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TEENSY moments of Monday surfaced with an atypical, yet
projected epoch as the fabulous emblem of the breathing spirit
of the Palestinians was put extinguished by the fuming gunship
helicopters, prima facie chasing such a course — since long.
Though, the charismatic Sheikh Ahmed Yassin has taken off for
Heavens, his evaporation by a vindictive rule in Tel Aviv has
opened a Pandora Box, not only for the people of Palestine but
equally for the Israelis, who may face perils of enormous
magnitude in the wake of this ill-fated episode.
With this perception, the newest nasty venture of Israel is
not only a threat to an explicit set of the populous of a
specific realm but, a hefty risk to the humankind all-over.
What did the Tel Aviv achieve by striking a
paralyses-stricken, yet a resolute soul, is solely known to
its warlords?
The global condemnation and indignation has fetched for it
[Israel] nothing except an abhorrence for it and of-course a
critical chagrin and vexation for its’ master (s) — to the tune
of which it is and it has been dancing like a cute docile guy.
Least uptight on the upshot of such a milieu, Israel has, in a
way affronted the US-binged Roadmap for ‘Peace’ in the Middle
East, plugging all vistas for taking this hallucination into a
reality.
One is obligated to accept the veracity that without the
behest of ‘any-one’, Israel can’t dare step into such a
dubious and dicey exercise. So, as is evaluated by the mayhem,
a natural phenomenon that has emerged around the orb at the
end the fêted soul, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, only the United
States is being overtly deemed at the flipside of its
aficionado, titled as Israel.
Its’ a manifested reality that ever since the putting afloat
of the peace plan, Israel has hardly left a jiffy to devastate
it with one ploy or the other. Yet ironically, Washington
didn’t ever react or lift eyebrows to such a belligerence,
even at the most-recent times when Yasser Arafat was placed in
a sort of cage.
Such a type of back-up has made Tel Aviv more hostile to an
echelon that it has, of-late started coming out of sleeves.
Not only that it has unleashed a gruesome crusade against the
Palestinians, but has let loose a law of jungle — with no check
on it by its’ master (s).
With such a scenario, how can one expect peace in the Middle
East — specifically — onto the sanctified terrain, forcibly
usurped from its pragmatic owners — the people of Palestine.
Side-by-side the United States, the lack of interest by a
hefty digit of the Islamic States vis-à-vis the Israeli
onslaughts has all the more been a not up to scratch or an
ill-fated facet. Nonetheless, the sharp reaction, depicted by
the Muslim world over the poignant fate, met by the bravura
and virtuoso soul, Sheikh Yassin beams a message that the real
feature of the Ummah persists even today, when the world is
being swiftly tuned to decrees and diktats in place of ones’
sovereignty — guaranteed both by the law of universe and the
jurisprudence, bestowed by the Nature.
We expect and hope that this integrity among the Muslims
remains intact — at least for their eventual survival with
dignity and honor, a bona fide right based on the axiom of
equilibrium.
As has been seen by the nations, all-around, tens of thousands
of mourners jammed the streets of Gaza City on Monday for the
funeral procession of Hamas founder Ahmed Yassin and seven
others killed in an Israeli air strike.
Twenty-one Palestinian police officers formed an honor guard
as the coffin holding Yassin's mangled body was carried out of
Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. Mourners jostled, trying to touch
the coffin, which was draped in a green Hamas flag. Others
clamored for revenge. Women ululated and threw flowers into
the air. Two Israeli helicopter gunships hovered in the sky,
which was darkened by the thick black smoke of burning tires.
Every-one has to admit that with the demise of Shaikh Ahmad
Yassin, the Palestinian struggle will not stop but the
situation in Middle East will eventually aggravate and the
struggle against Israeli occupation would start with more zeal
n’ zest,.
Not only that Muslims have censured this hideous act, even the
Vatican on Monday condemned the killing of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin
as an act of violence that cannot be justified in any state of
law.
"The Holy See joins the international community in condemning
an act of violence that cannot be justified in any state of
law," Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said.
"The choice of arms, resorting to terrorism on one side and
reprisals on the other, humiliating the adversary, and hateful
propaganda lead nowhere," he said, citing comments by Pope
John Paul II to Israeli and Palestinian delegates in January.
"A real and lasting peace cannot result from a simple show of
force," Navarro-Valls added.
To recap his dazzling memoirs, we would like to index the
sketch of the valiant leader, now resting at his eternal
abode — in peace. Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, 67 was born in 1936 in an
Arab fishing village, Al-Johra near what is now the Israeli
town of Ashkelon, Yassin became a refugee when his house was
demolished by Israelis in the Gaza Strip after the first
Arab-Israeli war in 1948. He was confined to a wheelchair
after being paralysed in a sports accident as a youngster.
A cleric, Yassin co-founded the Islamic group Hamas in 1987
with the goal of ending Israeli occupation in the Gaza Strip
and West Bank. He became Gaza's most charismatic and
influential public figure. Hamas ran a broad welfare network
which benefited Palestinians who felt neglected amid the
alleged corruption and incompetence of the then Palestinian
authority.
Jailed by Israel, which accused him of incitement, Yassin
received a hero's welcome when he was freed from prison in
1997, an Israeli goodwill gesture to Jordan's King Hussein
after a failed Israeli attempt to assassinate Hamas leader
Khaled Mashal in Jordan.
Israel killed Yassin on Monday in a helicopter missile strike
as he left a Mosque in Gaza City. The attack appeared aimed at
weakening Hamas to prevent it from claiming victory should
Israel complete its planned unilateral pullout from the
teeming strip, home to 1.3 million Palestinians.
Paradoxically, the obliteration of a fêted soul surfaces
despite worldwide protest vis-à-vis the US onslaught on Iraq
wherein tens of thousands of peace activists marched in
cities, virtually in all vicinities, around the globe, at the
weekend voicing an exclusive voices — the end to the occupation
of Iraq — and that too, at-once.
These demonstrations come into sight, on the first anniversary
of US-led war that ousted Saddam Hussein — now in cage. Italy,
Spain and Britain witnessed biggest rallies, while protest
demonstrations were also held in US, Japan, India, Thailand,
Australia, Philippines, Poland and Pakistan with scores of
other countries onto the planet.
The rallies overtly manifested swelling public annoys
wide-reaching over the plight of the Iraqi people at the hands
of the Anglo-American occupation marines. The death and
devastation that Iraq has endured after its foreign occupation
has really agonized the sweet people world-over.
It’s specifically for this reason that the Saturday’s rallies
were far bigger in dimension than the ones staged at the time
of US-led sortie of Baghdad a year ago. As a matter of fact,
the experience over the year has proven that the knock on Iraq
was a flawed decision.
Much trumpeted WMDs have not been found and the myth of its
concept of liberation stands methodically exploded due to its
highly provocative, totally unjust and morally unwarranted
conduct over the year in Iraq.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell also had a flavor of public
anger when Arab journalists walked out of his Press conference
in Baghdad on Friday as remonstration against the homicide of
their fellow professionals by the US forces. The slogan
‘liberation from the liberator’ has gained currency.
Pragmatically, the US has failed to deliver in Iraq due to its
illusory motives behind the occupation of Iraq. The reality is
that the US and British etiquette to delude their own
countrymen and the international opinion stand scrupulously
uncovered.
An upright course, left open to them, is that they should quit
Iraq as early as possible and stop fiddling with the ethos of
the Iraqi people. Induction of hand-picked government (s) is
not going to bring peace to Iraq.
Thus the best way is that the US should hand over Iraq to the
United Nations, followed by elections to bring back peace and
security in the oil rich country — virtually the Jagular vain of
the Oil.
Amid this scenario, explicitly, after the assassination of the
Palestinian spirit of inspiration by the atrocious Israelis,
alongside the persistent mayhem in Iraq, the only way for the
US to bail-out of this perilous milieu is a piece of advice
for Washington to straight away proclaim time frame for the
withdrawal of its troops from Iraq as well as to place optimal
weight on Tel Aviv to cease instantaneously its’ antagonistic
pose towards the people of Palestine — the bona fide
title-holders of the sacrosanct realm.
Such a path [if adopted] shall eventually prove to be in the
best interests of the solitary super power and its’
aficionados. Failing this, seemingly it [the US] would be in
for another Vietnam. Palestine and Iraq has had enough of
bloodbath and quite a number of body bags of US soldiers have
also gone back to the United States — from Baghdad and
elsewhere.
Acumen and sanity, thus demands of the Bush administration to
eschew animosity and acrimony by eluding spill out of any more
blood of both the Iraqis and the Americans — of-course that of
the Palestinians — as simultaneous n’ atop.
Such an idyllic environ can very conveniently be ensured — if
Washington decides, once-for-all that the ME roadmap, authored
by it has to be got implemented — come-what-may, even if a
swaying n’ strapping strike is required to be inflicted on
Israel in the same style, the fascinating marines ‘hit’ each
n’ every nook n’ corner of Iraq, a mode which was subsequently
applied on Afghanistan by laying ‘red [blood] carpets’ — not
made of synthetics or wools but fabricated by perilous
ingredients for toxic shots. Isn’t it an apposite plea?
© 2004 Mumtaz Hamid
Rao - Pakistan Times |
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