The Warring nature of Humans!

According to Storr, man is an aggressive creature. But with the exception of certain rodents, no other vertebrate habitually destroys members of his own species. No other animal takes positive pleasure in the exercise of cruelty upon another of his own kind. Stating that humans behave like animals in war is something of an insult to animals since there are virtually no other creatures who do what we do to our own kind.

What is it that makes us horrendous and awful during a battle where we lose all the sense of morality and march forward for the heads and bones of people we don’t even know. People whom we met otherwise, we would feel the social need to not embarrass ourselves in front of. Unfortunately, enough war has been the second leading reason for mass destruction and civilities, while still being endorsed by many countries in the name of resource geo-politics. This adamant nature of humans to wage illegitimate war against each other has never been proven to be biological. Are we viscerally-fighting for mass genocide? Is that how far away we are from reality? It is however deemed as a form of aggression but are humans really hardwired to kill each other?

Nation-states can explain their reasons to channelise war as resource attainment or even nationalism – if you are Briton you get the premium membership of using the reason “had to civilise the barbarians” – but it can never justify the act of killing millions of people for nothing more than the transient concept of human ego. A gist of what Israel is terrorising Palestine for. Although, the difference here is that the media and the hegemonies call it war; just like they called the annexation of Kashmir, Austria, Congo, Syria by foreign forces “WARS”. So humans now become not just hardwired to kill but also to intercept. Annexation of a territory is never war, the oppressed never start it, they just defend; more often or not, they just rebel and are martyred. This tyranny impelled upon a group of innocent civilians is never war and is not human nature.

To contest further on, the Palestine-Israeli “conflict” is again a result of war. The consequences of Britain’s own misjudgment and incapabilities in the light of the two World Wars is what lead to this subjugation of Palestine by Israel. The zionist movement which originally populated a nation where jews could belong later became the power to usurp a nation of Palestinians who were trying to coexist with each other. It becomes imperative to note that the inadequacies caused by Britain’s League of Nations mandate in establishing an explicit boundary between the Israeli and the Palestinian state is what caused Israel to expand their state and resulted in several hundred thousand Palestinian refugees. This was then War, a nature of humans to decide their fate by aggression. This was how the Israeli forced demanded sovereignty, how they defeated the Arab forces not ready to be conjured. They waged a war, an obvious and illegitimate one but they did for their own upheld sense of nationalism. And the result?

The result was Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip since 1967, six-day war and many casualties. Palestinians demanded withdrawal from all of the land conquered in 1967 and evacuation of the settlements. Israel continued to expand settlements throughout the peace process that began in 1993 and continues to do so today. The Palestinians here do not belong to a particular religion, they are the natural descendants of people inhabiting the region for over thousands of years. People who belong to Islam, Christianity and Judaism themselves, people who are paying the price by losing all sense of hope. About 726,000 Palestinians were expelled or fled their homes in 1948 during the war that followed the creation of Israel, and additional Palestinians fled in 1967. There are now about 4 million Palestinian refugees. Many of them now live in crowded refugee camps in poor conditions in the West Bank and Gaza, in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq; and so Palestinians demand that these refugees should have the right to return to their homes in Israel. The land that Israel captured illegally and with coercion.

Ironically, of all the nations one would expect a jewish nation to understand and empathise with ethnic cleansing. Warrantably, this is not a popular opinion. The popular opinion is that humans are supposed to go to war for several different reasons, they are supposed to kill people in the name of what matters to them. It is globally supported that war is inevitable, but again, if Israel were a human I’d ask him why is he stabbing Palestine when he was the one who accepted him during his most vulnerable time?

Amber is a student pursuing English Literature from Jamia Millia Islamia.

Edited by: Samra Ejaz

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the author. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of The Jamia Review or its members.