• How Palestine shows Western nations have not learned the lessons of Bosnia
• Why Bosnia gives hope to Palestine
As I walked into the graveyard of Srebrenica whilst absorbing the countless names written on the stones of where the largest European massacre since World War two had occurred; our tour guide turns to us and tells us about the horrors that took place in 1992 in which more than 8000 Bosnian men and boys were massacred. We learned that it was the most vulnerable area of Bosnia that was attacked first and it was the most vulnerable who paid the price. The government of Serbia had for a long time believed that parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina belonged to the Serbian people and that the only way to gain control of these territories was to annex them. However, as it tried to do so it was proven that instead of driving the Bosnians out of these territories they thought it would be better to indiscriminately exterminate the men and boys and leave the women to be raped by Serbian soldiers to give birth to Serbian children. In other words, Serbia believed Ethnic cleansing was a necessity to accomplish their goals of a greater Serbian state.
UN for nothing
As we as tourists walked into and observed the history of the massacres in the Srebrenica memorial museum adjacent to the graveyard, we learned that the United nations although internationally recognised, was unable to stop this massacre from taking place and had in fact helped round up the Bosnian refugees who were trying to get away by providing safe zones that they were unable to protect. Although UN condemnation was amplified with condemnation from member states from all parts of the world there was inaction on almost every front. Not even the leaders of the United Kingdom or the USA who only two years ago before this conflict, had glamorously shown they have the capabilities and so-called moral wit to stand up against Saddam Hussein who was invading Kuwait.
The world was loud in voice but silent in action and nothing effective was done to aid the Bosnian people against the Serbs for years rather the Bosnians had to rely on handmade weapons and handmade tunnels to resist an army that was far larger and had far more access to modern weaponry.
Similarities between Serbian and Israeli aggression
The comparison that can be made between the genocide in Bosnia and this Israeli ground invasion is that number one; Israel far outnumbers the Gazan resistance and number two; has far more access to modern weaponry compared to Gaza and number three; is systematically giving the notion it is allowing the Gazan Palestinian civilians to flee south only to continue its bombardment of both the south and north of Gaza. Israel has shown that it is pretending to work with the international community by allowing hundreds of thousands of people to flee to an area of Gaza only to bomb them in the process. This is a stark similarity to the war in Bosnia when under UN supervision the elderly and children were taken on buses to UN administered so called safe areas only to be massacred later by Serbs. The situation in Gaza is reminiscent of the situation in Bosnia one generation ago. Just like the blockade on Gaza that has forced the resistance to develop its own techniques and weapons, in Bosnia there was a UN arms embargo supported and propagated by the west against the Bosnian people. This in turn meant that Bosnia, a nation that had no real army and military was virtually defenceless against the post-yugoslavian Serbian army that was already trained, armed, stockpiled and prepared when it came to war.
Parallel struggles between the resistance
In the early days of my visit my tour guide who was a former Bosnian commander himself, took me across the capital of Sarajevo to one of the largest tunnels built by the majority untrained Bosnian resistance. He showed us a wall of strange looking handheld metallic projectiles. He told us at the start of the conflict he, being a commander of a Bosnian battalion of 1000 people had to handmake guns to fight and resist the siege of Sarajevo. It is true that the arms embargo meant that Bosnia had not had access to many weapons and men however just like many factions within the Palestinian resistance have done, the Bosnians had imported, created and most cunning of all, integrated weapons from the black market. It was through these practices as well as with the help of a rogue power who was not afraid to challenge the United Nations calls for arms embargo that Bosnia was able to arm itself. That rogue nation was Iran.
Just as we turn on our screens and hear an Iranian proxy fire missiles into mainland Israeli territory during this ground invasion of Gaza by Israel, we also learned that it was Iran who helped in the production of missiles and drones that the Palestinian resistance and was able to use them to both attack and distract Israel and Israeli forces. As a matter of fact it was Iran who was the main exporter of weaponry to multiple areas of Palestine through smuggling networks it had across the Israel borders of Egypt and Jordan. Therefore, we see parallel strategies between the situation in Bosnia from 1992 and Gaza from what happened and is happening both before and during this amplification of Israeli aggression from October the 7th.
Public opinion and outcry shows the West has not learned from Bosnia
The international community had left Bosnia to suffer for years and prevented any real help from reaching it even when the population of many of these same countries were trying to call for action. In the UK in April 1993, more than two out of three people in a Mori poll supported the dispatch of British troops, while in February 1994 over half wanted air strikes against the Bosnian Serbs. Yet according to the US ambassador to London from 1993-1998 ‘NATOs failure to act militarily lay in London’. We see something similar but of a lesser magnitude in the UK today when it comes to the issues on Palestine. Today we see that some of the biggest protests in UK history have happened in support of Palestine, a ceasefire and a complete stop of aggression from Israel. This reality on the ground was even acknowledged by the mainstream media yet remains opposed in both government and the vast majority of parliament.
How Bosnia provides hope to the Palestinian resistance
The tunnel of hope is the largest tunnel that was built by the Bosnians in order to supply the capital Sarajevo with weapons, food and most of all hope for an unpredictable victory. The best defence against a modern army according to analysts is an urban environment and its things like tunnels such as those used by the Vietcong in Vietnam or used by the Ukrainian soldiers in Azov that there has either been victory of oppressed people from aggressors or an immense casualty rate on invading forces. In Bosnia it was both. It was firstly in Sarajevo that the resistance started to push back and it was only in Sarajevo that the new government of the state of Bosnia was formed and it was in Sarajevo where tunnels were used. Just as the Bosnians were able to push back against a stronger power with barely a thread of help from the international community; the Palestinians have been very well in showing unexpected resistance against the Israeli troops to the extent that even Prime minister Netenyahu of Israel said this ground invasion of Gaza will be ‘long and difficult’. Meanwhile former US general Petraeus who no longer has his opinions dictated to him by the government or military elite of the US has said a Gaza ground war could be ‘Mogadishu on steroids’. Something to note is that the Palestinian conflict has been going on for 75 years whilst the Bosnian war was much smaller in longevity. This provides more evidence that the Palestinian resistance has been and is able to not just adapt much better to the conflict encompassing it but also had time to prepare with similar guarantees that Bosnia had to face, the most challenging being the inaction of the international community as discussed.
Something Bosnia still suffers from to this day is that its pre-Bosnian territory still remains in the hands of the Serbian Bosniak population after they were annexed by Serbia; again, a stark similarity between the occupied Palestinian territories and Bosnia today. A looming conflict seems to be coming nearer and nearer as the days go by with Serbia artificially creating tensions on both the Bosnia and Kosovo borders they neighbour. It is tensions like these which may provoke Bosnian people or factions to lash out only causing a massive retaliation by the Serbs in the form of war. The Palestinians have and continue to face this current crisis as the massacre of more than 200 unarmed peaceful protesters in the Gazan territory in March 2019 has proven that Israel just like Serbia, had hoped for tensions to flare up for them to have a justified reason to invade Bosnia.
Within the west bank of Palestine and nearby regions there are thousands of Israeli civilians who have been armed by the Israeli government. National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir announced in October that his ministry is purchasing 10,000 rifles to arm civilian security teams, specifically those in towns close to Israel’s borders around the country, as well as mixed Jewish-Arab cities and West Bank settlements. This disregard for Palestinian lives in the west bank by arming civilians whom majority have dehumanising views when it comes to Arabs and in particular Palestinians is again comparable to the arming of the Serbian civilian population who were living in Bosnia during the war. A lot of the atrocities were done both by the Serbian military but also by the Serbian Bosniak people who were living side by side with the ethnic Bosnians for decades. Even since the 7th of October alone 200 Palestinians were killed in the west bank by either the Israeli military, police force or armed settlers whom the malicious western media like to call civilians. Again, a stark similarity between Bosnia and Palestine today. The western nations have chosen to blind themselves from the lines of symmetry that are encapsulated by the circle of similarities between Bosnia and Palestine. Just like the atrocity of Bosnia had labelled the west in being complicit in allowing it to happen by standing by. History will remember how the West not just stood by as Palestine burned but even propagated it to happen and were directly involved by sending weapons and dollars.
The endgame from Bosnia to Palestine
All in all, in the end after years of fighting from the Bosnian people, Bosnia was able to become its own state and in the present is far better prepped and ready for a conflict in the future. Although the Palestinian conflict has been going on for 75 years it’s base cause for freedom, justice and reclamation is like Bosnia’s. If the lines of symmetry for Palestine are conducive of a similar ending to the plight of the Bosnian people, then we can hope that Palestine will indeed be free whilst historians will question the complicity of the West and affiliated nations.
Palestinian history in resistance outdoes the western support Israel lives off
The Palestinian resistance has only gained in strength and number. Tactics from the likes of Ukraine and Afghanistan were implemented throughout the west bank and Gaza strip over the year. One of them being the use of IEDs, something which was responsible for most American casualties in Afghanistan. Although Bosnia was not helped by the international community the Bosnian people were not up against NATO or the west as Palestine seems to be. The ceasefires and pauses in fighting caused by the international community and Israeli political exhaustion has meant the 75 years of Palestinian suffering has allowed for 75 years of experience and therefore 75 years of preparation. It’s this that has allowed Palestine to survive against the once rejected son of western civilisation. And it’s experience like this that will play part in the perseverance in oppressed people across the world and it’s this that will play a part in the defeat of Israel.
