The Israel-Palestine conflict is seen from only one side

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Israel and Palestine are locked in a brutal exchange of rockets and gunfire. Thousands have been killed so far. In this corner of the world people are seeing the war through the eyes of the Israelis and the western world.

The news came that the Palestinian leadership, Hamas, launched a surprise attack against Israel. This attack was so well coordinated that the attackers were able to take hundreds of hostages. By the time Israel could respond the Palestinians had retreated to their borders.

Israel with its superior military power responded brutally, levelling communities with bombs and rockets. There are now plans to use ground troops. The situation is not nice and it could get worse. Thousands of people have already been displaced. More would be displaced. We have heard of the atrocities committed by Hamas, of them parading a woman in her underwear—the initial report was that she was paraded naked. We heard people talking about fleeing and seeing bodies on the ground. There were also reports of Hamas shooting innocent people.

We have not heard of Israeli atrocities. Al Jazeera would make for interesting coverage of the events. The last time they tried, their studios were bombed. Israel as we know it was founded in Palestine in 1948 after the Second World War. Jews were displaced from many countries where the Germans hounded them. Many died in concentration camps; many were summarily executed. The story of the Holocaust has never stopped being told. There are those who claim that it has been the worst crimes committed against humanity. And many actually believe this. There is now an ongoing discussion between the Holocaust and slavery.

The overwhelming global view is that slavery was worst crime against humanity. Millions of Blacks were plucked from their homelands and transported across the Atlantic to foreign lands where they were worked to death. They had been branded like cattle. Some never made the journey. They were dumped chained together into the Atlantic to face a horrible watery death. That was because the shippers could not feed some of them. Many were killed summarily.

Just a few months ago Guyana celebrated the bicentennial of the 1823 massacre. Hundreds of slaves died on East Coast Demerara, brutally shot by the white landowners and the army. That 1823 massacre almost passed unnoticed in this country. But that is an aside.

The English considered placing the displaced Jews in many countries. They actually identified Guyana as one of the locations. They were going to put the Jews in the Essequibo region. It turned out that they settled on Palestine where the Palestinians were not constrained by borders. The planting of the foreign Jews into the country of these people was bound to be contentious. Indeed, there were Jews there largely because the British had conquered the Ottomans. From 1922 the British began to contemplate establishing a Jewish state in Palestine.

The numbers swelled after World Two. And to this day, more are being invited by Israel. With the support of the United States, Israel has become a world superpower. It has nuclear capabilities. The Palestinians were never interested in military power. They tended their cattle and lived what some said were nomadic lives.

Libya has an open border for the Bedouins. In fact, these people comprise a sizeable portion of that country. It is said to be the same with Syria, Lebanon, Iran and Iraq.

The Palestinian hostility to Israel could be understood. Israel not only took their lands and later annexed other portions, but built walls to keep out the Palestinians. It even removed people from their lands to expand the Israeli borders. Could a fate similar to the Palestinians be awaiting Guyana? We have the Venezuelans who have been coming here for some time. Now they are coming in droves.

Some have already settled in areas where their numbers are growing. In Region One there are already more Venezuelans than Guyanese. Closer to the coast they are moving into empty houses where they try to set up residence. Some have even become so enmeshed in the society that the other day, a group of Guyanese recruited some Venezuelans to help resolve an issue at Hill Foot, East Bank Demerara. That is already a source of conflict.

Heaven forbids if the Venezuelans become as organised as people expect them to. And with the penchant of the government to parcel out lands to Venezuelans we could see the growth of settlements that the Israelis call kibbutz. These are united by social norms and a commonality. Picture the scene forty or fifty years from today. What is there to stop the Venezuelan expansion? And with their mother country being right next door, imagine the support they can solicit if the locals try to become hostile and force them out.

The irony is that most of the countries in the United Nations support Palestine. The major players support Israel. The United States is already prepared to, if it has not already done so, send armaments to Israel.

The fighter planes were not made in Israel.  In the late 1990s the Americans sent a massive air defence shield to Israel. Such military equipment was never sent to Palestine. Russia and China are in the wings waiting to help the Palestinians but that is another contentious situation.

The western bias against the Palestinians is clear. Their fighters are called terrorists; the Israelis’ are called commandos.  Suffice it to say that innocent people including women and children are dying. As the global police, people would expect the United States to get between the warring sides and bring an end to the slaughter.  Instead, it has taken a side. The Jews and the Muslims have been at war for decades because one wants to impose its will over the other. And there are those who are fueling this conflict because war means money for the manufacturers of the weapons.

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