By Tim Akano
On October 7, 2023, the sands in the Middle East shifted, the walls fractured, and her ceiling tilted “the egg” was broken. Things Fell Apart, the center of gravity caved in, and since then, the falcon can no longer hear the falconer.
For the past 3000 years, both Israelis and Palestinians have been involved in an existential battle, a kind of zero sum political game. Hamas pulled the first trigger that pushed Middle East into a bottomless dark hole on October 7. It was very bad. In fact, it was worse!
Between 6:29 am to 8am on October 7, Hamas had slaughtered about 1,200 Jews, some were roasted like suya meat. Hundreds of Jews were captured while attending a music festival, and some died in captivity. To add insult to an injury, Hamas recorded these horrendous killings on videos and shared them on the social media. However, since Israeli doesn’t follow the teachings of Jesus Christ, that is, praying for the enemies or turning the right cheek if the left cheek is slapped, it rolled out her tanks, and mobilized over 60,000 reservists in accordance with the Mosaic Doctrine of “an eye for an eye”.
Roughly, as at today, about 70,000 Palestinians have been killed, 1,983 Israelis, 217 journalists, 120 academics, 224 humanitarian and aid workers. Gaza is presently unrecognizable. Hamas is crippled, having lost over 25,000 soldiers. Hezbollah has been degraded and humiliated, having lost her entire top leaders. Iran still can’t believe what hit her. Her nuclear program suffered a partial stroke and exposed Iran’s huge vulnerabilities in the Middle East Geopolitics. Also, Yemen and Syria suffered collateral damages. What of Israel? She lost her Western friends and allies and more importantly, she lost considerable international Goodwill! It was a loose -loose unnecessary bloodletting ventures.
I penned an article on the morning of October 7, 2023, where I said: “there is no military solution to the Middle East problems and no religious solution either. There is also no ethnic solution. The only solution is “H-S” (Humanity Solution)”. Israel is a reality in the Middle East. Ditto Palestinians. We have to accept the reality. This is why I advised Hamas to quickly release the hostages within 7 hours with a view to making the inevitable pending counterattacks by IDF less devastating and largely unjustifiable. Unfortunately, Hamas got carried away by the overwhelming applause she got from certain quarters, equating NOISE and SIGNALS to be one and the same.
Hamas probably didn’t read Mandela and Nehru admonition that “the best military tacticians and freedom fighters possess the uncommon intuition (6th sense) to distinguish Noise from Signal and Signal from sound” Hamas ignored the voice of reason, wisdom and courage. Her gamble has brought untold suffering to the Palestinians. This showed lack of lateral thinking on the part of Hamas leadership.
Every death of an innocent soul diminishes my sense of humanity. It is sad watching those children in Gaza daily struggling for food. They are homeless, hopeless, helpless, hungry, angry and neglected by humanity. “Hmm… It could have been me!” I frequently soliloquize when I watch Aljazeera TV.
However, those Israelis hostages under Hamas captivity who wake up every morning for the past 2 years in a dark, unmarked tunnel, with Hamas guns pointing on their heads equally diminishes my sense of humanity. Any of those hostages too could have been me or you.
THE SEVEN LESSONS
1.Power is power! Though Hamas struck first, killed 1,200 Jews, but the balance of power cum balance of terror are in IDF’s favor not Iran and Hezbollah that pushed Hamas inside the lion’s den.
2.Technology, since the stone age has remained the center of gravity in power calculus. Who the top dog is and who becomes an underdog is a function of technology superiority and technical Know-How. There is no argument about that.
Greek was the center of the universe in 48BC when the Greek astronomer, Andronicus of Cyrrhus invented Wind Vane. When Thomas Savery, an English inventor invented steam engine in 1698, which was perfected by the Scottish Scientist, James Watt in 1769, UK became the top dog. When China invented the gunpowder in the mid-9th century by a Daoist alchemist seeking an immortality elixir, China was the top dog by the 10th century.
Today, technologically speaking, the combination of America military industrial complex juxtaposed with the MOSSAD cutting edge intelligence is the reason behind America’s veto on geopolitics and also the reason responsible for Israeli military hegemony in the Middle East.
If Mandela was alive, he would have advised Hamas that it had less than 1% chance of winning the war she ignited on October 7th. There is no point starting a fight you can’t win.
3.War is ugly, dirty and stupid! It is only human stupidity that makes war inevitable. Although, one cannot underestimate the degree of human stupidity.
4.The best of military architecture, infrastructure and intelligence can fail. Safety is of the Lord in the ultimate analysis. On October 7th, Israel’s multilayered military architecture was TEMPORARILY violated by Hamas. The intelligence escaped the MOSSAD’s eagle eyes when it mattered most for their country.
5.Conflicts and wars don’t solve problems. Warriors will still have to sit face-to-face on a round table to agree, disagree and re-agree. This is happening right now in Cairo as I write. Shouldn’t they have done this on October 8th before IDF crossed the Rubicon?
6.In a fractured, fluid, and fragile world, like we have today, countries that opt for war may realize that they are on their own
There is nobody to separate fighters as there is fire worldwide.
The sky is getting dark for France. Britain is in a sorry state, economically speaking. China is trying to decode the new world order. Russia is bleeding. America is on a state of confusion.
Nigeria and Africa should work harder in resolving political disagreements. This is not the best time for war.
7.Finally, not all problems in the world can be solved using BODMAS. I recently wrote an article where I likened the Middle East crisis to Riemann Hypothesis Riemann Hypothesis is one of the seven Millennium Prize Problems, i.e. the seven most difficult unsolved mathematical equations in history.
The Creator of the universe sometimes gives us some Riemann hypothesis political and social problems to solve, with a view to testing our state of maturity and spiritual awakening.
Humanity cannot solve certain problems except there is a transformation and shift in our consciousness where we realize our true identity beyond society conditioning and ego, leading to a deeper understanding of the world.
This transformative process entails expansion of awareness and a desire to live authentically and in alignment with a deeper purpose. Humanity is one, and nature abhors a situation to be mismanaged in perpetuity.
The two nations desire peace and security, the two cousins have to dedicate a decade for Truth and Reconciliation tagged DECADE OF FHT (Forgiveness, Healing and Trust) The hatred is so deep that it will take up to ten years of deliberate and genuine activities to bring about peace in the Middle East.
The fact that the Middle East problem has remained a Riemann hypothesis for the past 3000 years is enough to make all of us humble. Human-beings shouldn’t take themselves too seriously because we are badly and embarrassingly limited, despite the level of our technological innovation, declarative, conceptual, and metacognitive knowledge. What we don’t know is more than what we know about the way the world is structured.
CONCLUSION
The Trump’s 20-point Agenda is not what will usher in permanent peace in the Middle East. The ongoing negotiations in Cairo is good but I call for cautious optimism as it is not yet Eureka! Yes! Trump and Cairo have pushed the envelope of a cease fire from the state of probability to the state of possibility. Thanks to Trump and Sisi. However, to have a peaceful Middle East requires more than a simplistic political solution. The 3000-year old problem has a spiritual dimension which can only be ignored at humanity peril.
