As the death toll mounts in Gaza the relative silence from the Muslim world is deafening. After 75 years of horrific Occupation, it was the oppressed themselves who broke an illegal siege on Gaza on 7th October 2023 – the Palestinian people were still alive. More alive than the two billion Muslims it would seem.
It was South Africa – a non-Muslim country – that had the courage and humanity to take the Israeli regime to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on 29th December 2023 whilst the Muslim nations were mere bystanders. The ICJ found that there was “plausible genocide” – though there can be no doubt for the public who are watching live the mass murder of civilians by IOF who actually boast of their crimes. Let there be no doubt, there is only one group of people who still support Israel – the truly depraved. What we have seen from the supporters of this jewish terrorism should chill all of us. The fate of the Palestinians awaits us all if this Talmudic supremacy that believes the life of a jew is worth more than a non-jew (the goyim). This is no exaggeration. The mask has truly slipped and only the most cowardly would ignore the exultation of this jewish cult at seeing children killed in the most barbaric ways and the starvation of two million people enclosed within that concentration camp.
In 2008, my brother Farooq wrote ‘Time for the Gaza Airdrop?’ on his own website correctly predicting that the siege on the Palestinians would worsen and that “direct relief to the territory” may be needed and “other ways of getting relief to the territory” would need to be considered. Yet 16 years later and over 4 months into unimaginable destruction of Gaza, only 4 tonnes of aid have been airdropped in the last few days. Abu Obeida, the Spokesman for Al-Qassam Brigades rightly mocked the Arab leaders in his broadcasts “We do not ask you to mobilise in defense of the Children of the Arab Nation or to move your tanks, God forbid, but has your weakness and helplessness reached the point where you cannot even mobilise aid?” But the shame is not just for Arabs. It is for all of the Muslim Ummah.
Jamaat-e-Islami has been practically a lone voice in Pakistan protesting the Israeli genocide with weak statements only being issued by the major parties too engrossed in their petty politicking to have any grasp of the importance of the Pakistani Nation and the role that it should play for Al-Quds. Where are the religious leaders? Their silence has astounded me. The “Islamic Republic” of Pakistan has been successfully muzzled. The Armies to Al-Aqsa are nowhere to be seen.
The issue of the boycott of Israeli and Israeli-linked goods does not actually require any leadership. Within all of us, it simply required a small quantum of humanity not to support the satans carrying out the mass murder of innocent children. Is it really such a big ask? The protests that were organised in Palak, Chakswari and Mirpur in AJK were not the usual protest where one just talks and talks with zero content – there were three specific demands. The boycott was one. Yet despite the locals agreeing that there was something they could do, few have had any humanity let alone Islamic feeling to do the basics. They have returned to the mundanity of their lives – whilst kids are starving in Gaza. As children are slaughtered and buried under rubble are you all saying you can’t give up the poison of coke? Nestle? Lays? Unilever? Not one of these things is essential. Indeed, personally we have taken out every item – bar two mistakes – since October 7th. It is not difficult in the least. You just have to put the lives of innocent babies above materialistic obsessions. Once the consumers speak, the shop owners will respond. And for us, it allows the space for local businesses to fill that void – be under no illusion that foreign multinationals cheat to gain an advantage. Sometimes, it’s time to stand on one’s own feet.
Boycotts do work. McDonalds have missed their sales targets and a number have been forced to close down. The economy of Israel has seen a decline of 20%, largely a work of the lions in Yemen who have refused the warmongers access through the Red Sea whilst the genocide continues and humanitarian aid denied. Taking courage from the Ansarallah forces, Malaysia then refused to allow Israeli-flagged cargo ships from docking in their ports (you may well ask why they ever had been allowed). In November, Indonesia’s top clerical body, the Indonesian Ulema Council, issued a fatwa calling for a boycott of all Israeli-linked goods and services. Dr Mahathir Mohamad, former Prime Minister of Malaysia, had urged Malaysians to continue boycotting Israeli products. Disappointingly, no major party or leader (political or religious) in Pakistan and Azad Kashmir has done anything similar.
We will all be judged one day but from what I have seen so far, the people in this land of the Moghuls will be found seriously wanting. As they are so incapable of organising voluntarily, the imams need to step forward – issue that Fatwa on Israeli-linked produce and make it haram to support the Palestinian massacre.
A Fatwa should be used to galvanise the masses from a state of their helplessness. The bonds of slavery, as Allama Iqbal eloquently pointed out, are entirely our own to break.
The Psychology of Slaves
There are poets, there are scholars, and there are sages—
A nation’s days of slavery are not uneventful!
But every one of them—poor creatures!—has a single goal,
Though each is unique in the ideas he expounds:
‘Better teach the lion to take flight like a deer,
So that the legend of the lion’s courage is forgotten!’
They seek to make the slaves feel at ease with their slavery,
Pretending to ‘expound and reason things out’.
– Yasmin Ali was a banking lawyer in the UK and was ‘blacklisted’ by Zionists. She works full- time on the JusticeForFarooqAliKhan campaign – her brother Farooq was allegedly murdered at Ramada by Wyndham Hotel in Islamabad – she deems it as an extrajudicial killing. She can be followed on Twitter @Justice4Farooq.
-Views expressed in this Op-ed and following reader comments do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the TLTP.
