While attending a rally organised by Jamat-e-Islami in Islamabad in support of Gaza, the federal information minister announced to accept Jamat’s proposal to officially observe August 17 as Palestine Day. The day will mark Pakistan’s solidarity with the people of Gaza who have been facing Israel’s onslaught for the last one month. The bravery shown by Gazans will be remembered for a long time among the nations who struggled against the colonial powers. Pictures depicting fallen and injured men, women and children, widespread destruction, intentional targeting of schools, hospitals and utilities, have touched every other person across the globe who can feel beyond the myopic narrow-mindedness of ethnicity and faith. In this perspective it makes sense for Pakistanis to register their protest against the Israeli brutalities.
However, we shall take exception to government’s decision to observe the Palestine Day on Aug 17. In Pakistan’s history this is the day when nation was freed of the brutal clutches of a military dictator Zia-ul-Haq. He died in a plane crash on Aug 17, 1988. It is said that Zia played a key role in a bloody offensive against the Palestinians in Jordan in 1970. It is alleged that thousands of Palestinians were killed in encounters with the Jordanian army; a black month in Palestine history also known as Black September. It is said that the then-Brigadier Zia-ul-Haq disobeyed Pakistan army’s command by leading a Jordanian armoured division against the Palestinians.
It’s now an open secret that both the Nawaz Sharif’s Muslim League and Jamat-e-Islami were the right and left hands of Zia when he ruled over Pakistan as a ruthless dictator. We don’t know whether choosing Aug 17 as Palestine Day is just an expression of guilty consciousness or something else. We request the government not to confuse the nation on Palestine issue and let the people commemorate Aug 17 as it deserves.
MASOOD KHAN
Jubail, Saudi Arabia
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