Editor in Chief: Moh. Reza Huwaida Thursday, March 28th, 2024

A Burden on the Soul!

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A Burden on the Soul!

The ongoing conflict in Gaza has created so many difficulties to so many people but especially the journalists and new reporters. If they report whatever they see, they can be the target of world’s most cruel state that believes in hunting down its enemies from the safest points in the world; they can be the target of the world’s strongest nation that could not tolerate the criticism for its occupations dating as back as to that of Vietnam and very recently Iraq and Afghanistan, leaving behind a legacy of violence and torture; they can be relocated from their jobs (as was the case with CNN’s Diana Magnay) or fired from their jobs altogether and this list is not going to end here. The war may come to its end but their sufferings will continue. They will be the victims of the bullying groups and secret organizations that work for different agencies of the world and they carry out those dirty tasks that can defame the spying agencies if they get involved in such activities directly.

Anyhow, the on-going conflict (I won’t use the word ‘occupation or invasion’ here as I may be also labeled to be biased) in Gaza is a strange story of deceiving others but for doing so, one needs to deceive his own conscience, his own logic, his own rationale and the things visible in front of your eyes. At certain points, it becomes a really tough task. You see that two sides are in war in which one is the fourth largest military power of the world but the other includes of a few thousand people who don’t have enough open space to setup a training area. On one side, there is a power provided with the latest technology and weapons of the world but on the other, there are children and teenagers who pelt stones in self-defense. On one side, there is the power of media, journalists, media experts and others while on the other, there is not present any such concept. Even with all these differences, it is undoubtedly a difficult to task to show and report that two equal sides are on war with each other and we should not take any side as both the sides are equal. This blunt and indigestible lie poses a tough challenge, both to your conscience and professional skills, if you are given the task of showing the exact opposite of the true picture.

In all these, your sense of logic and common reasoning also comes under strong pressure. You have to give the reason and make people believe that Israel is doing all these in order to protect itself from those who don’t want to see the Israel on the map of Middle East. But then many objections can be there against it. Should we go to 1947 when a state was established on the land and flesh of Palestinians? Should we go to 1967, when Palestinians, Jordanians, Syrians and Egyptians lost their lands by hands of a neighbor supported by the strong nations of the world? Should we go back to all those attacks that continued after 1967 in which Israel worked incessantly to expand its borders and grab more and more of the Arab land? When they shout and fight for taking back their land, it is called terrorism. It is said that ‘Israel has all the right to protect its land from the terrorists’, then the word ‘its land’ comes very strange to the ears and needs much repetition before this logic is accepted by the common logic and reasoning.

The consequences of this war are also strange and very difficult to be accepted by common reasoning. In more than two weeks’ conflict, more than 500 hundred Palestinians, including more than 20% of children, have been killed. Among these, there is not present any confirmed militant of Hamas but it is accepted by all that majority of them were innocent, neutral civilians. On the other hand, only two Israeli civilians have been killed. After the Israeli forces started their ground offensive, they came under the attack of Hamas and on Sunday, 11 Israeli soldiers were killed which was badly felt by all while the same day, 24 members of a single Palestinian family were killed when their house was turned into a grave by an Israeli warplane. There were very less to mourn on this incident. What about the rockets fired on the Israeli territory? Till now, they have just injured two Israeli civilians and destroyed two houses. We are not sure why they are so dangerous if their scale of devastation is so limited.

When it comes to the reasons it all started, there comes another severe blow on logic and reasoning. It was said that three Israeli teenagers were kidnapped and killed by Hamas. Now that, more than 500 civilians have been killed for this, there is not present any evidence that Hamas was really behind these murders. This is a very old tactic of media to blame someone and then keep repeating until people believe that it is a truth. Hamas kept yelling that they were not behind this but they were never given media coverage rather more time was spent to prove that they were involved in this. If we look at the gradual change in the tone of media, it comes out to be like this, ‘Hamas has been blamed of killing Jewish teenagers’, ‘The facts show that Hamas was behind this incident’, ‘Hamas may have orchestrated this incident’, ‘Hamas is undeniably behind this sad incident’, ‘Hamas cannot deny that it was behind the incident and it should pay for this’. In this way, slowly and gradually, people were made to believe that Hamas was there while according to Hamas, it was all setup by Israel to occupy the remaining Gaza strip and expel the Palestinians forever and ever from the land of their fathers. How strange it is that the blood of three Israelis gives enough justification to kill hundreds of Palestinians and yet we should agree that Israelis are victims and they are doing all these in self-defense.

But the most difficult is to justify the attacks of Israeli Defense Forces (IDFs). It was very difficult for John Kerry, US Secretary of State, to say that ‘Israeli airstrikes have been accurate to all the possible extent’. He might have thought many times before choosing these words and tried his best to find an alternate for these words but it was going to be difficult for him as well, if he did not want the end to his political career. It is a generally agreed upon fact that Israeli airstrikes have targeted hospitals, schools, residential compounds, hotels, and even children playing in the streets. Four children playing on the beach were killed and three more wounded who were aged only between 7 and eleven.

Like me, due to numerous fears, there may be many hesitating in seeing and telling the truth. There may be journalists who may be trying their best to show what they don’t see and to hide what they actually see but it is a good thing that it is not the case with majority of the common people who have nothing to fear and nothing to lose. The human conscience has not died and it has been given a sharp, electrifying shock by the dead bodies and crying blood-stained faces of Palestinian children.

Muhammad Rasool Shah works as Academic Coordinator at Barakat Int’l School, Kabul. He can reached at muhammadrasoolshah@gmail.com

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