THIS is a comprehensive A-to-Z account of the Israel-Gaza conflict, including the root causes and the way forward to resolve this conflict.

Our approach and why we should bother about the conflict

The whole purpose of education is to solve problems in life but before we can do that, we must first recognise and see the “big picture” of the problem concerned.

We would then need to identify the root cause(s) of the problem, instead of looking for a convenient racial scapegoat, like what Hitler did just before World War II in blaming the innocent Jews for the economic ills in Germany.

Our group’s philosophy is that long-lasting “sustainable peace” in any region of the world can only be achieved if there is real justice, fairness, equity and full respect for the cultural (religious) or ethnic diversity of all human beings.

Why should the rest of the world be bothered with this conflict taking place so far away? It is because of its serious global implications.

The Palestinian people (not all are Muslims, there are many Christians as well) are all part of humanity. If the conflict is not resolved properly, it could involve several powerful players and lead to a nuclear World War III and the end of humanity as we know it.

Every one of us can play a meaningful role to prevent such a catastrophe from happening, such as spreading the truth around, raising public awareness and taking part in peaceful rallies to put public pressure on the leaders concerned to do the right thing.

What’s the problem?

The Arab Islamic Summit on November 11 had unanimously rejected Israel’s justification of “self-defence” on its current war on Gaza. It condemned “Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip, war crimes and barbaric and inhumane massacres by the occupation government (Israel)”. It further called for an end to the siege on Gaza, allowing humanitarian aid and halting arms exports to Israel.

The summit also demanded that the International Criminal Court investigate “war crimes and crimes against humanity that Israel is committing” and that the UN Security Council adopt “a decisive and binding resolution” to halt Israel’s aggression in Gaza.

How can premeditated mass murder of babies, children and women be regarded by Israel as “self-defence”. It’s like trying to justify Hitler’s massacre of six million Jews based on “self-defence” because a few Jews staged arms resistance against the Nazi state.

Former US president Barack Obama said publicly on November 7 that the current situation of the severe suffering of the civilians in Gaza is “unbearable” and it must stop. He also said that everyone is complicit in this (crime against humanity) and we would need to look at the “whole thing” (meaning the big picture).

French President Emmanuel Macron called out Israel on November 11 to stop killing babies and women in Gaza.

Belgian Deputy Prime Minister Petra De Sutter on November 9 even called for sanctions against Israel for war crimes and the inhumane bombings of Gaza.

Some 800,000 pro-Palestinian supporters marched through London on November 11 calling for Israel to stop the massacre of innocent civilians in Gaza. Hundreds of thousands of people have marched through Brussels, other cities in Europe and around the world, which the Western mainstream media are either not reporting at all or playing it down.

The owners and top management of many Western mainstream media have direct and indirect links to the state of Israel. That is why they are so dishonest and biased in their reporting on this issue.

Looks like the vast majority of  people of the civilised world, including many progressive Jews, are standing up for the Palestinian cause and opposing the cruelty, war crimes and other injustices being committed by the Israeli government.

Miko Peled, who came from a prominent Zionist family in Israel, is a distinguished Jewish- American author. A martial arts exponent, he was also an outstanding former Red Beret in the Israel Special Forces.

His father, Mattityahu Peled, fought for Israel in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and served as a top general in the Six-Day War of 1967. Miko’s grandfather, Avraham Katsnelson, signed Israel’s Declaration of Independence in May 1948.

You would not find a more high-level “insider” from the Israeli establishment speaking out, based on conscience and integrity, in support of the Palestinian cause and against the cruelty and atrocities committed by the Israeli government.

Peled, based on facts that he has obtained and the many war crimes committed by Israel, spoke publicly in Seattle in 2012 that the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) is “one of the best-trained, best-equipped and best-fed terrorist organisations in the world. Their entire purpose is terrorism”.

The correct name for the IDF should be “ITF” or “Israel Terrorist Forces”. We should call a spade a spade! The violent acts of Hamas is child’s play compared to the ITF. Any act of terror against innocent civilians by any party should be condemned.

The current premeditated massacres of innocent people including babies, children and women in Gaza (and to some extent in the West Bank as well) by the Israeli government is an extension of 75 years of occupation, oppression and repression of the Palestinian people. And this is after the Palestinians had been violently expelled from their homeland, which they have lived for thousands of years and forced into the open prisons and refugee camps of Gaza and West Bank.

The Palestinian Israeli conflict is not a religious conflict between Islam and Judaism allying with Christianity but appears to be and promoted to be so by those with a hidden agenda to gain from it.

The Western media keeps referring to the conflict as the “Israeli-Hamas War”, implying that the conflict just started on October 7 and it was Hamas which started it. It cannot be further from the truth.

The October 7 event

On October 7, Hamas militants launched an unprecedented attack using hang gliders and pick-up trucks across Gaza to intrude a well-fortified (with high-tech surveillance equipment) border wall with Israel, which several independent military analysts and ex-Israeli soldiers have suspected it must have been an “inside job”, engineered by the current political leaders of Israel with a hidden agenda.

The unsatisfactorily explained and incomprehensible October 7 event appears to be the excuse needed by the IDF to carry out genocides to finish off the Palestinian people, just like what Hitler did (“final solution”) to the six million innocent Jews and treating them like sub-humans during World War II. It would seem that current Israeli leaders are treating the innocent Palestinian people as sub-humans and planning a “final solution” for them.

There are also numerous insider reports which have provided evidence that many Israeli civilians were deliberately killed by the IDF on October 7, so that they could spread lies on the atrocities committed and then conveniently blame Hamas for it.

It is true that Hamas took more than 200 hostages with them but it was meant to exchange for thousands of Palestinian civilian hostages that Israel is currently holding in detention.

Most leaders of the civilised world have publicly stated that while they condemn the Hamas attack on civilians, the response by Israel has been grossly disproportionate, suggesting that the October 7 incident is merely being used as a convenient excuse to exterminate innocent Palestinian people, including babies, children and women, who had nothing to do with the event.

About Hamas

We would also need to understand the context of the violence and militancy conducted by Hamas compared to real terrorist groups such as Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State.

Hamas is a political and military organisation (elected in 2006 by the Palestinian population), which controlled Gaza since 2007. It is more a resistant force against the occupation forces of Israel. Hamas was created in 1987 with the help of the current political leaders of Israel to “divide and rule” the Palestinian population against the more secular and moderate Palestinian Liberation Organisation. They have resorted to atrocities and acts of violence against the Israeli occupation forces and their people.

Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress were once regarded as terrorists for their armed resistance against apartheid in the former South Africa.

The militancy of Hamas is often used an excuse by the IDF to massacre innocent Palestinian people. It is as though Hamas (or a rogue section of it) is working in tandem with the IDF to destroy the hopes of the Palestinian people for a homeland and justice.

When Poland, France and Italy, for example, were occupied by the fascist Nazis during World War II, the resistant forces (called partisans) in these countries were very brutal in their treatment of the occupying German Nazis.

Can we really blame them for such atrocities against the cruel German occupation forces? – November 21, 2023.

This letter is signed by the following:

Former Federal Territories minister Khalid Abdul Samad
PATRIOT president Mohd Arshad Raji
Former ambassador and judge Noor Farida Ariffin
Former police commissioner Shabudin Abdul Wahab
Corporate, political and geopolitical analyst K.K. Tan

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.