The end of Ramazan is usually a moment of joy and celebration when we exchange greetings and gifts. But, this year, it is impossible to celebrate when mothers are burying their little angels, and there are children without families to care for them. Food, energy, water, information, and control of borders have been weaponised like never before to inflict maximum harm, affecting not just the present generation but future generations with stunting, massive trauma and dispossession. When Palestine cries, where are we?
With figures rising by the minute, so far, over 34,000 Palestinians have been killed, and a further 75,000 have been permanently maimed and disabled, with many more buried in mass graves and decaying under the rubble.
According to the UNRWA Commissioner-General Phillipe Lazzarini, "[It] is [essentially] a war on children. It is a war on their childhood and future". Children are suffering "a very cruel, slow death" by starvation, noted the British-Egyptian paediatrician and neurologist, Dr Omer Abedl Mannan. "[T]he swift plunge into famine and the human suffering and anguish in Gaza is unprecedented" (Care International). Hospitals have been bombed to ensure there is not even basic pain management support. Those managing to survive are suffering "relentless mental harm" (Save the Children), with over 1m children needing immediate mental health support as well as food and safe shelter.
"Gaza is the only city in history where the percentage of children and women killed is 68%. If we add to that the percentage of elderly men, the results are horrific," notes the historian Saleh Abdel Jawad (Mondoweiss). On average, 100 children (ReliefWeb) and 250 Palestinians are killed each day, the highest kill rate since the Rwanda genocide. Many held in administrative detention are subjected to torture, sexual violence and mass executions. Moreover, a record number of journalists, medics and humanitarian workers have been killed.
Western hypocrisy is simply of another order. Despite clear international law obligations, major Western powers led by the US, EU and UK have ensured complete and unwavering diplomatic, political and media cover and military support for the genocide to expand their Zionist settler colony. There is simply no empathy for the Palestinians in these circles of white officialdom.
The sad fact is that Muslim countries have also let this grotesque massacre of the Palestinians happen either by their active "normalisation", including military collaboration and continuing trade, or complicit silence. It is in stark contrast to the concrete actions taken by countries such as South Africa, Latin American countries, Ireland, Spain and Belgium to end the genocide and hold Israel accountable.
At the very least, symbolically, the Pakistani government could have expressed solidarity with Palestine by flying their flag and colours in Islamabad
Both the normalisation of violence against the Palestinians by the West and Muslim leaders' complicity share in their attempt to erase Palestinian suffering and injustice from the public conscience. It requires censoring public concern. Moroccan authorities recently imprisoned Abdul Rahman Zankad for criticising normalisation. Fostering a numbness that the Turkish writer Elif Shifak described as the moment we become indifferent, desensitised or disconnected from each other, we stop feeling or caring when we allow the other to be dehumanised, eroding empathy and compassion for human suffering.
Thankfully, in Western cities, massive public protests that include Jewish communities are challenging their own governments' policies with their outrage while much of the Middle East is subdued, indifferent to their government's trading, and thereby supporting the genocidal occupiers and their allies.
Enforced numbness has embarrassingly turned Pakistan into a sleeping giant. The fifth most populous country with a large army, nuclear power, and significant resources has rendered itself marginal on the global stage by its willingness to compromise on its historic principled stands, including Kashmir and Palestine, for the slippery slope of political expediency. A small country like the Maldives has done more to support Palestine.
The silence betrays Jinnah's principled stand against the Balfour Declaration, which strongly rejects the theft of Palestinian lands as an illegitimate land grab and insists on the equality and right to a dignified life for the Palestinians in their ancestral lands. It is still a morally and legally sound commitment. Pakistan's silence is not just complicity but is an attempt to erase our own history, identity, relationship with the Palestinians, and our sense of justice and solidarity.
At the very least, symbolically, the Pakistani government could have expressed solidarity with Palestine by flying their flag and colours in Islamabad. More substantively, we could have joined the legal actions against Zionist occupation and its allies at the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court. But sadly, nothing; the silence is an affront to our quami ghairat.
The media needs to do a lot more to educate and inform the public about the history of Palestine, the occupation, Jinnah's principled stand, and our role and responsibility towards Palestine
In the UK, more than 1,100 lawyers, former judges, legal academics, and intelligence officials wrote an open letter calling on their government to ensure compliance with international obligations. It is deeply disappointing that our legal professionals and academics, retired judges, bureaucrats, and generals lack the moral courage and integrity to stand up for Palestine and the international rule of law.
Whilst the legal profession has passed resolutions, the Pakistan Bar Council must announce legal teams to support efforts to prosecute those -even if it be our own- aiding and abetting genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. It can confer with foreign lawyers who have voluntarily initiated legal action/s. We must make a stand for the rule of law and humanity and be counted in the defence of what is right.
The media needs to do a lot more to educate and inform the public about the history of Palestine, the occupation, Jinnah's principled stand, and our role and responsibility towards Palestine. In solidarity with the many martyred journalists, we must insist on speaking truth to power, come what may.
Barring a few exceptions, such as the Save Gaza Campaign, our traditional and donor-supported civil society has failed abysmally to champion democracy, human rights, and international humanitarian law when it mattered most. With governments censoring public concern and expression at home, civil society needs to join local and global efforts to support the resistance both at home and abroad.
Crucially and ironically, the complete lack of Muslim leadership in the Gaza genocide has strengthened the case for more representative institutions and more democracy in the Muslim world and multi-lateral organisations such as the OIC to better reflect public aspirations.
As Palestinians bravely resist an existential crisis at home, their unprecedented sacrifices are winning the legal and political battles globally. Protests in Western capitals are shifting the politics in Palestine's favour. But to clinch justice for Palestine, it is for us -the Muslims- to first win the principled case for Palestine by ensuring our governments and leaders stand firm for a dignified and just peace and insist on accountability for Israel's conduct. Our obligations are clear: "[H]old firmly to the rope of Allah all together and do not become divided" (Aal-Imran 3:103) and "[S]tand firmly for justice, as witnesses to Allah, even as against yourselves …" (Al Nisa 4:135). When Palestine cries, where are we?