By Ismail Obansa Nimah
Moments before the deadly Israeli strike on the Al Ahli Baptist Christian National Hospital, an official Israeli government page posted the following on X (formerly Twitter): “Due to the lack of medical equipment and the lack of medical staff, it was decided to bomb the Baptist hospital in Gaza and give them euthanasia death”.
The attack is the worst to hit a hospital since World War II. It has so far killed more than 500 people, with many still under the rubble. The tweet has been deleted, and as usual, Israeli and mainstream Western media have begun damage control to embellish the ignominy with half-truths and outright falsehood.
There is no sitting on the fence in this conflict. You are either here or there. You either stand for the Palestinians against the monstrous apartheid regime of Israel, or you are with the Israelis, of whom a significant majority, save just a few, are so inhumane.
And when I say Palestinians or Israeli, it does not just equate pitting Muslims against Jews. If you must know, Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus himself, is amongst Palestine’s illegally occupied and besieged regions and has been under constant attack and bombardment by Israel for the past seven decades.
I hope our Christian counterparts also realise that cheering Israel on and being sympathetic to their cause on whatever basis or allusion, scriptural or not, erodes the very humanity in us and is tantamount to aiding the systematic tyranny and barbarism that entity represents – the same barbarism we all spoke against and condemned when it occurred in South Africa. We are all targets. This is a war on our collective humanity. Upon deeper reflection, we will find examples of similar demagoguery against Jesus and his Mother, Mary, in the scripture.
Ask yourself, is it not insane and malevolent to think that the Just and Merciful Creator will choose a group of people as his beloved or ‘chosen’ and help them commit atrocities of this scale to fulfil some prophecy?
We, Muslims, are not your enemy. We are not what the propagandists of the West and Israel propagate. We have an entire chapter in the Qur’an named after Mary in deference to her honour. We have numerous verses exalting her status in the sight of God, away from what the Jews still assert. No Muslim is a Muslim until he/she loves, respects and honours Jesus Christ as one of the mightiest messengers of God. We do not call his name, except we add “peace be upon him” to it. We make no distinction between him and other great messengers of God. Yet you somehow think we are your enemy? And help the Jews who curse Mary and Jesus further their evil plot, particularly against us?
For more than One thousand years, the Muslims ruled Palestine, with Jerusalem as its capital. During these years, Muslims, Jews and Christians coexisted together in goodness, peace, justice and prosperity. Every Muslim was obligated to respect and ensure the human rights of those living under the Islamic Caliphate, no matter who they were and what they worshipped. It was and still is a huge sin and a punishable offence for any Muslim to trespass on the rights of a non-Muslim living under the protection of a Muslim government. No non-Muslim blood was allowed to be illegally spilt without justice. No one was made to unduly suffer on account of being different in any regard.
And even when the European Christian crusaders sacked Jerusalem and massacred hundreds of thousands of its inhabitants in the 11th century, the Muslims under Salahudeen Al-Ayub did not spill a single innocent blood when they took the city back from the crusader occupation some 88 years later. Not even the blood of many cruel crusaders who had massacred Muslims in their thousands.
It may be that history is repeating itself all over again. But I am sure Palestine will again survive this cruel attempt at extermination and targeted ethnic cleansing. And I know that it will be soon, very soon. Until then, hang in there, brethren, for the help of our Creator is near.
I hope this opens your eyes and we all see more clearly away from sentiments and propaganda.
Ismail Obansa Nimah wrote via nimah013@gmail.com.
