Latest update December 23rd, 2024 3:40 AM

Guyana's largest selling daily and New York's most popular weekly

Latest News

Al-Nakba again, in 2024

Nov 16, 2024 Editorial, News

…Editorial

 Kaieteur News-In 1948, when the Israelis were done, approximately 75% of the Palestinian population were expelled from their homes that they have lived in for centuries.  The catastrophe that started around then has never really stopped.  It has gone from disaster to tragedy for over a year now, is a now a human catastrophe repeated on a worse scale than what occurred over 75 years ago.  What makes it worse is how it is so blatantly condoned by those who shamelessly cover their eyes and mouths.  Early indications from the winner of the US election are that the road ahead for Gazans is going to get grimmer.   Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and his war machine now stand poised to wreak more havoc on a largely prostrate population.

In 1948, the combination of the now infamous Balfour Declaration, a UN Resolution, a surging Zionist movement, led to mass expulsions, mass graves, and mass mayhem.  Palestinians were scattered all over, with their homes razed, their brethren massacred, their children terrified, and their women raped.  The bitter human wreckage has been among the more poignant aspects of a modern-day horror that came shortly after the unspeakable Jewish horrors in places like Auschwitz, Treblinka, and Bergen-Belsen.  It is a terrible irony that the horribly, unimaginably, victimized at the hands of the Nazis could have become in such a short span imitators of their inhuman tormentors.  While the Irgun and Stern Gang ran amok, not much of a restraining hand was raised to insist with power and vigor: enough!  Time to stop, time to work sincerely for a lasting resolution that has its defining features, some robust elements of justice and human wisdom.  What started then has gained an extended renewal of life in 2024, with the so-called advanced and civilized world averting its eyes.  Those who have found it fit to lecture others about barbarity have had next to nothing to say in opposition to the gruesome crimes being committed against the Palestinian people today.  When that world speaks, the character of carefully chosen words has been of hypocrisy and self-imposed impotence.

Today, the cries of new mothers of the new Nakba echo and reecho around the world.  Modern communications reveal in sharp contexts what cannot stay concealed.  There is a mounting toll: homes put to the torch, families that have been torn apart, and death that could come from any direction.  The free world that takes it upon itself to teach others about liberty and proportion, restraint and dialogue, is now largely missing in presence, lacking in voice.  What is happening in Gaza cannot by any standard qualify to be about the right to self-defense.  It is vengeance at its most barbaric, and with the same grim clinical determination, with little regard for human life manifested.  It was what reared its monstrous head in Germany during an incomparable decade 75 years ago.

A quick scan of the losses on the Israeli and Palestinians sides resonates with disparity.  The one-sided nature of this ‘war’ has some ratios that stagger the conscience.  Palestinian civilians have been killed at the rate of 40:1 in comparison to Israelis.  Palestinians to Israelis displaced by the conflict are also around that 40:1 ratio.  Armed combatants are at about 17:1, with Palestinians on the losing end.  Close to 10,000 rockets have been fired into Israel, with damage limited.  In contrast, some of the major infrastructures (roads, sanitation, sewer systems, and so on) of the people living in Gaza have been crippled to an unworkable state, so meaningless is what is left.  Is this really a war, or a mainly Western sanctioned cauldron of destruction that is systematic in vision, proven in results?  The once significant Arab world has been bent to its knees, made to resemble the pitiful.  The world of America and much of Europe is now seen as even more prejudiced, much hollower after all of its piousness.  The current Guyana Government that is normally so visible in the Middle East, so vocal on most things, has been content to walk the safest path: leadership platitudes.

We observe this new catastrophe and wonder that if Israel was at a disadvantage, where the US and its allies would be.

(Al-Nakba again, in 2024)

Similar Articles

The Glenn Lall Show | December, 2nd, 2024

Follow on Tik Tok @Glennlall

THE BLUNT OF THE DAY

Sports

Renuka, Mandhana consign West Indies to record loss

Renuka, Mandhana consign West Indies to record loss

Dec 23, 2024

(Cricinfo) – After a T20I series that went to the decider, the first of three ODIs between India and West Indies was a thoroughly one-sided fare. The hosts dominated from start to finish...
Read More
GBA confirms additional bouts

GBA confirms additional bouts

Dec 23, 2024

Opinion: Barbados Cricket Faces Crossroads

Opinion: Barbados Cricket Faces Crossroads

Dec 23, 2024

KMTC Boxing Day Horse race meet turning out to be signature year-end event

KMTC Boxing Day Horse race meet turning out to be...

Dec 23, 2024

Candy Boss Invitational 8-A-Side Football Tournament kicks off Boxing Night

Candy Boss Invitational 8-A-Side Football...

Dec 23, 2024

Chase Academy squares off with St Benedict’s College ahead of today’s final

Chase Academy squares off with St Benedict’s...

Dec 22, 2024

Features/Columnists

Publisher’s Note

Freedom of speech is our core value at Kaieteur News. If the letter/e-mail you sent was not published, and you believe that its contents were not libellous, let us know, please contact us by phone or email.

Feel free to send us your comments and/or criticisms.
Contact: 624-6456; 225-8452; 225-8458; 225-8463; 225-8465; 225-8473 or 225-8491.
Or by Email: [email protected] / [email protected]

Weekend Cartoon

Bridge Watch

Demerara Harbour Bridge

> Berbice Bridge […]