People's Democracy

 EDITORIAL

 Axis Against Terrorism Or Axis For State Terrorism!

AS we go to press, India and Israel have decided to formalise a "strategic partnership to fight the scourge of terrorism." They have also agreed to a global and comprehensive response to combat terrorism. 

While talking of the "scourge" of terrorism, neither side, of course, spoke of the source of terrorism. The Indian prime minister, reportedly, said at the banquet hosted by him in honour of Ariel Sharon that `Jihadi' groups constitute "a menace that particularly targets democratic societies." He thus informs us, obviously, that India, Israel and the USA must put up a joint front against terrorism.

Since neither prime minister chose to speak about the source of terrorism, there is a need that we do so. The major, if not the only, source for engendering terrorist activities in West Asia is the illegal occupation of Palestinian lands by Israel. Occupation, forcibly and illegally, of foreign lands itself is terrorism --- state-sponsored terrorism.  If Israel vacates these lands and allows the Palestinians to have their own homeland, which has been denied to them by a gigantic imperialist conspiracy for over half a century, then the main source of terror would be eliminated. If any Palestinian terrorist attacks take place after such a move by Israel, then the whole world will join Israel in not only condemning these attacks but will work together to end this scourge. Israel not only continues to hold these lands violating several United Nations resolutions, but has sought to change the demographic composition of these lands by settling Jews there. In the name of protecting these Israeli citizens living on somebody else's land, Israel continues to unleash the most vicious state terrorism.

A young boy caught throwing stones at an Israeli tank patrolling the West Bank was asked as to why he was throwing stones. He promptly retorted asking what the tank was doing in his country. This, about all, sums up the situation.  (On page 3 in the issue, we have given the summary of the report submitted, on the eve of Sharon's visit, by the Amnesty International on the atrocities committed by Israel in occupied territories.)

The US imperialist attacks on Afghanistan earlier and the military occupation of Iraq today constitutes the biggest source for retribution in many quarters which, at times unfortunately and wrongly, takes the form of terrorist attacks. The entire history of state terrorism sponsored by the USA and its continued efforts to impose its global hegemony has generated what a leading intellectual has called the "hate of a humiliated people." State terrorism practiced by USA and Israel is, in fact, the cause that generates a misguided and condemnable response of individual terrorism. Terrorism can never be tackled and eliminated without eliminating the source from which such desperate actions as suicide bombers emerge.

Back home, we have seen the bomb blasts that rocked Mumbai recently were, as reported in the national press, a "revenge" for the state-sponsored genocide that took place in Gujarat last year. A decade earlier, the serial blasts that rocked Mumbai were a response to the horrific communal riots that Mumbai witnessed following the demolition of the Babri Masjid in December 1992. The Srikrishna commission report describes, in detail, the role of the then Maharashtra state government and the patronage it extended to these riots. 

Therefore, this anti-terrorism axis --- USA, Israel, India --- is nothing else but a united front of governments that sponsor state terrorism. State terrorism and individual terrorism feed each other. In the process, the casualty is democracy and the loss of innocent life and destruction of property. 

This Indo-Israeli commitment to end the scourge of terrorism without even referring to the sources that engender terrorism can only be seen as a part of a domestic political agenda that this Vajpayee government seeks to advance.  By targetting "Jihadi" groups, not so subtly suggested inference is that all Muslims are suspect. The greater the hatred spread against the Muslim community, the greater is the potential to consolidate the Hindu vote bank.  Gujarat has chillingly demonstrated the inhuman effectiveness of such a strategy. It is such a consolidation of the Hindu vote bank that the BJP and the Vajpayee government are seeking.

In the process, as we had stated earlier in these columns, this government has thrown to the winds decades of steadfast and unstinted support given by India to the Palestinians and the PLO. So complete has been the abandoning of the Palestinian cause by this government that Vajpayee, at his banquet speech, did not even once refer to an independent Palestinian state (which even George Bush keeps formally mouthing), leave alone asking Israel to withdraw from occupied lands in accordance with the United Nations resolutions. 

Much is being made of the gains India will make in the field of defence and procuring armaments. The whole world is virtually an arms bazaar. Nobody is doing anybody a favour by selling arms. On the contrary, they are making huge profits in such deals. In any case, having initiated the nuclear arms race in the subcontinent, this Vajpayee government has already negated India's superiority in conventional warfare vis-à-vis Pakistan. Acquiring new conventional weapons really does not enhance India's security.

It is, indeed, tragic that to demonstrate its servility to US imperialism and to advance its domestic political agenda, this Vajpayee government has not only reneged on India's longstanding traditions and commitments of supporting national liberation movements, but is actually honouring a person whose hands are soaked in the blood of Palestinians. For over 50 years, Ariel Sharon has shed the blood of Palestinians that he personally massacred or engineered to death.  His complicity in the Sabra and Shatila massacres was confirmed by an Israeli inquiry commission and he was then forced to resign from being the defence minister. Even at this very moment, he is keeping Yasser Arafat under house arrest, mounting unprecedented attacks against the Palestinians thus derailing any possibility of establishing peace in the region. Ariel Sharon refuses to withdraw from the lands that Israel illegally occupies.

It is, indeed, tragic, yet not unexpected, that this Vajpayee government, whose leadership is ideologically akin with the murderers of Mahatma Gandhi, should invite a person whose hands are full of the blood of countless innocent Palestinians to pay homage to Gandhi at the Rajghat!  This government must be told and retold, on every occasions, that the Indian people remain steadfast in their support to the Palestinian cause irrespective of the fact that this Vajpayee government is reneging on this commitment.