ISLAM ruled as a superpower in large areas of the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and North Africa for more than 600 years. History tells us that the Ottoman Empire had great regional stability and security. During that period Muslims made great achievements in various social domains.

The Ottoman Empire was a great threat to western Europe, but then it began to lose its economic and military dominance and Europe had a chance to build its own industrial and economic might.

The United Kingdom occupied the Middle East and divided it into different states, installing tribal leaders there as political heads.

It is because of this history, perhaps, that the rulers in the Middle East today pay more attention to the West rather than to the cries of the Palestinians, who have been facing brutal violence for more than seven decades. Muslims of non-Arab nations need to form an alliance and send a clear and serious warning to Israel to free the occupied land of Palestine and hand over the control of Al Aqsa Mosque to the Palestinians. This is the only way out to liberate Palestine from the Jewish state’s occupation.

Syed Atiq ul Hassan
Sydney, Australia

(2)

IN the wake of the recent spate of violence in Palestine by the Israeli forces, it is important to consider why this issue makes headlines every now and then. Israel justifies the atrocities it commits against the Palestinians as ‘self-defence’, blaming Hamas for flaming the tensions.

Before Israel occupied Palestine, the political front was led by Muslim Brotherhood whose members did not take part in active resistance against the Israeli occupation, focussing instead on socio-religious reforms and on restoring Islamic values.

In 1973, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, a Palestinian refugee, founded the socio-religious charity, Mujama al-Islamiya, in Gaza. The Israeli authorities encouraged the new entity as they saw it as a useful counterbalance to the secular Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) of Yasser Arafat. Yitzhak Segev, who was the Israeli military governor of Gaza at the time, later recalled that the Israelis even funded the charity.

Israel’s religious affairs official in Gaza, Avner Cohen, also confessed rather regretfully that Hamas was actually created by Israel. These tactics by Israel were no different than what the United States later adopted in Afghanistan when it supported Mujahideen against the Soviets.

It is no wonder that the US and Israel support each other’s barbarism even today.

Muneeb Faisal
Lahore

(3)

THIS is apropos the editorial ‘Palestinian bloodbath’ (May 17). Benjamin Netanyahu is hell-bent on establishing Auschwitz and Treblinka in occupied Jerusalem by dislodging and exterminating the hapless Palestinians.

Since the last days of Ramazan, hundreds of Palestinians, including several children, have been ruthlessly massacred, while hundreds of people have been injured seriously. Besides, several residential quarters and some hospital buildings have been bombarded and razed to the ground.

Still there is no respite. The irony is that the Muslim countries, especially those which recognised Israel recently as a legitimate member of UN, play deaf, dumb and blind to the atrocities of Israel, finding it enough to make speeches, pass resolutions and observing Palestine Day.

The United Nations and its Security Council too, under the spell of Western powers, have not been stirred by the wailings and sufferings of the Palestinians. Otto von Bismark had a lot of justification when he said: “The great questions of the day will not be settled by means of speeches and majority decisions, but by iron and blood”.

The fate of obsequious UN, sooner than later, will be worse than the League of Nations which was liquidated in 1946 after 26 years of the poorest of the poor performance. The day is not far when the survivors of the 3,000 martyrs of Sabra and Shatila and the enraged Palestinian youth will have the matter settled and they will surely do it without passing any resolution.

Syed Sardar Ahmad
Karachi

Published in Dawn, May 21st, 2021