My Take: Politicians won't solve Middle East crisis

Thanks and kudos to our good friends in Michigan for their plea for a cease-fire in the Middle East their passion, honesty, and warmth for the abject human suffering in the region is laudable.

The carnage that unfolded on Oct. 7 in Israel and the follow-on retaliatory response in Gaza has undoubtedly left the world dumbfounded with grief and shock. Families are mourning the loss of life on both sides. The media — especially the unhinged social media — in its deplorable insatiable vying for frontline ratings, is busy fanning the flames of unilateral and selective hatred, misinformation, and bias across the globe.

Blood is blood: Not differentiated by any geography, ethnicity, race, or religion. Shedding blood is viewed as a heinous crime in all three monotheistic Abrahamic religions. Killing of Abel by Cain was the world's very first murder of a human being by another. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t be the last, as we witness every day.

Yet, the sanctity of life has always been held high, as revealed in Qur’an (Chapter 5, verse 32): “Whoever takes a life, it is as if they killed all of humanity; and whoever saves a life, it is as if they saved all of humanity.”

By now, it is amply clear that politicians have failed miserably and have been failing at least for the past half-a-century in resolving the Palestine issue. Oslo and Dayton Accords are two major milestones of those failures. The so-called Abraham Accords was a disastrous hogwash by the stooges of a selfish president, as we know it now. What is not needed is lopsided politics, reactionary politicians, or foaming-at-mouth talk show charlatans!

Peace, however, will not come by mere emotional tugging of our hearts’ strings, followed by prayers alone. For peace between Palestinians and Israelis to prevail — as our Michigander friends in their letter eagerly long to — three things ought to happen. First, Israel must give up its ambition of reinventing the historical wheel of extermination that was used not very long ago on her very own people. Second, it must agree to the establishment of an independent and autonomous Palestinian state.

Third, the U.S. should stop feigning to be a peace broker; it has been doing so with no viable solution to this volatile situation for the past three-quarters of a century. If it truly wishes peace to prevail, it must come out from behind Israel and stand between her and the Palestinians, to arbitrate fairly. Otherwise, it should simply stand by 8,000 miles away as a mere mute spectator as the rest of the world does. Even today, while President Biden meekly asks Netanyahu not to enter the Rafah refugee camp with his military might, he confirms that the U.S. will veto any resolution against Israel in the UN Security Council. What kind of farcical diplomacy is this?

It is time that unbiased humanists — likes of these passionate Michiganders — entered the scene and looked fearlessly at the root cause of the conflict and presented practically humane suggestion to both factions, even at the chagrin of opportunistic politicians and their displeasure.

— Abdul-Majeed Azad resides in Columbus, Ohio.

This article originally appeared on The Holland Sentinel: My Take: Politicians won't solve Middle East crisis