Let us pray that 2024 brings back hope and sanity. Nazi Germany will always stand condemned in history for the genocide of European Jews between 1941 and 1945 through mass shootings and extermination camps in Auschwitz- Birkenau, etc., in occupied Poland. The Nazis believed that Jews were subhuman, and Germany must be cleansed of them.

This was a racially inspired systematic extermination of millions of innocent Jews. Germany had the most powerful army, equipped with lethal weapons, while the Jews were unarmed. Other than the Polish or French resistance fighters, there was none to resist them. Similarly, the year 2023 will be remembered for hate-inspired and distorted versions of religious interpretations for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians living in occupied Gaza. For over two months, hundreds of thousands of tons of bombs, missiles, white phosphorous, including over 29,000 dumb bombs and unguided missiles, are being used to kill innocent unarmed civilians, including women, children, the aged, and the sick in hospitals and refugees living in UN camps. Israel’s Defense Minister has termed Palestinians as human animals, while their PM has equated them to Amalek, justifying the slaying of “both men and women, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.” The bombs dropped on Gaza by IDF are four times heavier than the largest dropped by the US on ISIL in Mosul, Iraq. The bombing is more intense than the two Iraq wars. It has shredded the image of many in the West, whom the world looked upon as champions of human rights.

The world is closer to a manmade Armageddon today than ever before, while the UN Security Council is held hostage by a superpower intent on giving Israel the time and ammunition it needs to exterminate over 2.1 million Palestinians. 

MALIK TARIQ ALI, Lahore.