THE State of Israel was established as a result of the Balfour Declaration and came into being in 1948.
Allama Muhammad Iqbal, on 26 July 1937, at the historic Muslim League rally at Mochi Gate in Lahore, had foretold the dangers the Islamic world would face in the future regarding the establishment of Israel. Those predictions are proving completely true today. He described the British intrigues in the creation of Israel, the historical background of the land of Palestine. Allama Iqbal’s statement is a lesson of awakening for the Muslim world in current conditions. Allama Iqbal’s statement, word for word, is as follows.
“I assure you that I feel the injustice done to the Arabs with as much intensity as any person who knows even a little about the conditions of the Near East. I believe that the situation has not yet reached a point of no return and that the British people can be awakened and persuaded to keep the promises they made in the name of England to the Arabs. In any case, it is somewhat consoling that in the recent discussion in the British Parliament on this subject no definitive decision was taken regarding the partition of Palestine.
Therefore, the Muslims of the world should take advantage of this opportunity and loudly declare that the knot the British statesmen are trying to untie is not limited to Palestine alone but is profoundly affecting the entire Islamic world from one end to the other. If this matter is studied in its historical background, it becomes clear that this is purely and entirely a Muslim issue. History testifies that when Hazrat Umar reached Bayt al-Maqdis — and even now around fourteen hundred years have passed since that event — long before his arrival the Jews had no real connection with Palestine. The Jews were not forcibly expelled from Palestine; rather, as Professor Haggengzi has opined, they went to other countries of their own accord and most of their sacred scriptures were composed outside Palestine.
The establishment of Israel is an unprecedented event. Britain presented the Palestine issue to the United Nations in February 1947 and by a large majority the UN recommended partitioning Palestine. It was approved to divide Palestine into three parts: four thousand five hundred square miles for the Arabs, five thousand four hundred thirty-two square miles for the Jews and Jerusalem to be designated an international zone, while the port of Haifa and adjacent areas were to be placed under British control. There is no parallel for such a thing in the world and on this basis the oppression of Palestinians by Israel is not a recent phenomenon — this story has been going on since Israel’s creation. See Iqbal’s foresight; he perceived all of this even then. Today, everything he said in that speech is proving completely correct.
The Pak-Saudi defence agreement is a link in Iqbal’s vision and this agreement should be progressively strengthened. The time has come for all Muslim countries to unite. One or more Islamic States should be strengthened militarily and technically. On the model of the European Union, there should be a common currency, a central bank, a joint system for the use of oil and natural resources, a central stock exchange, and, on the model of NATO, a joint army should be formed. Otherwise, tragedies like these will continue to flood the Muslim Ummah with blood.
—The writer is contributing columnist, based in Faisalabad.
