People's Democracy

INVITATION TO SHARON

Severe Blot On Indian Nation

N D Jayaprakash

DURING his speech at the annual dinner of the American Jewish Committee (AJC) on May 8, in New York, Brajesh Mishra rightly claimed that India “is one of very few countries in the world with no history of anti-Semitism.”  However, he very conveniently forgot to add that India was one country that had been consistently anti-Zionist since the early days of its national movement under Mahatma Gandhi. It is primarily after the BJP-led alliance assumed office that the Indian government has started taking an increasingly pro-Zionist stance.

Mishra also went on to add: “India, the United States and Israel have some fundamental similarities. We are all democracies, sharing a common vision of pluralism, tolerance and equal opportunity.” But, since when has Israel started promoting “a... vision of pluralism, tolerance and equal opportunity”? Is it not a fact that the bulk of the Palestinian minority population was violently displaced from the area allocated to Israel under the UN partition plan of 1947? Is it not a fact that the Palestinian people are under the brutal occupation of Israel, especially since 1967? Is it not a fact that more than half the 8 million Palestinian population are forced to live as refugees both inside and outside Palestine? Is it not a fact that the UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People (CEIRPP, a committee consisting of 25 UN members including India) has repeatedly voiced its grave concern at the horrendous treatment of the Palestinians by the occupying Israeli defence forces (IDF)? Then, by what yardstick did Mishra claim that Israel has been promoting  pluralism, tolerance and equal opportunity?

IGNOBLE VISION OF HISTORY 

Mishra’s claim of shared vision obviously rests on the ignoble Sangh Parivar’s version of history. According to them: “Just as the Hindus of India are fighting for their survival in the very land of their origin and forefathers, so too are the Jews of Israel confronting the very same threats to the nation that is theirs by historical and religious birthright. Hindus and Jews both face exactly the same danger: Islam…. The desire to reassert what is their rightful pride in land, culture and religion has awakened in the heart of the common Israeli and Indian. The results are obvious, the unabashedly Jewish Likud Party was voted into power in Israel and the political party that represents the reemergence of Hinduism, the BJP, has been voted into power in India. Considering the import of shared experiences, ideas and situations that links Indians and Israelis, it is about time that solid chains of friendship were forged”  (Aditi Chaturvedi, India and Israel: Destined for True Friendship, March 22, 1999, at http://www.swordoftruth.com/swordoftruth/archives/byauthor/aditichaturvedi/iaidftf.html; this website is funded by yet another Zionist organisation: The Freeman Centre for Strategic Studies, Huston, Texas, USA).

There is little doubt, therefore, that it is the BJP’s fascistic ideological affinity with the Likud Party which is the driving force behind this attempt to forge “solid chains of friendship.” Just as the BJP emerged out of the erstwhile Bharatiya Jan Sangh, the Likud (“Unity”) Party too emerged out of the erstwhile Tnuat Haherut (“Freedom”) Party. The “Freedom” Party was headed by Menachem Begin, who also later went on to head the Likud Party. The Likud Party first came to power in 1977 with Begin as prime minister. It may be noted that nearly 30 years before that, many eminent US intellectuals of Jewish origin, including the noted scientist Albert Einstein, had protested against the visit of Begin, while he was in the United States in 1948 on a fund raising campaign, for his role in the Deir Yassin massacre (see below). In their protest letter, which was published in the New York Times, they spoke plainly urging the US citizens not to support Begin or the fascist political movement he represented. The letter stated as follows:

 "Among the most disturbing political phenomena of our time is the emergence in the newly created state of Israel of the "Freedom Party" (Tnuat Haherut), a political party closely akin in its organisation, methods, political philosophy and social appeal to the Nazi and Fascist parties. It was formed out of the membership and following of the former Irgun Zvai Leumi, a terrorist, right-wing, chauvinist organisation in Palestine. Before irreparable damage is done by way of financial contribution the American public must be informed as to the record and objectives of Mr Begin's and his movement. Today they speak of freedom, democracy and anti-imperialism, whereas until recently they openly preached the doctrine of the fascist state…. A shocking example was their behaviour in the Arab village of Deir Yassin…. On April 9 terrorist bands attacked this peaceful village, killed most of its inhabitants  --- 240 men, women and children --- and kept a few of them alive to parade them as captives through the streets of Jerusalem. Most of the Jewish community was horrified at the deed, and the Jewish Agency sent a telegram of apology to King Abdulla of Transjordan..…. But the terrorists far from being ashamed of their act, were proud of this massacre, publicised it widely, and invited all the foreign correspondents present in the country to view the heaped corpses and the general havoc at Deir Yassin. The Deir Yassin incident exemplifies the character of the Freedom Party…. The undersigned therefore take this means of publicly presenting a few salient facts concerning Begin and his party; and of urging all concerned not to support this latest manifestation of fascism" (Albert Einstein and 28 others, New York Times, December 4, 1948). 

MURDERERS IN CHAIR

As mentioned above, it is the same fascist “Freedom” Party that has re-emerged as the Likud Party, which has been ruling Israel for the last several years. At least three of its members who have occupied the prime ministerial post --- Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Shamir (who had plotted the murder of the UN mediator for Palestine, Count Bernadotte, in 1948; (for more details see: http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/History/folke.html) and Aerial Sharon --- have blood on their hands. Sharon, the present Israeli prime minister, was directly involved in the massacre of some 69 Palestinians in the West Bank village of Qibiya in 1953   (http://electronicintifada.net/forreference/keyfigures/sharon.html.) Moreover, because of his despicable role in the massacre of some 3500 Palestinians at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Beirut in September 1982, efforts are currently on to try Sharon as a war criminal in a Belgian court of law.

On June 18, 2001, 23 survivors of the 1982 Sabra and Shatila massacres lodged a case in Belgium accusing Ariel Sharon, former Israeli defence minister and currently prime minister, Commandant Brigadier General Amos Yaron, Commandant Major General Drori, Elias Hobeika and other Lebanese Phalangist militia leaders with war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide related to the massacres committed between September 16-18, 1982 (for more details, see http://www.indictsharon.net).(The Sabra and Shatila survivors lodged the charges under 1993 and 1999 Belgian legislations that incorporates the principle of Universal Jurisdiction for war-crimes and crimes against humanity into Belgian criminal law.) Even the BBC has produced a documentary on Sharon titled “The Accused” which deals with his complicity in the Shabra and Shatila massacre “The Accused”, Sunday June 17, 2001, PANAROMA, see (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/panorama/1390979.stm). 

CONSCIENTIOUS INDIANS STIGMATISED

Sharon's current role as prime minister has been equally appalling. The massacre of Palestinians in the refugee camps in the West Bank town of Jenin in April 2002 is yet another example of the brutality with which IDF under Sharon has been treating the hapless Palestinians. It is this bloodthirsty leader of the Likud Party that the government of India has chosen to bestow an honour by inviting him to India at this juncture. This thoughtless decision of the Indian government stigmatises all conscientious Indians.

Incidentally, Israel has the dubious distinction of attaining “pariah” status in the UN because of its despicable deeds! According to AJC’s own admission: "... since the fall of 1996… the world body has entered a new and regrettably familiar phase, reminiscent of the UN in the 1970s and 1980s…. In this vast and strife-torn world, no other country is subject to the relentless, indeed obsessive, attention that is focused on Israel, year in and year out, in the General Assembly and other UN bodies. No other country is the subject of an even remotely similar number of critical resolutions, agenda items, committees of the Secretariat, and intolerant remarks” (American Jewish Committee, September 23, 1997, at http://www.charitywire.com/00-00348.htm). Seven years later the AJC could not but add that “There are many others ways in which Israel has been singled out for special treatment at the UN, making it a pariah state” (http://www.ajc.org/Israel/IsraelAndTheUN.asp,  May 29, 2003)

According to another Zionist sympathiser, only the United States “can be counted on to quickly and unambiguously express its understanding of Israel's situation and defend Israel 's right to strike back…. Europeans, by contrast, stumble all over themselves, trying, but never convincingly, to show sympathy for the Israeli victims, but unable to hide their profound antipathy for the Sharon-led government and their general dislike of military responses to what they believe to be political problems.” The same report also went on to add:  …the Geneva-based Commission on Human Rights, for example, was able to devote about 35 per cent of its time at this year's six-week session to bashing Israel. It passed no fewer than eight anti-Israel resolutions, when no other problematic regional situation was the object of more than one resolution, if that” (David A Harris, Israel nearly alone in its war for survival, Miami Herald, September 3,  & nbsp; 2002, at http://www.ajc.org/InTheMedia/OpinionsDetail.asp?did=202&pid=1425).

Zionist Israel is despised the world over precisely because of its forcible occupation of Palestine and its most inhuman treatment of the Palestinian people for the last 55 years. Ariel Sharon’s infamy goes back even further. Sharon has never lost an opportunity to spill the blood of Palestinians ever since he joined the Haganah, the terrorist wing of the Zionist movement, way back in 1942. The scale of his cruelty has only increased with time. Under the circumstances, if the said invitation to Ariel Sharon is not withdrawn by the government of India forthwith, it would be a severe blot on the entire Indian nation.