Gaza to Dhaka: Choosing the Wrong Side

M A Hossain :

There are moments in a nation’s life when foreign policy stops being a matter of strategy and becomes a test of memory. Bangladesh now stands at such a moment.

The Yunus-led interim government expressed willingness to send Bangladeshi troops as part of a so-called “international stabilization force” in Gaza is not merely a diplomatic misstep.

It is a moral failure—sharp, unnecessary, and historically illiterate. Bangladesh was not born in a discussion table.

It emerged from a liberation war that cost millions of lives, soaked villages in blood, and etched occupation into the national consciousness. Ours is a country whose very passport is stamped with the memory of genocide and resistance.

Gaza today faces an illegally occupied force, collective punishment, mass displacement, and the daily arithmetic of survival under siege. The parallel is not rhetorical. It is structural.

To align (directly or indirectly) with a framework that legitimizes occupation under the language of “stabilization” is to forget how Bangladesh itself came into being.

And forgetfulness appears to be the operating principle of this government.
Bangladesh is a Muslim-majority country, but this is not merely a demographic fact.

It is a moral reality. Roughly 99 percent of Bangladeshi Muslims sympathize with, and morally support, the Palestinian cause. This support is not driven by only religious perspective but also by historical empathy.

Palestinians are seen not as distant abstractions but as people living a version of what Bengalis once endured: checkpoints instead of curfews, bombed neighbourhoods instead of burnt villages, displacement instead of exile.

Against this overwhelming national sentiment, the Yunus government has chosen appeasement—specifically, appeasement of a Trump-led American administration that functions as the political shield of Benjamin Netanyahu, a man whose war conduct in Gaza has earned him global condemnation and a docket at international courts.

Let us be clear about the nature of this “stabilization force.” Words matter. Stabilization for whom? For a population reduced to rubble, or for an occupying power seeking international camouflage? Donald Trump’s idea of international stability has always been transactional, theatrical, and cruel.

From the Abraham Accords that normalized occupation without justice, to the open endorsement of Israeli maximalism, Trump’s foreign policy record in Palestine is not peacekeeping—it is erasure.

To place Bangladeshi soldiers under such a framework is to turn peacekeeping into parody and humanitarian language into a mask.

What makes this decision even more indefensible is its break with Bangladesh’s own diplomatic history.

Every government since independence (civilian or military, elected or authoritarian) has refused to recognize Israel and has consistently supported a ‘Two-State’ solution based on international law.

This was not ideological rigidity; it was principled consistency. Bangladesh understood that recognizing occupation before justice is achieved only entrenches injustice.

That tradition is now being casually discarded, not after parliamentary debate or popular mandate, but through quiet assurances exchanged in Washington corridors.

Which brings us to the most disturbing aspect of this episode: legitimacy.
The Yunus government is unelected. Interim administrations exist to manage transitions, not to mortgage sovereignty.

They are caretakers, not dealmakers. They have no democratic right to deploy the Bangladeshi army into one of the most morally charged and politically explosive conflicts on earth.

Such a decision belongs—if at all—to a government chosen by the people and accountable to them. Anything less is not policy; it is presumption.

Why, then, this haste to please Washington?
The answer is uncomfortable but unavoidable. This is not about Gaza. It is about an exit strategy. Unelected regimes know history is rarely kind to them.

They understand that accountability eventually arrives, often wearing the uniform of law.

Aligning with American strategic interests—especially under a Trump administration—offers protection, legitimacy abroad, and possibly safe passage when domestic reckoning begins. In that sense, Gaza becomes a bargaining chip, and Bangladeshi sovereignty is a currency.

The consequences of this gamble could be severe and enduring. Bangladesh’s standing in the Muslim world is not ornamental; it is economically and diplomatically vital.

Alienating Muslim-majority countries risks isolation at a time when global alignments are already volatile.

Aid flows from Muslim nations may dry up. Labour markets in the Middle East—where millions of Bangladeshi migrants work and remit lifelines back home—could tighten.

Even informal social hostility can translate into formal economic exclusion. Foreign policy is not conducted in a vacuum; it travels through airports, remittance channels, and labour ministries.

There is the question of the army itself. Bangladeshi soldiers have earned global respect through UN peacekeeping missions grounded in neutrality and humanitarian mandate.

Gaza, under the current proposal, offers neither. Any force deployed there under American-Israeli terms risks being perceived not as peacekeepers but as enablers.

That perception alone would endanger troops and stain an institution that has largely stayed above partisan politics.

Moreover, this decision within the country will create an extreme situation of disorder. On the eve of the upcoming elections, such an impulsive decision could lead the nation to the precipice of a deep political abyss.

To think that our historic and unified spirit would bow down to the decision of a few Western-backed individuals is not just a mere fantasy, but outright a wild fantasy. Observing all this, people might wonder: is this yet another part of Yunus’s “meticulous” plan?

Foreign policy choices echo. They linger. They define how a nation is remembered when the noise of press statements fades. Bangladesh once stood proudly on the side of the oppressed, not because it was fashionable, but because it was familiar.

The decision to express interest in a Gaza stabilization force—without clarity, mandate, or moral grounding—signals a departure from that inheritance.

A country born of resistance cannot afford the luxury of moral amnesia. An interim government cannot claim the authority to trade history for favour. Gaza does not need another international force that freezes injustice in place.

And Bangladesh does not need to prove its relevance by standing on the wrong side of its own story. History will judge this moment. The only question is whether Bangladesh will recognize itself in that judgment—or barely remember why it once mattered.

(The writer is a political and defense analyst based in Bangladesh. He can be reached at: [email protected])