The Parliamentary Initiative for Palestine's Freedom and Independence

Israel's genocidal barbarism against Gaza has reached its 208th day as of today. Gaza's health teams have reportedly stated that they can no longer count the dead. The number of dead identified by ID has reached 35 thousand, but with those under the rubble and the missing, it is calculated that this figure has easily reached 50 thousand. At least 20 thousand of them are children, and most of the rest are women and elderly people. That is, the Israeli genocide machine is killing more children, women, elderly people and civilians than Hamas fighters.

None of these are cases for which the excuse of "killed by mistake" could be put forward. Numbers like these are of course not recorded by mistake. On top of this, the number of health workers, press and media workers, and university professors among them has reached an unsurpassable record level compared with those lost in all wars of the modern age.

It is very clear that the genocide Israel is conducting so recklessly before the eyes of the whole world, and the crimes against humanity it is committing, rest on great arrogance, on an insolent confidence of being beyond questioning. The unlimited support of the US and the unlimited silence of the Arab countries are the greatest capital of this audacious insolence. But this capital too is being exhausted as time passes. No war arsenal is unlimited. America's unlimited support is not unlimited either, and the unlimited silence of the Arab countries is not a harbor that can be trusted forever. Even if leaders give their support, there is a limit to the tolerance of the conscience of peoples. Even if leaders stay silent, it will not be possible to silence peoples forever.

The student events now beginning at American universities, the likes of which have not been seen since the Vietnam War, are a sign of a very important "the sea has run out!" reality for Israel. Israel is now facing a revolt, from places it never expected, against the crimes it has so recklessly committed. Not only Israel but all the world powers that give it unlimited and immoderate support face the knock of a great movement of revolt at the door. We will continue to follow the university events more closely later on.

Let us not fail to mention in this context the Interparliamentary Jerusalem Platform Conference held in Istanbul last weekend. The organization, founded in Istanbul in 2015, held its 5th Conference under the title "Freedom and Independence for Palestine" with the participation of 600 parliamentarians, speakers of parliaments and deputy speakers from 80 different countries not only in the Islamic world but across the continents of Asia, Africa, Europe and Latin America. Among the participants were a significant number of parliament speakers and members of parliament, heads of parliamentary groups, heads of Palestine parliamentary committees, friendship committees, representatives of international, regional and continental parliamentary bodies, and heads of international institutions that support Palestine.

At the conference, important sessions, targeted symposia and intensive workshops were held on political, legal and humanitarian measures regarding the immediate and rapid halt of the barbaric genocidal attacks, the repercussions of the deadly punitive siege of Gaza, and the blatant policies of forced displacement carried out by the Israeli occupation against children, women, the elderly and the defenseless.

Parliamentarians by nature consist of people elected by the public. Therefore, the most important dimension that distinguishes this conference from others is that the participants have behind them the masses of people who elected them of their own free will. This means that the sensibility "for Jerusalem," which is reviving day by day all over the world and exists in a relatively disconnected form, has found a channel through which to be gathered under one unity and to form a common will. That the channel necessary for such a will has been found in Istanbul is of course quite significant, and shows what kind of defense line Türkiye is for the whole Islamic world in the cause of Jerusalem against Zionist occupying aggression.

With the genocide it continues in its seventh month with all its barbarism, Israel warns and awakens a greater number of people every day to the truth that it constitutes a threat not only to Gaza, not even only to the Islamic world, but to all humanity. The time that passes does not only allow it to make progress in its own aggression and to raise the bar of baseness even higher; at the same time, it lifts all the veils about its own reality in the eyes of more people. In the end an unmistakable picture of Israeli cruelty, injustice, genocidal nature, mendacity and conspiratorial scheming plainly emerges. The narrative that presents Israel as the only functioning democracy in the Middle East is collapsing, and beneath it emerges the disgusting hypocrisy of the modern world. Moreover, the narrative that presents Israel as one of the world's greatest powers with its war and intelligence machines is also collapsing, and beneath it a structure that is extremely cowardly, incompetent, bewildered and dull-witted becomes visible.

Everyone now knows better that Israel does not consist of Israel alone. The struggle against it is not waged by targeting Israel alone. This struggle cannot be waged without settling accounts with the hypocritical world order behind it. The 5th Conference of the Interparliamentary Jerusalem Platform is a sign that precisely this consciousness has awakened further, but at the same time it was held in an atmosphere that revives this consciousness still more. The parliamentarians who came from every corner of the world and who have a certain representation behind them actually reflect the sociological ground of the slogan "the world is bigger than 5," which Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has voiced for years.

The conference, whose opening speech was delivered by President Erdoğan, thus became an occasion on which Türkiye gave operability to the new axis rising against the Israel-centered world order.

Israel and its patrons, without knowing it and without wanting it, are bringing about the Islamic Unity that Muslims have sought for a century, and even, on a wider scale, a true unity of humankind.

After all, where the danger grows, the saving power grows too, God willing.