Israel vs Palestine: A permanent solution

THE recurrent conflict between Israel and Palestine has consumed too many lives! It is time to give the bloody and incessant confrontation a permanent solution. In 1948, Britain’s Lord Balfour finalized Britain’s arrangement to settle Israelis on a stretch of land that had been native home to the Palestinian people for a very longtime. The initial proposal was to carve out a space for the Israelis in Africa’s Great Lakes Region, namely in Uganda or Tanzania. Today, we have a most disheartening and undeniably genocidal confrontation between the Israelis and the people of Palestine being represented by obdurate Hamas. I must say that Western leaders have so far failed to use their political advantage to resolve the crisis in question. The idea of playing skewed politics to the detriment of peace is totally unacceptable.

Israel has continuously seized tracts of land from the Palestinians, while subjecting them to apartheid treatment. The Palestinians are no saints to the sustained and seemingly unsolvable mayhem in the part of the Middle-East. Hamas’ latest attack on Israel is as horrific as Israel’s retaliation. We need peace in the Middle-East! The world needs the peoples of Israel and Palestine to bury their weapons and to embrace themselves on the basis of an equitable United Nations (UN) arrangement that will not be subject or open to meddling by any Western or Eastern hemispheric State-actor. I call on the United Nations to establish a buffer-territory between Israel and Palestine. I suggest that buffer-zone should be named: United Nations City.

I say to the people of Palestine that the State of Israel has come to stay in its present location. I also assert that Israel’s right to Statehood should and, indeed,must be extended to the people of Palestine! I can assure all that once there is no bullet flying from Gaza, Israel will not react. Previous Agreements such as The Camp David Agreement and The Oslo Accord do not deny the people of Palestine right to Statehood. The problem in relation to implementing those Agreements has been Israel’s security fears and the Western leaders’ skewed meddling in Israel’s favor. There is no gainsaying that Western powers’ pro-Israel interventionism is quietly and powerfully underpinned by racial sentiments.

Known as Ashkenazis, the people now referred to as Israelis are Europeans who are as human as the Palestinians are. Where there is love, there nothing that cannot be shared. It is possible to get the peoples of Israel and Palestine to live together in peace and in shared prosperity. What is needed is the political will by dominant State-actors such as America, Britain, Russiaand Saudi Arabia to bring both parties not just to accept each other as having the right to sovereignty, to peace, to prosperity and to happiness, but to allow each other the liberty to live accordingly. As a form of clear expression and proof of its genuine commitment to peace, Israel should stop further land-seizures and work with the UN towards returning all lands seized from the Palestinians after the 7th of October, 2023 attacks to the people of Palestine.

The world needs peace! Peace is a priceless asset that breeds happiness for all. I call on Israel, Hamas, Iran, Hezbollah, and other parties that are directly and indirectly involved in the conflict to ‘sheathe their swords’! I insist that they should not carry-out further hostile actions.

Finally, I urge the United Nations to set-up modalities for implementing the solutions here-recommended without delay.

My divine love and blessings!

• Maharaj Ji is the founder, One love Familly Satguru Maharaj Ji, Ibadan

READ ALSO: 8th day Fidau prayers for late Olubadan, Oba Balogun, holds Friday