American Leadership and Palestine:
Dogmatic Challenges to Justice and Humanity
Mahboob A Khawaja, PhD.
Across the globe, voices of reason are loud and
clear that on peacemaking and the issues of Jerusalem, America and Israeli both
have lost the opportunities for peacemaking process and the establishment of an
independent State of Palestine to balance the disequilibrium in which State of
Israel currently exists. It is becoming more obvious that by challenging the
voices of reason and denial to the rights of the Palestinian peoplefor
statehood and changing the status-quo of Jerusalem, both America and Israel
could enjoin a terrible sense of helplessness and isolation and nothing could
save them from the consequences of their own triviality, ignorance and
indifference toward the standing of global community.
Towards
Understanding the Current Issues
Discard
cynicism and wickedness but be conscious that some contemporary politicians and
monsters of history are often the two sides of the same picture enriched with
perversion and treacherous escape from the facts of the 21st century
knowledge-based global affairs.Apparently, American
political intransigence has lost the strategic direction and rational sense of justice
and humanity in honoring its peacemaking commitments to the Arab Middle East.Under
President Trump, the American masses are experiencing immense incoherent
policies and practices which defy knowledge, truth and history. American
freedom movement and its Constitution were based on human rights, justice and
aspirations for global harmony and peace. Yet, Donald Trump announcement to
recognize Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Israel negates the enshrined
values and democratic virtues of the American history. The policy decision unravels
an extreme one-sided view on a sensitive political issue that involves both
Palestinians and Israelis to be equal parties in finding a peaceful
solution. Jerusalem is sacred to Jews,
Christians and Muslims alike and it cannot be unilateral property of
Israel. If the Israeli leaders wanted to
repel the proximity of evil as The Holy Torah teaches, they should be careful
not to flout the message of God on earth or mock the historic reality about
Jerusalem. Facts speak on their own:
West Jerusalem is populated by Jews, East Jerusalem is overwhelmingly
Palestinian with Al-Aqsa Holy Compound and was occupied by Israel in 1967; and
across Palestine more than 200,000 Christians reside who have equal entitlement to Jerusalem. President Trump apparently defies
his own declared stance of supporting a peace process between the Israelis and
Palestinians just few months earlier while visiting Saudi Arabia and Israel.
Was it a fraudulent gesture to appease the besieged mentality of the Arab
leaders that America is their friend?
The irrational statement on Jerusalem has engulfed the world with a new
face of hostility and distortion in the shape of Donald Trump and his
administration – an insidious crisis in the making to divert attention away
from the core problem of peacemaking between Israel and Palestine. Trump’s
election overtures were often premature, self-contradictory and questioned by
the people of reason. It was not aabstract issue that President Trump could
conveniently dump the truth and history for his individualistic political gains
to appease the Israeli lobbyist’s overwhelming control and influence of
American socio-political minds. With considerable certainty, it endangers the
futuristic American role of an honest broker in dealing with the PLO or the
larger Arab–Muslim world. Reviewing the
global reactions more so coming from Western Europe and elsewhere, the US
approach is unrealistic and imbalanced causing more confusion and uncertainty
and bloodbath in the Middle East. There is no place for individualistic
complacency and political expediency when it comes to issues of human rights,
peace and justice for all. Do some
American leaders practice favorite perversion to proclaim political aims simply
to satisfy the egoism?
Failure
of the Contemporary Arab Leaders
Do
the Arab leaders have any sense of rational thinking and accountability to cope
with the issue of Jerusalem and its future as an immense importance to the
Muslim world and the global community? The masses in occupied Palestine proclaimed
“Day of Rage” and public demonstrations called for reasoned stance and stamped
the Trump declaration as null and void on Jerusalem. The Arab League and OIC-
both paper-based fake organizations will issue statements which make no sense
and nobody cares for what they think or do in the real world. But other known
Arab leaders made no presence in the world political arena on this issue of
historic magnanimity. Why? Either they
lack moral and intellectual courage and sensitivity to react or more they act
like dummies as if nothing has happened on the ground. Some of the Arab
authoritarian rulers maintain backdoor relationships with Israel or others have
diplomatic ties to get American aid for their own survival. What if the Arab
world had educated and intelligent people of persuasive communication, moral
and intellectual capacity to visit various global centers of politics and
contribute logical viewpoints on Jerusalem and peace between Israel and
Palestine? From its social, economic and political fabric, Israelis sendeducatedagents
to various parts of the globe to share their version of peace and future-making
in the Middle East. The Arab world is psychologicallyand morally divided and
dysfunctional after the 2011 Arab Spring Public Revolution. The ongoing wars in
Syria, Iraq and Yemen have further demoralized and dehumanized the whole of the
Arab region. The widening gulfs between palaces of the rulers and the people
unfold unbridgeable conflicting time zones and frightening trends of disunity,
insane human practices and disregard toward the focal issue of freedom of
Palestine. If the current Arab leaders were smart and rational, they could have
used the force of unity and focused mind to reason with the Israeli leaders. Arabs
and Jews have co-existed in peace for centuries. Historically, Arabs were known
to possess moral and intellectual vision and values for change and
future-making, but not so in the 21st century, they are lost and
indulged in individualistic allusions, political contrasts and collective
degeneration by subscribing to warmongering and petro-dollar superficial
economic prosperity leading to intellectual and political decadence.
How to Change the Moral and Intellectual Decadence?
Public outrage, demonstrations,
burning of flags and irrational slogan shouting do not change the political
mindset of Israeli leaders or Trump in particular. These actions represent temporary
emotional outbursts, helplessness and failure of rational thinking. What if all
the Arab leaders were united in thinking and intellectual behavior and called
upon Donald Trump for a face-to face meeting? Imagine such a courageous and
moral standing would have led to some rational outcomes. Recall, earlier,
Netanyahu went to address the US joint Houses of Congress against the wishes of
President Obama. What logic was engrained for Saudi Arabia to sign 350 billion
worth of agreements during the Trump visit if they cannot communicate to him? It
would have indicated that Arab leaders are alive and possess a sensitive
consciousness, not dead-ended entities. Ironically, the other four permanent
members of the UN Security Council have asked the American leadership to
provide the detailed peace plan if they claim peace is the essence of its
policy on Jerusalem. The contemporary global affairs warrant intelligent and
competent leadership not crown princes, kings or military dictators. Leaders
manage the crisis when facts of life warrant change and adaptability to the
future. Often crisis unite people of reason but not the Arab rulers.
Notwithstanding the requisites of reason and honesty, many Arab rulers are collaborating
with the US warmongering across the Middle East. There are no Arab public
institutions of thinking, no armies and no leaders to lead. One wonders, why
the earth never felt any weight of the contemporary Arab leaders. Is the Arab
world coming to its own end because of the authoritarian rulers?
While Islam professed and emphasized “shura” - public consultation
and consensus on major public discourse, the Arab leaders flouted moral and
intellectual advice from the learned scholars and educated people. There are no
public institutions to analyze or discuss the emerging political and military
crises. Centuries earlier, in traditional Arab culture, priests, thinkers, community
elders, poets and scholars used to initiate participatory dialogue to resolve
societal conflicts and advise the rulers/kings with reasoned counseling. Not
so, across the bloody centers of humanitarian catastrophes at Aleppo, Baghdad, Fallujah,
Damascus, Sana and elsewhere, Arab wisdom and new creative initiatives are
missing as if they breathe in a dead-ended corner of moral and intellectual
abyss.
If
there were any Arabian moral, spiritual and intellectual powerhouses as were
the traditional “Deewan” - community
centers for interactive societal communication and problem-solving, they should
have taken initiatives to find peaceful ways and means to peace between Israel
and Palestine, to end the sectarianwarfare,deliberate bombing and massacres of
the innocent civilians, and the usage of chemical weapons against the innocent
civilians. The history speaks loud and clear that few powerful rulers with
individualistic absolutism have always driven the mankind to large scale
slaughters, victimization, deprivation
and long term scars of why and how it happened, it never goes away from the
human memory and written pages of human history. “In our civilized world” wrote PaulBuchheit (“War or Revolution Every 75 Years. It's Time
Again.”Common Dreams):
….people aren't being run down by noblemen or forced to eat grass.
The aristocracy has learned a lot about suppressing crowds in 225 years. But
they need to fear the growing revolution. They need to fear, as Dickens put it,
"the remorseless sea of turbulently swaying shapes, voices of vengeance,
and faces hardened in the furnaces of suffering until the touch of pity could
make no mark on them.”
(Dr.
Mahboob A. Khawaja specializes in international relations - global security,
peace and conflict resolution with keen interests in Islamic-Western
comparative cultures and civilizations, and author of several publications
including the latest: Global Peace, Security and Conflict Resolution:
Approaches to Understand the Current Issues and Future-Making. Lambert
Publishing Germany- October, 2017).
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