India has surprised many status quoists by coming out in support of Israel against Hamas’ terrorist attacks on 7 October. Given India’s nuanced stand on the issue of Israel-Palestine and given the fact that India has been voting against Israel at the United Nations or abstaining from voting on matters related to Palestine, the support for Israel has shocked some who believe that India will have to pay a heavy price for choosing a side. According to them, India should have watched quietly a country that it considers to be a friend and an ally, bleed from horrifying acts of violence and cruelty comparable to what the Nazis inflicted on the Jewish people. But India is not straying from its stand that there must be a two-state—Israel and Palestine—solution for viable peace in the region. India is speaking up against terrorism. As a country that has suffered from cross-border terrorism for decades, it is important on India’s part to be vocal against terrorism. There cannot be any compromise on that. Why should the two issues of Hamas and the need for Israel and Palestine to co-exist, be conflated? Since when did the suffering of any population—the Palestinians in this case—justify killing months-old babies in their cribs, which the Hamas did, or raping young girls at a music festival before massacring them? India faced unspeakable horrors at the hands of the British, but that did not turn them into beastly terrorists. No amount of excesses, even if they have been committed, justifies the horror story that is still unfolding in Israel. So it is but natural that India as a society and a country that has been at the crosshairs of terrorism of different hues for decades should stand up in support of Israel. As for this impacting India’s relationship with the Arab-Muslim world, lest we forget, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain—both part of the Abraham Accords with Israel—have been vocal against Hamas’ violence and have urged both sides to be restrained. Saudi Arabia too has been muted in its condemnation of Israel, one of the reasons being it has no love lost for Hamas, which is backed by Riyadh’s sworn enemies, Qatar and Turkey; and also because, Saudi peace talks with the Israelis have been severely jeopardized due to this incident. Even otherwise, India is a major power, with too much heft globally for its backing of Israel to erode its importance.
But the message has to go out that there cannot be any compromise with terrorism, that terrorism has to be called out for what it is. To describe terrorism as militancy amounts to prevarication. That there is no equivalence between freedom fighting and terrorist violence—a lesson that the West in particular needs to learn. Khalistani Hardeep Singh Nijjar was not a religious preacher, a community leader or an activist, as the western leaders and media would like the world to believe. He was a terrorist, guilty of blowing up a movie hall in India, killing several people—one of his many crimes. Ironically, it is a similar blurring of line between terrorism and freedom-fighting that is taking place in the West because of a large section of the supporters of the Palestinian cause. In cities like London and New York, also in Australia’s Sydney, these people, under the guise of showing solidarity with the Palestinians, are openly celebrating Hamas’ atrocities. In the name of freedom of speech, they are raising Nazi-like murderous slogans, seeking the gassing of a particular community. Even Western seats of learning are completely compromised. A group of 34 Harvard student-organisations issued a letter justifying Hamas’ terrorism by blaming Israel for it, and without issuing a word of condemnation for what Hamas has done. It was only after facing immense backlash that Harvard president Claudine Grey and others issued a statement condoling the deaths that took place in Israel. This toxicity, where extremists and leftists make common cause with terrorists, has the potential to blow up into a major crisis, which the West will have a tough time controlling. Even the United Nations Human Rights Council has been captured by the radicals. This UN body held a moment’s silence this week for the “loss of innocent lives in the occupied Palestinian territory and elsewhere”, with “elsewhere” presumably being Israel. The motion was moved by Pakistan, a terrorist state itself, on behalf of the OIC. Similarly, US lawmakers Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib are mourning the loss of Palestinian lives because of Israel’s attack on Gaza, but are not saying a word condemning Hamas. It’s a bizarre state of affairs, where a community is being conditioned to believe that they are the victims, and gruesome violence against the “enemy”—who could even be a grandmother or an infant—is justified. This is dangerous radicalization. Amid this western leaders and media are busy searching for an imaginary “fascist India” and “Hindu terrorists”, instead of focusing on the real problem they have in their respective countries.
As for the Israelis and Palestinians, the war must stop, but so should Hamas’ terrorism and the bloodlust that is on public display every time Israel takes a hit. While the people of Gaza are suffering as the war escalates, the Hamas, which “governs” them, must have taken into account the possible consequences of their actions. While bleeding Israel, Hamas ended up sounding the death knell of their own people. Hence it is the people of Gaza who need to demand accountability from the Hamas. Gaza’s enemies are sitting within Gaza itself.