Africa: Time for ‘Common Sense!’

“The US will take over the Gaza Strip, and we will do a job with it too. “We’ll own it and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site, level the site, and get rid of the destroyed buildings.” Those were the words of the 47th president of the United States Donald Trump.

President Trump’s Gaza plan came as a complete and shocking surprise even to the Israeli Premier himself as his immediate facial features seemed to say. But I think one outstanding question for us looking from across the oceans is that does the president’s plan include military action? I mean another military conflict in Gaza with the goals of driving the people to where ever that would be a whole lot of a different, and rather ugly story. We haven’t heard if there were plans to talk to the people themselves and try to find out what they actually think of such a plan. It wouldn’t have been a bad idea. Now that must be the whole thing could go up in the air. I mean thinking that the Palestinians would be hoarded away just like that would be a terrible even insane mistake; a mistake that might make pay this world many times over. One Gaza resident is quoted as saying “We would rather die in Gaza than leave it. We will stay here until we rebuild it. Trump can do as he pleases, but we firmly reject his decisions.”

By the way it’s in that very Gaza that more than 47,540 people were killed and more than a hundred and ten thousand injured. The international reactions even from America’s closest allies was understandably that the plan would bring much more suffering and death to the place which is said to have been almost 70% destroyed. It would be interesting to go through a few of the innumerable reactions.

On home ground a senator’s commented, “A US invasion of Gaza would lead to the slaughter of thousands of US troops and decades of war in the Middle East. It’s like a bad, sick joke.”

Another senator says, “Trump’s proposal to push two million Palestinians out of Gaza and take ‘ownership’ by force, if necessary, is simply ethnic cleansing by another name.”

What makes this a case very crucial, even highly worrying is that claims of the plan being ‘ethnic cleansing’ is repeated over and over again. And this is real bad.

A Palestinian official told a news agency: “It’s a call for ethnic cleansing, for the forced displacement and expulsion of a people from their native land. It is immoral, it is illegal, and it is dangerous.”

German F.M’s comments that the move “… would also lead to new suffering and new hatred … There must be no solution over the heads of the Palestinians,” tells the whole story of the reverberations of any attempt to push out the Palestinians by force which would lead would untold suffering and hatred of the world might have never seen. It’s an issue where much of the world is

France F.M. lost no words in expressing his country’s stance, “France reiterates its opposition to any forced displacement of the Palestinian population of Gaza, which would constitute a serious violation of international law, an attack on the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinians, but also a major obstacle to the two-state solution and a major destabilizing factor for our close partners Egypt and Jordan, as well as for the entire region,”

Here is Spain’s F.M. “I want to be very clear on this: Gaza is the land of Gazan Palestinians and they must stay in Gaza….Gaza is part of the future Palestinian state Spain supports and has to coexist guaranteeing the Israeli state’s prosperity and safety.”

The Irish P.M. says, “It’s very clear the direction of travel here: We need a two-state solution and the people of Palestine and the people of Israel both have a right to live in states safely side by side, and that’s where the focus has to be…Any idea of displacing the people of Gaza anywhere else would be in clear contradiction with the UN Security Council resolutions.”

Of course, it is a world where UNSC resolutions aren’t universally respected. In fact when it comes to the wealthy and powerful ones even the push and pressure for them to stick to resolutions seems to be too feeble compared with the much weaker section of the world which is pressured on all sides. And such things where gravely weight on the social interactions as there would be those who feel that they aren’t fairly treated.

“They [Palestinians] must be allowed home, they must be allowed to rebuild, and we should be with them in that rebuild on the way to a two-state solution,” British P. M. said while his F. M. says, “We’ve always been clear in our belief that we must see two states. We must see adds, “Palestinians live and prosper in their homelands in Gaza and the West Bank.”

Isn’t that the legal and logical thing to do? Wouldn’t such a scenario where the rights of all people irrespective of their being small or big, poor or rich to live and prosper in their homelands make this world a much better place to live in peace and harmony?

This one is from the President of Brazil, “Where would Palestinians live? This is something incomprehensible to any human being. Palestinians are the ones who need to take care of Gaza.”

Yes, while the plan draws all kinds of largely negative comments shouldn’t it be the people of Gaza themselves whose voices should be hear far and loud? Shouldn’t they be the ones to decide the roads on which they’d like to travel and what to do with their homeland!