Why Palestine's pain feels like Africa's past

By Sylvia Chebet

History is all about joining the dots. Each dot represents a moment in time, a significant event, or a pivotal decision that, when linked together, tells a comprehensive story of our collective journey.

Gaza's plight in the face of Israel's ceaseless, genocidal response to the October 7 ambush by Hamas fighters represents this cycle of interconnectedness that links continents, peoples, past, present, and future.

As the Middle East totters on the brink of an all-out war, with Iran already joining the fray against Israel's brazen military campaign, what is it about the Palestine crisis that reminds Africa of its tormented past?

Nearly 50,000 people, many of them women and children, have been killed in Palestine as Israel seeks to annihilate Hamas with unrelenting air raids and ground bombardments.

The death toll is inching closer to that of the Namibian genocide over a century ago when German troops butchered 70,000 Indigenous Herero and Nama people in their quest to extend the German empire.

David Monyae, associate professor of political science and international relations at the University of Johannesburg, believes what has been happening in Palestine for a year now mirrors the horrors of Germany's genocide in Namibia between 1904 and 1908.

Monyae sees in Israel's war on Palestine a deliberate attempt to "destroy the history of a people — bombing mosques, schools, cemeteries, and all the things that mark a people in terms of their culture, their records and their memory".

Palestine's pain

Israel's "scorched earth" strategy has left nearly two million Palestinians destitute and impoverished.

While the Namibians suffered what came to be known as the first genocide of the 20th century at the hands of German forces, their neighbours in South Africa would later be treated to a violent phase of apartheid that lasted from 1948 to 1994 under the colonial British government.

At least 21,000 native South Africans would be killed in the ensuing political violence, while the rest of the population endured racial segregation.

"I think we also saw quite a number of other genocides committed by the colonial powers – Britain in particular – whether it's in Kenya with the Mau Mau, in Uganda or Zimbabwe," notes Monyae.

In Congo, the Belgian forces under King Leopold chopped off people's hands.

According to Monyae, the massacres in Gaza hark back to what much of Africa suffered. The colonial powers battered them for decades.

The apartheid regime in South Africa used more or less similar tactics – maximum force to put everyone in line.

"We have been there, we know what this is, and we speak without fear of contradiction that what we see is colonialism. It's apartheid in its truest sense," says Monyae of what Gaza is going through.

He also denounces what Hamas did. "That does not mean that one welcomes the inhumane attacks on Israel, particularly of innocent civilians, such as the one that Hamas' Al Qassam Brigade carried out on October 7, 2023. We condemn violence, regardless of who is the perpetrator."

First legal response

Monyae's native country, South Africa, filed a case against Israel in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on December 29, 2023, just about two months into the war, to answer to charges of genocide in Gaza.

While that may take several years to determine, South Africa made an interim request to have the ICJ issue an order for Israel to halt its military campaign in Palestine because it violates the 1948 Genocide Convention.

The ICJ did not accede to it in an implied recognition of Israel's right to self-defence in the wake of the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks.

However, the court acknowledged that the situation in Gaza was catastrophic.

Judge Joan Donoghue noted that the plight of children was "especially heartbreaking" and ordered Israel to take all measures to prevent genocidal acts.

The UN legal body, however, lacks mechanisms to ensure adherence to its orders.

Israel's military campaign in Gaza continues unabated a year on and has spilt over to Rafah, the occupied West Bank, and further afield to the neighbouring countries of Lebanon, Yemen, Syria and Iran.

"All wars are barbaric, but this is the worst that one has encountered, particularly tactics used by an existing state," Monyae argues, referring to the synchronised gadget explosions in Lebanon.

"What the Israelis are doing is more or less the same as what some terrorist organisations do. These are strategies that states in the global community who abide by international laws do not use and are not allowed to use."

UN's fading influence

The escalation of violence comes at a time when the world is reconsidering the capacity of the United Nations to rein in aggressors like Israel and alleviate the suffering of civilians who are targeted for no fault of theirs.

"Organisations like the UN are no longer fit for the purpose they were created for if they are not allowed to discharge their duty and live up to the promise of seeking means to lasting peace and security in the world," says Monyae.

The ongoing conflicts in Ukraine, Myanmar, Sudan and Eastern Congo have compounded the crisis, stretching resources to capacity and reducing the UN's ability to meet the needs of ordinary vulnerable people.

The international community, too, is yet to find common ground on the Israeli-Palestinian issue.

“The international community is not speaking in one voice. In the middle of this genocide, more and more weapons are being shipped to Israel. The US has spent $8.7 billion so far in arming Israel," Monyae notes.

"This is a trigger for other powers to join in. If Russia, China and the like get involved, and God forbid we reach that moment, we might have to deal with something even more sinister like a nuclear war. Look at World War I and II, that's how these started."

Already, global attention has been diverted from other ongoing silent wars that include poverty, disease, and climate change.

No winners in wars

"Africa cannot develop if there are endless wars," Monyae cautions. "What war does is to worsen the situation, because I think more people won't die of the bombs and the attacks that we see, but as an after-effect of those wars."

Massive displacement of people due to conflict also creates a breeding ground for a plethora of diseases, starvation and insecurity, particularly for women and children.

"Generational anger and frustration will threaten the stability of the affected region for decades, perhaps a century. You can't bomb your way to peace," says Monyae.

"Africa is ready to embrace Israel only if it lives by the norms and values of the international community, which is pro-human rights, and guaranteeing dignity and right of self-rule to Palestine, which is something that Africans fought for at some point. The continent sees Palestinians as a people deserving the same rights," explains Monyae.