AFTER World War-II, millions of unfortunate innocent souls departed and world powers around the globe came to a realisation that in order to protect their young ones and to nurture peaceful societies, they needed to come up with some contingency plan. That plan depended on peace. And for peace to achieve some crucial steps needed to be taken, some rules needed to be placed and some policies needed to be introduced. The United Nations came into being as a result of such resolve. Nations around the world sat down and vowed to protect civilian lives amidst conflicts no matter the circumstances. Geneva Convention sought to protect and guard the dignity and self respect of humans amidst conflicts and set a series of protocols to give protection and provide standard treatment to both civilians and prisoners of war no matter how dire the situation would be.
Moreover, the United Nations also recognise that apartheid and colonisation is a gross violation of fundamental human rights and any such vile practice should not be tolerated. Similarly, ethnic cleansing is a root cause of all evil. It gives rise to armed conflicts and violence due to the resentment and anger in people who then are ready to go to any limits to take what they believe is their inherent right. Such realisations should be more than enough to bring peace to the world. However, there is a caveat to all of this. Mankind has always known to be overly ambitious in its pursuits of acquiring power and authority. It has turned out that some countries’ economies are based on gigantic corporations that have their own nefarious agendas. Some are competing against others in an armed race. Some are motivated to establish their dominance based on religion, race or ethnicity. Some merely want to gain more power and resources. The list goes on and on.
The point is that whatever resolutions, whatever policies we introduce, there are still people who believe in the principle of might is right. Therefore, more than often resolutions, agreements and pledges are nothing more than pieces of papers that can be trampled upon without any serious consequences. To put things into perspective, according to the report of ‘Freedom in the World’, the number of countries that are guilty of changing demographics in one way or another has dramatically increased to 11 in 2018 from 3 in 2015. Israel is a recent example. Mayanmar is another example where military along with local fanatics engaged themselves in orgy of bloodshed, rape and slaughtering of Rohnigya Muslim population to push them into Bangladesh. Most of these atrocities have been done by democratic governments either directly or indirectly. The United Nations unfortunately at this point has transformed itself quite unwillingly I must say into a scanty spectator unable to do anything significant when it really matters. Any contribution or intervention remains on the paper.
When Russia had invaded Ukraine, the US along with the EU imposed sanctions on Russia and sought to account Moscow for its alleged war crimes. US state spokesman John Kirby was unable to hold his tears back on the naked display of horrible atrocities carried out by Russian forces. Interestingly enough, the same US is unable to determine if Israel has been guilty of any war crimes and seems unfazed in front of eye opening evidence and is determined to give its Zionist Middle-East ally enough leeway.
The resentment and loathing the world has, especially Muslims around the world against Israel and the US is enormous. It is like a melting pot ready to blow any minute. But it seems that DC is either underestimating the potential danger of world wide escalation or simply just doesn’t care. Instead of interfering and stopping the carnage of Palestinians, the US is allowing it. Not only the US vetoed the ceasefire resolution at the United Nations but also requested Congress to release 14 billion USD to assist Israel in its occupation against Palestinians.
The world has seen Israel’s true colours and there are worldwide demonstrations and protests against Israel genocide. The Jewish especially young ones around the world has rallied in the support of Palestinians and donned the shirts and placards ‘Never again’ and ‘not in our name’. Either the US will decide eventually to intervene and stop this massacre or wait long enough to risk another worldwide catastrophe. Only time will tell.
—The writer is an Engineer, based in Rawalpindi.
views expressed are writer’s own.
