Indo-Israel relations
This has been one of the most disappointing threads in FEC. Instead of even trying to address and critique the article, shouts of ‘neo-liberal’, ‘neo-con’ (can one be both?, bleh!), ‘friedmanomist’ have been thrown at a very sane and measured article by Mr.T.P.Sreenivasan.
An attempt at humour was perhaps on the one lakh voters ready for intifada against the Zionists in Trivandrum. If not for the content, at least the attempt at making the joke was something which could be laughed at.
First, perhaps one needs to change the word ‘pragmatic’ that the author used to a phrase ‘dealing with the world as it is’ because pragmatic has come to be interpreted to be a way shorn of ideology and politics. Of course ideology and politics interfere and inform not just foreign policy decisions of nation states but the smallest things that we do every day, either consciously or unconsciously. But only by dealing with the existing world rather than one imagined in air through handed-down interpretations can one hope to change it in the way that one wants, else it becomes ‘I want that now’ screams from an eight year old. Far from being ideological, that speaks of an inability to deal with reality.
Second, one needs to examine the Israel-Palestinian question as a whole. Third what needs to be the relation of India with both Israel and Palestine.
Hate of the 'Rat faced christ killers' used to be a common factor ranging from the Orthodox Christians of Moscow right through mainland Europe to the forever fighting dominations throughout western europe. One doesn’t need to go through the whole chain of events but the events out of that cultural backdrop, some of which still exists, caused the Israel's formation, and it was a people in the Arab world which had to pay for European crimes.
Our inability to correct history though should make us look at the present state of the issue.
All the parties see themselves as aggrieved victims under siege. The Jews, as a brutalized and unwanted people who have ghettoized from around the world due to historical reasons, sees the need to stick together and to never give an inch and the Palestinians see themselves as victims of Zionist racism and anglo-american imperialism, in fact as the present world’s most wronged people, robbed of their own country. The latter are undoubtedly the victims in the dispute. But one should also observe that the Israelis see this in a broader struggle for their very survival and in an arab-israeli framework and not a Palestinian-Israeli one.
It is a good issue to apply game theory knowledge, with both sides behaving on very set patterns, unfortunately. If no 'black swan' like a Palestinian Gandhi emerges, most people in this forum will see this issue to their graves.
But whatever happens, broadly, one can’t see a big role for India in the dispute unlike say, the Tamil-Sinhalese dispute and the Indian foreign policy establishment will have to deal with the issue as it is, with support for the genuine aspirations for the Palestinian people. Is the best way one to express Palestinian solidarity, one in which one is limited to the passing resolutions and making speeches and passing votes in the United Nations? Why hasn’t anyone even bothered to respond that section in the article which points at increased Indian participation?
The South Africa comparison is not even apples to oranges. It is apples to table tennis rackets. And Fukuyama’s attempt to sell his lame book with a catchy title has been panned enough times for it to be super boring.
While questions should be raised at the burgeoning defense expenditure and also the abject failure of the much touted and over-hyped Indian scientific and technological establishment to make acceptable weapons for its military, the rabid frowning just at buying Israeli weapons stink of an exercise of unexamined hand-me-downs. The same people might be observed in another situation to be commenting on the impotence of the Indian state in protecting its civilians against ‘twenty year olds high on coke with AK 47s on hand’ (to use a disliked, but unfortunately true phrase). One can argue that Israel has been an even more unsafe place than our major cities and on the success of its methods, but when a government takes steps to acquire weaponry and help which it might deem necessary, critiquing the deal for just its supplier is a case of misplaced priorities and an inability to deal with the world as it is.
