Articles

Peace in Israel and Kashmir

The Palestinians are demanding that all those (their children and grand children who are born later) who fled Israel in the war of independence in 1948 should be allowed to return to Israel. In the 62 years the so called refugees who fled from Israel multiplied six or seven times with large number of children per family, all fed either by the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Agency or by some wealthy Arab states. If they return to what is now Israel, the Jews will be a minority and there will be no Israel for Jews. Israel therefore characterizes this demand of right of refugees to return to Israel as the right of Palestinians to destroy the Jewish state. Pakistan used to have 18% of its population as Hindus at the time of its creation and now hardly anybody is there: they had been expelled by various means. Bangladesh had a 35% Hindu population; it has been reduced to 10% because of the expulsion of Hindus by these Islamic states by various means. Is there one country in the world including Muslim countries and secular parties in India who are demanding that Pakistan and Bangladesh must take back all Hindus and their children and grand children who have been expelled? Forget about it. 300,000 Hindus had been expelled from Muslim majority Kashmir valley which is within India. Is there one secular party or one leader who is talking about them? Who is asking the Government of India to resettle them in their homes under military protection? Is it not a just demand because Kashmir is supposed to be a part of India though with a Muslim majority.

About 200,000 Arab Muslims who did not flee Israel in 1948 have multiplied to nearly a million. They have citizenship rights. They vote in Israel’s elections. They are even Members of Israeli parliament, Kenesset. After 1967 when the Palestinians and Arab armies were a second time defeated and driven out, the West Bank of Jordan and Gaza strip came under the occupation of Israel. 2.0 million of Jews had immigrated to Israel from countries. Some of these like Russia, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Morocco, Algeria i.e. the Muslim countries are settled in a number of villages on the West Bank and Gaza. These amount to about 250,000. The Palestinians demand that all the settlements must be wound up and Jews from there should vacate those places. Israel argues that if nearly a million Arab Muslims can stay as citizens with full rights in Israel, why cannot less than a quarter of that number of Jews stay in Palestine with reciprocal rights and obligations as for the Muslim Arabs within Israel. It cannot be that in the Palestinian land there should be no Jew but in the Jewish land, there can be limitless number of Arab Muslims.

The Oslo Accord of 1993 and the subsequent meetings under the leadership of the US President Clinton between Israel and Palestine Authority were to establish a Palestinian state through a series of confidence building measures. Israel conceded, what was almost impossible to be conceived of, namely to allow Palestine to have its capital in east Jerusalem but this magnanimous gesture was taken as a weakness and in order to force the other two issues, namely, the return of Palestinian refugees to Israel and the winding up of Jewish settlements in Palestine, the Palestine Authority, which is a state in the making with about 40,000 armed forces, promoted terrorism through suicide bombers and children throwing rocks to invite the Israeli retribution; steps to frighten Israel into submission. It was in disgust against the appeasement of the previous Prime Minister, Yahood Barak that the Israeli people rejected his party and himself and elected Ariel Sharon as the Prime Minister. 86% of the Israelis support the resolute and decisive military actions that Israel is taking to get at the terrorists; in fact the security forces of the Palestinian Authority are found to be themselves training and launching the suicide squads to maim and murder Jews in Israel. The history of Yasser Arafat for the last nearly four decades had been one of terrorism, hijacking, hostage-taking, bombing and blasting non-combatant Israelis to death. The terrorist activities of the various factions of Al Fatah of Arafat not only in Israel but in several countries in Europe, South America and Africa are a terrible record of bloodshed. What all the combined Arab armies failed to achieve in the battle field in the several wars (just like Pakistan with regard Kashmir versus India) Yasser Arafat’s Intefada wanted to achieve by many devilish means like the suicide bombers and more inhumanly, through the practice of the cult; womb and the bomb. The wombs of the Arab mothers are to produce numerous children to constitute suicide squads; they to be equipped with bombs and then they would blast the Israelis to smithereens. There is a cynical lack of reverence for life.

It is unfortunate that much of journalism and reporting in many places including in India, is not concerning the plight of the victims, the Hindus in India especially in J&K and the Jews in Israel. The terrorists are the ones that initiate the bloodshed. But it is those who are fighting terrorism that are described as inhuman, as aggressors, as violators of human rights and as obstructers of peace. Have we not had every Prime Minister and President of Pakistan accusing India of stubbornly refusing to submit to what they are demanding; that is, secession of J&K to Pakistan because it has a Muslim majority in a part of the State. The Palestinians are demanding no less, i.e. the surrender of Israel to Arab Palestinians and its ultimate destruction and expulsion of the Jews from their own historic home land for at lest 3500 years.

President Bush of America demanding that Israel must withdraw its armed forces from the Palestine territories was very unreasonable. Israeli defence forces have entered the Palestinian areas not to occupy and rule over the people but merely to get at the terrorists, to arrest them and to destroy the infrastructure for the terrorism that the Palestinian Authority has either itself built or connived at its build up. The United States has bombed Afghanistan; it has landed its forces in Afghanistan and now even in Pakistan. All these actions are not to occupy and rule either Afghanistan or to subdue Pakistan and make it a surrogate state. They are also described not as anti-Muslims. USA says that its intervention in Afghanistan and presence in Pakistan is solely to pursue its war against terrorism. What Israel is doing in Palestine is nothing different from what America is doing in Afghanistan or Pakistan - decisive massive military action to destroy terrorists and the infrastructure that they have built, be that Al Quaeda and Taliban or Hamas, Hizbulla or the Palestinian Authority. India should not rush in to antagonize or condemn Israel by joining in the Arab demand that Israel should stop its anti-terrorist battles in Palestine. It must remember that the non-establishment of full diplomatic relations with Israel until recently and joining the Arab nations in their condemnation of Israel have not once got the Arab countries or the other Islamic countries’ support for India’s position in the J&K State where a portion of the state is Muslim majority. Even if we are not able to defend Israelis position, we should not undermine its position by deluding ourselves that if we condemn Israel we can get Muslim nation’s support. Just as a strong and prosperous India is anathema to our neighbours, so is Israel an anathema for those states which are consumed by hatred and which glorify terrorism and assassination asserting that they are even sanctioned by their religion. We must wish the triumph of Israel and for the dawn of peace between Israel and Palestinians however long has been the past and the future be. Both India and Israel must pray that God and wisdom will show a way to resolve the problem of Kashmir as well as Palestine and stop the bloodshed. The world will not be doing any good by focusing on the actions of victimized people who are driven to resolute actions to put an end to terrorism.