OBVIOUSLY what the Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s oppressor government is doing in Palestine, in no way, it is different from what premier Modi’s Hindutva-driven government has been practicing in Jammu and Kashmir—characterized by an Indo-Israeli nexus of aggression, oppression and subjugation. Thus, ‘’portrayals of India and Israel as strategic partners or allies in the oppression of Kashmiris and Palestinians’’ rightly suggest that they both are alleged accomplices to crimes against humanity. Moreover, the seeds of these conflicts, Palestine in the Middle East and Kashmir in South Asia, were mischievously sown by the protagonists of the British colonial agenda of divide and rule. The geopolitically orchestrated so- called rules- based world order is nothing but a trajectory of promoting civilisational hatred against the Muslims. The world rejects this injustice-based world order.
Needless to say, for the oppressed Palestinians and Kashmiris, the freedom struggle is a question of their moral, social and political survival. Arguably, there are organic similarities between the two simmering conflicts — Kashmir, where the people have been struggling for the right of self-determination in the face of Indian atrocities and Palestine, where its people have been striving against brutal Israeli occupation. Notably, the United Nations Resolutions, 194 and 242 in the context of the Palestine-Israeli dispute; and UN Resolutions of August 13, 1948 and January 5, 1949 in the context of the Kashmir dispute, advocate the right of self-determination for Palestinians and Kashmiris, respectively. However, they have not been implemented to date.
Moreover, the plight– of the Palestinians living in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT)—is similar to those Kashmiris who live in the Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK). Both the oppressed communities of Palestine and Kashmir have been victim of the ossifying Israeli and Indian atrocities. Notwithstanding the western diplomatic platitudes regarding a peace discourse in Mideast and South Asia, there is no dearth of critical narratives that point to Kashmir and Palestine as being symmetrical occupations where the focus is on the ways in which the oppressed populations in both cases are Muslims and oppressors are non-Muslims.
Broadly speaking, the roots of conflict in both Palestine and Kashmir must be seen in the establishment of the British colonial projects: designed to secure their future geopolitical interests. Thus, both the occupying states—Israel and India are meant to serve an agenda against the Muslims of the Middle East as well as that of the Subcontinent. For decades, people of Jammu & Kashmir have suffered from gross human rights violations and abuses committed by the Indian security forces. In the name of security operations, security force personnel have historically committed many grave human rights violations, including torture, rape and extrajudicial executions. So far, more than 100000 Kashmiris have been killed and hundreds of thousands remain detained or disappeared.
Additionally, Netanyahu’s illegal and expansionist trajectory–of systematically occupying and annexing the West Bank, which is synonymous with Modi’s unjust move of revoking the article 370 in 2019—underpins their mutual collaboration. Most importantly, Netanyahu’s far-right government has approved plans to build thousands of new homes in illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. Nonetheless, both Israel and India are alleged of transgressing the International Human Rights Law (IHRL) and International Humanitarian Law (IHL), as well. Undeniably, “The Israeli state is doing the same to the Palestinians what Nazis did in the 1930s and India has taken a leaf from the Israeli playbook […] it is adopting the so-called Nuremberg laws in India-occupied Kashmir which are aimed at forcing people to migrate. “The ideologues of Zionism and Hindutva are the architects of an Indo-Israeli nexus.
However, the pro-Palestinian rallies being held in the western capitals clearly indicate that the western conscience is now resurrecting against these atrocities. An official in the US State Department has resigned on account of Washington’s unjust siding with Israel. In the same vein, 800 EU personnel have written a letter to the EU Commission’s President Ursula Von der Leyen against EU’s biased approach on the Palestinian issue.
On 12 October, amidst the ongoing Mideast crisis, the UNGA’s sixth committee comprising the cross-regional group of 86 Member States and the European Union, after having some resourceful deliberations on crimes against humanity unanimously agreed on the exigency of formulating a universal instrument (a universal treaty) on preventing and punishing those crimes against humanity amid the ‘’geopolitical confrontations’’. Pakistan’s representative to the UNGA’s Third Committee (on 17 October) expressed concern that the RSS-sponsored policies in the IIOJK, could lead to ethnic cleansing.
Against this backdrop, Pakistan has justifiably advocated that enabling the people of Palestine and Jammu & Kashmir to exercise their right to self-determination must be a priority objective of the Security Council. For decades, the international community has failed to ensure the universal respect for human rights due to double standards and political priorities of the powerful global actors: US, UK and the EU. Sadly, the writs of the Atlantic Charter and that of the UN’s Rights’ Charter remain in complete disarray.
To conclude, any viable search for sustainable peace in the Middle Eastern and South Asian regions is intertwined with the implementation of the UNSC resolutions on Palestine and Kashmir. Whereas, the ongoing Israeli ferocity–of harrowing bombing over Gaza’s civilian population, including hospitals, schools and the UN refugee camps, thereby killing more than 5000 Palestinians and causing hundreds and thousands injured– is no more acceptable to the Muslim community and its leadership at large–a message clearly conveyed by the Cairo Peace Summit. Israel must be accountable for its war crimes, including crimes against humanity. Thus, in the interest of global peace and humanity, US, UK and the EU (instead of siding with Israel) must join the Chinese and Russian voice– calling an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip. Remember, any ossification of escalation will be devastating. Former US President Barack Obama has warned Israel that any Israeli military strategy that ignores the human cost of the war’’ could ultimately backfire’’.
—The writer, an independent ‘IR’ researcher-cum-international law analyst based in Pakistan, is member of European Consortium for Political Research Standing Group on IR, Critical Peace & Conflict Studies, also a member of Washington Foreign Law Society and European Society of International Law. He deals with the strategic and nuclear issues.
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