THE EDITOR: Recent live broadcasts of the nuclear mayhem inflicted by Israel and Palestine on innocent citizens continue to arouse concerns about how well the United Nations is fulfilling its mandate as protector of the world from itself.
'The strikes were so strong that screams of fear could be heard from people inside the city, several kilometres away.' That was how mail.com news described an Israeli military air and ground troops strike on Gaza.
A second report spoke of rockets streaking over the 'mixed town' of Lod in central Israel even as Arabs and Jews fought on the streets below.
Another described how in the northern Gaza Strip, Rafat Tanani, his pregnant wife and four children were killed after an Israeli warplane 'reduced the building to rubble' and 'wiped the family from the population register.'
A report presented at the time of writing spoke of Israel destroying a building which housed the respected media houses AP and Al Jazeera. How far will these rogue states be allowed to go under the guise of governments seeking to protect their people by preserving their fake democracies?
Hidden behind the huge cloak of protocols seeping in with the waves of shock and awe, questions of human rights and respect for life lurk dangerously but remain politely muted in fear and favour.
Quite apart from the unstated fact that the vast majority are weak and voiceless, there's also the real proposition of any opposing voice losing the 'grant' (read 'freebie') which any serious country could have earned with some dedicated efforts.
And although there has been talk of justice for all, with the appropriate desk-thumping and sabre-rattling in New York, every peewat knows it won't be long before all zandolees find their proverbial holes to hide in.
It should come as no surprise therefore that for these two biblical titans, the eternal fight for the elusive Promised Land is doomed to produce no tangible outcome except the tens of thousands dead and wounded left as statistics kept alive for some journalist's record.
Which begs the vital question: Into what frightening abyss has our race memory been engulfed against the historical backdrop of Gandhi's defiance of Great Britain and Mandela's triumphant stance against South Africa?
It's scary to think that we who have gone through so much to come so far, even we can lose sight of our inherent greatness and surrender to the might of the powerful stupid.
And that is the real vaccine we must discover to save our people's future from this eternal pandemic.
RUDOLPH WILLIAMS
St James
The post How far will Palestine, Israel be allowed to go? appeared first on Trinidad and Tobago Newsday.
