A YEAR after Hamas and other Palestinian fighters launched an unprecedented attack on Israel, the Middle East stands at the precipice of a wider, and potentially catastrophic war.

The Oct 7, 2023, events were a watershed moment in this region’s turbulent history, comparable to the two intifadas or the various Arab-Israeli wars. Many in the West have pushed the simplistic and dangerous narrative blaming the Palestinian side for sparking the violence, and attracting the barbaric Israeli backlash that has few parallels in modern history.

But they forget that the suffering and humiliation of the Palestinian people predates Oct 7, and can be traced back to the Nakba in 1948, and the earlier Zionist colonisation of historical Palestine. Over the decades, the Israelis have killed and pillaged the Palestinian people with reckless abandon, and what happened in October last year was akin to an explosion of volcanic anger from a population that had been brought to its knees through a cruel siege.

Using the Oct 7 attacks as an excuse to wage endless aggression on the region, Israel has crossed all red lines — not that it greatly respected the laws of war in earlier conflicts. It has turned Gaza into a graveyard, slaughtering nearly 42,000 people to date. Hospitals, schools and refugee camps have all been turned into a grim mix of blood and rubble, as Israel applies mediaeval methods of violence to this small strip of land.

The apparent goal at the start of the conflict was the elimination of Hamas and the repatriation of Israeli hostages; one of the world’s best-armed militaries — amply supported by the US and many European states — has miserably failed on both these counts.

Along with Gaza, Tel Aviv has set its sights on Lebanon, again supposedly to destroy Hezbollah. But while the Lebanese armed group has been severely pounded, its fighters continue to resist the Israeli invaders. Meanwhile, Lebanon has said that over 2,000 people have been killed in Israeli violence over the last year. Going by UN official Francesca Albanese’s sharp observation, for Israel “there are no civilians” in Palestine and Lebanon.

Along with highlighting Israeli barbarity, the post-Oct 7 scenario has exposed the hypocrisy of the Western bloc, and the paralysis of Muslim states. The West loves to hold forth on protecting human rights, but perhaps to these states the people of Gaza and Lebanon are sub-human.

The Islamic ‘fraternity’, meanwhile, has refused to take any meaningful action against Israel and its supporters as the Zionist state continues its genocidal campaigns.

Today, thanks to Israeli aggression, and Western appeasement, the Middle East could be consumed by an immense conflagration, especially if Tel Aviv strikes Iran. Meanwhile, the core issue of Palestinian freedom has been all but eclipsed in the fog of war.

Published in Dawn, October 7th, 2024