Victory is with patience. Success is with endurance. And war is a matter of turns. – Imam Ali, Nahj al Balagha, saying 189.
Gaza. A four-letter word sounding like the tasty gizzard. But Gaza is nowhere as palatable as the gizzard. Gaza is now the symbol of all that is bad with apartheid and racism. It brings to the world the sights, sounds and fury of the Holocaust. Gaza is not a place that can be tasty at all. Well, except for hunger. Diseases. Deprivation. And death.
Gaza City, a hot semi-arid climate with Mediterranean characteristics, was the most populous city in Palestine until the Gaza War displaced most of the population. Inhabited since 15 BC, it has been dominated by different peoples and empires throughout its history. The Philistines conquered it after the ancient Egyptians had ruled it for 350 years, followed by the Roman Empire, under which it experienced relative peace. Later, it developed into a centre of Islamic law when Haruna Rashid conquered it.
For want of space, one would jump to contemporary times when Gaza City fell to British forces during World War I, becoming a part of Mandatory Palestine. Due to the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, Egypt administered the newly formed Gaza Strip territory. The city was occupied by Israel in the Six-Day War in 1967. However, Gaza has been largely destroyed by Israeli airstrikes since the start of the Gaza War in October 2023, including a large amount of significant cultural heritage in the Old City of Gaza.
Residents of Gaza were more like prisoners in an open prison. They were only allowed to travel to the West Bank in exceptional humanitarian cases, particularly for urgent medical reasons, but not for marriage. It is possible to travel from the West Bank to Gaza only if the person pledges to relocate to Gaza permanently. Socioeconomic conditions in the camps are generally poor, characterised by high population density, cramped living conditions, and inadequate basic infrastructure, including roads and sewers. Overcrowded camps, inadequate sanitary facilities, poor hygiene conditions and insufficient access to clean drinking water increase the risk of disease outbreaks, including diarrheal diseases and skin or viral infections. In addition to the physical consequences, the mental health of displaced people is at risk.
The above scenario has been the lot of the Gazans, a people who have lost their lands and are confined to an open-air prison.
Some people in Nigeria are so sentimental about the issues in the Middle East that their reasoning has been beclouded by religion and ethnicity. So they side with the untruth and injustice of man on man.
Not long ago in Nigeria, some communities rose in arms when they wrongly thought the government of the day wanted to seize their lands and give them to another tribe in the name of “ruga”, yet these same people do not sympathise with those whose lands were taken away from them elsewhere. In contrast, they should be the first to feel their pain. Communities here still fight over land, and border disputes are rampant, yet they fail to see the pain of the Gazans.
Many who, under normal circumstances, would not subscribe to their lands being taken ought to sympathise with the Gazans. However, many do not out of hypocrisy or misplaced sentiments. But even among the Israelites, the occupying nation, many of its citizens believe what is happening in Gaza is wrong.
Professor Meir Baruchain, who opined, “I think that we are in the lowest moral point of Jewish history. That’s what I think. In the lowest moral point of Jewish history,” said that the treatment of Palestinians—including the killing of children, the destruction of olive trees, and other forms of violence—has been widely accepted by much of the Israeli public, and is seen as part of a policy sustained across generations.
Professor Baruchain, 62, is an Israeli history and civics teacher who was held in solitary confinement for four days after posts he made on Facebook denouncing the war in Gaza and his opposition to the killing of innocent Palestinian civilians. Police seized his phone and two laptops before interrogating him on suspicion of committing an act of treason and intending to disrupt public order. After being in jail for four days, Baruchin was freed but lost his job as a teacher and is still facing charges.
“These days, Israeli citizens who are showing the slightest sentiment for the people of Gaza, opposing the killing of innocent civilians, are being politically persecuted, they go through public shaming, they lose their jobs, they are being put in jail,” he said.
According to him, if he had been Palestinian, he would have faced more violence. Below is his interview:
“Here in Israel, for generations, we kill the Palestinians. We injure the Palestinians. We have more than 1,500 Palestinians in administrative detention. We demolish their houses here in Jerusalem. We cut down their olive trees. We confiscate their property, their waters. And most Israelis expect them to accept it. And when they don’t take it, they react violently. They (Israel) blame them, the Palestinians.
“For most Israelis, I mean, we hold millions of Palestinians under occupation for generations. They are deprived of their fundamental rights. And for most Israelis, it can go on forever. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not justifying the violence. But this is, I think, the realistic conclusion. How can we expect the Palestinians to live under occupation forever?
“Every Israeli citizen knows clearly that if you dare to show the slightest sentiment towards the people of Gaza, if you criticise the killing of innocent civilians, including women and children, in Gaza, you will be politically persecuted. You will go through public shaming. You will lose your job, and in my case, you may even be put in jail.
“I wanted as many Israelis to know what is done on their behalf. Most Israelis don’t know because the mainstream media doesn’t show what goes on in Gaza, what we are doing in Gaza. They wished me to die. They wanted my children to die. They threatened to rape my daughter. That was the kind of reaction that we are against.
“As human beings, we must develop a sense of justice and empathy. We must always endeavour to side with the oppressed because a man oppressed anywhere in the world is humanity oppressed everywhere in the world.”
Gaza and their sufferings have nothing to do with religion or race. Among them are Muslims and Christians, and the Muslims are almost all Sunni.
This is why you find Europeans and Christians at the vanguard of the calls for a better living condition for Gazans, currently under Israeli blockade, where food and medical supplies are not allowed to reach them. How does a person with blood flowing in their veins rationalise the dropping of bombs on starving masses who had assembled to receive food aid at a designated spot?
You find the young Swedish climate and political activist Greta Thunberg leading a march through the streets to break the blockade. Former Galatasaray, Italy and Manchester City manager, Roberto Mancini, also spoke out on social media in support of Gaza, urging the international community to act to protect innocent lives and calling for urgent humanitarian aid to the battered enclave.
“We cannot keep striking civilians, families, and children,” he said.
The last Pope and the current one both spoke against the suffering of the Palestinians. Pep Guardiola also said, “War in Gaza hurts my whole body”.
Piers Morgan, a British TV commentator and a rabid supporter of Benjamin Netanyahu, recently agreed with Mehdi Hassan, Zeteo’s editor-in-chief: “Listen, you and I have talked about this war in Gaza ever since it started, this phase of the 75-year conflict,” Piers says to Mehdi. “I have resisted going as far as you have done in your criticism of the Israeli government. I resist no more.”
Gaza is not about Islam or Arabs. Gaza is about humanity.
- Dr Gimba, anipr, is the Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Neptune Prime. His syndicated column, The Arbiter, appears on News Point Nigeria newspaper on Mondays.