Sunday, May 07, 2006

India and Israel

" Updated: 1:22 p.m. ET May 1, 2006

JAMMU, India - Suspected Islamic militants raided a village in Indian-controlled Kashmir and killed 22 Hindus, lining them outside their homes and shooting them execution-style, police said Monday.
The attack in the village of Thava was the single bloodiest attack by Islamic rebels in Kashmir since a 2003 cease-fire between India and Pakistan, and it came days ahead of a planned meeting between the divided region’s political separatists and India’s prime minister.............
© 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. "


The Indian govt's response for this incident has been cold.. The central govt just termed this incident as yet another attempt to derail the ongoing Indo-Pak peace process. Its time that we deal with such brutal incidents like how this other country infested with terrorism does. ISRAEL is what this country is called.


04th- 05th September 1972.

Munich is the latest movie from Steven Spielberg. Munich was the venue for 1972 Olympics. In the wee hours of 05th September 1972, eight men from a Palestine fidayeen group now notoriously known as the
Black September Organization [BSO] clad in sweats hiding deadly Kalashnikovs and hand grenades in their back-packs managed to sneak into the Olympic village. These men barged into the apartment where the Israeli athletes were housed. There motive was to take them hostage and make Israel succumb to their demands of releasing Palestinian prisoners held in Israel. Three Israeli athletes were brutally murdered for protesting. Finally BSO men managed to take 9 Israelis hostage and put forth their demands which included releasing more than 200 Palestians prisoners from Israeli jails, Israel's response was immediate and absolute: there would be no negotiation. When negotiation seemed to be out of reach, the terrorists decided to fly to Cairo and demanded for an aircraft to fly them from Munich to Cairo. Incidents that happened in the airport left the remaining 9 athletes and five of the eight BSO men dead. The so-called rescue operation by the German police was an utter failure. This is actually the prelude to Spielberg’s movie MUNICH. What happened after this is what Munich-the movie depicts. The then Israeli PM Golda Meir gave complete power to Mossad to eliminate all those who were directly or indirectly involved the Munich Massacre. Israel indeed dealt with all those involved with an iron hand under a prolonged operation codenamed Operation Wrath of God. The movie is mainly about this. Check out the movie. Its must be good.


Even today Israel never spares any person or organization that plays around with its people.

31st December 1999.

India was brought down to its knees when it succumbed to the demands of the five Pakistani terrorists who had hijacked
Indian Airlines IC-814 a week ago and had then taken it to Kandhahar. Mind you, Afghanistan was then controlled by Taliban who happened to be puppets in the hands of Paki intelligence group ISI . India had to finally release Maulana Masood Azhar, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh and one more terrorist in lieu for the 176 passengers who were held hostage. Freed Maulana went back to Pakistan ,only to constitute a new terrorist group called the Jais-e-Mohammed. This group along with Lashkar-e-Toiba went on to carry out planned attacks on the Indian Parliament on Dec 13th 2001.

IC-814 is just one incident. I can site many more like this, one of the most high-profiled ones being that of
Rubaiyya Syed’s Kidnapping. Unlike Israel which teaches unforgettable lessons to its adversaries, India just seem to have taken the route of Forgive and Forget. This was evident in the way India dealt with incidents like Ashardam and Parliament Attacks. Though India boasts of one of world’s most daring crack commando unit, the NSG (popularly known as Black cat commandos) it has rarely used it efficiently.

A single bomb blast in Jerusalem is enough for the Israeli marines to venture into Arafat’s presidential compound. What about us? As I have quoted in the starting, 24 Hindus were massacred in Jammu. We just passed it as just one more attempt to derail the Indo-Pak peace talks. Its high time we stop behaving like eunuchs begging for peace, though we are much more potent than our puny adversary. When will be pounce upon those killers in a la’ Israel manner?

I am not mooting for India to ape Israeli actions. Its just a comparison of how two countries which have a very similar history of suffering are dealing with their enemies.
The genocide of over six million Jews by the Nazis during World War II is considered the biggest holocaust that mankind has ever witnessed. Noted French (now Indian) journalist
Francois Gautier draws a parallel between the Jewish holocaust and the much forgotten Hindu genocide (wherein millions of Hindus were massacred) that happened during the time of Moslem rule over India. More than genocide, I say it was ethnic cleansing that continues even today in Pak and Bangladesh.

Israel seems to have learnt its lesson, but India...

Successive pseudo-secular pacifist politicians of our country are responsible for this sorry SOFT NATION status of our country. When Israel was formed in 1948, India (say Nehru) instead of embracing a natural ally criticized it of oppressing the Palestinians. India sympathised the Palestinian cause and also became one of the first non-Arab states to recognize Palestinian independence and also one of the first to allow an embassy of the PLO in Delhi. Repeated Congress govt’s anti-Israel stance was also part of the larger Indian diplomatic strategy of trying to counter Pakistan's influence in the Arab world and of safeguarding its oil supplies from Arab countries. Israel’s firm affinity towards US during the cold war added fuel to this.

But India’s aversion towards Israel increased more during the
1967 Arab-Israeli war when the Arabs were totally annihilated by Israel in just 6 days. Since then Israel’s geographical shape at times referred to as the dagger in Arab heart has found a wholesome meaning.



However not everything went wrong .Despite all these reversals respective intelligence agencies Mossad and RAW have shared a sound relationship, this relationship is said to have been of great use during the 1971 Indo-Pak war. The cold war ended with the break-up of Soviet Union in the 90s. There after, owing to changing foreign interest , military needs and economy India threw its doors open to the first ever visit of an Israeli premier to India. President Ezer Weizman visited India in December 1996 (during the NDA govt’s tenure).This started a new era of Indo-Israeli co-operation. Successive Indian and Israeli govts have forged this relationship to a firm bond.

Both of us can learn a lot from each. For India and Israel, the common potential enemy is Pakistan, the mother of all terrorism in the world. Training camps in PoK train mercenaries to create terror and kill people, and they really don’t mind their place of action. Whether it is Jerusalem or Srinagar, these religiously motivated fidayeen just create havoc in the lives of innocent people. With strong political will India can actually deal with terrorism with an iron hand. In the name of budding Indo-Pak relationship, India cannot afford to ignore terrorist attacks.

Only time can tell us what will happen. Till then for people like me its just wait ‘n’ watch

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

isreal has not been very successful in thrashing out their problems. though they have the strong backing of usa, their problems too dont seem to end. they have many enemies and they spend a lot on the military and intelligence...
They are what they are today because of their rough and tough attitude. though india is pretty soft towards its enemies, i feel we cannot follow the israeli attitutude because of our social setup. india's main opponents are the islamic terrorist groups...and india has a significant % of muslims as citizens (some of them are sympathizers of the terror grps too)...with such a scenario it is difficult for india to be too tough..isreal is very differnt in this aspect as they are small in size and have just one religion...this really matters..

we have missed chances when we could have punished our opponents, but its too late to think of it again...Kandahar incident was one of them..

slowly kashmir will be out of the indian youth mind...and deaths in kashmir would not matter for youth like us..People\Press have stopped covering kashmir situtaion and deaths...i really do not know if this is the right way to go...
Does anybody remeber that our own Bangalore experienced a terror attack...its the attitude of "forget it"...that has got india to this stage (good or bad is for each individual to decide)...

Anonymous said...

In my opinion, Israel is Indias best friend. After all, both the countries face similar problems. I firmly believe that the space occupied by Pakistan is Indias Land....by accepting Pakistan as a separate country is like accepting our ex-colonizers, Britons.

Anonymous said...

I belive in what you say and I think, India should take some lessons from its suffering and the examples set by Isreal. In some sense, terrorists cannot be convinced by the Gandhian Princples, as its ruthless, blind, conservative and above all, from the people whose mind-set is changed right from their childhood. If we just sit and watch, by the time terrorists will realise (I think, they will feel what they have done.. may be it happens in these class of people too....) about their wrongs, millions of people would have lost their lives, another millions would have been left without anything. India, Indians and most important, the Govt of India must realise the importance of life. If we are more than a billion, but still one life does matter and by all means, we must stop someone from destroying it. The insensitivity towards human life is quite surprising, terrifying and against humanity. I believe, our leaders should stop dreaming about Noble Peace prize and should work for those who have chosen them... its much more important prize for them and they must realise it.