Rewinding to the Holocaust

The subject of this post, I assume, is made very clear by the title. Recent events in the Middle East have brought back vivid memories of a time when a race of people endured the worst form of torture and persecution in mankind's history. The only difference between the events of 70 years ago and the previous 2 weeks, are that the victims have turned the aggressors.

The vile and despicable military action undertaken by the Israeli regime over the past 2 weeks serves as a reminder to people across the world, especially us in India, that harbouring feelings of vengeance can yield unimaginable havoc! Any kid on the street could tell you that a war in which the deaths of only a handful of Israelis is countered by the massacre of a thousand Palestinians is little short of genocide! The term "overly-aggressive" hardly suffices. With the highest population density of any region in the world, Israel knew that collateral damage and civilian casualties could never be contained if a ground offensive were launched in Gaza. The military leadership was either too stupid or too indifferent to care! The latter theory makes greater sense to me. What confounds me even more is the extent to which the United States can back Israel, even as it commits such atrocities! The U.N. Security Council makes the right noises, but its words fall on deaf ears, and yet, Israel is not evicted from the U.N. or punished for grossly disrespecting its orders! Other countries around the world, with the exception of a few, remain mute spectators. Palestine is left alone, and the Gazans have no hand to reach out to for aid! They live in abject poverty, their livelihood and economy crippled by the economic blockades imposed by Israel and the rest of the world. Without basic healthcare, sanitation and reeling under near-famine due to an acute scarcity of food, their suffering is unlike that of any race currently existing! A lead sky envelopes their present and their future, and yet the world does little but watch!

Post the 26-11 attacks, statements emerged from Israel saying that both India and Israel are bonded in grief, both victims of a remorseless and resilient terror! That assessment could not be further than the truth. India is a nation built on the foundation of non-violence and non-alignment. We have never played the part of the aggressor in any of the wars in our past, and have never sought to annex our neighbours, even though some of them now export terrorists by the dozen across our borders. The same though, cannot be said of Israel.

As my frustration at this collective failure of human conscience grows, a friend's summary of the events of the past 2 weeks gives me a fresh new perspective : "You believe in a God who is always non-violent and peace-loving and who is "goody-good", but some wars, and some conflicts, are justified even by God. Though he doesn't promote violence between his creations, God does consider some causes to be worth the bloodshed. This hatred and conflict between the Palestinians (or Phillistines) and the Israelites dates back more than 2000 years, as is said in the Bible. The treatment meted out to the Palestinians today by Israel is no different from that which was borne by the Israelites when their land was first conquered! This is no atrocity, it is only a case of Hamas using the pick of its arsenal : the Kathyusha Rocket, and Israel its F-16s, to carry on a war that may never end! The ratio of casualties is irrelevant, only the act of war counts." This friend is by no means a devil. He is, by my interactions with him, a very likeable and good natured person and a fervent follower of his faith, but some of his views, particularly this one, truly shock me! There is no God of War, and if there were, then I'd rather turn atheist than bow down to his feet and sing his praises. No God justifies the killing of innocents at the behest of self-righteous political regimes weilding the staff of religion to rally support!

This chat, however informal it may have been, caused alarm bells to sound loud and clear in my head. This is not a religious dispute, and nor should be made out to be so! It is the cry of a people removed from their own land after the Jews sought an independent state, to seek refuge after the holocaust : It is a cry of desperation for a small state of Palestine, to be recognized by one and all and given its due place in world forums! Hamas is a terrorist organisation, and even though my sympathies for Israel have all but dissolved by now, Hamas shall never have my sympathies either. An organisation whose sole purpose of being is the destruction of Israel should be denied both the importance and the dignity that they seek. The world has no place for such narrow-minded people to be given the chance to air their views in public forums! Yet, the more the people of Palestine are pushed to the brink of complete genocide, the deeper the roots of fundamentalism will grow in the minds of the people, and so too will the support for Hamas multiply!

It's time for the world to realize the urgency required in dealing with the Middle East Peace Process. Half-hearted declarations of temporary ceasefires will not do. Citizens across the world may protest these massacres, but our governments remain inept and incapable of taking action!
The suffering of the people of Gaza cannot be allowed to continue, for they will only aid in the spread of extremism in the Muslim world and destroy all efforts to maintain peace and order around the world!