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The ceasefire between Palestine and Israel has once again made egregious the rank disregard for human dignity, and human life in our postmodern , sophisticated, and humanitarian world. The just concluded armistice, and the conditions which it enshrines, between the two neighbours, can barely said to have an incremental gain from the 'status quo ante bellum', yet the price that one of the nations has paid is hugely disproportionate to the goods bought. More than a couple of thousand lives, and an almost 10 thousand wounded , and an equal number of people homeless is too heavy a price for merely an access to fishing in 12 nautical miles off the coast, and a nominal relaxation in respect to the border trafficking .
The problem is not with the frugality of the aims achieved (though even the longevity of that is doubtful), but the gross normalisation of the morbid misfortune that people of Gaza has been subjected to. I'd thought that that pernicious Stalin's maxim wont have any valid application in the modern warfare, but this nightmare of a war has not just mounted the worst of 'war theatres' for the world to see, but also vindicated one of 'Koba's' favourite enunciations that 'one death is a tragedy, and a million deaths are a statistic'. To me, this almost one sided pummelling of a sliver of nation, gave a feeling of being a party to a quixotic affair. If anyone believed that Palestine could really arm-twist Israel into conceding to its demands, than I offer my heartfelt sympathy, dabbed in incredulity, to those mushy romantics. Palestine, from the very beginning was fighting for a lost cause. Though we can't deny it the efforts for gaining itself the duly deserved sovereignty. But the pigheadedness with which Palestinians kept on with the war, only to capitulate in the end for nominal considerations, does nothing but portrays the visage of a scrawny, sinewy boxer who keeps getting up till the very end , before losing the fight, and wallows in vain consolation that the winner atleast shook hands with him post bout.
Yet, we championed Palestinian cause with the most sincere concern, wore badges, wrote blogs, held pickets, kept up with the body count, and some even changed their FB display picture with the Palestinian flag. And one could almost hear UN human rights chief, Navi Pillay, shouting and howling in the United Nation's vestibules, denouncing Israel for war crimes, only to be placated by a most realpolitik manoeuvre effectuated by the two governments. 2000 thousand lives for that .! No matter how much one tries, one just cannot come to terms with the preposterousness which comes to one's mind when he thinks of the ease with which this local land dispute can be solved. Many a savants have been spent, frothing at the mouth about the 'Two State' solution, which entails the demarcation of the borders at the pre-1967 war scenario. But the elements intrinsic to the human nature, that of egotism and extremism, have precipitated to the extent, between these two nations (which holds true for almost all), that even the most obvious seems the most impractical now.
This war is not an instance which beseeches one to go into the dialectics of the event, but requires one simply to observe at the outset the futility of it. At the cost of sounding mawkish myself , I'd ask , 'what did we gain from this war'. The world is no better than it was 50 days back. To know history of world, one merely has to study history of wars. But the unprofitability of such wars as this , has never been more obvious as it is in present scenario, which makes us question the effectiveness of all those international institutions, which claim to grant no impunity to the transgressors, and boast of having the required tools in their quiver to bring the culprit to the book. We may not believe so , but we all live in a 'Third world world' while elusively chasing the real 'first world' standards, to no avail. And I believe that we can't achieve latter until at least we stop finding answers to all our troubles down the barrel of a gun.
