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A call for a summit for peace
It is time that leaders of states, like-minded in their belief in the efficacy of diplomacy and dialogue as means to address and manage conflict situations, stand up and be counted.
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Collapse: A Palestinian civil defense member stands through a crack in a collapsed building hit by Israeli bombardment while searching for victims and survivors, in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on Oct. 19, 2023. (AFP/Mahmud Hams)
Our world stands at a precipice. Conflicts, simmering as well as open, permeate. The heart-rendering situation in Gaza today is merely the latest.
Few regions have been exempt from conflicts. The human costs have been incalculable. Predictably, the most vulnerable, children especially, have borne the brunt of the suffering.
Generations knowing nothing but conflict; deprived of their inherent rights simply to be children.
Millions of innocent civilians are internally displaced or seeking refuge in distant lands, victims of power plays, often conveniently forgotten. Material gains made during intermittent periods of peace instantly perish as weapons of war demonstrate their immense destructive capacities.
The advent of so-called “smart weapons” cannot hide the reality of the indiscriminate nature of weapons of war. Nothing justifies the bombings of hospitals and of homes caring for and providing shelter for civilians.
Amid such inexplicable rampages, global common issues that demand cooperative partnership among nations, the eradication of poverty, addressing climate change and preparing for natural disasters and promoting public health, to cite a few, remain forlorn.
Far from rallying around common causes, nations have found capacities to inject the competitive dynamics of their geopolitical rivalries into such areas; “weaponizing” issues that deserve better.
