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It is rightly said that history is the best teacher. This is true, first, because it allows us to learn from past events, avoid repeating mistakes, and thereby guide future actions. Second, history reveals who and what-individuals, communities, and systems-were right or wrong, based on the legacies they left behind and the extent to which they made the world better or worse.
In this regard, the words of Jesus are also instructive: "By their fruits you will recognize them" (Matthew 7:20)-not by ostensible appearances or claims, but by the tangible outcomes they produce.
According to this principle, the Zionist enterprise culminating in the establishment and continued existence of the state of Israel offers no legitimate justification for its origins or its enduring presence.
The entire mosaic of its ideological foundation-beginning with Theodor Herzl and later refined and translated into socio-political reality by prominent Zionist figures such as Ze'ev Jabotinsky, Martin Buber, Louis Brandeis, Chaim Weizmann, and even Albert Einstein-was facilitated through both covert and overt collaboration with British colonial authorities in Palestine.
The eventual creation of Israel, followed by decades of expansionism, constitutes a sequence of undertakings marked by morally, intellectually, and humanely, unacceptable intentions, methods, and consequences. These actions, judged by their historical results (fruits), reveal a legacy of harm rather than benefit, of malevolence rather than virtue.
There is little doubt that the West-historically the principal architect and executor of antisemitism-welcomed the Zionist proposal. Through it, Western powers gradually displaced what they perceived as the "Jewish problem," confining it within a geopolitical enclave from which its inhabitants would have limited freedom to live and operate. This is why insightful Jewish figures such as Edwin Montagu, the only Jew to hold a senior position in the British government at the time, viewed the Zionist project as a conspicuous and painful manifestation of antisemitism.
Furthermore, the establishment of Israel-driven by hostile intent and situated in the heart of the Muslim world-was designed to pit Jews against their only proven ally and historical friend: Muslims. In doing so, the West achieved a dual objective: setting its two perceived adversaries against one another, while retaining the freedom to operate behind the scenes and pursue its broader strategic interests.
Ultimately, Islam and Muslims were seen as posing a greater civilizational challenge to Western dominance than Jewry, hence the emergence of a hypocritical alliance-a marriage of convenience-between the two poles. In actual fact, the West has never ceased to be antisemitic, nor is it likely to do so. From the outset, Muslims were the primary target. Their potential to disrupt prevailing global orders had to be contained, by any means necessary.
Accordingly, Zionists in Palestine were expected to embody peace-loving ideals and contribute to the common good. Buber emphasized that Zionist settlers did not arrive as typical colonial agents from the Occident, who relied on native labor. Instead, he claimed, "they themselves set their shoulders to the plow and they spend their strength and their blood to make the land fruitful." He continued: "But it is not only for ourselves that we desire its fertility. The Jewish farmers have begun to teach their brothers the Arab farmers to cultivate the land more intensively; we desire to teach them further: together with them we want to cultivate the land-to 'serve' it, as the Hebrew has it. The more fertile this soil becomes, the more space there will be for us and for them. We have no desire to dispossess them: we want to live with them. We do not want to dominate them, we want to serve with them."
Buber concluded his appeal by stating: "I belong to a group of people who from the time Britain conquered Palestine have not ceased to strive for the concluding of a genuine peace between Jew and Arab." This emphatic statement was part of his response to Mahatma Gandhi, who had criticized Zionist ideology by affirming the obvious: that Palestine belongs to the Arabs, and that it was both wrong and inhumane to impose the Jews upon them (Martin Buber: Israel and the World).
Similar accounts are also found in the compilation of speeches and writings on Jewish nationalism by Louis Brandeis (d. 1941), a prominent American lawyer and Zionist activist. He claimed, for instance, that Zionists would conduct themselves in Palestine in a manner that preserved the interests and respected the rights of all inhabitants: Jews, Christians, and Muslims alike.
According to Brandeis, the prospects for coexistence in the Holy Land were bright. He wrote: "But those who feel themselves responsible for affairs recognize that prosperity for Palestine must mean prosperity for all classes of its inhabitants. No one who has been in Palestine can doubt that the Arabs of Palestine, the Christian Arabs, of whom there are relatively few, and the Moslems who live there have been greatly benefited by what the Jews have done there. I do not refer only to those Arabs who have benefited by selling their lands at very high prices; I refer also to the Arab laborer and the Arab shopkeeper."
At the same time, however, Einstein maintained that "one of the most extraordinary features of the Jewish rebuilding of Palestine is that the influx of Jewish pioneers has resulted not in the displacement and impoverishment of the local Arab population, but in its phenomenal increase and greater prosperity." This statement reflected the Zionist idealism that, critics argue, was shaped within ideological cocoons.
Few outside the West-Zionist unholy alliance accepted such narratives. Among them was Jawaharlal Nehru, then Prime Minister of India, who responded pointedly to Einstein's claims: "I know that the Jews have done a wonderful piece of work in Palestine and have raised the standards of the people there, but one question troubles me. After all these remarkable achievements, why have they failed to gain the goodwill of the Arabs? Why do they want to compel the Arabs to submit against their will to certain demands? That way of approach has been one which does not lead to a settlement, but rather to the continuation of British rule in Palestine" (From an exchange of letters between Einstein and Nehru in 1947, on the eve of Israel's creation.)
Even the butcher of all butchers, the current Israeli Prime Minister and indicted war criminal for overseeing the Gaza genocide, Benjamin Netanyahu, claimed his and his country's innocence, placing all blame for the troubles on the Arabs. In his book "A Place Among the Nations: Israel and the World," he rumbled: "I write as an Israeli who wishes to see a secure Israel at peace with its neighbors, and who profoundly believes that peace cannot be conjured up out of vapid pronouncements. Unless it is built on a foundation of truth, peace will founder on the jagged rocks of Middle Eastern realities. Indeed, the Arab world's main weapon in its century-old war against the Jewish National Home has been the weapon of untruth. For many people around the world, and for some in Israel itself, the fundamental facts of this conflict have been distorted and obfuscated-about the nature of Zionism, the justice of its cause, the sources of the Arabs' intractable hostility to the Jewish state, and the barriers that have locked peace out of a violent region."
Israel has functioned as a rogue state governed by an apartheid regime, one that speaks of peace only when it demands total submission, compliance, and misery from the "other." Peace, in its vocabulary, means impunity to act as it pleases while pursuing its diabolical objective of Zionist hegemony across the region.
The ongoing genocide in Gaza-waged simply because the courageous people of the enclave, led by the freedom fighters of Hamas, refuse to be humiliated, discriminated against, and oppressed on a scale unparalleled in modern history-is the most powerful and undeniable evidence of what Israel truly is, and who the Zionists are. The current regime stands as the incarnation of evil: its officials are domestic criminals and international state terrorists.
Their behavior mirrors that of a coldblooded serial killer-leaving behind corpses wherever they go, only to return home and dine with their families as if nothing has happened. They emerged on the global stage in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are-and continue to act as-ravenous wolves.
After all, what can one expect from an entity whose very foundation-and the advancement of its overstated prosperity-rests on the pillars of colonialism, land theft, forced expulsion, cruelty, exclusivism, discrimination, and bloodshed? To say that Israel's identity, historical narrative, and future aspirations are fabricated would be an understatement. They are not only false, they are soaked in the innocent blood of Palestinians and erected upon the latter's stolen lands, looted properties, and shattered futures.
Under such circumstances, what could possibly go right? The enduring axiom remains: if Israel were not illegal, it would not require illegal means to be created, sustained, and defended.
The Arab Revolt of 1916 against the Ottomans, fellow Muslims who shared the same destiny, marked the beginning of a Muslim civilizational freefall. It was a betrayal orchestrated by colonial schemers, pushing the ummah towards Golgotha with a guillotine waiting. What followed was humiliation after humiliation: cultural, political, spiritual. The Muslim presence became synonymous with inconsequentiality.
Today, the catastrophe in Gaza, already apocalyptic in scale, is the apex of this gargantuan edifice of dishonor. Tens of thousands of innocents-elderly, women, children-are being systematically slaughtered. Entire populations are being exterminated before the eyes of hundreds of millions of Muslims, and yet no one can do anything. Those who dare speak or act meaningfully are silenced or cruelly removed. This, surely, is the epitome of shame and failure. How will we answer to our Creator on the Day of Judgment? What justification can we possibly offer for the spilled blood of our innocent brothers and sisters?
The latest example was the recent Zionist attack on Qatar, conjured from monstrous fantasies. What followed was a salvo of empty words, hollow condemnations, and verbal posturing. Should this not be the final straw, the moment we open our eyes, see things as they truly are, discern friend from foe, and distinguish truth from falsehood? How much deeper must we sink before we admit we've hit rock bottom?
Before that, furthermore, the 51st Session of the OIC Council of Foreign Ministers in Istanbul (June 2025), after 19 months of brazen genocidal slaughter, could only "condemn," "express concern," "voice support," "sympathize," "articulate solidarity." A thesaurus of impotence. It follows that the less we act and speak, the less we expose our own deficiencies and malfunctions. Perhaps introspective silence is more productive-less noise, more clarity. It may be the very stillness that stirs decisive, affirmative action.
And yet, paradoxically, Gaza stands as the only truly free Muslim territory. It is there that people live with honor and are ready to die with it. Gaza is the crucible of dignity, the last bastion of principled defiance.
Muslims must stop flirting with failed ideologies. These ideologies have kept us in limbo, hitting dead ends whenever we seek meaningful progress. Humiliation must give way to honor. Let us learn from Gaza and its most exemplary freedom fighters-Hamas-what faith, determination, sacrifice, dignity, and self-worth truly mean.
Let us liberate ourselves before liberating Gaza. Self-liberation is the prerequisite for meaningful resistance; Gaza's freedom begins with ours. Before Gaza can be free, we must free ourselves from cowardice, corruption, and complicity.
We, both Sunnis and Shi'is, are closest to each other, regardless of our differences or levels of piety. The worst of Muslims is closer to fellow Muslims than the best of their enemies. We must stop listening to the devilish whispers of the West-Israel axis of evil that try to convince us otherwise.
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