Benjamin Netanyahu, the embattled Israeli prime minister, balks at the idea of a two-state solution to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian crisis. His idea of a resolution, as canvassed by stiff-necked Jews in and out of his government, is total (underscore the word, total!) annihilation of Hamas and allied Palestinian liberation movements. Some of his predecessors have pursued similar goals without success but Netanyahu believes he knows what it takes. Fine!
What is not fine is that, at the heart of his plan is to level the whole of the State of Palestine, beginning with Gaza. And his soldiers are not disappointing him. So far, they have killed more than 35,000 Palestinians, most of them, children and women and virtually destroyed almost all infrastructure in Gaza. Meanwhile, Hamas, which Netanyahu has vowed to obliterate remains as active as it is relentless, and the normally hawkish Israeli establishment, despite its hyped security and intelligence networks, is engaged in on-and-off negotiations to secure the release of some 130 Israeli hostages.
Meanwhile, Jewish media are reporting a growing number of Israeli is wondering whether Israel and her Western allies, led by the United States of America, picked any lessons from the Holocaust. To this extent, it is not strange that recent editorial reports in Israeli and some conservative media outlets in the West now admit to growing dislike for the Israeli government’s very costly and self-destructive toehold on occupied Palestine which, from all indications, is less likely to prevent the recurrence of October 7. Let’s return to the issue at hand.
Let us begin, without fear of sanctions from pro-Israeli governments and groups, or suasions from anti-Israeli governments and groups, by admitting that there was a sad historical event called Holocaust or, final solution that was visited on Jews by their European friends. For me, a student of history and someone who taught the subject at a high level, there is no denying the fact that there were, indeed, dark days in so-called modern and civilized Europe when Jews were haunted and hacked down in the streets or sent to gas chambers. This is a historical fact and attempting to deny it merely serves other purposes.
The four-year European genocidal action against Jews, otherwise called Holocaust, allegedly claimed the lives of some six million women, children and all. Try as anyone can, such sad events are hardly erased from human memory, and the Jews, described as stubborn, stiff-necked and children of the devil in the Old Testament, have not forgotten those dark days. The irony is that, in seeking revenge, the Jews have teamed up with descendants of the murderers of their forebears in the West to perpetrate a modern-day genocide on an unimaginable proportion on a people who had no hand in the Holocaust!
If truth be told, it is this morally repugnant step at redressing an 80 year-old injustice that has been responsible for Palestinians and their friends to deny the Holocaust, fully aware that very few things push blind hawks in Israel and their friends in the West to the edge like Holocaust-denial. Washington will conveniently turn the blind eye to the criminal murder of Palestinian women and children by Israeli soldiers and settlers but will work itself into a frenzy and threaten war over its own interpretation of anti-Semitism.
But, why get uneven to get even? After all, the killing of Jews, simply because they had Jewish blood running in their veins, is a historical fact and denying it serves no useful purpose. What many fail to understand today is why the West, in its desperation to preserve Jewish lives, which were considered worthless in Europe eight decades ago, is applauding and superintending the extermination of Palestinians. So many things do not add up in the equation.
Till date, the average Jew regards Jesus as an impostor; not a great prophet and messenger of God, as Muslims revere him or, as some Christians call him, a saviour and God or son of God. But the average Jew and his friends in the West will most likely celebrate any depiction of Jesus as a major victory for freedom of speech! And here lies the dilemma of the average Muslim. So, what makes the life of a Jew, who calls Jesus an impostor, precious than the life of a Palestinian Christian who calls Jesus “God’ or son of God or a Palestinian Muslim who reveres Jesus as a prominent Prophet and Messenger of God?
Very early in life, the Muslim child is taught to show respect for all prophets of God including Jesus. He is taught to consider his faith incomplete if he denies any of the prophets of God. The Muslim, right from an early stage in life is aware, in line with the teachings of the Qur’an, that Jesus performed his first miracle as a baby in the arms of his mother when he spoke in her defence. The Muslim child is taught early in life to attest that Jesus raised the dead, made the blind see and cured a leper.
The Muslim child is made aware that Jesus performed these and several other miracles by the power of God, according to the Qur’an! Every Madrasa-going Muslim child revers Jesus and other viceroys of God sent to mankind. In essence, right from childhood, the Muslim is taught that Jesus, this great prophet of God, was lifted to heaven by God and that he will come back to complete his mission on earth. What is more, Muslim parents teach their children to revere Mary, the mother of Jesus, who has a whole chapter named after her honour in the Qur’an.
Problem here is that while some see nothing wrong in casting aspersions on Prophets and Messengers of God, others are taught to show respect for them and, if need be, to defend them. This has been the basis for the violent, often deadly protests in Muslim countries, each time some cartoonists or amateur film makers depict Prophets or each time some starry-eyed modern-day Crusaders make bonfire of copies of the Qur’an. But the Muslim is in a dilemma because he cannot cast aspersions on Prophets, an act that is both sacrilegious and apostatical.
The fact lost on successive occupants of the White House in Washington and which future occupants must rouse themselves into accepting is that, America’s unquestioning support of the 76-year old genocide in Occupied Palestine only serves to fuel Muslim anger against America and do not help make America— and the world— any safer!
Magaji <magaji778@gmail.com> is based in Abuja, Nigeria
<234-803-697-9133>
