Today, as I write these lines, the date is the 7th of June 2018. 51 years ago, I as editor of Daily Mashriq Karachi, the second largest circulated newspaper of the era, was glued to the Radio trying to learn more about the horribly disgusting drubbing that the Arab forces were receiving at the hands of the Israeli army. The war had started two days earlier and in a sudden shocking air raid Israel had destroyed the air power of both Egypt and Syria.
East Jerusalem known as AlQuds had fallen to the Israeli invaders within hours of the start of the war, ending the hold of Islam over the Holy Land yet again after several centuries which included the century of the Crusades in which the Knights of the Cross arriving from all over Europe had tried in vain to undo the historic triumph Salahuddin Ayubi had achieved over England’s Richard the lion-hearted.
Let me admit I have not cried very often in my life but I had cried like mad the night of the 6th of June 1967. Throughout the West there had been frenzied celebrations over Israel’s capture of AlQuds.
I had not believed that the ‘civilized’ West would allow Israel to rule the occupied territories for long, and it was not even in my wildest thoughts that AlQuds would still be in Israel’s occupation in 2018, and that the US at last would have a President who would legitimatise Israel’s aggression and occupation of Arab lands by granting recognition to Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
I don’t cry any more but there is crude RAGE in my mind at the helplessness of the World of Islam. Along with this rage is my fierce belief that as per the prophetic wishes of the Last Messenger of Allah, AlQuds would one day return to Islam.
I remember here the first speech Ben Gorian the first Prime Minister of Israel delivered in his Parliament.
“We have won the first war. Will win the second. And the thud. And the fourth. And the fifth. But we have to lose only ONCE to PERISH. Before that time comes, we have to make peace with Arabs.”
It was a speech by a SEER who understood the dynamics of history.
Israel is not invincible. Imagine Egypt, Saudi Arab and Pakistan too under a leadership as dynamic as that of Turkey— and then imagine their Common Front telling both Washington and Israel. “Wars are fought not always with Design; they can break out by DEFAULT. Don’t let this happen. Vacate AlQuds and recognise Palestinians’ right to have a Sovereign State of their own. There will be horrible destruction everywhere but Israel will simply perish.”
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