Changing the ME equation
“The equation must change, and it is about to change,” said Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni shortly after the bombing of Gaza started on Saturday. “We cannot allow Gaza to remain under Hamas control,” she said. “Israel cannot allow Hamas to terrorise its citizens by firing Qassam rockets…. This cannot go on, we must change the equation and we are going to change it.”
What Israel’s would-be prime minister did not say, and what the anchorpersons at the BBC and Fox News she spoke to did not mention, is that the Qassam rockets are no more than life-size toys; several hundred fired over the last year have killed just one Israeli. Compare this to three days of bombing by Israel that has left over 360 dead and close to one thousand wounded, most of them children, women, the old and the sick. But this comparison is a minor detail in the beginning of the process of changing the Middle East equation.
Livni–the daughter of a Polish Revisionist Zionist activist, Yeruham “Eitan” Livni (1919–1991), who came to Palestine during the British Mandate in 1925–belongs to the second generation of Zionists, which is not content with the current status quo. Her statement about changing the equation is not empty words or wishful thinking; it is a statement of fact, borne out by matching action on the ground.
But reactions in the Arab world to the Israeli operation reflect impotent rage, helplessness, defeatism, and empty bombast. The Arab League did what it always does on such occasions: call a summit, which Libyan leader Moammar Qadhafi has already vowed to boycott. “How many times have you called an emergency summit on Palestine?” he asked. “What action has ever resulted…. For my part, I’m tired of listening to this stuck record. This sort of cowardly, defeatist reaction is shameful.”
As I write these lines, this same hopeless defeatism and cowardly reaction is seen across the Muslim world. In country after country, crowds are gathering on the streets, destroying their own property, burning flags and tires, yelling and shouting empty rhetoric. Meanwhile, Israel is carefully gathering tanks and army at the Gaza border for the next step: a ground attack that will bring about that change in the equation.
The difference is obvious. On the one hand, a clear-headed, determined and resolute set of people, who, despite their mutual differences, have decided that it is time to change the equation. On the other hand is a cowardly leadership handicapped by complex and contradictory emotions, lack of clear thinking, and a defeatist mindset.
Given the situation, consider the following scenario: The day after Israel began its latest assault on Palestinians to change the equation, the Custodian of the Two Sacred Houses of Islam announces the rapid assembly of an international Muslim force. While this force gathers from all corners of the Muslim world, he simultaneously issues an ultimatum to Israel: pull back to the 1949 Armistice Lines within 48 hours or face this multinational force, made up of the best regiments and flying units of the armies from around the Muslim world. This is an action that will certainly change the Middle East equation.
The current phase of the changing of the Middle East equation began when the first Congress of World Zionist Organisations was held at Basel in 1897–a Congress that determined to establish a Jewish state in Palestine. The arrival of the European Jews in Palestine made the change of equation a repetitive process with certain milestones: the decade of 1904-1914 (when some 40,000 European Jews arrived in Palestine); 1917 (the Balfour Declaration); 1922 (when the League of Nations granted the United Kingdom a mandate over Palestine); the five-year period between 1919 and 1924 when the third and fourth waves of Jewish settlers brought 100,000 more Jews to Palestine. It changed again on Nov 29, 1947, when the British government withdrew from its commitment to the Mandate of Palestine and the newly created United Nations approved the United Nations’ Partition Plan (through UN General Assembly Resolution 181), dividing Palestine into two states, one Arab and one Jewish, with Jerusalem as an international city.
It changed again on May 14, 1948, when David Ben-Gurion declared the creation of the State of Israel and in the year of fighting that followed–a year during which some 711,000 Palestinians fled Palestine, creating one of the largest refugee populations in modern times.
The arrival of one-and-a-half-million American, European, and Soviet Jews between 1948 and 1958 changed this equation demographically, but the most significant change took place on June 5, 1967, at 7:45, when the Israeli Air Force launched Operation Focus (Moked) to start the Six-Day War. At that moment all but 12 of the nearly 200 Israeli operational jets left Israel, descended upon Egypt and shredded its air force with penetration bombs. At the end of the sixth day, Israel had captured the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, the Sinai Peninsula and the Golan Heights.
Indeed, it is time to change the Middle East equation, but this time let the change be determined by Muslims. If the Custodian of the Two Sacred Houses does not have the courage to begin this change, let the honour be taken by the President of Iran; and if he does not initiate the formation of an international Muslim army, then let it be formed through a fatwa of a group of qualified ulama. Only such an army can fulfil the Qur’anic command of reaching out to the downtrodden, the weak, and the helpless of the Earth (mustadafin fi’l ard).
Dr. Muzaffar Iqbal:
The writer is a freelance columnist. Email: [email protected]
Courtesy : http://www.thenews.com.pk/editorial_detail.asp?id=154682