A few weeks ago, I wrote an article entitled “What If?”.
The purpose of the article was to underscore how things might have been had leaders taken different decisions in the face of a crisis.
Today, we face several murderous crises that demand action.
Action is not forthcoming.
I ask, “Why?”
Why is there no public outcry about the tens of thousands of Christians being kidnapped and massacred by ISIS affiliated gangs known as Boko Haram in Nigeria and sub-Saharan Africa.
Why is there no public outcry at the hundreds of thousands of Syrians being slaughtered by President Bashar al Assad? In this, his regime is closely assisted by Russia and Iran, both of whom are his allies and who seek to create an Iranian crescent of influence across the Middle East with a warm water port for Russia in Tartus.
Why is there no public outcry with respect to the thousands of missiles that Hamas rains down regularly, sometimes daily, on Israeli civilian sites?
Why are there no public protests at Hezbollah’s launching thousands of missiles attacking Israel and turning northern Israel into a massive burning field? Why also are no climate protesters like Greta Thunberg decrying the environmental damage caused in northern Israel?
I am also curious about the lack of student protests at the genocide taking place in Darfur, where Sudanese troops have massacred hundreds of thousands of Darfuris with scarcely a mention in Western media nor among students in North America or Europe,
I also wonder why the genocide undertaken by Russia in Ukraine goes unmentioned by students in the West.
And why have Western governments forbade Ukraine from using weapons against the Russian homeland despite the missile and artillery attacks originate from there? Why are there still tight restrictions to Ukraine’s use of Western weapons against Russian launch sites when Russia rains down murderous missile attacks against civilian targets daily? Are there other interests at stake that make the Ukrainians expendable? Cheap Russian energy? Russian funds in Western banks?
I am curious to understand why Iran, China, Syria, Cuba, and other paragons of human rights remain on major United Nations Commissions even though they constantly act against the very values that they have committed to respect and implement?
I still await an explanation as to why, seven months into the Israeli hostage situation, the International Red Cross has not made one visit to investigate the status of the hostages, although more are being murdered every day by their Hamas captors? Or delivering much needed medications to the hostages, telling their families to “think about the Palestinian victims”? This reminds me of the International Red Cross visits to German concentration camps in World War II, where, according to their own written reports, their investigators saw nothing and reported nothing ... why?
Is it any surprise that Phillipe Lazzarini, head of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), was formerly a senior executive of the International Red Cross? Lazzarini has resisted all reports presented by human rights activists to investigate the strong evidence that UNRWA and Hamas work together to indoctrinate Palestinian children to hate Israel and call for the death of all Jews? And that many Hamas terrorists are also employees of UNRWA, including many who participated in the October 7th terrorist attack on Israel and the torture, imprisonment, and murder of these hostages in Gaza.
With all of the evidence available, including the fact that UNRWA schools and hospitals are Hamas bases, store Hamas weapons, are launching sites for Hamas missiles attacking Israel, and house schools that teach hatred of Jews and Israel, why is U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres continuing to support UNRWA and refusing to investigate the organisation, even though as late as last week more evidence of UNRWA involvement in Hamas terrorist operations was uncovered at a school that Israel attacked?
And why, oh why, has Antonio Guterres not been forced to resign?
Qatar continues to house Al Jazeera, the news agency that has been expelled by many Arab countries for being mouthpieces for Hamas. It also continues to be home to Hamas’s senior leadership at the Four Season’s Hotel, living in luxury while they send Palestinians to their deaths. Why do Western governments continue to treat the Quatar government with kid gloves and allow Hamas’s senior-most leaders to reside there in peace ?
For many weeks, I have wondered why Egypt had been pressuring the United States to stop Israel from entering Rafah in southern Gaza. It seemed strange until Israeli forces found out that many tunnels they discovered there had been dug between Rafah and the Egyptian side of the border, tunnels wide enough for trucks filled with Egyptian weapons for Hamas to drive through without any danger to the trucks or the ordnance that they were ferrying to the terrorists.
Whether the Government of President Al Sisi was involved or if this was a deal between corrupt Egyptian military officers who control the border area remains to be seen. If the government was involved, this would call into question the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty of 1979. If it was the handiwork of corrupt military local officials, why have they not been identified and why are they still in place?
It is now up to Al Sisi to investigate and explain.
Last, but not least, there are hundreds of trucks of emergency supplies waiting at the border for UNRWA to take into Gaza and distribute. Instead, UNRWA, the U.N. Secretary-General, the general public, and the legacy media, continue to accuse Israel of preventing aid from reaching Gazans while Hamas gunmen continue to hijack the trucks once they enter Gaza and steal these supplies once they do and sell them to Gazans at high prices on the open market... Why?
Why do countries like Canada continue to fund UNRWA knowing full well the extent to which this U.N. agency is compromised? Why do they continue to support Guterres and Lazzarini without question knowing what we know?
There are many more “why’s” around the world begging for answers.
I am waiting for the proper authorities to provide them.
You again missed my point. Some 2 million Israeli citizens are from Arab origin. This population is presumably not Jewish. Have you ever looked into the ways the Israeli government is treating these people? To what extent the Israeli government has established a legal system to systematically discriminate against 20 percent of its population? Please have a look before responding.
Dear Eduardo,
I have read more than once your articles on « what if » and « why ». I have many problems with both. Your « what if » are not random but rather attempts at applying « blame » to history. We could all exercise our « what if » as selective as you seem to do. Only two examples, maybe. What if the lead-up to the creation of Israel, and its unilateral creation without effective consideration for Palestinian sovereignty been thought out differently? What if the massive influx of Jews in Palestine had been managed te take into account the occupation of some 700,000 Palestinians that were brutally depossessed of their land, dwellings, commerces and social institutions. A second « what if » concerns the fate of Palestinian citizens of Israel (PCIs). What if the 2 million PCIs were treated as first class citizens along first class Jews of Israel? What if PCIs were not specifically targeted in law by multiple restrictions on where they may reside, what history their children may be exposed to, etc? What if Israel had put into law that it is a republic rather than a Jewish state, creating a first citizens population and a second citizens population of 2 million.
And now the why! I will obviously not go through your « why’s « . This being said , you know very well why many of the issues raised , and how they are being dealt with, are not on the six o’clock news! Many of them may only be dealt through silent diplomacy. Secondly, others cannot be resolved through outright instinctive retributions or military actions. If one were to allow Ukraine to indiscriminately attack Russia at this time, this could create the rational for overwhelming retaliation on the part of Russia, including the possible use of nuclear warheads, albeit only tactical. This is possibly why the US is still restricting Ukraine from attacking Moscow. ( i wish I didn’t have to go through this explanation). You should also be able to appreciate that no country,or enen alliance, is able to attack so many international constraints on any given moment. Either you are strategic and choose or you don’t have a chance of success!
Finally, I receive many comments from people who fumble in their texts. I choose not to engage with them on the quality of their wording. Why? Because I constantly wish to show respect for the persons and for expressing their opinions rather than focus on form. Otherwise,I could be degrading their substantive views by doing so. I could have sent you the same text in French without the blink of an eye! And nobody should say that I am lucky. We choose.
François