Genocide: Humanitarian Crisis in Gaza and Palestine

The Pakistan Institute of International Affairs (PIIA) organized a Seminar on Humanitarian Crisis in Gaza and Palestine on Saturday, 9 March 2024 at 4.00 p.m. in the Library of the Institute. Introduction by Dr Masuma Hasan, Chairperson, The Pakistan Institute of International Affairs. Speakers: Mr Muhammad Oves Anwar, Director, Research Society of International Law (RSIL), Islamabad, on International Law and International Crimes in View of South Africa’s Case against Israel and the Ruling of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) Ms Sana Pirzada, Barrister and human rights defender, on Psychological Impact of the War on the People of Gaza Mr M. Shahrukh Shahnawaz, Advocate High Court of Sindh and visiting faculty member, Department of International Relations, Karachi University, on the International Community’s Role in Resolving the Palestine Conflict

While almost 31,000 Palestinians have been killed and 175,000 buildings destroyed by Israeli bombing in Gaza, the psychological trauma and mental pain of Palestinians, which is beyond comprehension for the outside world, is going to haunt them for the rest of their lives, legal experts and rights activists told attendees at a seminar on Saturday evening. 

The seminar organised by the Pakistan Institute of International Affairs (PIIA) was titled ‘Humanitarian crisis in Gaza and Palestine’. 

Mohammad Oves Anwar, Director Research Society of International Law (RSIL) was the first of the three speakers. He gave an overview of the crisis and international laws in order to understand what’s happening in the region. 

He said Gaza is the home to 2.3 million Palestinians, almost 31,000 have been martyred and 72,500 injured. 

Over 31,000 people killed, 175,000 buildings have been destroyed in Israeli bombing 

About 75 per cent of the entire population of Gaza has been displaced; 1.5m people have been crammed into the tiny portion of Rafah, the last bastion of any protection. “Israel has already started to attack it… Every bomb will have multiple casualties. Another startling fact is that 175,000 buildings, every single institution of higher learning, have been destroyed. That is, 61 per cent of built structure of Gaza has been destroyed.” 

He said the other concept that he wanted to look at was that of the occupation. “An occupation is a territory which is held by another country to which it does not have any lawful excuse to be there. After the global acceptance of UN Charter in 1945, acquisition of territory through conquest, through military attack, is simply not possible. You have blanket prohibition on the use of force or the threat of the use of force in Article 2(4) of the UN Charter. Therefore, any territory occupied after 1945 cannot become part of another state. If it does become part of another state, it’s called annexation. We have recognised opinions of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and of the Israeli high court which say that the territory of West Bank, Gaza is occupied territory. Every attempt of settlement is a form of annexation, unlawful by definition.” 

After informing the audience on how Israel violates international laws, Mr Anwar concluded his speech with the silver lining that “international laws give us the language of critique”. 

Barrister, writer and human rights defender Sana Pirzada in a moving presentation highlighted the psychological impact of the war on the people of Gaza. She said: “Mental illnesses are scars that cannot be seen. Death is lamentable, but it brings your pain to an end, whereas a mental illness is something that you have to live with for the rest of your life, which is what the people of Gaza have been doing for decades.” 

She as a lawyer wrote a letter to the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court because a few months ago he was asking everyone to send evidence that was required to prosecute Netanyahu and his team. “I said to him you and I have never been in a war zone, we do not know what the sound of bombs is like, we do not know what it feels like to wake up in a hospital to find our loved ones lying dead, we do not know what it feels to see the sight of dead children… If you have to live with something like that for the rest of your life, how is it going to impact you?” 

Ms Pirzada sharing some statistics with the attendees said that the World Bank in 2022 found that more than half of the adult population in Gaza had screened positive for depression; a smaller number showed signs of post-traumatic stress disorder. 

“Before the war, more than 500,000 children required mental help and psychosocial support. Now unfortunately the number has risen to over a million. What’s more painful is that half of the children in Gaza have contemplated suicide. Children as young as five have said that they’d rather die than live.” 

She said there are people in Gaza with obsessive compulsive disorder and there are those who have nightmares and shut their windows because they feel something is about to happen, someone is about to barge in or a bomb is about to explode. She also mentioned anxiety and insomnia. “Kids have nightmares of soldiers ransacking their homes. Ten thousand children have been killed. The blasts have led to amputations and according to the UN nearly 335,000 children under five have a high risk of severe malnutrition. Incubators have shut down. Children have lost limbs… Unicef has said that the Gaza strip is the most dangerous place in the world to be a child.” 

Ms Pirzada quoting a news outlet said most of the children in Gaza like to be engineers when they grow up because they want to rebuild Gaza or become doctors to help people because they’ve lost loved ones in front of their eyes. She rounded off her speech by saying that despite hell, the people of Gaza have shown resilience and adapted to community-based coping strategies. 

Shahrukh Shahnawaz, advocate High Court of Sindh, shed light on the international community’s role in resolving the Palestinian conflict. 

He said the birth of the modern international community was seen after the Second World War with the creation of the UN in 1945 along with the beginning of the Palestine conflict in 1948. The UN started with 51 members which later increased to 193. “It is estimated that between 1945 and 1960 around three dozen new states emerged after being freed from the control of their colonial masters. This allowed the former colonies to raise their collective voice against their former colonial masters.” 

Earlier, Chairperson PIIA Dr Masuma Hasan introduced the speakers to the audience.

US ‘double standards’ seen as major factor behind Israeli brutalities

The Western mind has never forgotten the Crusades, Ambassador Ghori

The Pakistan Institute of International Affairs (PIIA) recently organised a seminar where former ambassadors and academics delved into the subject of ‘Israeli Aggression in Gaza and Peace in the Middle East’.

They spoke about the double standards of the United States and observed that it was the major issue that harmed the peace in the volatile region.

PIIA chairperson Dr Masuma Hasan spoke about the present crisis in Gaza after Hamas fired 5,000 rockets at Israel on Oct 7. “Israel was bound to retaliate and has since let loose the worst kind of terror on the poor Palestinians of the narrow Gaza Strip,” she said while also pointing out that even though the West calls Hamas a terrorist organisation, it really stands for an Islamic resistance movement. 

While pointing an accusing finger at the United States, former ambassador and Pakistan’s permanent representative to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons Mustafa Kamal Kazi said that in the case of Palestine there can be no greater hypocrisy and double standards.

“The United States of America even vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution which sought not a ceasefire but just humanitarian pauses in Israel’s bombing for medicine and other essential life supporting supplies to enter Gaza,” he said.

“In my view, Washington’s three decisions after the year 2000 which directly or indirectly harmed the prospects of peace in the region are the events after the 9/11 tragedy leading to the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq, President Trump’s abandonment of nuclear accord with Iran, making Iran free to raise uranium enrichment to a higher level. Therefore, raising the interest of other regional countries towards greater competitive interest in nuclear technology and the so-called Abraham Accords, which were the brainchild of amateur strategist Trump’s son-in-law, signed by the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan. 

“But these countries were in no position to advance the cause of settlement of the Palestinian and Israeli issue. On the contrary these accords triggered Palestinian desperation that now even their Arab governments were abandoning them through American persuasion. This unity amongst the Arab countries is a factor, which dilutes their strategic and economic power potential,” he said. 

“The Arab League has 22 members out of which six — Iraq, Yemen, Syria, Libya, Sudan and Somalia — have been crippled by conflicts. Sudan was even dismembered and partitioned. The Arab League was founded within an objective to develop close relations amongst the member states. But this Accord speaks for itself. Very disturbing reports have emerged during the current crisis that some Arab countries spy on the poor Palestinians and report to Israeli intelligence. This needs some soul searching,” he added.

He also spoke about American-led invasions in at least seven Muslim countries during the past 23 years, which has claimed lives of more than a million and displacement to around 37m. “It’s a clear signal to the Muslim world where they are standing in a West-dominated world where Islamophobia continues to flourish,” he said. 

Joining online from Canada, Ambassador Karmatullah Ghori was of the view that the Western mind has never forgotten the lessons of the Crusades. He said:

When history repeats itself the first time, it is a tragedy. When history repeats itself a second time, it is a calamity

What is the aggression here? It is not even a war. It is a Palestinian struggle for all their fundamental rights as they have been living under Israeli oppression for the last 75 years

About America and Europe, he said that they wanted to create a Western colony in the heart of the Arab world, which they have quite successfully as the Arabs surrounding Israel have not been of much help. 

Speaking on the occasion, Prof Dr Talat Ayesha Wizarat, the former chairperson of the Department of International Relations at the University of Karachi and former head of the Center of Policy and Area Studies at the Institute of Business Management, said she feels depressed at the plight of the Palestinians. She said:

They are waiting for food, electricity and medical help. Israel has attacked hospitals and schools. Something has to be done very quickly

Everywhere the US is interested in a ceasefire but when it comes to Gaza, they are not interested in a ceasefire

As a solution, she said that perhaps all the 65 members of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) should tell the US that if it does not change its attitude, they are all going to break diplomatic relations with it.

“Considering the present state of fear this seems like a dream. But threatening to do this would be effective I think. If all of the OIC members do it then it will present a different scenario. So I think the Muslim countries should do it for their own good, because if they think that only Gaza is going to suffer and that is going to be the end of the story, it is not going to end there. The US has already destroyed six or seven Muslim countries in a span of 23 years. They will not stop here,” she said.

Published in Dawn 22 October 2023

How will a Biden administration handle the Israel-Palestine conflict?

After four years of evangelical solidarity with the settler movement, How will a Biden administration handle the Israel-Palestine conflict?

As of January 20^th, 2021, Joe Biden is officially the 46^th President of the United States of America. So far, his first few days in office have been promising; the US has re-joined the Paris Climate Agreement, the World Health Organization, and halted construction on Trump’s border wall with Mexico. Those of us who have, over the past four years, warily watched the Trump administration throw its full weight behind the right wing government in Tel Aviv have a pressing question of our own to ask: what role will a Biden administration play in the longstanding conflict? 2020 was, by all accounts, an eventful year for Israel. Benny Gantz and Benjamin Netanyahu formed a coalition government in May 2020, after three successive elections over eighteen months repeatedly resulted in a stalemate between the former IDF general and the leader of the Likud party. But the uneasy power-sharing agreement between the former-political-adversaries-turned-coalition-partners turned out to be even more short-lived than many had expected.

As of December 22^nd 2020, the Knesset (the Israeli parliament) stands dissolved, after lawmakers failed to pass the bi-annual state budget proposed in the coalition agreement signed between Netanyahu’s Likud and Gantz’ Blue and White. This year on March 23^rd, Israeli citizens will be heading to the polls to vote in their fourth election in two years. That’s the word on Israel’s domestic front. In one of the more rabble-rousing developments of 2020, four Arab states – the UAE, Sudan, Bahrain and Morocco – took the plunge to formally recognize Israel. The peace deals, termed the “Abraham Accords” by the Trump White House, were mediated by the Trump administration during their final months in office. The name also serves as a nod to the former administration’s ties with the Evangelical community, who accounted for a sizeable portion of Trump’s vote base in 2016 and donate generously to the GOP.

‘There can be Arab Spring 2.0’

The issue of Palestine cannot be ignored by having deals

The Pakistan Institute of International Affairs (PIIA) organised a webinar on Saturday on ‘US-brokered agreement between UAE, Bahrain and Israel’. Dr Seyed Mohammed Kazem Sajjadpour, president of the Institute for Political and International Studies, Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said the accord or deal could be analysed as ABC — A (American problematic); B (betrayal); and C (composition of forces). It’s an American project mostly oriented towards American election, a psychological ploy. There has been no achievement for Trump in the last four years in foreign policy. The accord is addressed for a special American constituency based on religious reading.

“Why are they calling it Abraham [Accords]?” They look at Israel with a Biblical sense. There’s a link between, Pompeo, Jared Kushner and that constituency. American policy in the Middle East was in limbo and the agreement is reflective of a very deep crisis of America in the region, he added. On the second point, he said there were contacts between smaller states and Zionist entity in the past, it’s nothing new. But now Palestinians have been betrayed. “Who can ignore the Palestinian plight?” He asked and highlighted that in the last 70 years, there have been 60 American and European plans to fix the Palestinian issue but they haven’t been successful because there is a real problem called Palestine. You can’t ignore it by having deals. Whoever is ignoring their plight is not seeing the reality. “Now there’s a third generation of refugees. Can they ignore their origin? The Palestinians have been betrayed.”

The Israel-Lebanon Conflict Reignited

The United Nations has cautioned against the escalation of this conflict by calling for both sides to exercise maximum restraint.

As Israel launched a number of airstrikes along the Lebanese-Syrian border on Sunday (25 August) morning, President of Lebanon Michel Aoun labelled the Israeli provocation as a ‘declaration of war.’ With the Israeli media identifying the objective behind this attack as targeting a group led by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps as a preventive measure against an impending ‘kamikaze-style’ armed drone attack on Northern Israel, these airstrikes were also said to have resulted in the death of two Hezbollah operatives: Hassan Yousef Zabeeb and Yasser Ahmad Daher. However, it must be noted that the airstrikes were not simply an isolated incident – they were followed by an Israeli drone attack on Beirut. It was reported that alleged Israeli drones had also crashed in Lebanon’s capital, suburban city, eliciting a strongly-worded condemnation from the Lebanese government and from Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s incumbent Secretary General. ‘I say to the Israeli army on the border from tonight, stand guard. Wait for us one, two, three, four days,’ exclaimed Hassan Nasrallah to his supporters during a rare public appearance on Sunday.

‘What happened in Syria and Lebanon last night is very, very dangerous.’ He further added that Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu ‘would be mistaken if he thinks that this issue can go unnoticed. The time at which Israeli war jets used to strike targets in Lebanon while the usurping entity in Palestine kept safe has ended… Be prepared and wait for us.’ President Aoun too, accused Israel of violating Lebanon’s sovereignty during his meeting with the United Nations Special Coordinator for Lebanon, Jan Kubis. ‘What happened was similar to a declaration of war which allows us to resort to our right to defending our sovereignty,’ the Lebanese president’s office quoted him as saying on Twitter, on Monday. He went on to say that ‘We are a people seeking peace, not war, and we don’t accept anyone threatening us in any war.’

‘Endgame in the Middle East’: A Talk by Ambassador Karamatullah Khan Ghori

Israel does not want to see Assad go because he never posed a threat to Israel. So the Americans are happy; and the crisis is not ending anytime soon says former Pakistan diplomat

The Syrian crisis is not going to end anytime soon. When it does end, it will not be to the liking of the West. This was said by former ambassador Karamatullah Khan Ghori in his lecture on ‘Endgame in the Middle East’ organised at The Pakistan Institute of International Affairs (PIIA) on Tuesday. Mr Ghori said to understand the subject, one needed to look at the genesis of the game. It was in 1908 when oil was discovered in the Middle East for the first time at a place called Masjid-i-Suleiman in Iran. Five years later, it was discovered in Iraq, a year later in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia was the last country tapped by the oil explorers. Notably, the discovery of oil preceded the First World War. It also coincided with Western infatuation with Israel. Although the so-called Balfour Declaration was announced in 1917, the spadework for a Jewish homeland had started in the last decade of the 19th century when the Zionist International was founded in Switzerland. The two developments almost happened simultaneously.

For the last one hundred years, this has been the prime goal and two-edged weapon of the West against the Arab world: one, oil continues to be supplied to Western economies; two, Israel is not threatened. Mr Ghori said in 1973 the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) imposed its first oil embargo against the West, and its architect was Saudi Arabia’s King Faisal. That embargo gave birth to what is now known as the Kissinger doctrine. Henry Kissinger was the secretary of state in 1973. He said, “We cannot allow this blackmail of our economies to go unchallenged. If it is allowed to go unchallenged, it will choke our economies. Therefore, we should be prepared to land our troops on the oil producing fields of Arabia.” Mr Ghori said colonialism relied upon creating local surrogates, and in the global context, regional surrogates. The US, after WWII, created regional surrogates in the Arab world and the Persian side of the Gulf.

‘The Arab World in Turmoil’: A Talk by Ambassador Karamatullah Ghori

We have no problem with Iran. Besides, we share a long border and are culturally more akin to Iran than to Saudi Arabia.

The standoff in Yemen between the Saudis and Iranians shows that a high death toll and human suffering alone will stop neither side from trying to build up its influence in the region. In Syria, after a relentless war which has left countless innocent people dead, Iran’s influence is in the ascendency along with its old ally Russia. The fall of Ghouta confirms this point. It demonstrates the impotence of the West as a player in the Middle East. After Saddam’s fall in 2003, Iran quickly developed its importance in Iraq. Iran was also quick to protect its neighbour when ISIS took over large parts of Iraq in 2014. Interestingly, John Bolton, who has been made Trump’s national security advisor after general McMaster was cashiered, wants to destroy the Iranian regime and advocates its replacement by Maryam Rajavi’s Mojahedin-e Khalq organisation, whose members had been proscribed as terrorists in many western countries. Mohammed bin Salman, who has recently been on a charm offensive and has been rubbing shoulders with Theresa May and schmoozing with president Trump making billion dollar deals, is now on a mission to win over support in Iraq.

The Saudi crown prince, who is on a quest to remake the Middle East, also says that Riyadh also has strategic interests with Tel Aviv despite the ongoing slaughter of the Palestinians by the Israeli military machine. Anyhow, the Wahabi Saudi regime is extending a hand of friendship to disillusioned Shias in Iraq who do not wish to align their interests with Tehran. For example, Muqtada al-Sadr, the stern leader of the Saraya al-Salam met Mohammed bin Salman in Najaf last year. Najaf is a natural place for the Saudi-Iranian rivalry to pan out further, of course Tehran has much more experience than Riyadh on the ground in Najaf and Southern Iraq. In these interesting times Pakistan’s former ambassador Karamatullah Ghori delivered lecture on The Arab World on Turmoil on 31 March, 2018 at The Pakistan Institute of International Affairs (PIIA).

Reportage on PIIA’s Peace in South Asia Conference 2017

“The current policies of the United States of America for South Asia can disrupt peace in the region” – President Mamnoon Hussain at the 70^th Anniversary Conference of the PIIA.

Donald J Trump’s election to the White House demonstrates the extremely vulgar nature of American society. And it is difficult to disagree with the assessment that the American president really is a “deranged dotard”. Heaven knows, despite the tyrannical nature of his own country, North Korea’s insane “little rocket man” might even be making a valid point when he calls Trump’s sanity into question. Trump’s totally crazy brinkmanship with Pyongyang shows that he is willing to put the safety of billions of people at risk by his recklessness. But perhaps it is all just a charade to deliberately divert attention far away from emerging domestic problems connected to Robert Mueller’s investigation, the Sword of Damocles hanging over Trump and his cronies’ heads, about the Trump campaign’s collusion with the Kremlin to rig the election. Overall Trump is a sexist and a racist. He never tells the truth and serially dismisses all accusations of sexual misconduct/offending against him. Against American and British interests, he retweets from Britain First – a racist and neo-Nazi organisation.

His hatred of Muslims is so severe that he has even declared Jerusalem to be Israel’s capital. Clearly, he is deliberately destabilising the Middle East. Trump is a danger to the world and it is hard to disagree with the soft speaking figure of president Mamnoon Hussain that the present American administration is a threat to peace in South Asia (and indeed the rest of the world). The reckless and inflammatory rhetoric manifested by Trump can only bolster Hindus’ hatred for Muslims in India where killing Muslims for “love jihad” (or having a Hindu girlfriend or boyfriend) is seen as a force for good. In such testing times, The Pakistan Institute of International Affairs (PIIA) organised a regional conference which was held last month in Karachi. Esteemed speakers from all walks of life addressed the lively audience.

‘The Dynamics of Iran, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and US Relations’: A Talk by Javed Jabbar

No crisis today remains regional. There is no such thing as isolated or insulated regions … watch video

The fragmentation of the Middle East into a collection of interest groups has become a defining feature of the region’s political economy. “Palestine is essentially an Arab country, and must remain so,” was the uncompromising response given by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru in 1947 to requests made by Albert Einstein, at the behest of Zionist leaders, to support the creation of the state of Israel. Seven decades later the atmosphere is rather different and Modi has comprehensively cemented ties with Israel by becoming the first Indian prime minister to make an official visit to Israel, a premier supplier of arms and military technology to New Delhi. The passage of seventy years has resulted in the rise of new power brokers such as the Saudis who are accused of being the primary supporters of state sponsored terrorism in an official report, the publication of which is deliberately being withheld by the British government as it does not want to damage booming arms sales to Riyadh: bombs used to kill innocent civilians in Yemen. All this squares up poorly with Trump’s claim that Iran is the foremost pariah state.

The ongoing ostracism of Qatar shows that the Saudis want to call the shots on everything on their terms. In a session chaired by Dr Masuma Hasan, Javed Jabbar gave an insightful talk on the mechanics underpinning Iran, Qatar, Saudi Arabia’s relations with the US. The event was widely reported in the media and extracts of the reportage are available below. Jabbar bemoaned Saudi hegemony and recalled that the 13 sweeping demands that Saudi Arabia had made of Qatar sounded frightfully similar to a power point presentation conjured up by global management consulting firm McKinsey & Company – a favourite of King Salman bin Abdulaziz. According to Jabbar, one cannot ignore the fact that only six years ago, Saudi Arabia and Qatar jointly invested in an Israeli company called IDA Holdings.

Adviser Sartaj Aziz: The Role of Russia and China is Vital for Regional Changes

Nawaz Sharif’s first contact with Donald Trump was a very pleasant one. India is trying to isolate Pakistan. Islamabad will give a befitting reply to New Delhi on every front. Ties with Afghanistan remain complicated.

Sartaj Aziz is a renowned figure in politics. He used to be a senator and also served as the finance minister and foreign minister under past administrations. He spoke to the members of The Pakistan Institute of International Affairs (PIIA) on 11 February 2017. These days he is the foreign affairs adviser to the prime minister, who is also the present foreign minister. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the architect of Pakistan’s 1973 Constitution, was prime minister and foreign minister simultaneously from December 1971-March 1977. Mimicking the slain premier, who was judicially murdered during the Zia years, the present prime minister, Nawaz Sharif has held the office prime minister and foreign minister since 2013; a trait he is at times vehemently criticised for. We have a tormented constitutional history indeed. The fall of Ayub Khan and the martial law of Yahya Khan meant that the judiciary’s role was tried and tested beyond what one may consider “normal”.

Pakistan’s 1962 Constitution provided that the speaker of the National Assembly should become the acting president until a new president was elected but Abdul Jabbar Khan did not become acting president because the dictator Yahya Khan disgracefully usurped power. In A History of the Judiciary in Pakistan, Hamid Khan describes the period from 1968 to 1975 as “turbulent times”. According to him, Hamoodur Rahman CJ tried to steer the ship as best he could but he was unable save the judiciary from adversity. “During those seven years, the judiciary lived through the political movement against Ayub Khan, the martial law of Yahya Khan, the civilian martial law of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto