Human genius

In recent days, the situation in the Middle East has reached the worst level in the history of the region. There is no precedent for such militant attacks, inside the border of Israel, from the Palestinian territories. Reportedly, due to ongoing horrific airstrikes on Gaza, the total number of casualties on both sides has exceeded three thousand.

Historically, Palestine was part of the former Ottoman Empire. However, the United Nations, in 1947, adopted Resolution 181, known as the Partition Plan, to divide the British Mandate of Palestine into Arab and Jewish states.

The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) was founded in 1969, when the former Mufti of Jerusalem called for all Muslim heads of state to convene a summit in response to a fire that broke out in the Al-Aqsa Masjid in Jerusalem. Since its establishment, the organization has emphasized joint efforts at inter-government levels to resolve the Palestinian conflict.

Today, Israel, after the passage of seven decades, has emerged as the most powerful player in the region. It is an undeniable fact that at the moment most Middle East countries have established bilateral relations with Israel, openly or not. Even Saudi Arabia, an ideological country, had been looking forward to normalizing ties with Israel.

Although India is considered as the US and West 's major ally in the global scenario, some critics are of the view that in the declaration of the recently-held G20 Summit in India, special attention has also been paid to Israel's interests in the region.

On the other hand, the total area of the Gaza Strip is only 365 kilometers, where more than 200,000 people are forced to live under the worst circumstances, deprived of basic humanitarian facilities. Geographically, its land border with Egypt is 11 kilometers long and with Israel is 51 kilometers long, but both countries have closed their borders to the people of Gaza. Therefore, no person is allowed to enter the Gaza Strip and no one is allowed to go outside. Such brutal restrictions of movement convert the Gaza Strip into the world's most miserable and biggest jail in modern times.

Some reports suggest that successful attacks inside Israel's borders are actually the result of Israel depending heavily on Artificial Intelligence (AI). To counter these advanced capabilities, militants devised a strategy so that everything under observation would look normal and nothing unusual seemed to be going on. They managed to provide data that was favourable for Israel and the human genius confused the artificial intelligence mechanism based on algorithms, machine learning and Big Data.

It is being said that the peace process in the region has been disrupted by the recent conflict. However, I think that sabotaging the peace process is not in the interest of any country located in the Middle East. Some forces outside the region, which had influence in the past and still want to control the region on the basis of religious differences, are in a position to take advantage.

All peace-loving forces from all regions of the world must play their due role in finding a complete and sustainable solution to the Palestinian conflict.

The writer is a former member of the

National Assembly and patron-in-chief of the Pakistan Hindu Council.

He tweets/posts @RVankwani