If Israel is not effectively sanctioned for its Gaza holocaust, the whole world will stand complicit by omission, writes Bassem Ahmed* Of the many signs carried by protesters condemning the latest round of Israeli war crimes in Gaza, one in particular captured -- in the least possible number of words -- the essence of the moral dilemma that the international community is facing today. It read: Tomorrow? A few metres away another sign listed the number of Palestinian victims that had fallen until then. Whether the two protesters had planned in advance to stand near each other to make us speculate about the number of children in Gaza who would be murdered in their beds that night, not experiencing a tomorrow, or whether it was just a coincidence, we will never know and it makes no difference. Alas, they put us face to face with one of the ultimate tests of our humanity. Unfortunately, the first answer that came to my mind was that the massacre will continue and most likely next year similar demonstrations will break out to protest yet another episode of the genocide that the Zionists have been subjecting the Arabs of Palestine to since 1948, and even before the establishment of the Israeli state and the outbreak of the first Arab-Israeli war (let us not forget Deir Yassin). Probably the forces of law and order around the world will once again -- as part of the fulfilment of the duties of receiving states stipulated by international law -- violently repel our two young demonstrators and their colleagues if they try to reach an Israeli embassy or consulate, regardless of the continuous Israeli violations of this very same law. The "right to freedom of expression" of the apologists for the Israeli killing machine and that of the ideologues of apartheid and ethnic cleansing will be revered, despite the fact that their rhetoric, just like today, will only amount to hate speech and incitement to deprive an entire people of its most basic and inalienable right, namely their right to life. Needless to say, the ever ready accusations of anti-Semitism and support for terrorism will be brandished one more time to silence those who might raise their voices and fists in a vain attempt to save the lives of thousands of their fellow human beings. However, this scenario is not a fait accompli. Another "tomorrow" is possible if the varied actors in the international arena cease to pay lip service to Palestinian rights, fulfil their moral and legal responsibilities, and start to realise that what is at stake here is not just the lives and lands of the Palestinians but actually the soul of the so-called international community. Today, at the turn of the first decade of the 21st century, those who claim to speak in the name of the international community have to decide on the type of values they would like the world to be governed by. Do they want to perpetuate the 19th century legacy of colonialism and racism? Or do they have the imagination and courage to dream and work for a world free of these scourges? If they choose the latter then Gaza will be the right place to begin the journey to such a world and there is plenty that could be done. For starters, the leaders of Western liberal democracies should act on their pledges to not deal with terrorists. Many former Israeli leaders, for instance Shamir and Sharon (just to mention two), and the current leadership, fall under this category. So rather than courting them and wining and dining with them, each and every leader who has contributed to the Israeli record of war crimes should be treated as a persona non grata in all international forums. In addition, it is high time the leaders of the international community deliver a clear message to politicians and generals of the ilk of Olmert, Peres and Barak that aggression will not be rewarded. There should be no room for appeasement. After all, the world is well aware of the price that humanity paid as a result of appeasement in Munich and for failing for the last 60 years to hold Israeli leaders accountable for their crimes. In a clear sign that many quarters of the world are fed up with the Israeli illegal conduct, the International Committee of the Red Cross in a strongly worded statement -- not typical of the organisation -- accused Israeli authorities of failing to meet their obligations under international humanitarian law. In the same vein, the UN finally declared, after patiently enduring Israeli aggression against its staff that goes back as early as the late 1940s when its representative Folk Bernadout was assassinated at the hands of a terrorist gang headed by Shamir, and most likely will not stop at the repeated shelling of UNRWA's facilities in Gaza, not to mention Israel's infamous record, second to none, of violating UN resolutions -- that it had enough. As a UN official announced, shortly after the Israeli army had bombed an UNRWA school killing at least 40 Palestinians who had sought refuge there, the international organisation lost confidence in Israeli pledges. The current president of the UN General Assembly has been exceptionally vocal in highlighting and condemning what he describes as "genocide" in Gaza. Commenting on blatant Israeli violations of UN resolutions, he reminded world leaders and international public opinion that the establishment of the Israeli state was through a resolution of the very same international body whose resolutions it has been continuously defying. But will the UN exercise its power to expel the Israeli state as it has "persistently violated the Principles contained in [its] charter", as authorised by Article 6 of the UN Charter? Probably not. Unless, of course, American leaders in particular are put under continuous pressure from grassroots movements all over the world. In order for this to happen, people, especially those in the West who still, out of respect for the memory of the millions who perished in the Nazi concentration camps, hesitate to openly and unequivocally oppose the conduct of the Israeli military/ political establishment, need to realise that they are allowing the latter to continue usurping the very same memory that they cherish. The millions of Jews and non-Jews who were exterminated at the hands of the Nazis, just like the Arabs who have been murdered since 1948 by the Israelis, were our fellow human beings and no state and/or movement, least of all ethno-nationalist ones, should be allowed to claim a monopoly over their memory or the exclusive right to speak in their name. But even if attempts to impose an official boycott fail (after all many elected officials in the US owe their positions more to lobbyists and to the financial contributions of transnational corporations -- that are not renowned for their concern for human rights -- than to the will of ordinary citizens), Israel could still be ostracised. As for the Palestinian solidarity movement, it is becoming clearer by the day that the two-state solution has long since been dead and that it has been buried once and for all under the rubble of Gaza. Some would even argue that those who are still clinging to the idea, and are trying relentlessly to resurrect it, are actually throwing the colonialist project in Palestine a lifeline rather than supporting Palestinian rights. This is, however, a long debate that can be addressed some other time. The urgent task facing this movement currently is to turn the one state solution from a mere idea -- usually dismissed as utopian -- into a concrete scheme and to design a roadmap that would lead to such a state. In 1982, while the Israeli army was pounding Beirut and Sharon's henchmen were rampaging through Palestinian refugee camps slaughtering, raping and mutilating thousands of unarmed civilians, the late Mahmoud Darwish expressed the Palestinians' sense of abandonment -- a feeling so deep, even the heroic sacrifices of the people of Beirut and that of the comrades of the Palestinian resistance in the Lebanese national and leftist movements had failed to mitigate -- in his Praise for the Tall Shadow : Fallen is the mask! You've no brothers, my brother, No friends, no forts, my friend ... Block your blockade then. There is no way out! Your arm falls? Pick it up and strike your enemy! There is no way out! I fall beside you? Pick me up And strike your enemy You are free now, Free, Free Your dead and wounded Are your weapons Strike with them. Strike your enemy. ... Block your blockade with madness, with madness and with madness They have gone, the ones you love. Gone. You will either have to be; or you will not be Today, when Gaza is left alone (except for the dozens of courageous physicians who defied the wrath of the Israeli God of War and the unjust blockade) to drown in the blood of its children, even the words of the most illustrious contemporary Arab poet would fail to capture the sense of abandonment the Palestinians must be feeling. A brilliant student of history commenting on the reoccurrence of historical events once described the first incident as a tragedy and the second as a farce. But, I beg to differ; if the Israeli military/political establishment is allowed to get away with its crimes one more time it will be anything but a farce. Rather it will be testimony for the unethical character of the international community and its complicity, all the liberal human rights and good governance rhetoric notwithstanding. * The writer is lecturer in political science, British University in Egypt.
