Opinion

Israel-Palestine armed conflict: The world must wake up

A man carries a crying child as he walks in front of a building destroyed in an Israeli air strike in Gaza City on 7 October, 2023.
AFP

It's the narrow self-interest driven geo-politics that rules the so-called globalised modern world. Thus the UN Security Council could not agree even a resolution to call for a stoppage of the now raging Israel-Palestine armed conflict, having failed to help resolve the issue of the establishment of their own state for the Palestinians for so long.

Militarily weak Palestinians have been pushed back from their lands, killed or manoeuvred into remaining deprived of their legitimate right to their own state and consequently their human development ever since Israel was established in 1948, with western support. And we call the world civilised!!

All right-thinking people of the world must wake up and raise their voices in favour of stopping this humanitarian crisis - humanity's Achilles heel, once and for all by helping set up a separate Palestinian state

Mind-bogglingly advanced economically and technologically, but barbarism becomes the guiding principle of geo-politics of the global power structure when it is the question of the rights of other peoples vis-à-vis own interests however illegitimate they may be, particularly if the 'other peoples' are weak and on the wrong side of the own-interest driven geo-politics of the global power structure. The Palestinians fit this bill vis-à-vis the powerful West.

However, they have been fighting back for their legitimate right with whatever means they can muster. But they are no match to Israel's military might, which has launched a killing spree in the ongoing offensive and counter offensive. There are deaths on both sides but obviously the Palestinians are bearing the brunt of the fatalities and brutality and face further destruction as Israel, the occupation force in Gaza, has unleashed a vehement incursion. Yet, instead of coming forward to trying to resolve the issue, the western countries are supporting Israel in this immoral incursion both morally and materially. How tragic!

All right-thinking people of the world must wake up and raise their voices in favour of stopping this humanitarian crisis - humanity's Achilles heel, once and for all by helping set up a separate Palestinian state. I am proud that, in the true tradition of the declaration of  Bangabandhu that Bangladesh stands with the oppressed of the world, Bangladesh has strongly reiterated its support for the two-state resolution of the impasse i.e. an independent state of the Palestinians alongside Israel.

* Qazi Kholiquzzaman Ahmad is an economist, and development thinker and activist