What are the deadliest wars of the 21st Century?
1 The Syrian Civil War 2011-Present 535,000 deaths
2 War on Terror (including 2001-Present 493,500
deaths
Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan)
3 War in Darfur 2003-Present
286,827 deaths
4 Yemeni Civil War 2014–Present 233,000+ deaths
5 Mexican Drug War 2006-Present 106,800 deaths
By contrast the Arab-Israeli conflict since 1948 has killed
only 116,000 people in over 70 years.
The War on Terror was given a lot of media coverage,
when Western troops were involved in the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, but it
is rarely on the TV news now and has not been for some time. The Syrian Civil
War was given extensive coverage, but much less since ISIS was defeated. The
other wars are barely covered on the news at all.
Only specialists pay much attention to the Yemeni
Civil War or have any idea what it is about. Few people could even point to
Darfur on a map. Going a little further back, I am shocked to discover that the
Second Congo War (1998-2003) cost the lives of between 3 and 5 million people. How
many British people could say more than a sentence about it? I couldn’t.
I can recall no demonstrations in London outside the
Mexican Embassy protesting about the Mexican Drug war. No one much demonstrates
outside the Sudanese Embassy either and no one at all says anything nasty about
Mexicans or Sudanese people because of their involvement in these wars.
I don’t recall mass demonstrations in London about Syria’s
use of chemical weapons against its own people, nor were there crowds complaining
about Russia when it bombed various Syrian cities indiscriminately to help its
ally Assad.
Since 2005 when Hamas was first elected in the Gaza
Strip there have been various conflicts but the death toll is around 3,500. It’s
a little more than Palestinian deaths from Covid.
It is reasonable for people to criticise Israel to the
same extent that they criticise any other country for doing the same thing. It’s
also reasonable to criticise Hamas. Any war between people is regrettable and
should be avoided. But the word for
people who only demonstrate when wars involve Jews is anti-Semitism.
If you didn’t notice the War in Darfur, didn’t make
signs and didn’t drive around London seeking Sudanese people to shout at and
abuse, why are you concerned with a relatively small conflict in Gaza?
There is something odd about the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict. It stirs emotions like no other. There are any number of post-war
conflicts with massively higher death tolls, which have been forgotten or never
noticed, but if Israel is involved it immediately goes to number one news item
and demonstrators get out their placards.
After the Second World War new countries and new
borders were established and there were huge population transfers. Millions of
Germans were expelled by force from what is now Poland and Russia and large numbers
died. So too Poles were expelled from what is now Lithuania, Belarus and
Ukraine to where the Germans had been living.
The Partition of India led to 10 to 20 million people
being forced to leave their homes, many did not survive.
I have never heard of demonstrations in London asking
for the post war border of Germany and Poland to be redrawn and the descendants
of those displaced being allowed to return home. Neither in India nor Pakistan
are there refugee camps on the border where people fire rockets into the
country they were displaced from. How do you suppose the Pakistani Army would
respond if Indians fired rocked into Pakistan? How would any country in the world
respond?
It was unjust what happened to the Poles when the
Soviet Union invaded their country in 1939 and later annexed part of it, but if
Poles were now sitting on the border with Belarus shooting rockets, there is
little doubt how Belarus would respond even if the Belarus border is the result
of injustice.
Prior to 1920 there was no nation state called
Palestine. Rather there was a province of the Ottoman Empire. There were no Palestinians,
rather there were Syrians who lived in Ottoman Syria which included modern day
Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Israel.
Palestine only came into existence with the British
Mandate. Jewish migration to the region accelerated especially after World War
II. The United Nations decided to partition Mandate Palestine. The Arabs tried
to destroy the Jewish state, but lost the war in 1948 and continued to lose in
1956, 1967, 1973 and so on. The Palestinians were crammed into ever smaller
territory, because with each war they lost territory. But if the Soviet Union
can annex parts of Poland, and Poland can annex parts of Germany, is it only
Jews who cannot gain territory after winning wars?
Jewish people have the same rights to live where they
do as any other migrant. If 9 million Jewish migrants don’t have the right to
live in the Middle East, why do 44 million Muslims have the right to live in
Europe? If Jewish migration to the Middle East is wrong, why is Muslim migration
to Europe right?
It appears as if the benefits of multiculturalism only
apply to Europe and not to Palestine. If descendants of migrants such as Humza
Yousaf can fight to partition Britain, why couldn’t descendants of Jewish
migrants fight to partition Palestine not least because they were the majority
in their part? If Muslims can create a Muslim state in Pakistan in 1947 there
can be no moral reason for preventing Jews from doing likewise in 1948.
Israel having been legally established in 1948 has the
same right as any other state to defend itself. If a country is attacked it has
the right of self-defence to defend itself. The task of any armed forces is to win,
while suffering as few casualties as possible.
Having decided that conventional war was impossible to
win the Palestinians embraced unconventional war and terrorism. But while no
one questions the right of the French, the British and the Americans to fight
terrorism, Jews do not have this right.
The situation in Israel is analogous to the one
between Germany and Poland and India and Pakistan. People were displaced by
war. It was horrible as all wars are. It was unjust. But Germans do not sit in
refugee camps firing rockets at Poland, nor does anyone else who has been displaced
by war except in Palestine.
The injustice is that while Poles would be allowed to
defend themselves from Germans shooting rockets, Jews must give in to the demands
of Palestinians, which would not involve peaceful coexistence, but rather the
destruction of Israel and the expulsion its population if it were lucky enough
to survive.
Anyone who favours the destruction of the Jewish
people in Israel is an anti-Semite anyone who thinks Jews may not defend
themselves against people who wish to destroy them, is an anti-Semite. Anyone
who cares not at all about any war except when it involves Jews is an anti-Semite.
Anyone who thinks everyone has the right to migrate except Jews is an anti-Semite.
The only peaceful solution to the Arab-Israeli
conflict involves neither side starting a war. If one side initiated the
conflict by firing rockets it is at least partly to blame. Only when both sides
resolve not to start a conflict will there be peace. But there can never be
peace so long as one side wishes to drive the other into the sea. If you
support people who wish to do this, you are an anti-Semite.
