TWO fateful decisions authored by the British government — the Balfour Declaration of 1917 and the Radcliffe Award of 1947 — involved territory (still in dispute) and millions of displaced persons (still struggling with identity). Both have left suppurating sores on the face of history.
The fratricidal war between Abrahamic cousins — Jews, Christians, and Muslims — has intensified since President Donald Trump took office this crimson spring. Cleverly, the weight of conflict has shifted its ballast from a squabble over land to a barter over human hostages.
A pall of propaganda, however, held in place by all sides obscures reality. The casus belli for the current hostilities were the 251 people abducted during a Hamas-led raid on Israel in October 2023. According to a recent report in The New York Times, since then, “more than 130 have been exchanged alive for Palestinian detainees. The Israeli military has retrieved the corpses of more than 40 others [.] Hamas has handed over eight bodies as part of the latest ceasefire agreement”.
It added: “Some were killed by Hamas, some by Israeli fire, some their cause of death unknown.” Of the 59 hostages still believed held in Gaza, the Israel government has said that “only 24 are alive”.
The war has intensified since Trump took office.
In a separate report by The Times of Israel, “two dozen men — fathers, soldiers, security guards, tech workers, dreamers, and dancers — are still captive”. Of them, there is one Thai, one Nepali, and 22 Israelis (some of whom are dual nationals from the US, Columbia, Argentina, Russia, and Hungary). They are to be released in the second stage of the ceasefire deal between Hamas and Israel.
Israel has confirmed that another 35 hostages are already dead. Their bodies are being held by Hamas, to be returned in the deal’s third phase. Meanwhile, the living die to retrieve the dead.
Where, one wonders, in such a war-torn zone, does one hide so many hostages without being detected? And in which air-conditioned mortuaries are these now stateless cadavers kept? It is no secret that Gaza’s battlefield is monitored by the most sophisticated intelligence apparatus that the human mind can devise, or that the US and Israel can afford. Unless, of course, their non-detection is deliberate.
One is reminded of Stanley Kramer’s disturbing film Judgement at Nuremberg (1961). In Abby Mann’s brilliant script, Oswald Pohl (the SS head of the Nazi concentration camps), explains that “it’s not the killing that is the problem; it’s disposing of the bodies”.
And in the film’s climax, the German judge Dr Ernst Janning justifies Germany’s adulation of Hitler.
Janning says: “We had a democracy, yes, but it was torn by elements within. Above all there was fear, fear of today, fear of tomorrow, fear of our neighbours, and fear of ourselves. Because we loved our country, what difference does it make if a few political extremists lose their rights? What difference does it make if a few racial minorities lose their rights?
“It is only a passing phase[.] It will be discarded sooner or later. Hitler himself will be discarded — sooner or later. The country is in danger. We will march out of the shadows! We will go forward. FORWARD is the great password”. (Germany is great again!)
Janning concludes: “The very elements of hate and power about Hitler that mesmerised Germany, mesmerised the world!”
These words haunted post-Hitler’s Germany. They should be remembered by a post-Trump America after February 2029. Trump’s presidency has become an unstoppable juggernaut. It is crushing everything in its perilous path, disbelievers and devotees alike. One individual casualty is Palestinian student Mahmoud Khalil. He protested against Israel at Columbia University. He was arrested by federal immigration authorities. Despite being a permanent resident with a Green Card, he will be deported. Whatever he hoped Columbia University would teach him, he is learning instead that in Trump’s America, there is no guarantee of freedom after the speech.
Ironically, American whistle-blower Edward Snowden, who leaked classified data which exposed the existence of a global surveillance network, fled to Russia. President Vladimir Putin granted him Russian nationality. Perhaps Khalil should explore that option. Meanwhile, Trump has announced a $400 million funding cut to Columbia University. He has expressed concerns over antisemitism and “accused Columbia of creating a hostile environment for Jewish students”. Columbia University is one of 10 such schools under investigation. More are likely to follow.
The world has long suspected that the powerful Jewish lobby in the US plays a Svengalian role to the Trilby of American opinion. Trump’s overt endorsement of Israel confirms this. Canada has refused to become America’s 51st state. Will Trump declare America Israel’s seventh district?
The writer is an author.
Published in Dawn, March 13th, 2025
Source: https://www.dawn.com/news/1897601/historys-echoes