Open-air Prison
Making a Faustian bargain was out of question, hence, the whole of Palestine, in particular the proudest and most principled Gaza, was turned into an open-air prison with no escape.
Due to this, Jonathan Cook, an award-winning British journalist, branded the latest Gaza uprising against the Israeli occupation as “Gaza’s (prison) breakout.”
It goes without saying that all discourses about the Palestinian issue are to be placed against the background of the occupation and perpetual tyranny. All other things are irrelevant. If not, problems could be muddled and developments misunderstood.
Accordingly, the Palestinians are entitled to make recourse to all sorts of means and channels to end the occupation and punish the evil oppressors.
Such terms as terrorism, criminality, rigidity, unwillingness to negotiate or compromise, etc., are not to be associated with the Palestinians in any way.
They are freedom fighters par excellence; they are heroes and beautiful examples to others; their dead are martyrs and inspiration to posterity.
The West has no Integrity
Given that the subjects of the occupation and oppression are overlooked, or at least discounted, especially in Western circles, the reputations of the occupier and the occupied are often viewed as equivalent, and the treatments of the oppressor and the oppressed accorded parity.
They are judged by the same benchmarks and classified into the same grouping. Declining to realign its outlook, the Western world, clearly, has lost its bearings. Its reactions to the unfolding Palestinian catastrophe are often outrageous, bordering on utter irrationality and farce.
The word “hypocrisy” is becoming a cliché and people are growing to be unresponsive. In consort with its propensity to distort narratives, the West is impervious to any ethical accountability.
As a result, the desperate legitimate defensive undertakings on the part of the dehumanized and caged Palestinians are perceived as a form of aggression against the Israelis, who are regularly depicted as victims.
Living in the vicinity of the violent Palestinians, they are endangered and, therefore, must be protected. The corollary of this sentiment is that Israel is one of the most potent military forces in the world, whose muscles are mercilessly and regularly flexed against the innocent and defenseless Palestinians.
This is all done with the unreserved approval of the Israeli masters in the Western corridors of power, with regular exclamations that the cruel and uncivilized Palestinians should be “taught a lesson” and be “given hell.”
For illustrative purposes, following the latest defensive (liberative) surprise attack by Palestinian Hamas on Israel, the White House said in a statement: “The United States unequivocally condemns the unprovoked attacks by Hamas terrorists against Israeli civilians. There is never any justification for terrorism. We stand firmly with the government and people of Israel and extend our condolences for the Israeli lives lost in these attacks.”
US military chief Lloyd Austin added: “Over the coming days the Department of Defence will work to ensure that Israel has what it needs to defend itself and protect civilians from indiscriminate violence and terrorism.”
Similarly, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen posted the following: “I unequivocally condemn the attack carried out by Hamas terrorists against Israel. It is terrorism in its most despicable form. Israel has the right to defend itself against such heinous attacks.”
Singing the same tune, which appears almost as though written in advance and memorized beforehand, French President Emmanuel Macron said: “I strongly condemn the terrorist attacks which are currently hitting Israel. I express my full solidarity with the victims and their families, and those close to them.”
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization likewise condemned “terrorist attacks by Hamas against NATO partner Israel”, a spokesman for the defense alliance said.
“Our thoughts are with the victims and all those affected. Terrorism is a fundamental threat to free societies, and Israel has the right to defend itself,” said spokesman Dylan White (Aljazeera.com).
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“Custodians of Universal Values”
However, the problem with the West goes further. Since they regard themselves as the custodians of progress and universal values, Westerners feel that their primary task is a mission to enlighten and civilize the rest of the retrograde world.
They see such a task as a cosmic mandate. This begs the question of what type of guidance and wisdom those people can give. Are they even qualified to be teachers and exemplars? The conundrum is akin to the case of blind and illiterate persons trying to guide and enlighten another group of blind and illiterate individuals.
Surely, the West’s lack of integrity is a ubiquitous phenomenon, encompassing and affecting, in varying degrees, virtually all aspects of the Western civilizational trajectory.
We ought to remember that this is the same West that colonized most of the Muslim world, imposing on it a variety of life systems.
It was due to Muslims’ embracing of those systems that they made no remarkable progress throughout the 20th century, and it is the same systems that now constitute a major impediment to any Muslim renaissance initiative.
It is, therefore, incumbent upon Muslims to be prudent in their dealings with those who have a history of deception and maltreatment, that Muslims should exercise circumspection when engaging with Western relativized and customized knowledge, that Muslims should be more selective when importing and applying the Western relativized standards and values, and – perhaps most importantly – that Muslims should be careful when studying history as the nucleus of all sciences as well as human pursuits based on Western narratives because it is the realm of history where the Western mastery of global manipulation and fabrication comes most readily to the fore.
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