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The visuals from Gaza on television channels are heartbreaking and numbing. We see thousands of desperate, hungry men, women & children, reduced to bare bones, rushing to food distributing vans with empty pots in their hands to get something to feed themselves and their children for half a day. Many weak and elderly can’t make it to the van through the jostling, maddening crowd. Even those, somehow manage to reach the vans with raised hands are too late; there is nothing left for distribution!
Some countries, out of guilt complex or pangs of conscience airdrop sacks of food grain, flour etc triggering off a rush of Palestinians to grab one before it’s too late. We see many of them rushing like mad with sacks on their heads fearing that others might snatch their catch. Some fall on the ground hit by Israeli bullets before they could reach their loved ones.
There lay the dead body along the sack of grain he had collected. With him dies the hope to feed the hungry children that evening. Mothers of over 30,000 Children killed In Gaza since Oct 2024, all their tears dried up due to months of wailing, don’t feel anything anymore; death walks with them like shadow everywhere, burying loved ones has become a daily ritual. They wait for their own turn to exit from this wretched life.
They ask why should they be subjected to such unbearable sufferings, there is no answer! What have they done to deserve this treatment? No answer! When will their plight & misery end? No answer! God was supposedly merciful irrespective of the name he was remembered in. Why doesn’t he do some miracle to redeem His Children? Or He too has forgotten them!
Thousands of people reduced to ghosts frozen in time. Amidst miles and miles of rubbles, with no amenities of human existence, their life is reduced to a long wait: to get something to cope with their hunger until an Israeli bomb, a missile or a bullet ends their seemingly worthless life. One hasn’t seen the actual pictures of hell but it must be quite similar to what we witness in Gaza today!
There seem to be two laws in this world; one for Israel & the others for the rest of the world! Israel has usurped a license to breach sovereignty and territorial integrity of any country; enter at will, kill as many people as it wishes and destroy buildings: schools, hospitals, homes with gay abandon.
Gaza has been reduced to a graveyard, a vast waste land. Over 2 million Gazans have been treated like a herd pushed from one part to another and now subjected to Israeli imposed starvation.
Self-proclaimed custodians of democracy and human rights watch these images like impotent spectators and make empty announcements to recognize the Palestinian state but do nothing to stop Israeli carnage in Gaza. Hamas committed a heinous crime on Oct 7,2023 by entering Israel and killing innocent Israelis and taking hostages. Their pent-up anger against decades of Israeli occupation notwithstanding, this was entirely wrong. They should have released the hostages long back.
On the other hand, the killing of 61 000 Palestinian, more than half of them children and destroying their homes and starving them by Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu, blind to the sight of destruction and unmoved by the sufferings of Palestinians, is nothing short of genocide.
Arab /Gulf leaders have the means to pressure the US to stop supporting Israel and its ongoing maniac killing spree and expansion of Israeli settlements. If they unitedly demanded of the US & the European Union the establishment of a sovereign independent Palestinian state side by side with Israel, it can happen.
But they won’t. Their support is confined to lip service and empty words. During Trump’s visit to the Gulf region a few months back, we saw the spectacle of leaders falling over each other to announce investment of billions of dollars in the US; one leader even presented a plane to him! The Judgement of the International Court of Justice against Netanyahu and Israel matters little.
Why have we, as a global society, become so dehumanized that Palestinian sufferings don’t bleed our hearts? Why don’t we look at the Gazans as human beings who are entitled to normal peaceful life; their children going to schools and playing games and sports? Because we don’t have a vision of peace, prosperity and normalcy for the Palestinian people.
Love begets love. Hatred begets hatred! violence generates more violence. Netanyahu doesn’t understand this simple truth. There can never be peace and security in Israel unless the Palestinian people enjoy the same. By killing thousands of Gazans, he has produced ten times more Palestinians filled with anger, bitterness and hatred for Israel which will perpetuate the cycle of killing.
Netanyahu lacks compassion and kindness hence the aimless violence and bloodletting. He needs to go back to the Dalai Lama for guidance. The Nobel Peace Laureate Buddhist Monk, Dalai Lama XIV has said,
“We can reject everything else: religion, ideology, all received wisdom. But we cannot escape the necessity of love and compassion....
“Every single being, even those who are hostile to us, is just as afraid of suffering as we are, and seeks happiness in the same way we do. Every person has the same right as we do to be happy and not to suffer. So, let's take care of others wholeheartedly, of both our friends and our enemies. This is the basis for true compassion.” Love for others and respect for their rights and dignity, no matter who or what they are.
Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them, humanity cannot survive.
Ambassador Surendra Kumar retired from the Indian Foreign Service. The views expressed here are the writer’s own.
