International Breaking News

Last week, the terrorist state of Israel started bombing Gaza once again, killing innocent civilians in the name of targeting terrorists.
Soon enough, the Israeli Defence Forces had announced the commencement of yet another operation against the practically imprisoned population of Gaza. The Nobel Peace Prize winner and now re-elected US President Barack Obama reiterated his country’s support for Israel’s right to defend itself against rocket attacks from militants in the Gaza Strip. His Nato allies in the European Union agreed, making slight noises about controlling the number of civilian deaths and advising Israel to use violence proportionate to the rocket attacks from Gaza. The UN sat impotently on the sidelines. Clearly, the leaders running the world are as soulless and shameless as the ones running our country.
The hypocrisy of these powerful leaders of the richest countries in the world is nothing new. We have seen it in action in our tribal areas where CIA drones have been killing innocent civilians for eight years, again on the pretext of targeting terrorists. We have seen it in Afghanistan next door and in countries near and far. Still, the coldness with which the torchbearers of freedom and human rights have accepted the occupation of Palestinian territories and sanctioned the massacre of civilians there, is bone-chilling. It makes you wonder about the world we live in; a world ruled by the law of the jungle behind the façade of international treaties and conventions. The United Nations sits in the lap of the powerful to cover up their crimes and give them respectability. After all, they are the ones who pay its fat bills.
Those leading the world to mayhem and disaster, these powerful leaders shaping a violent world reeking with crimes against humanity and injustice, do they think that their one-eyed perspective and their blatant biases are not obvious? They declared that the militants in Gaza started the recent spate of violence by firing rockets into Israeli territory, thereby justifying the monstrous attacks on a hapless population. They pretend as if the problem started last week with the firing of rockets by Hamas. They don’t want to talk about why Hamas came into being in the first place. They don’t want to talk about annexation of Palestinian land by Israel that has gone on for decades, and still goes on under their watch.
They don’t want to talk about the ever-expanding state of Israel, about the illegal settlements it has continued to erect over forcibly annexed Palestinian land, about the olive groves of poor Palestinian farmers it has continued to burn, about the barbaric siege of Gaza it continues to tighten, about its regular firing, strafing and bombing of unarmed civilians, about the killing of Palestinians including infants in Israeli attacks. It doesn’t bother them that their spoilt brat continues to violate international law and trample upon the rights and lives of Palestinians. Deaf to reason, they are keen listeners to Israeli leaders’ tantrums about security, pampering the terrorist state further with billions of dollars and sophisticated arms. They pretend that the violence started last week and that it was Hamas that started it.
These so-called leaders of the rich and powerful countries, these servants of big money, are deeply concerned about the possibility of Iran achieving the capability to refine uranium for nuclear arms, but the nukes in the Israeli arsenal don’t bother them at all. Their one-eyed conscience is irked very easily by human rights violations in countries they’d like to target for strategic reasons, but somehow it goes into deep slumber when it comes to the systematic and never-ending violation of the rights of Palestinians, and other people in territories occupied by their allies and pampered brats. But then, this should come as no surprise. These rich and powerful countries behave the same way.
They have occupied and colonised poor and weak countries as a routine, and similarly victimised people who try to resist subjugation. Worst still, they actively destabilise targeted countries and subvert governments unwilling to dance to their greedy tunes. They bribe and buy leaders of poor countries. They fuel division of people on ethnic, sectarian and tribal lines, fund dissidents, promote extremism, arm militants, and if all that still doesn’t deliver their evil goal of total control, they intervene in the name of protecting lives; giving air cover, logistical support and technical advice to rebel groups fathered by them. These are not baseless charges, but documented history. In fact, emboldened by their success, they no longer try to hide their subversive games. In the case of Libya, and now Syria, their leaders openly boast about their regime change strategies.
The questions are many. How long can this go on? How long can the world bear the burden of the crimes of the rich and powerful? How do we rescue the world from the clutches of these monsters parading themselves as leaders of the so-called civilised world? Is there a way to defeat these monsters wielding the most advanced technologies of violence? The answers are not clear, but they must be found before the world crumbles under the heavy weight of their barbaric burden.
As I write this, Israeli tanks are surrounding Gaza, and the monster is preparing for a ground offensive against the besieged people there who seem to have been left by the so-called civilised world to defend themselves against an uncouth powerful monster.
The writer is a freelance columnist. Email: hazirjalees@hotmail.com