The recent massacre of 62 Palestinians by Israeli security forces on 14 May, during protests at the Gaza perimeter fence following protest against the unilateral movement of US embassy to Jerusalem by Donald Triumph administration in America once again pricked the conscience of what is left of humanity.
My take is that all Africans must to stand up in solidarity with the Palestinian people within the context of United Nations’ two States of Palestine and Israel living side by side in peace, with secure and recognized borders and with Jerusalem as the capital of both two states. The point cannot be overstated; the intractable Middle East crisis has never been about religion or race as the media oppression daily distort the historic and contemporary facts. On the contrary, the Palestinian question is about land occupation, domination and oppression, in which since 1948, the Palestinians had been serial victims of orphans and widows while Israelis are triumphant oppressors.
The Middle East crisis is comparable to the age long history of slavery, colonialism in Africa and apartheid in South Africa. As Africans who once reaped from global solidarity for liberation and independence we cannot by any stretch of imagination be indifferent until Palestinians also get justice, liberation and fair deal in terms of a state and security. We must commend the Buhari Administration for disassociating Nigeria from the ignoble shameless power show of American President Donald Trump on Monday May 14, 2018 when he formally unilaterally opened US embassy in Jerusalem amid deadly protests in the Gaza Strip.
Increasingly the world has now come to realize that the “America first” slogan of Donald Trump is a hoax. In the Middle East the real slogan is “Donald Trump and his partner in crime, minister Netanyahu first,” not America first, not even Israel first. The embassy movement to Jerusalem”does not enjoy the support of neither American nor Israeli electorate who knew that Jerusalem is a gravity centre to both Palestinians and Israelis and indeed all humankind of faiths” he said.
Nigeria’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama, did very well in sanctioning the Nigerian ambassador to Tel Aviv for diplomatic indiscipline in attending the controversial US Embassy movement. It’s time Buhari administration ensured coherence in Nigerian foreign policy.
I agree with Hanan Ashrawi, a Palestinian scholar and long-serving member of the Palestinian Legislative Council and the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) who recently declared at the international conference on Palestine that the Middle East crisis “is a purely man-made conflict,”.
She rightly damned events that had led to the expulsion of Palestinians from their land 70 years ago , saying that the subsequent system of bias and power politics had enabled Israel to continue to strike at the rule of law, generating a culture of hate and oppression”.
She went on to outline several important lessons learned in recent decades, emphasizing that the peace process could not be seen as an end in itself. Indeed, any system in which the occupier was constantly rewarded “just for talking” — and in which Palestine was only threatened and blackmailed — could not persist, she emphasized. Warning that no nation could expect exceptionalism or impunity for its actions, she underlined that President Donald Trump of the United States had “smashed the negotiating table into splinters” by moving his country’s Embassy to Jerusalem — and declaring his recognition of the city as Israel’s capital — on 14 May.
The United States must recognize that some things were not for sale, she said. Recalling that, for decades, Palestinians had been negotiating with their own occupier under duress — something specifically prohibited under the Fourth Geneva Convention — she vowed to continue efforts to redefine Palestine’s relationship with Israel, including at the International Criminal Court and by seeking full recognition in an array of intergovernmental bodies.
In similar spirit, Amina Mohammed, Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations, noted that 2018 also marked 70 years since the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which, she said, should guide the search for a lasting solution to the question of Palestine.
The recent violence in Gaza was a reminder of the international community’s failure to do so. “Instead, the lives of generations of Palestinians and Israelis have been defined and confined by a conflict that has shaped their physical and human landscape under a heavy atmosphere of fear, mutual distrust and despair,” she said. Unacceptable violence and incitement only exacerbated mistrust, she noted, pledging continued United Nations support for both Israelis and Palestinians on the road to peace.
Fodé Seck (Senegal), Chair of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People — the panel hosting the Forum — said it was difficult to escape the conclusion that Al-Nakba — the Arabic word meaning “the catastrophe” and used in reference to the 15 May 1948 expulsion of Palestinians from their homeland — lay at the very heart of the conflict. All over the world, revisiting the painful past and asking difficult questions of all parties had been a prerequisite for peace and an inclusive future, he emphasized, warning that if Al-Nakba was not adequately acknowledged and addressed, the search for peace in the Middle East would remain elusive. He called upon the participants to help mobilize diplomatic efforts towards credible peace talks.” Africa Union must lead the solidarity movement to ensure the two state solution just as the Palestinians offered solidarity in the struggle against apartheid and oppression in South Africa.

By Issa Aremu, mni | Publish Date: May 21 2018 3:00AM