MOST, if not all open-minded academics, agree that the West Bank and Gaza are huge, open prisons. These are Palestinian lands of millions occupied by the Israeli government and army since 1967. If the colonisation of Palestine was not one of human history’s most depressing episodes, the story could have been seen as comical.

Japan comes to mind. It refuses to normalise relations with Russia because it wants Russia to relinquish occupation of four small islands named the Kuril Islands. The USSR (now Russia), occupied them since the end of WW2 in 1945. Just think of this one example and the world becomes a joke. Japan wants foreign occupation of the islands it claims to end, but what about the seizure of Palestinian land.

The joke becomes more reverberating when you consider the position on Palestine by a former professional comedian who is now the president of Ukraine. He makes you laugh because he wants the occupation of a part of his country named, Crimea, by the Russians to end. He is right. Russia invaded Crimea and annexed it. But this same man supports Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands. When you consider this glaring inanity of President Zelensky of Ukraine, you want to believe that he is still a comedian.

But we need to point out a difference between Crimea and Palestine. Russians are the majority ethnic community in Crimea (70 percent). In Palestine, the only Jews that are there are Jewish settlers who forcefully took over Palestinian lands and even so, they are still a tiny majority in both Gaza and the West bank.

In Crimea, the Russians have not perpetuated an apartheid system on the non-Russian population. In the West Bank and Gaza, the Israeli military governors run an apartheid system where the Palestinians suffer daily humiliation, mistreatment and curtailment of basic freedoms. At the time of writing, the leaders of the most powerful economies of the Western world, named G7, concluded their annual meeting in Italy under the presidency of a far-right, anti-immigrant Italian Prime Minister. Some of her party colleagues have fascist backgrounds.

This the first G7 meeting since the genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza started in October 2023. So far, 37, 000 Palestinians have lost their lives with over half of the victims being women and children. None of the G7 leaders have accepted that genocide has occurred in Gaza. All of them hold an official foreign policy position of support for Israel.

So, on this sacred day in the Muslim calendar, the Palestinian people who are Muslims, are experiencing genocide at a time when the leaders of the most ebullient economies in the West (is Italy, a powerful economy?) will announce to the eight billion humans on Planet Earth that they are the guarantors of global freedom.

But each time that announcement is made since the genocide began in Gaza, it compels you to ask whose freedoms are these people taking about – the peoples of the world or the people whom the West chooses to identify? It cannot be the peoples of the world because since October 2023, Israel, a small, mediocre, non-achieving country of 8000 square miles with eight million people have created one of history ‘s most bestial episodes of ethnic cleansing and the West refuses to intervene to stop this rogue state.

Yet, the West wants the people of the Global South to isolate and punish the largest country in the world and a European nation with an historic background, and a country that saved the world from Germany and with a population of 144 million people, — Russia. The average person in the Global South is forced to ask the question: why we must do this to Russia when the West supports Israel, a country that has committed genocide?
As we celebrate the Eid-al-Adha today, our natural reflection is why has the world refused to intervene and stop the continuation of genocide. There is an answer to that question and it must be searched for and be made public. The answer cannot vary from individual to individual. There is one answer only. It is because the country perpetrating the genocide is culturally and religiously closer to the West than Palestine. The people of Palestine are Muslims.

There are lots of ironies around the world as the genocide of the Palestinian people goes on.

In a few months’ time, the Olympics go to Paris and the motto of the Olympics has always been to bring the peoples of the world together. But the French President went to Israel and met with Mr Netanyahu and consoled him. The French government refuses to recognise and accept that genocide in occurring in Gaza. The Palestinian genocide is a tragedy, but at the same time, you can’t help thinking that the world is one big joke.