After martyring more than 300 Palestinians—including 100 children and 80 women—injuring more than 3000 innocent civilians in the Gaza Strip through airstrikes and ground shelling, Israel agreed on a ceasefire with Hamas which ended the 11 day war.
Tensions bubbled over when the Israeli police stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem and attacked the Palestinians. In return, thousands of Palestinians staged protests in the Al-Aqsa Mosque complex. In an emergency meeting of the foreign ministers, the OIC had called for an immediate halt to Israel’s barbaric attacks on Gaza.
Earlier, called by China, the UN Security Council held an urgent meeting on the unrest in Jerusalem. All sessions failed as the US moved to block a joint statement that would condemn Israel for perpetuating violence and call for a cease-fire. Like the past administrations, the US President Joe Biden reiterated that Israel has the right to defend itself. Biden also sent Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the US’ UN envoy, to de-escalate tensions. However, this was part of the double game played by Washington. When Biden seriously pressurised Netanyahu to refrain from actions that would start a full-scale war, Tel Aviv agreed to the ceasefire. However, Israeli Premier Netanyahu has not accepted the two-state solution of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute which was stressed by the US and some major Western countries. In fact, international bodies such as the UN Security Council and OIC failed to present a solution to end the Israeli state terrorism on the Palestinians.
Notably, the Ottoman Empire of Turkey was a large multi-ethnic state. In order to maintain their control, one of the British strategies was the infamous divide and rule policy which was being practiced through various tactics like the arrangement of rebellions along with the manipulation of ethnic and sectarian differences. Britain provided soldiers, weapons and money to the Arab subjects against that Empire. According to the Sykes-Picot Agreement, the British and French agreed to divide the Arab world between them. Britain took control of what is now Iraq, Kuwait, and Jordan. The French were given modern-day Syria, Lebanon and southern Turkey. Thus, they brought about the end of the Ottomans and the rise of the new states, with borders, running across the Middle East and dividing Muslims from each other. The Balfour Declaration of November 2, 1917, a conspiracy of the American and British rulers against the Palestinians, was implemented. On May 14, 1948, the UN acted upon the 1947 UN Partition Plan and established the state of Israel.
Israel occupied East Jerusalem and the Syrian Golan Heights during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and annexed the entire city in 1980 in a move that has never been recognised by the UN and international community. Once Henry Kissinger stated, “legitimacy is not natural or automatic, but created.” Under the cover of the 9/11 attacks, the US President George W. Bush started global war on terror. Occupation of Afghanistan by NATO, the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq, the creation of Al-Qaeda by the CIA, the Islamic State group (ISIS), proxy wars in Libya, Syria and Yemen, and elsewhere in the world were part of the same anti-Muslim campaign to continue the old divide and rule policy.
Henry Kissinger had suggested the split of Iraq into three independent regions, ruled by Kurds, Shias and Sunnis. In this regard, the Asia Times Online reported in 2005, “The plan of balkanising Iraq into several smaller states is an exact replica of an extreme right-wing Israeli plan…an essential part of the balkanisation of the whole Middle East. Curiously, Henry Kissinger was selling the same idea even before the 2003 invasion of Iraq…this is classic divide and rule: the objective is the perpetuation of Arab disunity.”
Similarly, during the partition of the Sub-continent, the people of the state of Jammu and Kashmir, which comprised of a Muslim majority, decided to join Pakistan according to the British formula. However, Dogra Raja, Sir Hari Singh, a Hindu who was ruling over the region in collusion with the Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Governor General Lord Mountbatten, joined India.
The Security Council adopted the resolution of April 21, 1948, which promised a plebiscite under UN auspices to enable the people of Jammu and Kashmir to determine whether they wish to join Pakistan or India. On February 5, 1964, India backed out of its commitment of holding a plebiscite. Instead, the Indian Parliament declared Kashmir as an integral part of the Indian union.
India’s cruel actions against the Kashmiris reached a climax on August 5, 2019, when the Indian extremist government, led by Modi, revoked articles 35A and 370 of the Constitution, which gave a special status to the disputed territory of the Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK). Furthermore, Indian prejudiced rulers have issued over 1.8 million domicile certificates to non-Kashmiris to change the demographic structure of the IIOJK.
The deployment of more than 900,000 military troops in the IIOJK, who have martyred thousands of the Kashmiris through brutal tactics along with the non-provision of basic necessities of life and medicines for the coronavirus patients, proves the worst form of India’s state terrorism. Besides, the Indian Citizenship Amendment Act of 2019 (CAA) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC) further exposed the discriminatory policies of the Modi-led government against the Muslims.
Nevertheless, the US-led major western countries continue the old policy of divide and rule to create division amongst the Islamic countries. In this respect, on the directions of the US ex-President Donald Trump, some Muslim countries’ various moves such as recognition of the state of Israel, opening of Israeli embassies in their countries, Shia-Sunni sectarian split, manipulation of Iran-Saudi Arabia differences, encouragement of the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories and the lack of practical action against the Modi-regime might be cited as some instances. Undoubtedly, it is due to the lack of unity of the Muslim Ummah that the Islamic countries have become an easy target of this old policy.