One-sided terrorist label
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The Netanyahu government in Israel has started the countdown for the final extermination of the Palestinian people, equipping over 300,000 soldiers with sophisticated weapons. It is certain that the Israeli army will do everything possible to eliminate even the last child when the wolf pack descends upon the 23 million inhabitants of Gaza. The label of terrorism is not ascribed to the diabolical acts Israel is perpetrating and will continue to perpetrate against those who are systematically denied water, electricity, and medical care; they are just peace-lovers fighting in self-defence. In this equation crafted by America, Britain, the European Union, and their global followers, it is Hamas, the Palestinian resistance movement who are unjustly labelled as the sole terrorist and enemy of humanity. Even nations, including India, claiming to acknowledge the existence of Palestine in principle, are clinging to this equation. Following the attack on the World Trade Centre by Osama Bin Laden's Al-Qaeda on September 11, 2001, the U.S. led the fight against the phenomenon dubbed 'Islamic Terrorism.' It is evident that the global practice of hunting a particular community based on misinformation and labelling it as terrorist came in vogue without a clear and precise definition of terrorism. How far the anti-Hamas campaign is unreal and premeditated came out glaringly when a head of state like U.S. President Joe Biden, who initially believed he saw pictures of Hamas beheading children in Israel, had to correct his statement within hours.
This is not to whitewash or justify in toto everything that the Palestinian liberation movement Hamas does. But isn't the brutality that drove the Palestinian people, who were forcibly displaced from their homes and their own land, even from the territories that the United Nations had designated for them, hundred per cent violent and unjust in nature? The world is turning a blind eye to the fact that Hamas is a resistance movement that emerged in 1987, following the deliberate rejection by Zionists of all peace initiatives and agreements that stood in the way of the restoration of peace. Israel has also torn apart all bilateral agreements signed under the mediation of the United States, including the agreements signed by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) led by Yasser Arafat. Israel has not attached any importance to the resolutions passed by the United Nations Security Council calling for the Jewish state to withdraw from the Arab territories it captured in the 1967 war. It was only when the Jewish military began to implement a schedule of killing them daily within the 13 square kilometres of land in East Jerusalem which was granted to the Palestinians, and when Jewish aggression became routine in the Al-Aqsa Mosque, a holy place of worship for Muslims around the world that Hamas's operations became inevitable.
The armed resistance was not something that Hamas started afresh. The armed struggle for the liberation of Palestine began with the founding of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) in the 1970s, led by Dr. George Habash, who acknowledged Marxism-Leninism as the ideological basis. Leila Khaled, who made history through a hijacking, was a PFLP fighter. It is by forgetting such historical facts that even some prominent leftist figures are eager to label Hamas as terrorists. The violence in which innocent women, children, and other civilians are killed or injured, no matter from which side, should not be justified. Hamas claims to be a people who believe in a philosophy that prohibits killing women, children, ordinary people, or priests, even in war. If that principle was violated in their last operation, it should certainly be condemned. However, there is no justice in a unilateral justification for a government that has made horrific atrocities a regular routine and for those who stand by them. The United States, the big powers, and friendly countries should do what they can to persuade both sides to recognize the two-state solution, demilitarize the region, and end the human suffering as a precursor to that. Any action that is obviously unjust will only make the situation worse
