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Yassin Made Vanished!
By Mumtaz Hamid
Rao
TEENSY moments of Monday
surfaced with an atypical, yet projected epoch as the
fabulous emblem of the breathing spirit of the
Palestinians was put extinguished by the fuming gunship
helicopters, prima facie chasing such a course since
long.
Though, the charismatic
Sheikh Ahmed Yassin has taken off for Heavens, his
evaporation by a vindictive rule in Tel Aviv has opened
a Pandora Box, not only for the people of Palestine but
equally for the Israelis, who may face perils of
enormous magnitude in the wake of this ill-fated
episode.
With this perception, the
newest nasty venture of Israel is not only a threat to
an explicit set of the populous of a specific realm but,
a hefty risk to the humankind all-over. What did the Tel
Aviv achieve by striking a paralyses-stricken, yet a
resolute soul, is solely known to its warlords?
The global condemnation
and indignation has fetched for it [Israel] nothing
except an abhorrence for it and of-course a critical
chagrin and vexation for its master (s) to the tune of
which it is and it has been dancing like a cute docile
guy. Least uptight on the upshot of such a milieu,
Israel has, in a way affronted the US-binged Roadmap for
Peace in the Middle East, plugging all vistas for taking
this hallucination into a reality.
One is obligated to accept
the veracity that without the behest of any-one, Israel
cant dare step into such a dubious and dicey exercise.
So, as is evaluated by the mayhem, a natural phenomenon
that has emerged around the orb at the end the fêted
soul, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, only the United States is
being overtly deemed at the flipside of its aficionado,
titled as Israel.
Its a manifested reality
that ever since the putting afloat of the peace plan,
Israel has hardly left a jiffy to devastate it with one
ploy or the other. Yet ironically, Washington didn't
ever react or lift eyebrows to such a belligerence, even
at the most-recent times when Yasser Arafat was placed
in a sort of cage.
Such a type of back-up has
made Tel Aviv more hostile to an echelon that it has,
of-late started coming out of sleeves. Not only that it
has unleashed a gruesome crusade against the
Palestinians, but has let loose a law of jungle with no
check on it by its master (s). With such a scenario, how
can one expect peace in the Middle East specifically
onto the sanctified terrain, forcibly usurped from its
pragmatic owners the people of Palestine.
Side-by-side the United
States, the lack of interest by a hefty digit of the
Islamic States vis-à-vis the Israeli onslaughts has all
the more been a not up to scratch or an ill-fated facet.
Nonetheless, the sharp reaction, depicted by the Muslim
world over the poignant fate, met by the bravura and
virtuoso soul, Sheikh Yassin beams a message that the
real feature of the Ummah persists even today, when the
world is being swiftly tuned to decrees and diktats in
place of ones sovereignty guaranteed both by the law of
universe and the jurisprudence, bestowed by the Nature.
We expect and hope that
this integrity among the Muslims remains intact at least
for their eventual survival with dignity and honor, a
bona fide right based on the axiom of equilibrium. As
has been seen by the nations, all-around, tens of
thousands of mourners jammed the streets of Gaza City on
Monday for the funeral procession of Hamas founder Ahmed
Yassin and seven others killed in an Israeli air strike.
Twenty-one Palestinian
police officers formed an honor guard as the coffin
holding Yassin's mangled body was carried out of Shifa
Hospital in Gaza City. Mourners jostled, trying to touch
the coffin, which was draped in a green Hamas flag.
Others clamored for revenge. Women ululated and threw
flowers into the air. Two Israeli helicopter gun ships
hovered in the sky, which was darkened by the thick
black smoke of burning tires.
Every-one has to admit
that with the demise of Shaikh Ahmad Yassin, the
Palestinian struggle will not stop but the situation in
Middle East will eventually aggravate and the struggle
against Israeli occupation would start with more zeal n�
zest,.
Not only that Muslims have
censured this hideous act, even the Vatican on Monday
condemned the killing of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin as an act
of violence that cannot be justified in any state of
law. "The Holy See joins the international community in
condemning an act of violence that cannot be justified
in any state of law," Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls
said.
"The choice of arms,
resorting to terrorism on one side and reprisals on the
other, humiliating the adversary, and hateful propaganda
lead nowhere," he said, citing comments by Pope John
Paul II to Israeli and Palestinian delegates in January.
"A real and lasting peace cannot result from a simple
show of force," Navarro-Valls added.
To recap his dazzling
memoirs, we would like to index the sketch of the
valiant leader, now resting at his eternal abode in
peace. Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, 67 was born in 1936 in an
Arab fishing village, Al-Johra near what is now the
Israeli town of Ashkelon, Yassin became a refugee when
his house was demolished by Israelis in the Gaza Strip
after the first Arab-Israeli war in 1948. He was
confined to a wheelchair after being paralysed in a
sports accident as a youngster.
A cleric, Yassin
co-founded the Islamic group Hamas in 1987 with the goal
of ending Israeli occupation in the Gaza Strip and West
Bank. He became Gaza's most charismatic and influential
public figure. Hamas ran a broad welfare network which
benefited Palestinians who felt neglected amid the
alleged corruption and incompetence of the then
Palestinian authority.
Jailed by Israel, which
accused him of incitement, Yassin received a hero's
welcome when he was freed from prison in 1997, an
Israeli goodwill gesture to Jordan's King Hussein after
a failed Israeli attempt to assassinate Hamas leader
Khaled Mashal in Jordan.
Israel killed Yassin on
Monday in a helicopter missile strike as he left a
Mosque in Gaza City. The attack appeared aimed at
weakening Hamas to prevent it from claiming victory
should Israel complete its planned unilateral pullout
from the teeming strip, home to 1.3 million
Palestinians.
Paradoxically, the
obliteration of a fêted soul surfaces despite worldwide
protest vis-à-vis the US onslaught on Iraq wherein tens
of thousands of peace activists marched in cities,
virtually in all vicinities, around the globe, at the
weekend voicing an exclusive voices the end to the
occupation of Iraq and that too, at-once.
These demonstrations come
into sight, on the first anniversary of US-led war that
ousted Saddam Hussein now in cage. Italy, Spain and
Britain witnessed biggest rallies, while protest
demonstrations were also held in US, Japan, India,
Thailand, Australia, Philippines, Poland and Pakistan
with scores of other countries onto the planet.
The rallies overtly
manifested swelling public annoys wide-reaching over the
plight of the Iraqi people at the hands of the
Anglo-American occupation marines. The death and
devastation that Iraq has endured after its foreign
occupation has really agonized the sweet people
world-over.
It�s specifically for this
reason that the Saturday's rallies were far bigger in
dimension than the ones staged at the time of US-led
sortie of Baghdad a year ago. As a matter of fact, the
experience over the year has proven that the knock on
Iraq was a flawed decision. Much trumpeted WMDs have not
been found and the myth of its concept of liberation
stands methodically exploded due to its highly
provocative, totally unjust and morally unwarranted
conduct over the year in Iraq.
US Secretary of State
Colin Powell also had a flavor of public anger when Arab
journalists walked out of his Press conference in
Baghdad on Friday as remonstration against the homicide
of their fellow professionals by the US forces. The
slogan liberation from the liberator has gained
currency.
Pragmatically, the US has
failed to deliver in Iraq due to its illusory motives
behind the occupation of Iraq. The reality is that the
US and British etiquette to delude their own countrymen
and the international opinion stand scrupulously
uncovered.
An upright course, left
open to them, is that they should quit Iraq as early as
possible and stop fiddling with the ethos of the Iraqi
people. Induction of hand-picked government (s) is not
going to bring peace to Iraq. Thus the best way is that
the US should hand over Iraq to the United Nations,
followed by elections to bring back peace and security
in the oil rich country virtually the Jagular vain of
the Oil.
Amid this scenario,
explicitly, after the assassination of the Palestinian
spirit of inspiration by the atrocious Israelis,
alongside the persistent mayhem in Iraq, the only way
for the US to bail-out of this perilous milieu is a
piece of advice for Washington to straight away proclaim
time frame for the withdrawal of its troops from Iraq as
well as to place optimal weight on Tel Aviv to cease
instantaneously its antagonistic pose towards the people
of Palestine the bona fide title-holders of the
sacrosanct realm.
Such a path [if adopted]
shall eventually prove to be in the best interests of
the solitary super power and its aficionados. Failing
this, seemingly it [the US] would be in for another
Vietnam. Palestine and Iraq has had enough of bloodbath
and quite a number of body bags of US soldiers have also
gone back to the United States from Baghdad and
elsewhere.
Acumen and sanity, thus
demands of the Bush administration to eschew animosity
and acrimony by eluding spill out of any more blood of
both the Iraqis and the Americans of-course that of the
Palestinians as simultaneous atop.
Such an idyllic environ
can very conveniently be ensured if Washington decides,
once-for-all that the ME roadmap, authored by it has to
be got implemented come-what-may, even if a
swaying strapping strike is required to be inflicted on
Israel in the same style, the fascinating marines hit
each every nook corner of Iraq, a mode which was
subsequently applied on Afghanistan by laying red
[blood] carpets not made of synthetics or wools but
fabricated by perilous ingredients for toxic shots.
Isn't it an apposite plea?
(The writer is
a noted political analyst, Editor 'PakistanTimes.net'
and Ex-Director News Pakistan TV.)
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