MY TWO PENNORTH ON THIS ISRAELI-HAMAS CONFLICT. First, Eid ul- Fitr to all Muslim brothers and sisters out there. My Tuesday would have been very busy had the moon not been sighted. Now your holiday is also our free day and for that we thank you. On the war though, I notice how easily Hamas is profiting from public sympathy. Muslims in Kenya, and indeed the world over are sympathetic to a religious extremists cause. Even non Muslims decry the loss of civilian life in Gaza. The US and most of the developed world is especially in a tight corner here. While on one hand they support Israels right to defend itself, they dont want to LOOK indifferent to human suffering. Its almost as if the disproportionate loss of life on one side is embarrassing. Like they wish the conflict was more evenly matched. Lets pause for a moment and consider this line of thought. We have to ask ourselves, what are the issues at stake? Who is the primary aggressor? What would be the preferred ending of either side? I think it is fair to say that the conflict is primarily a religious one. The historical story of how the developed world helped carve out an area of Palestinian territory, the holy land and claimed that Yahweh promised it to the Jews cannot be ignored. Should we be surprised to discover that Muslims dispute the power of Yahweh as the earthly real estate broker? On the other hand, the extremists response to this injustice is even more appalling. What they want is extermination of all Jews. And its simply not of the political events of 1948. They believe that coexistence with Jews, and indeed other nonmuslims is undesirable. They would have the blood of all the infidels in the world. The extremists have weighed all the options and decided they would RATHER have endless wars while trying to impose their religious views on everyone THAN live peacefully in pluralistic societies. This is why we have groups like Irans ISIS, Somalias Al shabaab, Nigerias Boko Haram. These groups have realized that they cant win an out and out war with reasonable rules of engagement. They claim to fight for justice, but somehow always find an unjust way of going about it. Its already bad enough to fire rockets or have suicide bombers kill indiscriminately. To then purposely use innocent civilians as human shields is plain evil. Hiding behind your own innocent people in order to deter the enemy is evil. It is in fact hoping your enemy has better morals than you do. Imagine for a moment that Hamas were the stronger ones in the conflict. Would a Hamas militant show any restraint towards an Israeli solder hiding behind school children for example? What puzzles me is how no Muslim community is up in arms condemning Hamas. Not even the ones in constant danger there in Gaza. On the contrary, we have been treated to images of angry children and youths stomping and burning Israeli flags. I think it is fair to say that Hamas will find it even easier to recruit more militants. Unfortunately this extremism is becoming popular. We will never have peace until Hamas comes to reason. The sympathy we have for the civilians is good. It shows that we care. But it must never be the reason why we let extremists have their way.
Posted on: Tue, 29 Jul 2014 09:31:20 +0000
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