M D Nalapat
Friday, September 13, 2013 - Allow this columnist to say here what he did at public fora in Tehran and Damascusa, that he is an admirer of the Jewish people. Despite their small numbers, this is a community which has given the world immense gifts in the form of technology, arts and education. The terrible fate that met the Jewish people in Europe during 1933-45 has given legitimacy to their desire for a separate homeland where they can be protected. Some believed that this ought to have been carved out of Germany, the country that supervised the killing of more than 6 million Jews. Indeed, this is what was said by this columnist in a Letter to the Editor to the Economist magazine decades back, when he was in his teens. However, the Jewish Homeland was located not within Germany but in Palestine, where the State of Israel has become a reality that needs to be accepted as much as Australia, the US and Canada ( all three countries where migration from Europe created a change in the chemistry of governance).
The peoples of Europe have for more than six centuries been far more prolific in their discoveries than their counterparts in Asia, which is why by the 1800s almost all of Asia came under European control. The lands that have been created by European migration are, each of them, facts of life that cannot be reversed. The indigenous communities of Canada, Australia and the US will not even be dreaming these days of getting their ancient patrimony back. They were overwhelmed by the European tide, exactly the way the Incas in South America were, although in the latter continent, there is a re-assertion of the indigenous people after centuries of domination by ethnic Europeans .
The State of Israel has become a technological giant, becoming a world leader in military and civilian uses of brainpower. Were the states around Israel to adopt that country’s methods of dryland farming, the region would have become a granary. There is much that can benefit both sides, were Israel and its neighbours to become allies rather than foes. However, such a prospect seems very distant, although historical accidents may occur which leads to reconciliation. It is no secret that India and Israel have a close relationship, just as Delhi has with the GCC states or Iran.
In a world where the Jewish community has been maltreated for millennia, India is a country where there has never been hostility towards the Jews. Hopefully, at least a few of the Indian Jews who migrated to other countries because of the stifling controls on the economy introduced by Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi, will come back. The Jewish community is as prosperous as the other small communities in India, the Jains and the Parsees. Each such group gives vibrancy to the multifaith mosaic of life in the world’s most populous - albeit incomplete - democracy. It is only when religious and ethnic tensions are low or absent that a country progresses. Where there is discrimination and fanaticism, human development suffers. This columnist remembers his doctrine of Indutva, which holds that the culture of India is a composite of the Vedic, the Mughal and the Western. All three strands are present in each son and daughter of India, and hence those who seek to claim that Hindus, Muslims and Christians have different cultures are wrong. Each has a composite culture, and it is well known in metallurgy that composite materials are stronger than the elements mixed in them.
Coming back to Israel, that state has influential friends in the US, and none more powerful than the small but vibrant Jewish community in that country. Among the organisations backing Israel, the America Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is the most influential. This columnist has met some of the volunteers in AIPAC and has been impressed by their energy and dedication. Which is why it is with shock that news comes of AIPAC being among the lead organisations in the “Bomb Syria” chorus in US. Already there is much writing within the West Asian region of a “Jewish conspiracy” behind President Obama’s decision to attack Syria despite the fact that such a step would benefit not the Syrian people but Al-Qaeda. Backing by AIPAC for such a move would only reinforce those who - wrongly - argue that it is Israel that is to blame were an attack by the US and France to take place. Clearly AIPAC has no idea of what is happening in Syria. The organization seems
unaware of the fact that John Kerry is lying when he speaks of the “moderate opposition”. Such “fighters” exist only in the comfort of 5-star hotel rooms in Istanbul,Doha and Paris. Those in the field are overwhelmingly from organisations that have signed on to the exclusivist agenda of the many fanatic groups who seek to create their own version of a state out of parts of Syria. Those tracking the cash and weapons going to the “moderate opposition” from NATO and the GCC say that within a few days, these end up in the hands of Al Nusra, and that regional intelligence agencies (who are heavily infiltrated by extremist elements masquerading as moderates) are aware of this.
Even a check of the videos put out by Al Nusra and its offshoots (and after all, the US,UK and France now base their “evidence” only on videos) would show that the weapons the fighters are using are the same that have been given to the Free Syrian Army, a ghost army that exists only as a conduit to the fanatics. In the many videos showing executions of Syrian army personnel and Christians and Alawites, the weopons placed beside the executioners are those channeled by Turkey, Qatar, the US and France to the “moderates” AIPAC has harmed the interests of the Jewish people by its unwise adherence to Nobel Peace Prizeman Barack Obama’s doctrine of killing people to protect their human rights. It has given fresh oxygen to the many conspiracy theories who blame the Jewish people for the violence unleashed by the war in Syria. And it has placed its own country at risk of facing the threat that Israel has been coping with since Ariel Sharon backed one group in the Lebanese civil war against another (1982). Hopefully, better counsel will prevail and the organization stand on the side of peace, the side which the overwhelming majority of Muslims, Christians and Jews worldwide are backing.
http://pakobserver.net/detailnews.asp?id=217945
Friday, September 13, 2013 - Allow this columnist to say here what he did at public fora in Tehran and Damascusa, that he is an admirer of the Jewish people. Despite their small numbers, this is a community which has given the world immense gifts in the form of technology, arts and education. The terrible fate that met the Jewish people in Europe during 1933-45 has given legitimacy to their desire for a separate homeland where they can be protected. Some believed that this ought to have been carved out of Germany, the country that supervised the killing of more than 6 million Jews. Indeed, this is what was said by this columnist in a Letter to the Editor to the Economist magazine decades back, when he was in his teens. However, the Jewish Homeland was located not within Germany but in Palestine, where the State of Israel has become a reality that needs to be accepted as much as Australia, the US and Canada ( all three countries where migration from Europe created a change in the chemistry of governance).
The peoples of Europe have for more than six centuries been far more prolific in their discoveries than their counterparts in Asia, which is why by the 1800s almost all of Asia came under European control. The lands that have been created by European migration are, each of them, facts of life that cannot be reversed. The indigenous communities of Canada, Australia and the US will not even be dreaming these days of getting their ancient patrimony back. They were overwhelmed by the European tide, exactly the way the Incas in South America were, although in the latter continent, there is a re-assertion of the indigenous people after centuries of domination by ethnic Europeans .
The State of Israel has become a technological giant, becoming a world leader in military and civilian uses of brainpower. Were the states around Israel to adopt that country’s methods of dryland farming, the region would have become a granary. There is much that can benefit both sides, were Israel and its neighbours to become allies rather than foes. However, such a prospect seems very distant, although historical accidents may occur which leads to reconciliation. It is no secret that India and Israel have a close relationship, just as Delhi has with the GCC states or Iran.
In a world where the Jewish community has been maltreated for millennia, India is a country where there has never been hostility towards the Jews. Hopefully, at least a few of the Indian Jews who migrated to other countries because of the stifling controls on the economy introduced by Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi, will come back. The Jewish community is as prosperous as the other small communities in India, the Jains and the Parsees. Each such group gives vibrancy to the multifaith mosaic of life in the world’s most populous - albeit incomplete - democracy. It is only when religious and ethnic tensions are low or absent that a country progresses. Where there is discrimination and fanaticism, human development suffers. This columnist remembers his doctrine of Indutva, which holds that the culture of India is a composite of the Vedic, the Mughal and the Western. All three strands are present in each son and daughter of India, and hence those who seek to claim that Hindus, Muslims and Christians have different cultures are wrong. Each has a composite culture, and it is well known in metallurgy that composite materials are stronger than the elements mixed in them.
Coming back to Israel, that state has influential friends in the US, and none more powerful than the small but vibrant Jewish community in that country. Among the organisations backing Israel, the America Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is the most influential. This columnist has met some of the volunteers in AIPAC and has been impressed by their energy and dedication. Which is why it is with shock that news comes of AIPAC being among the lead organisations in the “Bomb Syria” chorus in US. Already there is much writing within the West Asian region of a “Jewish conspiracy” behind President Obama’s decision to attack Syria despite the fact that such a step would benefit not the Syrian people but Al-Qaeda. Backing by AIPAC for such a move would only reinforce those who - wrongly - argue that it is Israel that is to blame were an attack by the US and France to take place. Clearly AIPAC has no idea of what is happening in Syria. The organization seems
unaware of the fact that John Kerry is lying when he speaks of the “moderate opposition”. Such “fighters” exist only in the comfort of 5-star hotel rooms in Istanbul,Doha and Paris. Those in the field are overwhelmingly from organisations that have signed on to the exclusivist agenda of the many fanatic groups who seek to create their own version of a state out of parts of Syria. Those tracking the cash and weapons going to the “moderate opposition” from NATO and the GCC say that within a few days, these end up in the hands of Al Nusra, and that regional intelligence agencies (who are heavily infiltrated by extremist elements masquerading as moderates) are aware of this.
Even a check of the videos put out by Al Nusra and its offshoots (and after all, the US,UK and France now base their “evidence” only on videos) would show that the weapons the fighters are using are the same that have been given to the Free Syrian Army, a ghost army that exists only as a conduit to the fanatics. In the many videos showing executions of Syrian army personnel and Christians and Alawites, the weopons placed beside the executioners are those channeled by Turkey, Qatar, the US and France to the “moderates” AIPAC has harmed the interests of the Jewish people by its unwise adherence to Nobel Peace Prizeman Barack Obama’s doctrine of killing people to protect their human rights. It has given fresh oxygen to the many conspiracy theories who blame the Jewish people for the violence unleashed by the war in Syria. And it has placed its own country at risk of facing the threat that Israel has been coping with since Ariel Sharon backed one group in the Lebanese civil war against another (1982). Hopefully, better counsel will prevail and the organization stand on the side of peace, the side which the overwhelming majority of Muslims, Christians and Jews worldwide are backing.
http://pakobserver.net/detailnews.asp?id=217945
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