‘Sanction Israel, suspend recognition, deploy force, break blockade’

Islamabad:Pakistani ministers and leading international opinion makers have called for urgent global action to ensure Israel and Palestine do not revert back to another deadly conflict that left over 240 Palestinians including more than 60 children and many women killed. 10 Israelis also died due to missile hits launched by Hamas from the Gaza Strip.

In his keynote speech to a webinar on the latest conflict between Israel and Palestine, organised by London-based South Asia Future Forum (SAFF), Federal Minister for Information & Broadcasting Fawad Chaudhry said that long-festering international disputes needed to be resolved through “dialogue and discussion rather than bombs, bullets and barbarity.”

Saying the Israelis were expected to behave more humanely with suppressed people especially after having gone through the heart wrenching experiences of the Holocaust during the Second World War, the minister said: “Sadly, it seems, Benjamin Netanyahu is not one of those men.”

Minister Chaudhry said what started as a land grab over 70 years ago has now turned into the worst form of apartheid converting Palestinian territories into virtual prisons. “Gaza currently is one of the largest concentration camps in the world.”

He said Israel routinely destroyed the life and livelihood of the Palestinian people with impunity. “And it does it in full view of the world. It terrorises, it blockades, it strikes, it kills a people - and tragically, it seems that Israel relishes it too.”

This cannot be allowed to go on, Chaudhry said and asked the international organisations like the United Nation to exercise their primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security. He said the international organisations could learn a lesson from the global public opinion expressed through social media and the people’s protest marches across all continents. “Something that the international organisations have miserably failed to do.

Since the Israeli aggression is halted for now, it should be our collective responsibility to work together globally to make sure such barbarity, such brutality, such inhumanity and such insanity is not repeated again by Israel, he said.

He called for the deployment of an international protection force in Palestine until a lasting peace is found and. “If international peacekeeping troops can be deployed in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Far East, why should Israel and Palestine be the exception?”

Pakistan’s Minister for Human Rights Shireen Mazari said it would be wrong to term the recent cycle of fighting between Israel and Palestine as a conflict or war. “It was massacre, it was genocide”.

She said we could no longer be be bullied by the narrative built by the western world where Islam could be ridiculed as a faith, where our Holy Prophet (PBUH) could be ridiculed but if Israel’s deep connections with international media were highlighted then we portrayed as anti-Semitic. “We don’t share part of the burden of history that the West is trying to shift on our shoulders. What happened during the Second World War, what the Nazis did, that is not our burden to bear. You take the responsibility. You want to make amends, make amends but not by massacring innocent Palestinians.”

Ms Mazari said that peace and occupation could not exist together. Israel will have to end occupation if it wants peace, she said and vociferously called for special international sanctions against the state of Israel for massacring innocent Palestinians. “A special tribunal be set up to look at the massacre taking place, violation of international law and war crimes committed by Israel.”

She said Israel was not only massacring the Palestinians but also attacking Islam as a faith. “When you go into Al-Aqsa Mosque during Ramadan and you cut off Azan (call for prayer) that is an attack on the faith of Islam, When you don’t allow worshippers to break their fast in the courtyard of Al-Aqsa Mosque, that is not an attack on the Palestinians. It is an attack on the faith of Islam. Israel is not only trying to eliminate the presence of Palestinians in Palestine, it is also trying to remove all signs of the faith of Islam. That is even more dangerous.”

She asked the Muslim and Arab states that have recognized Israel to suspend the recognition. “You can’t have trade and tourism with Israel and then expect Israel to fall in line to follow international rules and regulations.”

If we are serious about peace in that part of the world, begin with sanctions against Israel, begin with suspension of recognition of the state of Israel and isolate Israel. It can be done. And to ensure that the massacre of Palestinians is not repeated again, an international force must be deployed to end ethnic cleansing and genocide by the apartheid state of Israel. Muslim state must break the blockade of Gaza to take humanitarian aid and supplies to the besieged Palestinians, she said in her concluding remarks.

Senator Mushahid Hussain Sayed, who also heads the Senate’s Foreign Affairs Committee, listed a few lessons that Israel might have learnt from the latest conflict. “Firstly, Israel couldn’t subdue Hamas despite 11 days of barbaric bombing. Secondly, Hamas and Hezbollah have emerged as two focal point of resilience in the struggle against Israel. Thirdly, Israel have lost the conflict morally, legally and politically and this fact was obvious through the sea change in global public opinion expressed through street demonstrations particularly in the West - in London, New York, Michigan, Madrid, Paris. Sadly similar enthusiasm was not witnessed in the Muslim world. Fourthly, the clashes between Jewish and Arab population of Israel have given a new dimension to the conflict.”

Saying that the occupation of Palestinian land has become a bleeding wound for Israel, an unsustainable policy that would bleed Israel from within, Sayed suggested Israel should engage Hamas in direct talks as they have emerged as the “sole legitimate voice of Gazans and a credible political stakeholder.”

He also supported the deployment of an international peace force in Israel and Palestine and breaking up of the Gaza blockade. “Time has also come to think of the status of Jerusalem. Revert to United Nations resolutions that talk of an independent Palestine side by side Israel and sharing Jerusalem as a joint capital.

Mossi Raz, an Israeli parliamentarian belong to left-leaning Meretz party condemned missile launching and bombing of civilian population during the recent conflict. “Sending missiles to civilians is a war crime and it is not important who is doing it.”

He said he was sad to see what happened at Al-Aqsa Mosque and sad to see over 240 Palestinians and 10 Israelis killed including more than 60 children. “Missiles and bombs don’t distinguish between children, women and ordinary people.”

Raz supported the idea of Israelis and Palestinians sharing Jerusalem. He said being the stronger party in the conflict Israel bore more responsibility for the death and destruction. But he also said that it was the collective responsibility of local actors - right-wing, left-wing Israelis, Palestinians, Fatah & Hamas - and the international community to bring peace between the two people.

And that peace would not be possible unless there is equality, human rights, freedom and right of self-determination. “Israel has a right to live within 1967 borders and Palestine has a right to exist in peace.

He supported the Arab League Peace Initiative (API) to solve the decades-old imbroglio “meaning Arabs want peace and normalisation with Israel if Israel withdrew from the land it occupied in 1967 War and find a just solution for the Palestinian refugees.”

Nomi Bar-Yaacov, an associate fellow at London’s Chatham House and a foreign policy advisor on Middle Eastern affairs, supported the urgent need for international community’s help in seeing Israel end the occupation. She seconded Mushahid Hussain Sayed’s suggestion about direct talks between Israel and Hamas in order to move towards a workable peace between the parties. She also hinted that Israel might be ready for a change in administration as Netanyahu’s political opponents including the Muslim majority Ra’am party have until June 2 to show if they could form a government.

She also suggested that the Muslim world needed to know that Israel was not a political homogeneity and not all Israelis supported what happened in the last few days. “The country is divided and many Jewish people are [politically] fighting against the present administration of Benjamin Netanyahu.”

Quoting the assassination of former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in November 1995 by Yigal Amir, an Israeli extremist, Ms Bar-Yaacov said there was constant incitement against the Palestinians by the right-wing segments of the society but “there is also incitement against the left-leaning opinion holders.”

She also spoke about the differences between Fatah and Hamas and challenged if Hamas could be called the “sole legitimate voice” of the Palestinian people. She said the Israel-Palestine conflict needed to be solved through discussion and dialogue and cautioned against making “radical statements”.

Dr Clement Therme, a research fellow at Paris’ Sciences Po, spoke about the role of Iran in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and how different parties and Tehran used it to their advantage. He said the French public opinion had been impacted since the 2015 (Charlie Hebdo) attacks and more French people now look at Israel sympathetically whenever a conflict flares up between Israel and Palestinians.

Dr Adil Najam, the inaugural dean of the Purdee School of Global Studies at Boston University, in his remarks spoke about the importance of the “public street” in hostilities like the Israeli-Palestine conflict. He said the role of social media and global public sentiments might achieve to resolve long-festering issues that the states have failed to solve.

Dr Hassan Abbas, who teaches international relations at the Near East South Asia Strategic Studies Centre of the National Defense University, Washington DC spoke of the role of faith and faith leaders in resolving complex international conflicts.

Dr Ishtiaq Ahmad, the vice chancellor of Sargodha University and a former Quaid-e-Azam Fellow at Oxford University’s St Anthony’s College, said the Arab League Initiative, originally proposed by Saudi Arabia remained the best option to deal with the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

SAFF founder, Aamir Ghauri, moderated the webinar.