Having to still deal with the debilitating impact of Partition, we should clearly have understood and sympathised with the Palestinians

As things stand, the West Asia is poised on the brink of a conflagration that will leave no corner of this world unscorched. Especially if nuclear-armed Israel makes good its threats and targets Iran, if Syrian and Lebanese militias supported by it, like Hezbollah, join together to attack Israel. The Western Powers are only adding fuel to the fire with their unequivocal support, and total disregard, for Israel’s barbaric and utterly disproportionate response to the Hamas attack of 7th October, which clearly borders on genocide and ethnic cleansing. The move of the US Carrier Groups into the theatre and its missile attacks against Pro-Iranian Syrian militias is a clear indication of this.

The hypocrisy of Western Governments is mind-boggling. Mr Karim Khan of the United Kingdom, the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court acted with speed to issue arrest warrants against President Putin for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Yet, investigations against Israel for human rights abuses in Gaza and the West Bank that commenced as far back as 2014 remain stalled for one reason or the other, including, ironically enough, objections from Israel and the United States, both of whom are not signatories to the Rome Statute.

While the attack launched by Hamas was undoubtedly brutal in its execution, it did not come in a vacuum, as the Secretary General of the United Nations, Mr António Guterres, made clear. The colonial occupation of Gaza and the West Bank by Israel since 1967, and its systematic and brutal dehumanising of Palestinians is what has led to the actions undertaken by Hamas, which many see as an act of resistance, “a revolt of the slaves….. a modern-day Spartacus”. 

For that matter, even if we were to accept the formation of the Israeli state as legitimate, despite what Israeli Professor Avi Shlaim, of St. Anthony’s College, University of Oxford, calls an “invalid claim in the modern era, as a claim that goes back two millennia is legally untenable,” the roots of the present conflict, lie squarely in Israel’s refusal to accept a viable Palestinian State as a neighbour. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud Party’s actions in negating the Oslo Accord and initiating the grabbing of Palestinian lands on the West Bank, as well as allegedly inciting the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, the architect of the accord, cannot escape scrutiny. Nor, for that matter, can the average Israeli citizen who allowed them to get away with it!

What, however, is truly intriguing is the Indian position on the conflict. Clearly, our national interests lie in supporting the Palestinians and their Arab and Iranian allies, since trade, oil, jobs and foreign remittances are at stake. Despite this, we have taken up a position that is broadly supportive of Israel. This can be seen from, Mr. Modi’s tweets on Hamas, though, subsequent attempts to be more even-handed were made with the MEA stating that we had taken a ‘nuanced approach of differentiating between innocent Palestinian civilians and Hamas terrorists’. However, the fact that our media, which routinely genuflects to reflect the government’s views, has continued with its Hamas bashing tells us which way the government is tilting.

It has actively promoted the Western view that the actions of Hamas on 7th October must be seen as a barbaric act of terrorism because it involved the killing and kidnapping of Israeli “civilians” and children.

True, though given that it is mandatory for all Israelis to serve in the IDF and subsequently as reservists till the age of forty, one would like to know how many of the 1400 killed or captured were genuine “civilians”? Even if this view is seen as untenable, then how are the barbaric and indiscriminate attacks against civilian targets in Gaza, that have resulted in the deaths of over 7000 people, including over 2500 children, any different? If Hamas are to be treated as terrorists, so must the Israeli Government and the IDF. Surely what’s good for the goose, is also good for the gander!

One of the immediate consequences of our tilt towards Israel, in all probability, appears to be the actions taken by pro-Palestinian Qatar to sentence eight former Indian Navy officers, working there on a contract, to death on charges of espionage. The fact of the matter is that we really have no influence in the region and given our vulnerabilities would have been best off minding our own business and waiting for tensions to cool. In the circumstances, one cannot help but ask what was the government's reasoning for acting as it has. Indeed a case of fools jumping in where angels fear to tread!

Having been at the receiving end of colonisation and all its consequences for over 200 years, and having to still deal with the debilitating impact of Partition, we should clearly have understood, and sympathised with the Palestinians, for the manner in which Israel and the West have been conspiring to destroy their identity as a people. Instead, we have joined the likes of Britain’s Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, and the other Uncle Tom’s. Whatever happened to our self-proclaimed championship of the Global South?

(The author, a military veteran is a Visiting Fellow with the Observer Research Foundation and a Senior Visiting Fellow with Peninsula Foundation, Chennai, views are personal)