By Sulaiman SalawudeenIn a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary actGeorge Orwell.Palestine is a truth worth telling, though such may rile sensibilities. Despite efforts to distort, even deny the facts, Palestine belongs, and has always belonged, to Palestinians. Sadly, in the decades-old duels to fight off America instigated Israels usurpation, the country is obviously the terminal underdog. To reverse the balance of terror, or at least mitigate same, Palestine has journeyed through the thickwars/uprisingswhich have traditionally left her nose pitifully bloodied, a trend worsened by the unpretentious homicidal subversive just recently evicted from the White House, Donald Trump, unapologetically Arabophobic, made record pro-Israel approvals, like reversing long-standing US policies across critical security and diplomatic fronts. So much were Israels strategic gains and Palestines orchestrated losses during Trumps four years that the 11-day May 2021 confrontation, which consumed whopping 248 Palestinians and 12 Israelis could hardly have been avoided.Since May 1948, when U.S. President Harry Truman backed David Ben-Gurions proclamation on the establishment of the State of Israel, till date, it has been a hell of reverses for Palestine and deaths for Palestinians, a trend, which during Trumps presidency, included stoppage of $500 million annual US aid to the Palestinian Authority, closure of the PLO office in Washington and removal of $250-400 million annual US contributions to the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) for Palestinians. The former president recognised Jerusalem as Israels capital and moved the embassy from Tel Aviv, having initially frowned at resolution 2334 initiated by President Obama at the UN Security Council in December 2016 which declared Israels settlement activity a flagrant violation of international law and consequently of no legal validity. The move is assessed as controversial as Jerusalem had been a basis for negotiations in the roiling impasse between the two entities.But the UN, aside 2334, has not been watching the America/Israel theatrics; it seems only it can bark but never bite! The UN General Assembly, between 2012 and 2019, adopted a total of 202 resolutions criticising countries for various offences, of which Israel alone attracted 163, representing 81% of entire resolutionsowing to its despicable conducts in the Gaza. Even the United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC), has passed more resolutions condemning Israels misdeeds than it has the rest of the world combined.However, the US extreme punishments for Palestine stand opposed to its tantalising financial and military aid, as well as awesome political supports for, Israel. These comprise indiscriminate application of its United Nations Security Council veto power which it has used 42 times to nullify resolutions condemning Israel, out of a total 83 times in which the countrys veto has ever been used. Further, out of 24 vetoes deployed by the US between 1991 and 2011, 15 were applied to protect only Israel. This is aside awesome cash supports running to hundreds of billions of dollars. So much were Trumps unprecedented, even unpresidential, concessions for Israel that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu just January this year described him as the best friend Israel has ever had in the White House.Consequently, the protection has made a behemoth of the Lilliput. Wowing both in economic strength and military prowess, Israel is today a strategic nuclear entity in a Middle East where Turkey and Iran are being monitored and hounded off possibilities of uranium enrichment. Israel has also remained a leading manufacturer globally of unmanned bombers and aerial reconnaissance/surveillance devicesat least Iran has reaped this unmistakable expertise/professionalism in the daylight pulverisation purportedly by America in Bagdad in January 2020 of her Qasem Suleimani, the countrys Commander of the Quds Force. Suleimani had to die for his planned attack on American embassies and diplomats, Trump stated, refusing to offer evidences!But, while history has resisted the existence of Palestinea word derived from Greek Philistiabetween 12th and 5th century BC, Israel officially came into being only in May 1948, following initial unrestricted admittance of 100,000 displaced Jews into Palestine. Britain, which had held a colonial mandate for Palestine until 1948 in consequence of the world wars, had opposed the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine.Today, however, humanity has undignified truth beyond the Palestine horrors. It has dithered on the slaughter of Uighur Muslims in China, the Rohingya in Myanmar; those in mainland India and vassal Kashmir. Although, even in their homelands, they have not fared better, Muslims in Europe and the United States are subject to ceaseless persecution and disgusting labelling.There is a post-truth regarding parameters for possession of nuclear weapons. The world, in proving its failure in the nuclear non-proliferation treaty campaigns, has witnessed increased furcation of nations along so-called nuclear qualified and unqualified. If Iraqs war of 2003-2011, constructed upon foundations of unmistakable nuclear threats came off eventually as a century hoax, the nearly 182,000 civilians slaughtered in the bloody rage by the US-led Allied Forces were not. Islamophobia was the fundamental sin for which Saddam Hussein was slaughtered, alongside the peace of an otherwise prosperous Middle Eastern nation, in the frightening Operation Red Dawn. Decades of covert killings and silencing of opposition elements by Saddam, allegations upon which the blitzkrieg was partly constructed/justified, could never have produced a tenth of the figures attained at the cessation of Baghdads bombardments.Like Iraq, Islam lies at the heart of hatred for Palestine by the global powers led by America, although Christian Palestinians have not been spared in the bloodletting. This however represents only unavoidable collateral damage. It has always been mainly a fight between Muslims and a conspiratorial conclave of ultra-national/supranational hegemons that regard Islam and the Muhammedans as threats to world peace.Briefly escaping seeming Afghanistanism for equally nightmarish concerns at the home front, Nigeria has shown disgusting, if dangerous, opposition to truth in quite multiple regards: the killing of Dele Giwa, Chief M.K.O. Abiola, alongside many others who only agitated for justice on June 12; the slaughter of INEC Ad-hoc staff, entirely southerners, by a rampaging band of miscreants post-2005 elections across some northern states. What about the brutal murder of nearly 400 Sheik Ibrahim El-Zakzaky-led Islamic Movement of Nigeria members in Kaduna' Elsewhere, Steve Biko and Nelson Mandela are made martyrs for their political beliefs.How much expediencies and quick fixes guide conducts in Nigeria! Our public institutions and private establishments are daily desecrated with lies and deceits that drool from mouths of adults like the breastmilk from barely conscious infants. In-between the executives and the legislatures across the tiers are just about 20, 30 thousand personalities whose engagements centre entirely on partitioning of the wealth of nearly 200 million humans. Let the one pure cast the first stone. One should be unsure of a better time to declare a shut down upon law and courts.Indeed, the post factor was recognised first by grammarians and later sociologists: post-structuralism presaged postmodernism! But, while post-modernism ratifies the revolution of relativism, irrationalism and nihilism, post-truth signposts silence upon logic, love for unreason, flight from and death of truth!Joe Bidens zombie shows on Palestine so far is a consequence of a so-called special relationship between America and Israel which has similarly hobbled past presidents. There is no shift in my commitment to the security of Israel. Period, Biden told reporters recently.In Nigeria, opposition voices are being suppressed, rights are being denied, lives are being taken/lost, and no one is losing sleep! President Muhammadu Buhari has ordered unsparing, but quite ugly, crackdown upon so-labelled secession agitators, who have been largely peaceful in their agitation, mainly in the southern parts. But, until recently, the president had looked away from killer-extremists/bandits, mostly of northern origin. These are truths as must be told our post-truth world!Salawudeen, writer and freelance journalist, writes via obastunde@yahoo.com.
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