Daily Sun
December 16, 2012
M.
Serajul Islam
There
is a very thin line indeed between truth and fallacy; between justice and
injustice. When the great Greek philosophers Socrates and Plato were debating
on what constitutes justice in a society, they also debated on a view that was
current and articulated by the Sophists. The Sophist’s view stated that justice
was the interest of the stronger based on their belief that the human society was
just an extension of the animal world where the stronger dictated the weaker. Socrates
and Plato rejected strongly the Sophist view and based their perception of
justice on issues of rationality and morality.
Unfortunately,
if one takes a dispassionate view of world history, it is the Sophist view that
has been the realistic one that has defined justice in a society over these
thousands of years of human existence in organized society. The stronger
elements in society are the ones who have used the state and its institutions
to enact laws/customs/etc so that they are able to protect and sustain their
interests and their powers in society. Concepts such a democracy, equality,
human rights, rights of self determination, etc are just carrots that have been
dangled by the powerful and the stronger sections of the society before the weaker seeking justice. The unfortunate fact of
history is the weak and the powerless have always succumbed to these carrots.
The
case of what has happened in Palestine most recently is yet another example on
the world stage that points graphically that the powerless and the weak cannot
expect justice and that they are susceptible to consider carrots danged before
them as achievements and feel that
justice has been done to them. The Palestinians were granted non member observer’s
status at the United Nations recently, a status that will give them the right
to participate in the deliberations of the
General Assembly; membership of many other UN organizations and
strengthen its position vis-à-vis Israel on the two-state solution. It is an
up-gradation of their status from simply non-member status. Nevertheless, for
an entity that is at the periphery of world politics, where its rights to
statehood are weak and subject to favour of the big powers, a non-member
observer’s status is a big achievement.
But
Palestine’s case to statehoods is neither weak nor unjustified. This is what
happens when untruth is allowed to be told over and over again by the powerful.
People start to forget their perception of judging right from wrong and accept what
is repeated over and over again as true even if what is being repeated is
untrue. The Palestinians have lived in what now constitutes Israel and the West
Bank where they are now walled on the Israeli side, for thousands of years with
the Jews and the Christians in peace and harmony. Over different periods of history, the Jews dispersed mainly
to Europe and in the last century to the United States for a variety of
reasons; a dispersion in which the Muslims of Palestine, who converted from other religions of the
region after islam was established, had
no role to play.
In
fact, while Jews were persecuted in Europe by the Nazis and fellow Europeans,
the Jews in Palestine lived happily with their fellow Muslims and Christians.
The problem of the Palestinians started after the Balfour Declaration of 1917 by which “His Majesty’s Government (Great
Britain) view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for
the Jewish people.” Soon afterwards, Jews from Europe started to migrate to Palestine
to build the state of Israel as their “promised land.” These migrants with the
assistance of the great powers of the time led by Great Britain drove
Palestinians to the West Bank and established the state of Israel in 1948. In
creating this state, the Israelis used terror tactics against Palestinians that
are all but forgotten. It is one of the great ironies of history that today the
Palestinians are accused of being terrorists for trying to reclaim their own
land. The Palestinians were driven from their homeland and became refugees in
the land that was theirs for thousands of years where the only claim against
their right on the land was the Biblical grant of the “promised land” to the Jews.
Today,
the Palestinians are rejoicing because they have been given an ungraded UN
status to represent a territory that is truncated from a bigger territory that was theirs. The UN has
adopted innumerable resolutions over the years demanding from Israel to give
the Palestinians the land that was theirs till the Egypt-Israel War of 1967
what was still a part of their whole claim. Israel has thrown these UN
resolutions out of the widow with contempt. Instead of giving Palestine the
right of statehood based on 1967 boundary which was roughly half their claim,
the Israelis have in the last 4 and a half decades claimed more of Palestinian
land where they have built settlements after settlements, grabbing more and
more of Palestinian land with the US with its veto power always ensuring that
no binding UN resolution favouring the Palestinians was ever implemented to
stop these illegal settlements.
The
US did the same this time with the UN resolution adopted at the UN General
Assembly granting Palestine observer status. Together with Canada and Czech
Republic, it voted with 6 other countries against the resolution that was
adopted by a massive margin of 138 and 41 abstentions. In retaliation for
seeking the UN Observer status, the Israelis have since made its intentions
clear to build “thousands of new houses in the West Bank”. It has also decided
to withhold tax revenues from Palestinian Authority that runs part of the West
Bank under Israeli eyes as additional punishment. The Israeli actions were too
much for its greatest sponsor to digest. Rahm Emanuel, Chicago’s Mayor and
President Obama’s former Chief of Staff and one of Israel’s most vocal and
ardent supporter called these actions “as betrayal of US friendship.”
In
the entire first term of President Obama, the Palestine peace process has not moved
an inch. It seemed like the US President who had given so much hope in his
Cairo speech in June 2009 to the Muslims in general and Palestinians in
particular was overawed and afraid of the powers of the hawkish Israeli Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He made no serious attempt to jump start the peace
negotiations that started once in his current term but stalled when Israel went
ahead with construction of illegal settlements. With Benjamin Netanyahu getting
more hawkish, and showing no concern for world opinion or international law,
and given the powers of the Jewish lobby in US politics, it seems unlikely that
the US President would do much for the Palestinian cause in his second term
that is very unfortunate. The US vote against the Palestinian non-member observer status at the UN hints
towards this unequivocally.
The
Palestinians are victims of the Sophists view of justice; that justice is the
interest of the stronger. They have lost their ancient homeland to Israel
because the powerful nations helped to establish the state of Israel. Even in
their truncated “homeland”, they have turned into refugees, deprived of the
rights enshrined in the UN statutes. It does not look like that Palestinians
will see their homeland as an independent state as long as the US and other powerful
states continue to back Israel against their legitimate rights. The Palestinian
state is going to be a virtual one for quite some time yet.
There
are of course developments that neither Israel nor USA is reckoning. The Arab
Spring is ushering democracy in the region where the United States and its
allies will not find the surrogates they had in the likes of Hosne Mubarak that
will strengthen the demand of the Palestinians for their just claim to
statehood. More dangerous is the demographic graph shaping in Israel where Jews
will soon become minority in their own country. The only option for Israel then
would to disenfranchise the majority to stop them from dominating the country
politically (!). That would surpass all past violations by Israel of rights of the
Palestinians; international law; UN resolutions and civilized organization of
states. It is time for Israel’s “true friends to tell it so.” Till these
developments hit Israel on the face, the Sophists’ view of justice is all that
the Palestinians can expect; small carrots against their just aspirations.
The
writer is a retired career Ambassador
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