The announcement by the Prime Minister of Pakistan, Shabaz Sharif, that he had accepted the ‘Trump Plan’ for Gaza stunned Pakistanis. I say stunned because, although we have been subjected to many horrifying policies and actions by state managers against us, this display on the world stage, of accepting President Trump’s 20-point plan in coordination with genocidal Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, was audacious, as it was brazenly against the wishes of every single citizen in Pakistan.
Palestine is not merely a people displaced by white European colonialists, nor are they exclusively Muslim. They are an entire people under threat of extinction with impunity. Palestinians are not only a nation without a country they represent how human beings on Mother Earth can be treated by madmen. The evil that men can do to other human beings on a shared planet is exemplified. The cruellest of all animals on earth is on display.
For 80 years, since the world wrote several human rights charters, laws, institutions, and promoted individual liberties, the United Nations – committed to the basic rights of individuals and the collective rights of peoples – has enabled and allowed the erasure of an entire nation. The justifications are aplenty, and frankly not relevant, since the outcome is the same: murder, rape, maim, and eliminate Palestinians.
I recall a conversation with friends in London, who accused me of supporting the Palestinians because we share a faith. If defending the right to life on earth equally is a shared destiny, then yes. But if the suggestion is that I support them because some Palestinians are born Muslim, that is inaccurate. Pakistan has non-Muslims, and Palestine has been the birthplace of all three monotheistic faiths. Aside from the history of religion, in 2025, I am much more concerned with the murder of hearts – men, women, children in the millions.
Like many around the world, I support the freedom of Palestinians from the slavery of the white man’s genocidal enterprise in the 20th century, because our values compel us to. If yours do not, think about what you believe in.
Is the value of a Pakistani soldier worth so little? Or should I ask – how much? Two thousand dollars? Five thousand? How much is patrolling for Israel and America worth?
The Irish understand very well what I am referring to, after centuries of colonisation by the British. The idea that Pakistan would agree to become boots on the ground to ‘keep the peace’ in occupied Palestine is perhaps a sign of kiyamat in modern terms. “Keep the peace” – George Orwell would be smirking all the way in Dante’s Divine Comedy. How many levels of hell should we enable, and for how long?
Pakistan is a bankrupt country; a praetorian, predatory management thinks it can sell its overpopulated citizens for hire to protect genocide. Is the value of a Pakistani soldier worth so little? Or should I ask – how much? Two thousand dollars? Five thousand? How much is patrolling for Israel and America worth? The heart-wrenching reality is that Muslims are going to pay (the Gulf Arabs) for majority-Muslim soldiers (from Indonesia and Pakistan) to secure genocidal Israel. The recent pact with the Saudis makes perfect sense now.
They pay, we die.
But what about the remaining 240 million Pakistanis at home? Oh yes, the rare earth minerals, copper, perhaps gold and gas in Balochistan, can also be sold. But to enrich whom? The glee on the faces of some in the Oval Office, while marketing Pakistan, will remain forever etched in my mind.
My late grandfather, Qazi Mohammad Musa, wrote a letter in The Times in London on the eve of the creation of the colonial enterprise amidst the Palestinian lands, warning that this would be the start of many wars and fractures we might not be able to undo. It is not only unwise but extremely dangerous for global stability. Mohammad Ali Jinnah, our founding father, also foresaw this colonial enterprise in the 20th century as a festering wound which would spread like cancer in the region, but also in the hearts and minds of many.
Oh my lord, how have we come to this? A people without a nation?
The Abrahamic Accord – another term George Orwell would be proud of – is anything but a peace-building initiative amongst the people of faith. Islam advocates defending the poor, the vulnerable, and struggling for justice. Jihad. It is also the same principle in secular modern ideology. We all signed up for these values and principles, enshrined in the human rights documents of the United Nations after the last global genocide fest we witnessed in the 20th century. But lessons were not learned, because the United Nations did not introspect and check those who have a history of genocide, and how to ensure it never happens again. The United Nations at 80 has disgraced itself by promoting a plan which will effectively enable genocide to continue in Palestine instead of leading the struggle to protect.
The courage of students all over the world, and humanists all around the world, democratic minds and hearts, despite their politics, signals the irrelevance of the nation-state system as it is
There is always light, even in the darkest of spaces.
The Colombian president has shown moral courage, while fellow Muslim nations banter about the term ummah. The lack of legitimacy in many Muslim polities is on display. The disconnect with their populations is clear. In fact, the students and human rights advocacy community for the Palestinians’ rights have primarily been on the streets of Europe and America by and large, because in most Muslim lands, they too are occupied by other means. The courage of students all over the world, and humanists all around the world, democratic minds and hearts, despite their politics, signals the irrelevance of the nation-state system as it is. The disconnect in Europe and America between their states and their peoples is growing.
The existence of the Flotilla of 44 is a sign. Citizens of 50 countries trying to provide aid to Palestine because their state managers will not, are also now under threat. The military protection by Italy, Turkey and Greece to the flotilla has been withdrawn as they entered the occupied waters. With impunity, the world watches as the genocidal state abducts citizens of peace from 50 nations.
What should we expect? Demand now? From whom?
Amongst my friends, I am chided as being naïve, unrealistic and ridiculous for standing on principle, even if it is unrealistic. But what is realistic, I ask? Haq – and what is the truth? Realpolitik, or the base instincts of men, is meant to be the truth? Palestine was and remains. The erasure of its people is a blot on humankind. The indigenous peoples of the Americas were wiped out, displaced, and colonised by many white nations, but they remain to tell their stories and truth.
Sometimes I think the climate changes we are witnessing are Mother Earth’s discontent with the most dangerous of creatures.
Nations that do not stand with the Palestinian people today will reap consequences unimaginable sooner rather than later. As the flotilla of 44 ships is abandoned one by one by their nation-state managers, they carry the weight of 8 billion hearts beating towards a semblance of atonement.