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Rules Of The Game
Kalam Nishan Singh
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The Muslims in Kashmir, the Naxals across India, the oppressed
in India’s north-east, the tribals, the dalits, the targetter
Christians know the world makes only as much noise as does not
disturb New Delhi’s slumber. Just as it makes as much noise on
Gaza that does not fall foul of Israel. Look at the response of
President Bush or of Gordon Brown. If the Arabs deduce that West
will take Israeli side irrespective of all logic, where will
they go wrong? |
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Gaza has blown up
again. And how? As bombs pounded civilian areas, a New York Times
headline screamed “Despite Deeper Strikes, Israelis Vow to
Soldier On”. Sure, Israel can soldier on because the world is
not watching. Exchange rate for killings has risen sharply in a
week. For every killed Israeli, about 300 Palestinians have been
killed.
And Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak has announced on Fox
TV: “Our intention is to totally change the rules of the game.”
Thank You, Barak. But you made a major mistake.
The rules of the game do not change like that; the game
merely slips further into quagmire. Hamas provoked
Israel, so Israel
pounded Palestinians. That will give Hamas its continuous supply of
violence from Israel. Men like Barak provide that.
And what is the western world which has power, arms, and
muscle enough to nudge
Israel, doing? It
is calling upon both sides to show restraint. Both sides? Do
Palestinians and the Israelis both have F-18s? Are Hamas’ home-made
rockets and Israeli army and air force comparable? Have you seen
Palestinian tanks in Tel Aviv?
Sure, Hamas is guilty. Its home-made rockets have killed 20
Israelis in eight years. But may be there is something called the
degree of guilt. Israeli aircraft have pounded more than 300
Palestinians to death showered from the air. Holy cause, I believe.
Struggling movements everywhere now understand that the power
world just does not care. It mouths platitudes. Mumbai terror gets
western capitals to parrot
India’s lines:
Pakistan must take action against guys who are keeping
Pakistan
itself on the edge of terror. The world does not say what India has
been doing to its Muslims. It does not ask its scholars and planners
to study the Indian Planning Commission’s reports on Muslim
education, health, housing, resource data. It does not mention
India’s
non-state actors like Salwa Judam (official non-state actors) being
armed to fight Naxalism. The Prime Minister calls Naxalism the
single most important internal security threat, but all he has
proposed is to use more force.
Indian strategy to fight Sikh aspirational struggle was to
arm non-state actors and call them Special Police Officers (SPOs),
each getting a salary of Rs 2,000 and a gun to earn the rest with.
Its strategy of going around the law is called Encounter Specialist,
New Delhi’s
special and original contribution to the war on terror strategy
bouquet.
The Muslims in Kashmir, the Naxals across India, the
oppressed in India’s north-east, the tribals, the dalits, the
targetted Christians know the world makes only as much noise as does
not disturb New Delhi’s slumber. Just as it makes as much noise on
Gaza that
does not fall foul of Israel.
Look at the response of President Bush or of Gordon Brown. If
the Arabs deduce that West will take Israeli side irrespective of
all logic, where will they go wrong? Their lessons from the 1973
Middle East War, the 1967 Six Day War, the 1956 Suez War, the 1948
Independence/Nakba War were no different.
Hamas will not get terrified by the blitzkrieg of death
unleashed by
Israel.
It is not going to be so impressed that it will convince itself that
the American peace process is a better route. It will only sell
Israel’s
violence to its own cadre, to get new cadre. Any time it wants to
show the world the true nature of Israel, it will fire a few home
made rockets into
Israel,
the change-the-rules-of-the-game strategy of
Israel
will do the rest of the Hamas’ job.
And where is the voice that the world appointed to listen to
the sounds from the ground in
Gaza? Tony Blair,
the peace envoy to the Middle East, has so far not found time to
visit Gaza after his appointment. And his silence is deafening.
At least he can say, or knows, that when IRA fired mortars
into Northern Ireland,
London was not bombing the Irish Republic, it was not sending tanks
to demolish churches and police stations to teach the Irish a
lesson.
It is alright to talk that Israelis cannot live in permanent
state of fear. But it is almost like underlining that the
Palestinians live in godly peace. And what is Israeli strategy to
achieve peace for its citizens? Bomb Hamas? Where does the Israeli
thinking come from? A cave in time?
Over the weekend,
Israel has
unleashed devastating aerial bombardment in
Gaza. Its stated goal: Stopping the incessant rocket fire
that has plagued Israeli towns and villages close to the border for
years. After more than 370 Palestinians dead, including 62 women and
children, as per United Nations data, and an unknown number of
civilian men, how far has
Israel succeeded?
Except of course in sending a message to the Arab world that
West believes that Arabs only understand force, and force is what
Israel will show, That US, Britain and the rest of the world will
keep their eyes and ears closed to all the protests across Arab
world. If that is
Israel’s
contribution to strategy in fighting a global war against terror,
then it is a fat lot of help.
Remember, when a man has nothing else to throw at you, he
flings a shoe. Till the Arab world loses its shoes, terror states
will have to unleash a lot more death from the air till they have no
more feet to stand on. The enemy will still have a pair of shoes to
throw at you.
It is time
Israel saw through
a game whose rules it is trying to change but is still losing the
game. The piercing shrieks that rent the air every time Israelis
planes are bombing and more white shrouds appear in
Gaza are loading the dice in favor of Hamas. Israeli
intransigence may have caused its citizens to think that they have
to support the military action because they do not have a choice,
but the world should be telling them that they do have a choice, a
choice of not adding to Hamas cadres.
All communities within a 25-mile radius of
Gaza have sirens
that serve as incoming rocket alerts. That is the fear that Israeli
men, women and children live under. We sympathize with them. No one
should be forced to live like that.
Palestinians in
Gaza do not have any sirens, and Israeli bombs fall on schools,
hospitals, streets, markets, houses killing and injuring hundreds
for whom there are no hospitals to rush to, no ambulances to ferry
and no doctors to treat.
31 December
2008
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