In These New Times

Gulf News

6th January, 2009

It is unbelievable that after 11 days of slaughtering the children of Gaza, the world has yet to decide if it is going to call on Israel to stop its savage offensive.

It is unbelievable that hundreds of children are being butchered with US-made Israeli weapons and the so-called Big Powers have yet to urge Israel to stop the war. It is unbelievable that Arab leaders cannot agree to meet to offer even the usual lip service to the people of Gaza.

In fact, it has become useless to call on Arab leaders to help the Gazans. They have resigned themselves to calling, during the Arab League meeting last week, on the United Nations Security Council to take up “the issue”. It is no more an Arab question, it seems.

Therefore, the Arab people are left with one option – to call on the international community to rescue the children of Gaza. But such calls are falling on deaf ears. Even the half-hearted efforts of some officials, like the French, to obtain a ceasefire have hit US intransigence.

The Bush administration wants Hamas to surrender first, the tunnels that help bring basic commodities into Gaza destroyed, and Israel to say that it has completed “the mission” before agreeing to stop the killing of children.

Today Gaza is at the mercy of Israel – such a mighty power that nobody in the world is willing to confront.

We are wondering where “courageous” voices have gone. Why do people such as Nelson Mandela, the Archbishop of Canterbury and Jimmy Carter remain silent? Weren’t they once called the conscience of our modern world? Obviously they are not.

The world today is under the Gaza test. The values of the UN are under question. The moral positions of leaders around the world are being challenged by Israel. And as it seems, they are not up for it.