adminGibson Nyikadzino Correspondent
As world leaders convene for the 73rd session of the United Nations General Assembly meeting, a lot of issues are expected to hit boardrooms.
The tempo, signal and mood of the numerous meetings have been set as there are accusations by Iran that the United States of America wants to cause instability in the Persian country through mercenary acts.
The Syrian conflict, Yemen war and the Venezuelan crisis are all major topics that world leaders have hinted to speak on.
On the other hand, Russia has bolstered Syria’s air defence a week after it blamed Israel for the shooting down of its aircraft. That is a signal of Russia’s strategy in the Middle East.
Russia has stood by Syria’s Bashar al-Assad since the terror campaigns against his government started over seven years ago. Russia’s president Vladimir Putin has reiterated that “we will not let what happened in Libya to happen in Syria”.
However, for seven decades now, global leaders have turned a blind eye to Palestine’s quest for freedom from Israel’s apartheid position on the former. Yearly, the conflict between the two has been shelved perpetually.
Successive wars have been fought between the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip led by Hamas against the Israeli occupants. On the other hand, Israel has bullied the Fatah establishment by claiming Jerusalem as its capital.
In December last year, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu indicated that Palestinians must “get to grips with” the reality that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital if there is ever going to be peace in the region.
Netanyahu said Jerusalem had been the capital of Israel for 3 000 years and had “never been the capital of any other people”.
The position of Netanyahu has not given any room for negotiation.
Many have blamed the Palestinian authorities for refusing to return to the negotiating table, yet Netanyahu repeatedly exhibits his unwillingness to end the occupation.
The two state solution that was at one point suggested by then US President Barack Obama died a painful death when current leader Donald Trump shut the negotiated views of the Palestinians and instead moved the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
Speaking at the Economic Club of Washington early this year, Netanyahu dodged a question about whether he supports a one or two-state solution.
He outlined a vision that sounded a lot like an entrenched version of the occupation as it exists today.
Countless times, in a number of ways, and at times using Hebrew, the Israeli leader feels like a strongman that under his leadership Israel will never end the occupation of Palestine.
Thousands of Palestinians have been killed as a result of Israel’s heavy-handedness and unwillingness to resort to a negotiated and well-meaning deal to bring stability.
The heavy-handedness of Israel is in itself a repugnant form of fascism and ultra “nationalist” position that thrives on killing, maiming and dispossessing Palestinians of their heritage.
Since 1948, Palestinians have lived as refugees, scattered across the world since Israel has conducted large-scale military assaults on their territory.
While the blood of their kinsmen, brothers and sisters is watering Israel’s apartheid regime, Arab leaders have remained cold hearted and insincere about looking for avenues to resolve the conflict. For peace’s sake, in 1994 the Nobel Peace Prize awarded jointly to Yasser Arafat (then Palestinian Liberation Organisation chairperson), Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin (Israel’s Foreign Minister and Prime Minister, respectively) “for their efforts to create peace in the Middle East.”
The PLO chief and Peres both used their acceptance speeches to signify opening of a new chapter in the Israeli-Palestine relations. Arafat appealed to Rabin and Peres to speed up the implementation of the peace agreement, including withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Palestinian autonomous regions.
“I call (on) my partners in peace . . . to speed up this process of early withdrawal and giving chance for early elections at a reasonable time (so that) our dream will become a reality. We need Israelis and Palestinians to rebuild their lands where our children will compete and play together,” Arafat said.
Peres made a pledge of his own.
“The sword, as the Bible teaches us, consumes flesh but it cannot provide sustenance. It is not rifles, but people, who triumph, and the conclusion from all the wars is that we need better people, not better rifles, to win peace,” Peres remarked.
Today, peace in the Middle East is a scarce commodity; a commodity that stakeholders refuse to bring to the region so that Israeli and Palestinian children can jointly share.
At the UN, global leaders will downplay the issue. Instead of condemning the savage acts by Israel, their language only adds to the venom against the innocent, disadvantaged and incarcerated Palestinians.
Online Reporter