they have not changed a lot.
The end of World War II brought drastic changes in global politics, international organizations, the economy, and as well as geography. Talking about the Middle East, Balfour Declaration still had no common acceptance among the Muslims generally, and the Arab Muslims particularly, when the hammer of installation of the state of Israel struck Palestinians’ heads. May 15, 1948, witnessed what Palestinians call Nakba ‘the Catastrophe’. Nakba refers to the ethnic cleansing of Palestine and the destruction of the Palestinian society in the mentioned year. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were expelled from their homes with the aid of liberal states and Israeli forces, as a consequence or result of the Zionist Movement. Between 1947 to 1949, approximately 750,000 Palestinians were made refugees around the borders of the very state they had once owned. Zionists took around 78 percent of historic Palestine, destroyed around 530 villages and cities, killing over 15,000 Palestinians in a series of mass atrocities. Then on, till today Palestinians are forced now and then to leave their homes as Israelis or more particularly, Zionists claim that this land belonged to them some two thousand years ago and Palestinians or their ancestors were the occupiers of this so-called Promised Land.
Arabs during the First World War were promised to be given a separate homeland. But they were further divided into smaller states, which might be for ill designs. This caused disunity among these feeble states during the 1948 Arab-Israel war where hardly any Muslim country could get an edge over this new state of Israel. Egypt and then its Arab allies were attacked by Israel in 1967 when Egypt under Nasser was considered a major Arab leading power, but could not bear Israeli attack. Henry Kissinger in his book ‘Years of Upheaval’ explains how Anwer Sadat’s (Nasser’s successor as Egypt’s president) National Security Advisor Hafiz Muhammad Ismail maintained deadlock in the peace process between Arab and Israel after 1967’s war, might be because he was instructed to do so and he was aware of the 1973’s Egyptian surprise attack on Israel. Arabs, once again got it wrong and that strengthened Israel’s position even further, resulting in 1979’s Camp David Accord and then Sadat’s assassination.
Arabs, realizing Israel as a reality of life, kept on forming diplomatic ties with it. As far as the most normal ties were witnessed during Trump’s tenure. And as per international law and UN charter, Israel still keeps settling illegally, expelling Palestinians out of their homes. A similar effort took place in the neighborhood of the occupied East Jerusalem, Sheikh Jarrah during the Muslim holy month of Ramzan this year. The Israeli police entered the holy mosque of Al-Aqsa, during Taraweeh prayer, intensifying protesters’ fury. Within a few days over hundreds of Palestinians were injured during the protests and then came a warning from Hamas to stop such atrocities in the holy mosque of Al-Aqsa.
Soon Hamas’s armed wing Al-Qassam Brigade launched airstrikes against Israel. War erupted and Israel answered those strikes with a heavier response. The bombings and fight continued for eleven days whereas as a consequence, over 58,000 Gazan Palestinians have been displaced, and hundreds died, schools and hospitals damaged. Joe Biden’s secretary of state Antony Blinken met with Netanyahu, then went to Jordan and also visited Egypt to reach a deal between Israel and Gaza.
Coming directly to the point, as per Dr. Kissinger, no US president except Truman was as pro-Israel as Nixon was. But I argue, Trump had crossed Nixon in this regard if not Truman. Then the recent support in almost every term by the Biden administration to the Israelis affirms the notion that moralities do not exist in politics or politics have their own ethics. Some in the United States and as well as around the globe argue that Gaza is the largest open-air prison in the globe but the US narrative is clear that Washington will remain the only capital in the world who will keep supporting Israel no matter what.
In this regard, one can recall the early days of the Biden administration and as well as his election campaign when he stressed much on human rights. Now, one can move ahead-pondering whether Biden is not a man of his words or Gazans are not humans. If one has reached this point, or let's be more informal, if you have reached this point then calculate what made Arabs stay quiet. Quiet not in terms of words but quite quiet in terms of any credible and deterring response. Then one can think over Hezbollah’s credibility, Iran’s might, and can even miss a brutal dictator Saddam Hussein.
People in the almost entire Muslim world including many Western states staged protests and social media war caused somehow little panic in the Israeli rows in terms of international public opinion. Another question clicks here. Even Facebook and Instagram did not remain humane or neutral in this war. According to Al Jazeera News Network, mentioned applications censored videos and photos and even deleted many, uploaded from Sheikh Jarrah. Then a Facebook page was made overnight and millions of people were its accidental followers unknowingly. A sheer biasedness or soft-heartedness of Mark Zuckerberg? I leave it on you.
To conclude, Benazir Bhutto quotes her father Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto in her autobiography, “Realties do not remain same in politics {they change}.” We can conclude that realities in the Middle East particularly, keep changing. They never remain the same. But in terms of Washington’s support for Tel Aviv, realities might have not changed since the very creation of the Jewish State. Though not many if any presidents of the United States have given some hard choices to the people sitting in Knesset.