War on Gaza, We, the People and the ICJ Delivers Judgment
- Written by Mahboob A. Khawaja, PhD.
Looking Beyond the Conflict - the ICJ Reflects on War and its Consequences
America and Israel’s shared trajectory of political cynicism about the consequences of the war comes to scrutiny by the legal power of the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Todays judgment shows strentgh of reasoning and will of people and calls upon Israel to “take all measures to prevent genocide in Gaza” and stop killing of people and provide humanitarin aid and report back within a month to the ICJ of measures taken to ensure compliance to the verdict. Surely, the judgment portrays an ill-informed conscience at default of an enlightened global human conscience winning the battle. Defiant Israel and its PM Netanyahu sounded abhorrent to reasoned judgment and appears to have lost the mind of moral and intellectual leadership. Obviously, the ICJ verdict valued the sanctity of human life, principles of international law and justice and sanctioned a big blow to American-Israel convergence of tyranny on the innocent masses of Gaza.
The concerned global humanity psychic impulse is uplifted but a judgment short of ceasefire spells uncertainty if American and Israeli leadership would comply with an objectively grounded reason to make a navigational change and stop the hostilities to preserve their own much needed moral and political stability. The universal spirited decision depicts psychological, moral and legal win for South Africa and global mankind challenging the myth of the US-Israel powerful manipulation succumbing to dynamic degradation in global affairs. President Biden, Netanyahu and some of the West European leadership(Britain, France and Germany), used twisted logic and political discrepancies between what they claim to be and how they acted as self-acclaimed custodian of the universal human rights, freedom and justice, democratic values and global systems of governance. Another stagnation of time and history are the puppet Arab-Muslim leaders complicit in making the Gaza humanitarian tragedy. They miserably failed to challenge the hegemonic power politics led by the US and its Western allies.
An evil is inseparable from political cynicism when delusional and morally and intellectually inept leaders view war as a means for militarization of the world without an end in sight. President Joe Biden and Secretary Blinken act as if there are members of the Israeli War Cabinet. Biden made it clear being a staunch “Zionis”t to suppoprt Israel. Chris Hedges in his Report (“The Four Horsemen of Gaza’s Apocalypse - Read by Eunice Wang” 1/24/24), explains: Joe Biden relies on advisors who view the world through the prism of the West’s civilizing mission to the “lesser breeds” of the earth to formulate his policies towards Israel and the Middle East.
Secretary Antony Blinken, a highly controversial figure recently touring the region, wanted Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan to consume 2.3 million people of Gaza illegally expelled by Israel. Did the Arab leader not realize his insincere behavior and official engagements? The UNO at New York, and all Western public institutions of peace, security and human rights made no efforts to protect the 2.9 million civilians expelled and being continuously bombed by Israeli armed forces - even the hospitals, UNRWA shelters, schools and places of worship not spared by the madness of the war. The unabated bombing offers an updated statistics of 26,000 people killed, some 9,000 children and 7,000 or more women crushed and according to the media some 8,000 children still buried under rubble and some 24,000 orphan children for the record human casualties. The whole of Gaza looks inhabitable as PM Netanyahu wanted to do. Insulting common sense and morality,Israeli forces have bulldozed even the Palestinian cemeteries with freshly buried human corpses; bulldozed the maternity ward of AlNasser and Al-Aamal hospitals and detained 250 medical doctors and staff of Al-Shifa hospital and 40 women-kids cold blooded massacred at north UNRWA school shelter.
The dysfunctional UNO and its Security Council - responsible to “safe the succeeding generations from the scourge of war” is simply a forum of ridicule debates and hollow reports summing up naked violations of its Charter and international principles and practices governing the global system of political governance. Chris Hedges and Peter Koenig (“The Horror, The Horror” in Gaza. Chris Hedges. What Is the UN Good for? Where Is the Human Rights Commission When It Is Needed? Global Research: 11/13/2023): https://www.globalresearch.ca/horror-gaza-what-un-good-where-human-rights-commission-when-needed/5839831
The Living Earth is a Trust to Mankind, Not to be Bombed and Destroyed
In all ages, men of knowledge and wisdom cared for the protection of Earth and all of its resources for the good of humanity. All of the Divine Scriptures (the Torah, Bible and Quran), define Earth as a “trust” to mankind for its existence, sustenance, survival, progress and future-making and it is not the property of America, Israel or European colonists but belongs to all mankind living on its premise. “Fear God” and ‘do not violate the covenants of peace and trust on earth’, remind the teachings of the Bible, Torah and Quran to all humanity, otherwise God’s punishment to the transgressor will be severe. This trust is explicitly mentioned (the Quran,33: 72): “We did indeed offer the Trust to the Heavens and the Earth; And the mountains but they refused; To undertake it, being afraid thereof: But man undertook it; He was indeed unjust and foolish.” When egoistic transgressors challenge the sanctity and limits of the Laws of God; historically speaking they become an object of unthinkable punishment. (51: 15 Quran): Now the Ad behaved arrogantly through the land; Against all truth and reason, and said:” Who is superior to us in strength? What they did not see that God, Who created them was superior to them in strength; But they continued to reject Our Signs.
Would America-Israel come to Reason and End the War?
If the Israelite believe in God and Torah, human blood should not be shed on a precarious scheme to expel Palestinians from their ancestral homes. Arguably the War on Gaza substantiates the wide range of evidence of forcible expulsion of people from north to south, genocidal acts of bombing and “crimes against humanity” impacting the unprotected population, bombardment of hospitals, stopping of foods, fuel, medicine, water and attacks on places of worship. Are we, the People witnessing an end to human history, civility, freedom, justice and sustainable future?
Is there an end game after forcible expulsion of the masses? Logic and Reason is tainted by Israeli extremist political ideology to maintain war and violence by all means. Paranoid and vengeful egoistic Israeli PM Netanyahu would opt for more conflicts to ensure his political survival and extremist’s agenda to drive Palestinians out of Gaza into the unknown. Most Arab leaders are the puppets of Western imperialism. Do the Arab-Muslim leaders have a vision and plan to restore normalcy to the people of Gaza and pursue peace in the Middle East? Or are they waiting for an end to the Palestine freedom movement?
The WHO- Geneva warns of the ‘tsunami of diseases’ in the making if immediate preventive measures are not taken to remove the rubble, dead bodies and restore functional hospitals and increased supplies of fuel, clean water, foods and well being of the displaced people. Agreeably, Palestinians are worthy of security, human dignity and rights as are the Israelis”, and “Two States - Israel and Palestine.” “Gaza: War on We, the People and Arab-Muslim’s Shame”https://www.uncommonthought.com/mtblog/archives/2023/11/22/gaza-war-on-we-the-people-and-arab-muslims-shame.php
Across the globe there is evil as well as good but horrors of war, cries and pains of shredded women and children and devastation of Earth are not the signs of human success and compassion but temptation of madness and sadistic behavior. Now the legal and logical ball rests at the UNO-ICJ and how the US-Israeli leaders would respond to implement some or all the measures outlined by the decision. A universal compass of human credibility would demand adherence to principles of moral and legal obligations to Israel and America and how a reasoned discourse could be articulated towards an immediate ceasefire and ending of the conflict. Undoubtedly politics is conflict and reason have its limits but failure to compliance would lead to more catastrophic consequences for America and Israel if they defy the will of global consciousness for a navigational change and not come to terms with a civilized requisite of policies and behavior to abide by the ICJ verdict.There is no secret or elusive manifestation but a real possibility of global political change in thinking, manifestation of truth, equal rights and peacemaking.
Dr. Mahboob A. Khawaja specializes in international affairs-global security, peace and conflict resolution and has spent several academic years across the Russian-Ukrainian and Central Asian regions knowing the people, diverse cultures of thinking and political governance and a keen interest in Islamic-Western comparative cultures and civilizations, and author of several publications including the latest: One Humanity and the Remaking of Global Peace, Security and Conflict Resolution. 12/2019.
Map courtesy of ABC.net.au
