Israel is once again bombing Palestine.

Sometimes it feels like the longer the occupation of Palestine continues, the less people talk about it. In all honesty, Israel’s ceaseless string of war crimes is hard to follow and makes it easy for people to lose hope. But it’s important to keep speaking out because you have to remind yourself that it is the least you can do. If the world can empathize with Ukraine in their time of war and occupation, surely the world can also empathize with Palestine.

Last weekend, Israeli forces raided the Al-Aqsa Mosque (at the hear of Palestine, a symbol of Palestinian pride and resistance) – something they have done several times before, especially in 2021 – attacking protesters and worshippers with live rounds, tear gas, and stun grenades. They wounded more than 150 Palestinians on one of the most holy days during Ramadan, which is already the holiest month of the Islamic calendar. Every time Israeli forces raid and terrorize a location like this, they try to prevent Palestinians from accessing medical help, trapping them in unsafe situations.

Israel’s military is one of the most brutal and deadly I have ever seen in action. They arrest and assault anyone and everyone with no regard or compassion. Israeli forces manhandle the disabled (recently a young man with Down syndrome named Muhammad al-Ajlouni was assaulted), the elderly, arrest countless children, kill children, destroy homes, torture prisoners, displace citizens, destroy or take over culturally significant Palestinian locations (Al-Aqsa Mosque, Sheikh Jarrah, Hebron, Jenin, and more), etc.

In the month of March alone, Israel detained 539 Palestinians, including 62 children and 19 women, and issued 195 administrative detention orders against Palestinians, imprisoning them indefinitely without charge or trial.

— IMEU (@theIMEU) April 13, 2022

Often times, people justify Israeli attacks by claiming that Israel is simply defending its citizens against Hamas and Palestinian terrorism. However, this is more a method of deflecting the blame to the victims than a legitimate argument because Palestinian violence is a reaction to Israeli occupation. If anyone has the right to defend themselves, it should be the people being occupied. The argument that Hamas is enough of a threat to Israel that the Israeli army has to airstrike, beat, shoot, raid, and arrest Palestinians is a flat-out lie. Israel has constructed an elaborate strawman argument in order to distract people from the damage they are doing. Israel has bombs, while Hamas has rockets; the threat posed by both sides is incomparable when Israel’s military funded by global superpowers (like America) overshadows any of Hamas’ weapons.

I’m aware that this post seems more argumentative and personal than some of my other blog posts where I summarize issues in a factual way before coming to a conclusion. This is because the occupation of Palestine leaves me with way too much information to summarize since it is ongoing, and seemingly never-ending. It is also difficult to find sources that do not downplay the danger of the situations in Palestine, with many news outlets repeatedly referring to the occupation as “clashes” or “tensions,” instead of speaking frankly.

People who speak out about Palestine have also been being censored on social media. Palestinian celebrities like Bella and countless activists and Palestinian citizens found that Instagram blocks their stories and posts about Palestine from being seen. Gigi Hadid’s announcement that she would be donating money to Palestine and Ukraine was edited to exclude Palestine in a post by Vogue magazine.

Even discussing Palestine is made incredibly difficult by not only Israel, but by Israel’s allies (like the United States). We must continue trying to listen to Palestinians and their stories regardless of how much they are silenced.

The occupation of Palestine must end, just like the occupation of Ukraine must end. Occupations and hegemonies should not be tolerated anywhere.

 

References:

Israeli war planes strike besieged Gaza for second time this week | Middle East Eye

Occupied Palestine Is as Entitled to the World’s Solidarity as Occupied Ukraine (jacobinmag.com)

Israel terrorizes Ramadan worshippers at al-Aqsa mosque | The Electronic Intifada

IMEU (@theIMEU) / Twitter

Just today, April 7th, the Pakistani Supreme Court ruled against their own Prime Minister Imran Khan. This has sealed Khan’s fate and he could be removed from Premiership as soon as Friday. This is an incredibly big deal because it is an example of a democracy working to remove a leader that acted unconstitutionally.

This ruling was a reaction to Khan attempting to dissolve an assembly in the Pakistani parliament to prevent them from going against him in a vote of no-confidence on Sunday. If this vote had gone through, it would have guaranteed that Khan be ousted from his position and that a nominee from the opposing political party held power until the following elections (August of 2023). Chief Justice Umar Ata Bandial stated that Khan went against the Constitution by stopping the vote in the court order and the judges of the court ruled that the confidence vote should still occur. To this, Khan responded by saying that he would continue to fight. Many are concerned with the relationship between Pakistan and the U.S. since Khan believes that America was involved in a conspiracy to oust him.

Khan is a former cricket player who was elected in 2018 after he promised to fight for an economically stable and less corrupt Pakistan. He initially had a large following because of his fame as a cricketer, his charisma, and his nationalist beliefs. However, through the years, he has lost a large part of this following because of his inability to follow up on his promises. Since then, inflation has increased to a great extent (it is currently up by 10%) and the government has a much larger foreign debt (both of which many of the citizens blame Khan for).

Economically speaking, Pakistan has many problems to worry about. The Pakistani rupee is hitting record lows every day. The exchange rate is currently 189.38 Pakistani rupees for 1 U.S. dollar. Additionally, the country is currently in the middle of a bailout by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The IMF offered Pakistan a $6 billion rescue package in 2019 to help the country restabilize its economy but the IMF continues to review the package nearly 3 years later. Before this constitutional crisis, the IMF had begun its seventh review of the rescue package.

With an economic and political crisis on its hands, the country sure has its hands full.

Everything seems to be piling up for Pakistan, both for its people and its government. In the coming weeks and months, the government’s handling of the vote, the transition of power, and the economic crisis is definitely something to keep one’s eyes on.

 

References:

Pakistan court rules against Imran Khan, bringing his ouster closer | Reuters

Pakistan court rules Imran Khan no-confidence vote block is illegal – BBC News

Imran Khan: What’s happening next with the PM? – BBC News

Pakistan court orders Imran Khan confidence vote to go ahead | Imran Khan | The Guardian

Imran Khan’s surprise call for snap elections in Pakistan may pay off (cnbc.com)

IMF asked Pakistan to show how it would fund $1.5 billion subsidy package | Reuters

In 2020, tensions rose between Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front. For context, Tigray is a Northern region in the country with a population of about 6 million people, and the TPLF is a political force that used to hold power in the government before Abiy’s election. In the midst of the pandemic, Abiy had opted to postpone elections until circumstances improved, however, the TPLF decided to hold regional elections regardless. The results were a massive victory for the TPLF who immediately began to withhold funds from the government in order to finance their social programs. Abiy claimed that the elections held were illegal and that the results were illegitimate.

Later in the year, there was an attack on Federal Army Camps in Tigray. Abiy accused the TPLF and ordered a military response to the attack, while the TPLF denied playing any role in the attack. And with this, attacks from both sides increased, with the military leading air raids over Tigray and the TPLF firing rockets at Ethiopian forces and into Eritrean soil (the Eritrean government opposes TPLF leadership).

Over time, the number of attacks fluctuated, but always persisted. In February of 2021, it was reported that Eritrean forces were killing innocent Tigray civilians and carrying out systematic rape. What’s more concerning is that when U.S. officials urged Eritrean forces to withdraw, both the Ethiopian and Eritrean governments denied Eritrean military involvement in Tigray. It took Abiy a month to finally admit Eritrean presence in Tigray and a while longer for forces to actually leave Tigray, but at this point many human rights violations and war crimes had already occurred.

In June, the government announced a ceasefire which the TPLF did not acknowledge, which meant the fighting continued with the Tigrayan people trapped and in increasingly unsafe conditions. The violence has bled into the regions neighboring Tigray like Afar, which has several districts occupied by the TPLF, and Amhara. Afar is one of Ethiopia’s poorest regions and Amhara is Ethiopia’s second most populated region, heightening concern for the safety and stability of both regions.

Additional to the tens of thousands of lives lost, hundreds of thousands injured, and the hundreds of thousands displaced, Tigrayans were subject to famine-like conditions brought on by the Ethiopian government’s blockade. Over time this famine has worsened to the point of becoming a severe humanitarian crisis. 5 million people including more than 500,000 children are starving and in dire need of food and/or medical resources (more stats on this humanitarian crisis can be found on the UN’s report here). Agricultural areas and farms were completely destroyed in the war, making Tigray very dependent on outside help. Yet, outside organizations have had a lot of trouble getting trucks of food and medical supplies into Tigray because of the blockade.

Yesterday, on March 24, 2022, Ethiopia’s government declared a truce between the military and the TPLF in order to prevent the humanitarian crisis from worsening. However, despite Abiy’s promises to help Ethiopian civilians, he is still very slow to send convoys of resources to the regions in need.

Personally, I think the Prime Minister has been extremely careless of innocent Ethiopians. In siding with the Eritrean forces, he put hundreds of thousands in danger and violated several human rights laws. The government decimated Tigray’s agricultural facilities and in many ways has weaponized starvation and famine. This is not to say I side with the TPLF either because the damage done to communities by the TPLF (many of the same crimes committed by Eritrean and Ethiopian forces) speaks for itself.

Neither side has acted for the benefit of the Ethiopian people and now they are the ones suffering the consequences of this war. I hope that the truce that has been issued allows Ethiopians to get the supplies and help they so badly need, and that both sides stop the war for the sake of general public.

Note: I refer to Abiy Ahmed as Abiy throughout this post because his name is a patronymic, therefore people use his given name and not his last name.

 

References:

Eight months of Ethiopia’s Tigray conflict: A timeline | Conflict News | Al Jazeera

‘Before they were our brothers. Now I want revenge’: Tigray conflict engulfs neighbouring state | Global development | The Guardian

‘Trying to survive’: millions in Tigray face hunger as they wait in vain for aid | Global development | The Guardian

Ethiopian government declares Tigray truce to let aid in | Ethiopia | The Guardian

As many of you might have heard, there is an ongoing crisis occurring in Ukraine. Russia has sent a large number of troops to occupy the borders of the country, but why?

The answer is rooted in the long and intertwining history of Ukraine and Russia which I will pick up from 2014. In 2014, after struggling with debt and corruption, the Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych accepted a $15 billion loan from Putin as an alternative to taking a trade deal with stricter conditions (but promising long-term benefit) made by the EU. This caused dissent among the Ukrainian population, with citizens believing that Yanukovych was not leading the country in a good direction and that Ukraine should have taken the deal with the EU instead. These protests later became violent, leading to Yanukovych having to flee the country to Russia which got him impeached and replaced with an interim government.

After this struggle, pro-Russian protests broke out in south-eastern Ukraine. With this increasingly tense political climate between Russia and Ukraine, Russia suddenly seized Crimea — a peninsula south of Ukraine and east of Russia, which is officially a part of Ukraine — stating that their intention was to protect the Crimean population which contains many ethnic Russians. This began what is called the Russo-Ukrainian war, which is still going on even 8 years later.

Through those years, Russia has played a large role in a conflict in Donbas (south-eastern region of Ukraine which contains two separatist states) which took more than 13,000 lives. The war has crippled Ukraine’s economy and displaced more than a million people. There have been a few truces (such as the one in 2015, and a ceasefire in 2020), however none of these have prevented the situation from escalating.

In November of last year, Russia sent 100,000 troops to the Ukrainian border. The number has since increased to about 150,000 military forces. Despite the looming presence of the military, the Russian government (also referred to as the Kremlin) insists that they do not plan on invading or attacking Ukraine. More than anything, Russia is using its forces to keep Ukraine in line. There are certain things that Russia needs from Ukraine in order to maintain power (this is the reason Russia didn’t want Ukraine to make a deal with the EU and does not want Ukraine to join NATO).

In January, President Biden alerted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that the U.S will react appropriately if Russia does indeed invade Ukraine. The U.S has had to evacuate some members of the American embassy and has put nearly 10,000 troops on standby. Some American officials are worried that Russia might find any excuse to invade, perhaps going so far as even faking an attack to respond to. Russian officials, on the other hand, have warned Americans not to cause too much panic because of the effects it could have on the economy.

This back and forth between Russia and Ukraine has become a larger issue between the East and West as China backs Russia and believes that the security of Moscow is to be prioritized.

The whole situation is convoluted as Ukraine contains Russia-backed separatist states within it. So essentially, while Ukraine fights against Russia at the border, it is also fighting against Russia within itself.

The state of affairs is frankly very concerning considering not many people have a clue as to what could happen next. Ukraine is currently facing an intense amount of violence, with the threat of even more violence on the horizon. All we know for sure is that the damage done to the people and economy of Ukraine will take a lot of time and resources to recover from.

 

References:

Ukraine’s revolution and Russia’s occupation of Crimea: how we got here | Crimea | The Guardian

Biden: Russian threat to invade Ukraine still ‘very high’ | AP News

Timeline: How did the recent Ukraine-Russia crisis start? | Ukraine-Russia crisis News | Al Jazeera

Understanding the Russia-Ukraine crisis | Stanford News

Rebels announce evacuation from east Ukraine | Reuters

 

About a year ago, on February 1, 2021, tragedy struck in Myanmar.

The military staged a coup in opposition of the National League for Democracy’s (NLD) victory of the 2020 election. They detained many leaders of the party, most notably the state counsellor of Myanmar and leader of the NLD Aung San Suu Kyi. Suu Kyi and the NLD were accused of voter fraud (despite winning by a large margin), and the leader of the military Min Aung Hlaing took over.

It only took a few days for the people of Myanmar to start protesting in the streets of Burmese cities like Yangon. With only a few exceptions, the protests were mostly peaceful demonstrations led by people who wanted to participate in civil disobedience. Regardless, the Burmese military responded with violence, opting to use rubber bullets, water cannons, beatings, live ammunition, and fire to suppress protests. Some protesters, hoping to be on more equal footing with the military, started arming themselves. They formed local militias and referred to themselves as People’s Defense Forces (PDFs). This fighting of fire with fire made the military even more hostile.

An important word to know when talking about the situation in Myanmar is “junta.” A junta is defined as a military rule of a country after the military “takes power by force.” This is exactly what has occurred in Myanmar, and for the last year the military has had the country and its people in a chokehold. They are crushing any semblance of democracy the country used to have by overruling the votes of the people and using violence to suppress their voices.

Over the last year, it is reported that more than 1,350 people have lost their lives to the military’s brutal crackdowns (about 290 of these deaths were results of torture). At least 11,000 people have been arrested, and more than 8,700 of them remain jailed. The number of people displaced by the junta has exceeded 400,000 as of January. These are not small numbers, and what’s worse is that, a year later they still continue to rise.

As these numbers rise, so does the public’s opposition to the junta. The Burmese people are still fighting back thanks to brave civilian protesters and groups like the Karenni National Defense Force, other PDFs, and rebel forces. At this point, the situation resembles that of a country at civil war. I personally believe that the military will never be able to assert power over the country, because the citizens of Myanmar are unified in their resistance to the junta.

Before I wrap up this blog post, I want to explicitly address the situation of a certain demographic of people who are in some ways in more danger than others: the Rohingya people. In 2016 and 2017, the Burmese military persecuted the Rohingya people and killed over 6,700 and caused thousands of others to be displaced. Even with Suu Kyi in power, the Burmese government was never able to take full accountability for the genocide of the Rohingya people. Now, with the military back in power since 2021, the Rohingya people yet again face the magnified threat of danger. Additionally, due to the horrible state of the economy under the junta, many regions and populations (like the Rohingya) have fallen prey to poverty and lack basic human necessities.

It is incredibly disappointing that so many countries and organizations have not acted to stop the horrific junta, or its myriads of human rights violations. As the people of Myanmar complete one whole year of living in hellish circumstances (much longer for the Rohingya people), I wonder how many more days, weeks, and months innocent civilians will be arrested, injured, tortured, or killed for fighting for democracy.

 

Resources:

Myanmar’s coup: a year under military rule in numbers | Myanmar coup | The Guardian

Myanmar: What has been happening since the 2021 coup? – BBC News

Myanmar Is Mired in Conflict and Chaos a Year After a Coup – The New York Times (nytimes.com)

Rohingya Crisis in Myanmar | Global Conflict Tracker (cfr.org)

Myanmar’s Min Aung Hlaing accused of crimes against humanity | Crimes Against Humanity News | Al Jazeera