Who is the terrorist in the Israeli war on Gaza?

By Latheef Farook

After World War I, Palestine which was earlier under Turkey’s Ottoman Empire ,was brought under British mandated rule from 1920 to 1948.  According to the population census, Jews were only 4 percent in Palestine in 1904. Christians, Jews and Muslims co-existed peacefully prior to the Balfour Declaration of 1917 promising the creation of a State for the Jews of the world in Palestine!

Violence in this part of the Middle East began after the declaration was made without any consultation or the consent of the Palestinians!

With Jews arriving from Europe and other parts of the world, in regular numbers into Palestine from 1920 onwards, conflicts and violence became a regular feature. British trained Jewish terror groups such as Hagana and Irgun led by Menachem Begin , Yitzhak Shamir , Ariel Sharon and others began organised attacks on the Palestinians aimed at driving them away from Palestine.

Well organised Jewish terrorist attacks on unarmed ordinary Palestinians went on until 1947, when the British occupying force together with United States prepared the ground for  partitioning Palestine into two, one for the Jews the other for the Palestinians. Once again the British partitioning was unilaterally effected without the consent of the Palestinians.

Six months later in May 1948,United States sponsored United Nations resolution No 181 partitioned Palestine  and Israel born out of terrorism, declared itself a fully “independent” State,  carved out of Palestine as a sovereign nation.

All these were made possible with the power of the ‘sword’ by Western powers, guilty of the killing of six million Jews in the Holocaust. Israel was created and then onwards supported by the British, France, the US and other European colonial powers, in a dubious attempt to wipe out the sins of the holocaust!

None of these countries risked sacrificing an inch of their own lands either in Europe or the US. Willingly, Israel served as the lap dog of these powers to keep the entire Arab populated Middle East in chains.

Menachem Begin with a proven record of killing in Deir Yassin 250 Palestinians in 1948, later became the Prime Minister of Israel and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Yitzhak Shamir with the dubious record of bombing King David Hotel in Jerusalem killing 90 innocent people was also rewarded to the office of Prime Minister of Israel. They, together with other Zionist terror groups continued committing several massacres of Palestinians most of whom were regularly driven out from their traditional homelands, where migrant Jews were settled.

In June 1967 following the six day war, Israel captured the Sinai desert, the West Bank, the Golan heights, Gaza and parts of South Lebanon and other neighbouring lands.Since then Israel started establishing Jewish only settlements in the occupied lands ,unleashed unprecedented oppression of Palestinians whose lives were made miserable deprived millions of people of their basic rights .

Palestinians have been regularly subjected to violence by Israeli settlers, including physical attacks, shooting with live ammunition, torching of fields and livestock, theft and vandalization of property. Israeli security forces also perpetrate widespread attacks against Palestinians.

Meanwhile, there were frequent Israel’s air, sea and land blockade of Gaza creating humanitarian crisis. Israeli authorities periodically shut down the crossings into Gaza, preventing the flow of people, medical cases and essential commodities, including food. The remaining parts of the so-called Palestine has been under total external blockade for the past 17 years, making the Palestinian livelihood miserable beyond comprehension.

Israel by end of September 2023 provoked the Hamas liberation organisation of Palestine by continuously entering the Al Aqsa Mosque and desecrating without any explicable reason the third holiest Mosque of the Muslims worldwide! It was under such highly emotionally unacceptable circumstances that Hamas attacked Israel on October 7.

Commenting on the attack the United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres said “ Hamas attack did not happen in a vacuum. The Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation. They have seen their land steadily devoured by settlements and plagued by violence; their economy stifled; their people displaced and their homes demolished.  Their hopes for a political solution to their plight have been vanishing.

Israel responded most brutally and disproportionately by committing heinous acts of murder amounting to genocide of Palestinians in Gaza – indiscriminate aerial bombing killing so far more than 9000 Palestinians, one third of them children and more than 2000 women, destroying hospitals , mass scale flattening more than 60 percent of the buildings ,depriving water, food, fuel and medicines to cite few crimes. 

Palestinians resorted to violence for their rights and dignity while Israel is committing genocide to ethnic cleanse Palestinians, take over Gaza and colonise the area with Jews. Under such circumstances, can we call Hamas a terrorist organization, while State terrorism by a State born out of terrorism continues ruthlessly protected from adverse publicity by most of the Western media? Who is the terrorist in the Israeli war in Gaza?