Cataloguing Israeli Atrocities Against Palestinians in Kamal Hassan’s “Complaining to Iqbal”

Abstract

Palestinians have been suffering at the hands of the British and then the Zionist state of Israel for about a century. Some of the tactics that Israel uses to oppress Palestinians have their antecedents in the British brutalities against them. While Israel has always received unfair support and blanket diplomatic cover from the USA and other countries, the post-9/11 global war on terror provides it with further ideological ammunition to continue mistreating and killing Palestinians. Against this background and based on Mohd. Kamal Hassan’s poem “Complaining to Iqbal,” this essay provides an account of some of the major Israeli human rights violations against Palestinians and concludes with a reflection on the current Israeli genocide in Gaza that began in early October 2023.