iviews,
In the 1920s, Gandhi declared, “Palestine belongs to the Palestinians as England belongs to the English and France to the French.” Gone are those days when India was one country that had been doggedly anti-Zionist and a powerful voice in the non-aligned movement. In the decades following the Nehru-Gandhi era, there has been a steady progress in India's bilateral relationships with both Israel and the United States. Today, India is one of the largest trading partners of both these countries.
India established full-fledged diplomatic relations with Israel in January 29, 1992. Since 1994 Indo-Israeli civilian trade has risen from some $250 million annually to $1.5 billion today with Indian purchases of Israeli defense products estimated as high as $900 million annually.*1 Contacts at many levels have become quite common when the Bharata Janata Party (BJP) came to power in March 1998. The relationship became warmer after the 1999 artillery duels between Pakistani and Indian forces in Kargil. Israel rushed to provide needed military technologies to New Delhi. Since then ties between the two nations produced a booming defense trade and rising commercial ties. In the summer of 2000, the then External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh, and the Home Minister L.K. Advani visited Israel, followed by India's National Security Advisor Brajesh Mishra's visit. In Jerusalem, of all places, Singh attributed India's decades-long Palestine policy to the 'Muslim votebank.' The then Israeli Foreign Minister, Shimon Peres, came to India twice – in August 2000 and January 2001. As a prelude to Sharon's state visit to India later in the year, Mishra was even invited to speak at the Annual Dinner held by the American Jewish Committee on May 8, 2003 in New York. The Dinner was attended by many hawkish supporters of Israel. Explaining the basis for the warm relationship between the two nations, he said, “India, the United States and Israel have some fundamental similarities. We are all democracies, sharing a common vision of pluralism, tolerance and equal opportunity.”*2
To cement the relationship, recently Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel ended his official visit as an invited guest of the Government of India. During the Vajpayee-Sharon meeting, New Delhi was promised to acquiring Phalcon airborne early warning system and anti-ballistic missiles from Israel. United States, which had earlier opposed the sale of AWACS to India (and as a prelude to its own sale of nuclear and space technologies to follow in 2004), gave its nod. Speaking to Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and the assembled media, Sharon proposed that India and Israel work together to combat terror: “Today, Israel and India are embattled democracies and sharing values and the challenge of terrorism. United in our quest for life, liberty and peace, our joint determination to fight for these values can inspire our hope for a better future for our people.”
So, here again (like Mishra earlier), Sharon – a war criminal, who is guilty of killing tens of thousands of Palestinians, who opposed every peace deal, who personifies evil and exemplifies anti-thesis [for the pursuit] of 'life, liberty and peace' – spoke about sharing and fighting for common values with the Vajpayee-Advani's India. Since when has the apartheid state of Israel promoted a “vision of pluralism, tolerance and equal opportunity?” Isn't it a fact that the Israel is a Jewish state, which discriminates against non-Jews on the basis of religion? Palestinian people are even denied basic human rights. Could Mishra or Sharon explain why there are scores of UN Resolutions and Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch Reports, which condemned Israel for war crimes? If Israel promoted pluralism, why did its leaders oppose a bi-national state since 1918, a position that has remained unchanged to this very day? Wasn't it Dr. Weizmann, who in 1918, when asked by the British Secretary Balfour if coexistence of the Jews and Arabs was possible, argued against it by saying: “… the democratic principles reckons with the relative numerical strength; and the brutal numbers operate against us for there are five Arabs to one Jew”?*3 But that was then: some 86 years ago, before they uprooted nearly three quarters of a million Palestinians from their ancestral homes; Jews are now a majority in Israel. Has that shift in demography changed their position? No, not in 1967 when they occupied the West Bank and Gaza; and not now, with nearly a million Russian Ashkenazim Jews settled in their midst. They [Israelis] are still opposed to the return of the Palestinian refugees. The raison d'etre, which has never changed, was reiterated by Moshe Dayan on June 11, 1967 in an interview with the CBS TV program “Face the Nation”. He explained: “It would turn Israel into either a bi-national or poly-Arab Jewish state instead of the Jewish state, and we want to have a Jewish state.” So much for the Israeli brand of pluralism!
A nation is often assessed in terms of its treatment of the minorities. In Israel, the Palestinians living within the pre-'67 borders are treated as the Fourth Class citizens (after Ashkenazim Jews, Sephardic Jews and Falasha Jews
