BOTH war and peace are inevitable in practical human life; but every war ultimately gives birth to talks among the rivals; this truth of history is evident from aftermaths of each war – be that WWI, WWII, Vietnam war, west Asian, south Asian, African, Latin American, European wars; future-looking veteran strategists, planners participants or sitting on fence in any war do fore-think a probable time space for talks even in the midst of fighting ferocity; their perception invariable proves time-read correction; once blood thirsty in the fighting fields the same rivals, adversaries are made to sit face to face around the table of talks – a no-escape route.
Eruption of tensions between Israel and Hamas was reported by media in September 2023. Five Palestinians were reported killed at Gaza-Israel border on September 13, 2023. Number of casualties, injuries, missing persons are rising hour by hour (therefore final figures cannot be listed as yet); among them are reported killed 73 journos; kids, teens, professionals daily lose their lives in streets, homes, hospitals bombings by Israel. (videos); widespread public starvation is reported in and out of war zones.
Current ongoing warring chaos in the Middle East too is bound to yield to talks swiftly sooner or longer later; there is no other course to reach peace in a natural way or in a managed peace way; managed peace flows from the cusp of talks; so despite colossal all-domain damages, losses, casualties, destruction, human killings the present warriors of the Middle East shall, one day, have had to brook one another to sit face to face around one table of talks;
In ongoing Israel-Gaza war the hellish speed and minute-wise rising volumes of human sufferings, deaths besides undefined devastation actually shrink the probability of warring parties/factions to proceed to fate-induced talks; this is disastrous scenario; no one from among 193 UN member states is forthcoming to persuade warriors to halt; halt in the ferocity is as necessary as life itself;
Gravity of the callous, warred catastrophic situation debated in the UN Security Council on December 9, 2023 was fully acknowledged by the attending members (13) majority to pass a war halt resolution but as it is usual with the United States of America it went vetoing in the Council session and torpedoed the UN’s well intentioned humanitarian bid to stall the war to save humanity on either fighting sides from incurring further losses. Human killings have reportedly surpassed the number in any comparison with the past wars; Britain had abstained.
No party in the running Middle East war will be able to eliminate the rival; this is the judgement of the history; the land of Palestine has been in turmoils since temporal or religious centuries back; fighting has been a familiar facet of Middle Eastern life; however the basic premise of sociology needs to be understood afresh; both the good and the evil or super good or lesser evil live together willingly or persuasively on terra cota; therefore the desirable necessity is that the ongoing Middle Eastern warring chaos should now taper to the possibility of talking with one another;
No armaments manufacturers would like to advise this cool course; the reason is super obvious: arms producers’ sole interest remains selling their arms whether those arms sacrifice the lives of millions, scorch the landmasses of regions or continents; no amount of human damage even slightly move their minds to pull the warriors to the end of talks;
The Middle East bloodletting has not forced any power to explore the persistent failure responsible till today in not implementation of the world-acknowledged 2-state Israel-Palestine imbroglio since 1948; history insists this dispute has got to be resolved as it is a part of the official proceedings of the UN Security Council and the UN General Assembly since 1947.[General Assembly Resolution No.181]. Human finger points out when a dispute is slated to be resolved one day or the other why not those powers who back up or sit silent spectators of the bloodiest Israel-Palestine situation extend their resourced assistance to settle Israel-Palestine dispute sooner;
From among the present day world powers the circumstances and the facts of the day point out that only China can mount an all-party approach leading finally to much starved mechanism of Middle East negotiations: US has consciously publicly preferred to be partisan in Middle East chaos; therefore the privilege of mediation or moving near towards mediation has slipped out of her diplomatic hands; the lukewarmness, expedient silence of European governments (not of their peoples) towards ongoing Middle East warring situation too has shadowed any of their fair influencing initiative. And this is sadeningly unfortunate if one can comment on it.
—The writer, a retired Secretary in AJK Govt, is a senior columnist, based in Rawalpindi.
Email: [email protected],
twitter@shaheenalvi2
views expressed are writer’s own.
