Never again, once again
This week, Europe observed Victory Day, a commemoration of the formal acceptance of Nazi Germany’s unconditional surrender on May 8, 1945, by the Allies of World War II. The development marked the official end of World War II in Europe on the Eastern Front. The political implications of this observance are manifold this year — owing to the Israel-Hamas War, which began in October last year, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, now in its third year.
In a twist of fate, the descendants of those who survived the Holocaust, which claimed the lives of over six million Jews, have now placed before the Palestinians, an existential dilemma as Israel’s army braces for an unrelenting assault on Rafah in the southern Gaza strip. The war has led to the exodus of about 80% of the territory’s population of 2.3 mn people from their homes. Over 370,000 housing units in Gaza have been damaged, including 79,000 destroyed completely, a recent report by the UN Development Program (UNDP) and the Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia said. Rebuilding Gaza’s shattered homes will take at least 16 years, i.e. until 2040, but reconstruction could drag on for decades — about 80 years to restore all the fully-destroyed housing units. Health officials have pegged the death toll to more than 34,500 people, including at least 9,500 women and 14,500 children.
The US, which has historically provided enormous amounts of military aid to Israel has taken a step back this week after President Biden said America would not supply weapons that Israel could use to launch an all-out assault on Rafah — the last major Hamas stronghold in Gaza — over apprehensions regarding the well-being of a million civilians sheltering there. An immediate ceasefire and a simultaneous release of the Israeli hostages held by Hamas, and subsequent measures towards broaching a two-state solution will be essential to maintaining regional stability. But, who’s listening?
The anxieties in the Mediterranean are echoed in the regions adjoining the Black Sea where Russian President Putin in his Victory Day speech hailed the troops fighting in Ukraine and blasted the West, accusing it of “fuelling regional conflicts, and trying to contain sovereign and independent centres of global development.” The Ukraine conflict has spiked Russia-West tensions to the highest level since the Cold War times. When Putin sent troops into Ukraine, he evoked World War II in seeking to justify his actions — essentially the denazification of Ukraine as a main goal of Moscow. Aiming to burnish the Soviet legacy and trample on any attempts to question it, Moscow has introduced laws criminalising the “rehabilitation of Nazism” that include punishing the “desecration” of memorials or challenging Kremlin versions of World War II history.
Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy, who has been running from pillar to post to secure armaments to fend off Russia’s advancements heaved a minor sigh of relief this week when EU nations reached a tentative breakthrough deal to provide Kyiv with billions in additional funds for arms and ammunitions coming from the profits raised from frozen Russian central bank assets held in the bloc. Sadly, it’s an indicator that the cessation of hostilities between Ukraine and Russia is nowhere close to ending, and a rather debilitating realisation proving the fickleness of Never Again as a catchphrase for the post-War world.
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