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On 24 October 2023, in your remarks to the Security Council on the Middle East, you referred to how the 10/7 military raid on the belligerent occupier state Israel by Hamas, the Palestinian resistance forces ‘did not happen in a vacuum’. I quote you below with the comprehensive historic context of your statement: "The situation in the Middle East is growing more dire by the hour. The war in Gaza is raging and risks spiraling throughout the region. Divisions are splintering societies. Tensions threaten to boil over. At a crucial moment like this, it is vital to be clear on principles — starting with the fundamental principle of respecting and protecting civilians.
"I have condemned unequivocally the horrifying and unprecedented 7 October acts of terror by Hamas in Israel. Nothing can justify the deliberate killing, injuring and kidnapping of civilians – or the launching of rockets against civilian targets. All hostages must be treated humanely and released immediately and without conditions. I respectfully note the presence among us of members of their families.
"It is important to also recognize the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum.The Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation. They have seen their land steadily devoured by settlements and plagued by violence; their economy stifled; their people displaced and their homes demolished. Their hopes for a political solution to their plight have been vanishing.
"But the grievances of the Palestinian people cannot justify the appalling attacks by Hamas. And those appalling attacks cannot justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people.
"Even war has rules. We must demand that all parties uphold and respect their obligations under international humanitarian law; take constant care in the conduct of military operations to spare civilians; and respect and protect hospitals and respect the inviolability of UN facilities which today are sheltering more than 600,000 Palestinians. The relentless bombardment of Gaza by Israeli forces, the level of civilian casualties, and the wholesale destruction of neighborhoods continue to mount and are deeply alarming."
– Antonio Guterres, UN Secretary-General on 24 October ’23 in his remarks to Security Council on Middle-East
I must applaud your courage and commitment to restore peace and harmony in the “Middle-East’ region (appropriately West Asia) and the world at large to speak the truth in face of enormous hostilities from the settler-colonialist ‘belligerent occupier’ Zionist regime in Israel.
Yet, I firmly believe that the incident actually happened in a vacuum that has existed from the very inception of a fatally-flawed, failed and now proven defunct United Nations that needs to be dissolved and replaced with a fair, transparent, democratic and effective world body. Gaia Nation, a civil society initiative to fill up this ‘vacuum’, needs your support and blessings. We can together dispel the darkness – of racial supremacy, hubris, greed, apathy and selfishness in the garb of national interest that this ‘vacuum’ sucks in – with the light of truth and justice.
Before we come to Gaia Nation and how it fills up the ‘vacuum’ in global governance, let us recount how your careful and cautious remarks evoked hostile and hounding reaction from agents of a belligerent occupier.
Israel’s responses to the ‘truth bomb’
Within hours of your statement on Tuesday 24 October, ’23, almost a month back from now, Israel’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Eli Cohen cancelled his meeting with you later that day after you dropped this ‘truth bomb’, accusing you of “tolerating and justifying” terrorism.In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Mr. Cohen said he will not meet with you. “After the October 7th massacre, there is no place for a balanced approach. Hamas must be erased off the face of the planet!”, he remarked.
Later talking to reporters at the UN Security Council stakeout, Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan lashed out at you, saying ‘you have lost all morality and impartiality’. “Because when you say those terrible words that these heinous attacks did not happen in a vacuum, you are tolerating terrorism and by tolerating terrorism, you are justifying terrorism.”, Mr. Erdan said. He then falsely accused Hamas of beheading babies (which as we know now was devious misinformation planted by Israel), burnt families (most of them died in cars and houses bombed by the Israeli Apache helicopters which went indiscriminately berserk), raped women and abducted kids, babies and Holocaust survivors, but castigated you ‘for blaming Israel and the victim’.
Mr. Erdan further said: “This is a pure-blood libel. This is a pure-blood libel. And I think that the Secretary-General must resign because from now on every day that he’s here in this building unless he apologises immediately today, we called him to apologise, there is no justification to the existence of this building.” He referred to how the UN building was established to prevent atrocities (his belligerence reminiscent of the bombing of King David Hotel in Jerusalem by Israeli terrorist gang Irgun that later morphed into the Israel Occupation Forces and the presently ruling Likud party). “How can the Secretary-General, with his words, justify in any way the terrible atrocities that happened to our civilians, innocent civilians?”, he wondered.
Mr. Cohen, the Foreign Affairs Minister of Israel addressing reporters at the Security Council, said: “There is not two sides” and “there is only one side to support”.
M/s Cohen and Erdan carry a legacy that goes back to the Jewish Lehi (Fighters for the Freedom of Israel) and Irgun (National Military Organisation) movements initiated violent uprisings against the British Mandate in the 1940s. On 6 November 1944, Eliyahu Hakim and Eliyahu Bet Zuri (members of Lehi) assassinated Lord Moyne in Cairo. Moyne was the British Minister of State for the Middle East and the assassination is said by some to have turned British Prime Minister Winston Churchill against the Zionist cause.
When M/sCohen and Erdan talk of the ‘only one side to support’ they rekindle memories of bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem in a terrorist attack on July 22, 1946, by the militant right-wing Zionist underground organization the Irgun during the Jewish insurgency. 91 people of various nationalities were killed, including Arabs, Britons and Jews, and 46 were injured. The hotel was the site of the central offices of the British Mandatory authorities of Palestine, principally the Secretariat of the Government of Palestine and the Headquarters of the British Armed Forces in Palestine and Transjordan. When planned, the attack had the approval of the Haganah, the principal Jewish paramilitary group in Palestine. The main motive of the bombing was to destroy documents incriminating the Jewish Agency in attacks against the British, which were obtained during Operation Agatha, a series of raids by mandate authorities. It was the deadliest attack directed at the British during the Mandate era (1920–1948).
That ‘only one side’ assassinated Folke Bernadotte, United Nations Mediator in Palestine, on Friday 17 September 1948. Members of Lehi, the Zionist terrorist organization, commonly known in the West as the Stern Gang. Just before the first Israeli elections in January 1949, a general amnesty to Lehi members was granted by the government. In 1980, Israel instituted a military decoration, an “award for activity in the struggle for the establishment of Israel”, the Lehi ribbon. The killing was approved by the three-man ‘center’ of Lehi: Yitzhak Yezernitsky (the future Prime Minister of Israel Yitzhak Shamir) was one among them.
A Swedish nobleman and diplomat, Bernadotte negotiated the release of about 31,000 prisoners from German concentration camps in World War II, including 450 Danish Jews from the Theresienstadt camp. After the war, Bernadotte was unanimously chosen to be the United Nations Security Council mediator in the Arab–Israeli conflict of 1947–1948. I wish more people with influence, had the courage, as you have demonstrated, to counter the disinformation that the Zionist-controlled global media is spreading that places the blame of spurning the peace proposals, squarely on the occupied and oppressed people of Palestine.
It is noteworthy here that the fodder for the ‘belligerent occupation’ of Palestine over the past 56 years, as you mention, (actually 75 years since the first Nakba, the Palestinian Holocaust, happened in 1948, few months before the UN Human Rights Declaration on 10 December 1948) comes from another settler-colonialist belligerent occupier state of United States of America. Despite tremendous resistance from its own citizens, especially large numbers of younger people, America has been the chief abettor in the gruesome genocide and the grotesque crimes against humanity committed by Israel since the 10/7 incident. What is even more alarming is that America has been trying to surreptitiously fill in the vacuum as a sole global superpower and imperialist. It is no freaky coincidence that it played an instrumental role in the the fatally flawed design of United Nations where aggressor states have Veto powers with Permanent Seats in Security Council its apex body.
Is Tagore’s foreboding of ‘Crisis in Civilization’ coming true?
Today, as a momentous episode of history is unfolding in front of our eyes, we are witnessing how America and Israel on the side of injustice prospered tremendously and have gained so much materially. They have conquered many enemies from the indigenous people who they butchered and graved their land in America from 1600-1675 and grabbed their land; Hitler’s Nazis, and after the Second World War that never ended, they have been on a conquering spree of the whole worlds. They controlled the global media and the global banking system to enslave almost every country worldwide through fear or through enticements. Yet, all the conquest is in vain as they dig their own graveyard in Gaza and perish from the root.As David Kucinich, who has served the US Congress for 16 years and has given over 500 speeches warning about the consequences of US wars against Afghanistan, the Balkans, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Syria writes in an essay yesterday titled ‘Thou shalt not kill’ on 27 October 2023:
“Through illegal war after illegal war, the US has demoralized and demonized itself against the rest of the world. It is the US and Israel against the Arab, Muslim, Chinese, Russian, Iranian, Turks, et al. The probability of nuclear war is higher than it has been since the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 16-28, 1962, when President Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nikita Krushchev found an off ramp averting annihilation. Today, the price of nuclear vengeance and retribution would be the deaths of at least five billion people, and the end of life on planet Earth.”
– David Kucinich, ‘Thou shalt not kill’ 27 October ’23
Philosopher-poet and Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore delivered a talk titled ‘Crisis in Civilisation’ on 14 April 1941, three months before his death on August 1941. This was his last public address at the end of which he shares the following shloka.
"As I look around, I see the crumbling ruins of a proud civilization strewn like a vast heap of futility. And yet I shall not commit the grievous sin of losing faith in Man. I would rather look forward to the opening of a new chapter in his history after the cataclysm is over and the atmosphere rendered clean with the spirit of service and sacrifice. Perhaps that dawn will come from this horizon, from the East where the sun rises. A day will come when unvanquished Man will retrace his path of conquest, despite all barriers, to win back his lost human heritage."
Today we witness the perils which attend on the insolence of might; one day shall be borne out the full truth of what the sages have proclaimed:
अधर्मेनैधते तावत् ततो भद्राणि पश्यति |
ततः सपत्नीन जयति समुलस्तु विनश्यति ||
– मनुस्मृति 4. 174
This shloka 4.174 from Manu Smriti means: For a time one prospers through unrighteousness, for a while they experience good things, and for a time they conquer their enemies; but, after all, they perish root and branch.
The Book of Proverbs, for the uninitiated, are part of the biblical wisdom literature that raise questions of values, moral behavior, the meaning of human life, and right conduct. Its theological foundation is that submission to the will of God is the beginning of wisdom. Wisdom is praised for her role in creation; God acquired her before all else, and through her he gave order to chaos; and since humans have life and prosperity by conforming to the order of creation, seeking wisdom is the essence and goal of life. The Book of Proverbs is a book in the third section (called Ketuvim) of the Hebrew Bible and a book of the Christian Old Testament. Proverbs 16:19 from this book echoes what the shloka from Manu Smriti tells us:
“How much better is it to get wisdom than gold!
And to get understanding rather to be chosen than silver!
The highway of the upright is to depart from evil:
He that keepeth his way preserveth his soul.
Pride goeth before destruction,
And an haughty spirit before a fall.
Better it is to be of a humble spirit with the lowly,
Than to divide the spoil with the proud.”
– Book of Proverbs 16:19
– Martin Luther King
In response to the exceptional challenges that humanity faces today, we need to move at much greater speed than usual to respond to untold tragedy and trauma unfolding before our eyes in Gaza as a focal point for global injustice worldwide in a myriad ways.
Gaia Nation is a civil society initiative for new world body to fill in a vacuum that has systemically remained due to a fatally flawed, failed and now proven defunct United Nations. With Palestine as a focal point for glaring injustice and grotesque ethnic cleansing by the occupier, oppressor Zionist apartheid terrorist state of Israel, this should be our most urgent priority to announce an interim Peace & Harmony Council with following people, as copied on the email and others for whom I shall need your help with their email address. With a Zero Draft of Joint Declaration, I shall also strongly appeal to you with an SOS to organise a 90-minutes virtual Press Meet in a suitable slot in the 3-day event:
1. Prof Ilan Pappe
2. Dr Gabor Mate
3. Francesca Albanese
4. Wadah Khanfar
5. Scott Ritter
6. Antonio Guterres
7. Cyril Ramaphosa
8. Raycep T Erdogan
9. Ione Belarra
10. Prem Shankar Jha
11. Jeroninio Almeida
12. Lex Fridman
13. Special Rapporteurs : David A Hearst/ Deepak Parvatiyar / Dr Deepanshu Mohan / Vidyadhar Date
14. Special Observer and Session Coach: Jay Kaushal
15. Special Invitee: Dr S Jaishankar, External Affairs Minister of India
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Excerpt. Click here to read full letter
ततः सपत्नीन जयति समुलस्तु विनश्यति ||
– मनुस्मृति 4. 174
This shloka 4.174 from Manu Smriti means: For a time one prospers through unrighteousness, for a while they experience good things, and for a time they conquer their enemies; but, after all, they perish root and branch.
The Book of Proverbs, for the uninitiated, are part of the biblical wisdom literature that raise questions of values, moral behavior, the meaning of human life, and right conduct. Its theological foundation is that submission to the will of God is the beginning of wisdom. Wisdom is praised for her role in creation; God acquired her before all else, and through her he gave order to chaos; and since humans have life and prosperity by conforming to the order of creation, seeking wisdom is the essence and goal of life. The Book of Proverbs is a book in the third section (called Ketuvim) of the Hebrew Bible and a book of the Christian Old Testament. Proverbs 16:19 from this book echoes what the shloka from Manu Smriti tells us:
“How much better is it to get wisdom than gold!
And to get understanding rather to be chosen than silver!
The highway of the upright is to depart from evil:
He that keepeth his way preserveth his soul.
Pride goeth before destruction,
And an haughty spirit before a fall.
Better it is to be of a humble spirit with the lowly,
Than to divide the spoil with the proud.”
– Book of Proverbs 16:19
Can we act before it is ‘too late’?
“We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked and dejected with a lost opportunity. The ‘tide in the affairs of men’ does not remain at the flood; it ebbs. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is deaf to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residue of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words: ‘Too late.”– Martin Luther King
In response to the exceptional challenges that humanity faces today, we need to move at much greater speed than usual to respond to untold tragedy and trauma unfolding before our eyes in Gaza as a focal point for global injustice worldwide in a myriad ways.
Gaia Nation is a civil society initiative for new world body to fill in a vacuum that has systemically remained due to a fatally flawed, failed and now proven defunct United Nations. With Palestine as a focal point for glaring injustice and grotesque ethnic cleansing by the occupier, oppressor Zionist apartheid terrorist state of Israel, this should be our most urgent priority to announce an interim Peace & Harmony Council with following people, as copied on the email and others for whom I shall need your help with their email address. With a Zero Draft of Joint Declaration, I shall also strongly appeal to you with an SOS to organise a 90-minutes virtual Press Meet in a suitable slot in the 3-day event:
1. Prof Ilan Pappe
2. Dr Gabor Mate
3. Francesca Albanese
4. Wadah Khanfar
5. Scott Ritter
6. Antonio Guterres
7. Cyril Ramaphosa
8. Raycep T Erdogan
9. Ione Belarra
10. Prem Shankar Jha
11. Jeroninio Almeida
12. Lex Fridman
13. Special Rapporteurs : David A Hearst/ Deepak Parvatiyar / Dr Deepanshu Mohan / Vidyadhar Date
14. Special Observer and Session Coach: Jay Kaushal
15. Special Invitee: Dr S Jaishankar, External Affairs Minister of India
---
Excerpt. Click here to read full letter
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