The sudden attack by Hamas on Israel and Israeli counter-attack on Hamas have indeed created an unprecedented situation not only in and around Gaza but in the entire West Asian region. And that may most probably spread all over the world to assume a global catastrophic dimension, given the vested interests of most of the global and major powers like the United States-led NATO powers and other Western powers versus Russia, China, Iran, Turkey and most of the Muslim states in the region including dreaded terrorist networks like Hezbollah, Islamic State etc. apart from Jaish-e-Mohammad and Tehreek-e-Insaf and many other such terror outfits from Pakistan.
Why may this happen in all probability? It is largely during the recent past, that the world has witnessed turmoil in the form of interventions and aggressions, in addition to testing of bombs, missiles, and other latest generation of lethal weapons, including nuclear bombs, guided missiles etc.. And that still continues with full might even today.
The role of China, North Korea, Iran, and a few clandestine operations by some of the rouge states like Lebanon and Libya in the Middle East and Pakistan in South Asia may be significant in this respect, though South Korea, Japan, Israel and the US can’t be absolved due to being hectically engaged in the very same endeavour, albeit pursuing under compulsion to the aggressive actions of the aforesaid aggressive and interventionist states.
In this scenario, the Hamas action against Israel has obviously opened Pandora’s box in the already surcharged Middle East region, hitherto long burning as a boiling cauldron involving almost all regional partner-states, fighting brutal fratricidal wars among themselves. Although Arab-Israel conflict is perhaps the worst-persisted conflict in the world today for the sake of reclaiming homeland for Palestinians, the Israeli Jews also extend their pious claim of being their own mother land.
The seeds of this conflict obviously lie in the Balfour Declaration of 1917, as the region had been under British mandate as part of the then-prevailing Mandate System evolved by the United Nations, almost as the replica of the earlier ‘white man’s burden’ policy during peak of colonialism. Unfortunately, the mandate administrators, mostly Anglo-European states, despite ostensibly owing allegiance to the principles of freedom, equity, equality, fraternity, and democracy, failed to execute these noble gospels on the ground level in reality and instead sowed mistrust and played divide and rule tactics to divide the native community living therein for furthering their partisan interests to smoothly rule the unknown and different race or nationality with maximum ease and comfort and also to loot the natural resources available there in plenty for boosting their economy and social and political strength.
And that evidently led to immediate arousal of deep resentment and bitter animosity among them (native population) against the foreign mandate rulers which soon witnessed inter-community clashes between rulers and ruled including the pro-ruler sections of the native population, leading to brutal violence and killings of the large number of common masses, thereby further instigating the mounting of tensions and consequent enactment of gruesome acts of violence and terrorism in the entire region.
Thus, West Asia saw the onset of terrorism as a tool or weapon to serve the sectarian interests of the deprived sections of both the Muslim or Jews community and that goes on almost uninterrupted since then despite three Arab-Israel Wars remaining undecided and the Camp David Accord of 1978 for establishing peace and security for both of the warring nationalities.
With the passage of time, few more terror groups have emerged for championing the cause of Palestinian home land and among those, the Hamas have already occupied the scene as a powerful organisation after the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) of late Yasser Arafat with perhaps largest following of the Palestinian community. Interestingly Hamas is said to have been strengthened and evolved by the Israeli Government itself as a counter-force of the PLO during its climax under late Arafat.
But being a terror organisation, it can’t be considered a genuine pressure group to pursue the socio-economic and political interests of the Palestinian Muslims in their true sense of the term Hence the Hamas terror against Israel must be crushed to its end so that never to resurface again in any likelihood.
However, innocent residents in Gaza must be protected, and for that Israel must follow the Laws of War and must not drop bombs or missiles on civilian population and their peaceful destinations. Instead of evacuating Gaza, the native population residing there be immediately and fully protected by providing safer areas with electricity, water, routine life-sustaining commodities besides schools, colleges and hospitals by the United Nations Security Council through its peace keeping operations and such force to be urgently united and commanded for this end. And for this end, all members of the UN Security Council including permanent ones must immediately unite to collectively pursue the much-needed humanitarian assistance at this crucial juncture for the war-torn residents of Gaza, while not forgetting that they are also the human-beings in distress, who ought to be served with all dignity and compassion.
As regards India, the country must activate its diplomacy, being the founding father of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) and exercising enough influence in most of the states in the West Asian region, apart from enjoying a peaceful, compassionate, and accommodating friendly image with all nations in the world. This is so on the basis of New Delhi’s ancient cultural distinguishing features and so-evolved rich traditional heritage projecting the nation as the Vishwa Guru and reflecting ahimsa (non-violence), apramad (non-coceit), vishwa shanti (world peace), vasudhaiv kutumbaka (the whole world as a family) and many more. Hence India must come forward in association with like-minded peace-loving nations like Australia, Japan, England, South Korea to resolve the intricate Arab-Israel conflict forever. It may happen as nothing is beyond human endeavour.
