Dear Editor,
Every day on television whether it is on the BBC, CNN, or one of the American networks, NBC, CBS, ABC or Fox, if we have any interest at all as Guyanese in the world in which we live, we see and hear about the horror of the violence and loss of life precipitated by the country of Israel’s violent confrontation with the Palestinian population which surrounds it.
So, why is this happening? Why should we care, as Guyanese, whether or not the Jewish people of Israel are at war with the Muslim Arab states surrounding Israel? We should care because this conflict, embraced on one side or the other by the USA, the United Kingdom and Russia and, to a lesser extent China, could precipitate a Third World War consuming us all with the use of weapons of mass destruction.
Israel was proclaimed an independent Jewish Republic on 14th May, 1948, when the British terminated their “Mandate” over Palestine. It is bordered by Egypt on the South, Syria and the Hashemite Kingdom of the Jordan on the East and Lebanon on the North and the Mediterranean Sea on the West.
It is the policy of Israel to “welcome home every Jew who seeks entry” and, in its first four years as a new nation recognized by the United Nations, Israel accepted 700,000 Jewish immigrants. Most coming from Eastern and Central Europe, as well as Asia and North Africa. The great majority victims of the Nazi Germany “Holocaust”. In the course of the Second World War, the Nazis murdered nearly six million European Jews. This genocide is called the Holocaust.
The Arab states surrounding Israel have consistently refused to accept Israel as a permanent independent country and sovereign state. Israel as a country, in fact, is an aberration seen by the Palestinian people as imposed and originally financed and militarily supported on their land by the British and American governments.
Israel continues to exist as a sovereign country recognized by the United Nations General Assembly, maintained largely by the force of arms provided by the United States of America and the United Kingdom. Israel is governed as a democracy with free and fair elections governed by the rule of law but without a full written Constitution.
The Gaza Strip is where the horror of the Israeli invasion continues in retaliation of the invasion of Israel by militants of the Arab military Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, which has controlled the Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip since 2007. It is the apparent determination of the Israeli government to destroy every building and murder every Gazan in the name of defending Israel. The US and to a lesser extent the British governments are caught between a rock and a hard place, claiming that Israel has a right to defend itself while condemning the mass destruction and murder of the people of Gaza by the Israeli army.
Other radical militant Arab Islamic Resistance Movements, including Hez-bollah, opposed to the existence of Israel as a sovereign state, are now, in support of Hamas, rocket bombing Israel in the North. The 1985 manifesto of Hezbollah reportedly states “our struggle will end only when this entity Israel is obliterated. We recognize no treaty with it, no ceasefire, and no peace agreements.” Israel is now invading Lebanon where Hezbollah is headquartered with the apparent intention of eliminating Hezbollah regardless of the destruction and loss of life involved, similarly to its programme in the Gaza.
Both Hamas and Hezbollah are financed, armed and directed by the militant Muslim leadership of Iran who do not recognize the right of Israel to exist. But Iran is on the verge of developing a nuclear capability which Israel would like to destroy. Again, the USA and Britain are caught between a rock and a hard place. They side with Israel in the destruction of Hamas and Hezbollah and all other militant Arab groups fostered by Iran, but know that a war between Israel and Iran would result in an international confrontation probably leading to a Third World War.
Guyana, from the very inception of the manifestation of Israel as a Jewish sovereign state in the midst of Muslim Palestine, sided with the Palestinian cause and has out rightly, correctly and courageously, condemned the murder and destruction being ruthlessly pursued in the Gaza and now Lebanon, by Israel. Courageously, because of the fact that the US and the UK are inextricably and politically tied to Israel.
So, while this war appears so far away from us, it is very close and very relevant to the implications it has for Guyana in the defence of our own sovereignty against the threat of Maduro’s Venezuela and the importance of maintaining our friendship and partnership with the USA, UK and all the other democratic countries in our region who may not necessarily agree with Guyana’s position on the Israeli Arab conflicts.
Yours sincerely,
Kit Nascimento