17th May, 2021
PRESS RELEASE:
MURIC CONDEMNS ISRAEL’S STATE TERRORISM
The Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC) has condemned the ongoing bombardment of Palestine by Israel’s war planes and artillery. The group described the attacks as crimes against humanity.
The position of MURIC was revealed in a press statement issued on Monday, 17th May, 2021 by its director, Professor Ishaq Akintola.
According to MURIC, “We strongly condemn the ongoing aggression of Israel against Palestine. A people that does not possess a single war plane is being harassed, killed and dehumanised by an apartheid state that is armed to the teeth while the world looks on carelessly.
“Israel’s war planes are carrying out bombing raids on Gaza and other Palestinian cities. Whole blocks of flats and civilian tower buildings are being sunk to ground zero. The occupants perish with no hope of being rescued. The Palestinians have no single war plane. They have no standing army.
“The United Nations have failed to stop Israel’s aggression because America and other Western powers are always there to veto UN resolutions. The UN had never been fair in its dealings with Palestine. The Palestinians who owned 92% of the land were given only 47% by the 1947 United Nations misadventure thereby rendering 472,000 Palestinians homeless. Since then it has been killings, massacres and displacements with the Palestinians always being at the receiving end.
“We are particularly disenchanted with the role of America in the whole issue. In 2019 alone for example, the US provided $3.8 billion in foreign military aid to Israel. Israel also benefits from about $8 billion of loan guarantees. The United States (US) allows Israel to build a nuclear weapon but hypocritically breathes down the neck of Israel’s neighbours on the issue of nuclear energy. In as much as the US is Israel’s major supplier and backer, the US has the power to stop Israel’s aggression against Palestine.
“That is why we condemn in the strongest terms the statement made by President Joe Biden that Israel has the right to defend itself. That statement was reckless and irresponsible. It was a statement that endorsed Israel’s aggression against Palestine and it exposed the insincerity of the US in its so called search for a two-state solution to the Middle East imbroglio.
“We ask Joe Biden, is the forceful eviction of Palestinians from their homes part of Israel’s right to defend itself? Is the demolition of Palestinian civilian houses by Israel’s bulldozers part of Israel’s right to defend itself? Are the historical bloody massacres of Palestinians part of Israel’s right to self-defence?
“Even Nigeria under ex-President Goodluck Jonathan played an ignoble role in the Palestinian question. The request to officially recognize Palestine as a state within the 1967 boarders with full UN member benefits and state status throughout the international community was presented by Jordan on 30th December 2014. While justice-seeking countries like Argentina, Chad, Chile, Jordan, China, France and Russia voted ‘Yes’ to a Palestinian State, Nigeria dashed the hope of Palestine by abstaining.
“Just nine votes were mandatory for Palestine to secure the status it needed and eight had been obtained. Only one more vote was needed but Nigeria reneged on its well-known anti-apartheid stance. It was a shocking, conservative and reactionary shift from anti-apartheid champion status for which the country was known to a pro-zionist entity. It was the coup de grace. It was the day Nigeria shamefully turned its back on its principles of justice, liberty and humanity, no thanks to ex-President Jonathan’s love for anything that may hurt Muslims and favour Christians. Jonathan cannot wash his hands off that diplomatic misadventure. He allowed his religious sentiment to get the better of him.
“This is the parochial and uninformed angle from which many Nigerians look at the Palestine-Israel affair. But this matter has nothing to do with religion. Many Christians wrongly assume that the Jews are Christians but the reverse is the case. In fact there are more Christians among the Palestinians than among the Israelis. It is therefore more of a human right matter, a matter of conscience. What is happening between Israel and Palestine is that conscienceless power is subjugating powerless conscience.
“We call on the Nigerian government to condemn Israel’s crime against humanity. Nigeria has always been known for its principled stand on international issues. This great African country confronted the apartheid regime of South Africa until it was brought to its knees. Nigeria was also at the forefront of the struggle to liberate Rhodesia, Zimbabwe and Angola from the clutches of apartheid and colonialism. This country must rise again to its traditional role of being the voice of the voiceless on the African continent before it loses its respect in the commity of nations.
“It will be recalled that this new crisis started when Palestinian Muslims were observing Ramadan evening (tarawih) prayers inside the al-Aqsa mosque and Israeli soldiers came shooting sporadically to disperse them. We assert that Israel is not defending itself. On the contrary, the Zionist state is on a mission to wipe out the Palestinians from the face of the earth. Israel is preparing for a ground invasion to claim more Palestian land after which it will refuse to withdraw.
“It is simply state terrorism. It is ethnic cleansing. It is crime against humanity. Israel’s superior firepower may seem to be winning but posterity will not forgive aggressors.
“By endorsing Israel’s reckless onslaught against the Palestinians and by failing to bring its influence to bear on Israel when it matters most, America has lost the moral right to talk to the rest of the world about human rights and civil liberties. Thus the US has proclaimed the absence of justice in the world. We affirm that peace will continue to elude the world because although everybody keeps talking of peace but none is talking about justice. We hold America responsible for the cold-blooded killing of thousands of unarmed Palestinian civilians, including vulnerable women and children.
Professor Ishaq Akintola,
Director,
Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC)
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