Theirs was a classic Father/Daughter story. She was the apple of his eyes. His Miss Nigeria if not Miss Universe. He was her knight in shining armor. The one person who could do no wrong. She sat on his knees into her teens – much longer than many puritans would deem acceptable. He was putty in her hands and her siblings knew where to go if they needed difficult favors from their dad. It was at her late adolescence, that deeply emotional stage in life when family stability is most important, that her world came crashing down.

Her father, her pillar, suddenly left home to live with another woman leaving the family distraught. It was to be expected that bitter comments were made about him around the house by sympathizers and probably busybodies. Although she felt the betrayal as deeply as her mother, or even more, she couldn’t bring herself to say hurtful words against her father. So she would remain silent and sullen whenever negative comments were being made against him. But the whole experience was a learning process for her. She gained new insights about her father from the discussions around her which made some emotional scales to fall off. That he could break up a once cozy family, let alone her world so easily, so remorselessly, shook her to the bones and said a lot about the man who had been her everything.

I can identify with the lady’s feelings – she is a young lady now. She is now understandably more analytical, if not cynical of her father’s subsequent moves. The starry eyed young girl had died to be replaced by a careful, wary lady. I can relate to this because in some ways, her feelings describe some of my feelings about Israel. I grew up in a very religious home where morning and evening prayer sessions were parts of our lives and Sunday worship was obligatory. It was not surprising that my romance with Israel started early.

In fact, the tendency to embrace Israel was encouraged by everything around me. In any case, the Bible, the Christian lodestar, made it clear that Israel was God’s chosen country and Jews were God’s chosen people. We were also enjoined to pray ‘for the good of Jerusalem’ with the caveat that we would prosper if we did – Jerusalem is in Israel. I therefore saw the resolution which created the Jewish State as one of the most important accomplishments of the UN. And also as a fulfillment of God’s promise to His people to find a permanent home for them.

So early and so deep was my romance with Israel that I couldn’t be happier even if I was a Jew about their new place in the sun. Especially after the German persecutions which reminded one of their sojourn in ancient Egypt. I was also proud of their subsequent military conquests, taking each victory against its powerful neighbors personally. I was delirious about the six-day war of 1967 when Israel humiliated those who ganged up against it. That war for me, was God miraculously delivering His people as He did for the Israelites several times in the ancient times as recorded in the Bible. In fact, I ascribed every persecution, every act of anti- Semitism, to antics of godless people. Or even agents of anti-Christ which had been foretold in the Bible.

The scales began to fall off when I visited Israel. I went as a Pilgrim. But I am also a journalist. I found that some of the ancient sites one read about in the Bible had been modified or even recreated probably for tourism purposes. I found that tourism meant more to them than Christianity. Worse, I found that Christians in Israel were treated almost like an aberration in the scheme of things- something that was attested to recently when a Cardinal was denied worship on ‘safety’ grounds. What really got to me though, was my visit to Gaza even after I was blithely told it was unsafe to go there.

What I saw was man’s inhumanity to man on a scale that surprised even a hardened traveler like me. I knew it was unsustainable and that the bottled bitterness would erupt someday. It did in October last year. Israel reacted with a fury that showed it was somehow expecting the attack and wanted to use the opportunity to teach a lesson or two. What has happened since then has been a destruction and an unleashing of terror, yes, terror, at a level that is embarrassing to anyone who has a conscience irrespective of race or religion. Hospitals are being deliberately targeted. Homes are being deliberately targeted. Children are being deliberately targeted. In fact, the entire civilization and future of a people are being deliberately targeted.

Journalists, recorders of truth, are being deliberately targeted. Israel’s claims of fighting an existential battle is used as a defense for trying to exterminate a whole race. But Israel seems to forget that others have a right to exist as well. Surely, the solution cannot be to wipe out every Palestinian and every Lebanese from the face of the earth and take-over their land. Or subjugate them and cower them into submission. They too face an existential battle. They have a right to live in dignity. Israel acts as if one Jew is more important than fifty, hundred Palestinians. But that runs contrarily to the way of a civilized world which professes that ‘all men are created equal’ or even the way of a God who constantly fights for the underdog. It is also an attitude which makes sitting around a table to discuss an inevitable two State solution difficult.

Israel wants to be the only Superpower in the Middle-East. We have got to ask if Israel can be trusted with such a position given the cruel, heartless manner it has used what it has and given the devious way it has manipulated the only Superpower the world currently has? Israel doesn’t care if it helps to destabilize the world economic order. It doesn’t care if the Middle-East is destabilized politically – it might even be angling for that. Israel wants to be the only game in town even if it means dropping bombs on its neighbors. The world might have to decide soon which country is more dangerous for regional and world peace between Iran which also claims to be facing an existential threat and Israel.

One positive though – if one can find any – is that every country has to define its strategic interests and pursue them. Israel has also proved the importance of self-sufficiency to the wellbeing of a nation – the world defers to countries which can defend and provide for themselves. Nigeria and many African countries need to learn this lesson. They need to remove the scales that suggest, even remotely, that other countries, East or West, have their interests in mind. Self-sufficiency must be the goal of any progressive country.

•Muyiwa Adetiba is a veteran journalist and publisher. He can be reached via titbits2012@yahoo.com

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