Ramadan, Gaza and anti-Islam sentiment

Friday marked the fifth day of Ramadan. Unfortunately, there is still no cease-fire in Gaza, and Israel continues to kill Palestinians waiting for food supplies. Earlier this week, Israeli troops killed six Palestinians and injured 83 others as they waited in line to receive a bag of flour. That was not the first time, and it won’t be the last.

Let us recall that seven Palestinians were killed and 20 more were injured two days before the most recent attack against the same location. On Feb. 29, Israeli soldiers shot dead 118 Palestinians waiting for assistance.

It is important to stress that the slain Palestinians were ordinary people looking for help in Gaza, where children have been starving to death – not members of Hamas or the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades. Having failed to prevent the bombing of hospitals, schools and United Nations buildings in Gaza, the world watches idly – on live television – as people waiting for help die.

Systemic policy

In the face of the Palestinian people’s systematic starvation and elimination, the United States and Europe have yet to broker a cease-fire or deliver humanitarian aid. Washington’s decision to build temporary ports and efforts to deliver supplies by air fall short of ensuring the delivery of humanitarian aid. Meanwhile, the United Kingdom changed its mind about dropping supplies on Gaza, claiming that assistance hurts the civilian population.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in turn, expects Israel to rain down supplies on Gaza. If Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (who already called U.S. President Joe Biden’s bluff) launches a military operation against Rafah, the situation will further deteriorate.

It is sad to see that the world cannot tell Israel, which continues to kill Palestinians as they await help, that enough is enough. The Western governments do not try and stop the ongoing massacre that goes against everything they say about human rights and undermines their values. The Muslim world, in turn, cannot seem to influence the West to facilitate a humanitarian initiative to end the blockade.

The current crisis remains deep enough to completely negate the popular concepts of our time. Let us recall that the people of the world were led to believe that human rights were universal. Who could possibly explain why Israeli bullets are killing Palestinians waiting in line for supplies? The genocide that the international community seems to deem appropriate for the Palestinian people will have serious consequences for the region and the world. This hypocrisy, which offers preferential treatment to Israel, will fuel hate speech, racism, radicalization and violence. Who will be able to reverse that trend?

Islamophobia

March 15 was the International Day to Combat Islamophobia. On Thursday, I attended the 4th International Media and Islamophobia Forum hosted by Türkiye’s broadcasting authority to discuss Islamophobia and the situation in Gaza. Islamophobia, which refers to discrimination and attacks against Muslim individuals and communities, remains an insufficient concept. The correct term would be “anti-Islam and anti-Muslim sentiment.” Islamophobia continues to gain momentum in the West in line with the growing popularity of the far right. For the record, the threat keeps getting more serious in the non-Western world (starting with India) and even Muslim countries themselves.

It is possible to question the links between the situation in Gaza and Islamophobia. Obviously, people around the world sympathize with the Palestinians today due to what is happening in Gaza. Yet there is an uptick in hatred and hostility toward Muslims, especially Palestinians, as well. The association of the Palestinian resistance with terrorism and the deafening silence in the face of Israel’s massacres are essentially Islamophobic phenomena. Likewise, the Western media’s coverage of the Gaza crisis, which has been filled with censorship and disinformation, contains some type of Islamophobia.

A controversial cartoon mocking Gazan civilians grappling with starvation, which appeared in the French magazine Liberation, represented the most striking and concrete case in point.

We are going through events beyond comprehension. This Ramadan has been full of sorrow and suffering.

[Daily Sabah, March 17, 2024]