HAMAS LEADER’S ASSASSINATION

Israel, US Will Have To Account For Misdeeds

  Harkishan Singh Surjeet

THE brutal and no-nonsense assassination of wheelchair-bound, 67 years old Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, founder of the militant Palestinian group Hamas, is yet another proof of the Israeli Zionist lobby’s thinking on the question of Palestinian statehood. The cleric was killed in a pre-dawn missile attack on Monday, March 22, when he was coming out of a mosque in Gaza Strip. 

The barbaric attack, that was closely supervised by Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon himself, killed seven more persons on the spot. Immediately after the attack, the Israeli army sealed off the Gaza Strip and West Bank to prevent any Palestinian from entering Israel. This too is an indication of the fact that Yassin’s cold-blooded assassination was a preplanned affair. Zionists have also threatened to kill all the Hamas leaders.

Israeli Zionists had also tried to assassinate Yassin last September when they had dropped a 550-pound bomb on an apartment complex in the Gaza Strip.  

Talking about the assassination of Yassin, an Israeli cabinet minister is reported to have said that it was meant to “create quiet.” And their defence minister Shaul Mofaz expressed the hope that Yassin’s assassination would eventually weaken the Hamas. Such statements aptly sum up the whole Zionist attitude to the Palestinian question --- that they are in no mood to let the concerned people evolve any peaceful solution to the problem.

THREAT FACING WEST ASIA

THE assassination of the Hamas leader has left many people around the world astonished and wondering whether the Zionists really want peace to prevail in the country and the region. While the Israeli leadership and their US imperialist mentors have all along been railing against the Hamas leadership, it has been said that Yassin “was arguably the moderate face of Palestinian Islamists, and probably the only one who could bring his followers to sit at the negotiation table with the Israelis some day” (Hindustan Times, editorial, March 23). The Hindu editorial on the same day supplemented the above assessment in these words: “Until now president Yasser Arafat and prime minister Ahmed Qureia had relied on Sheikh Yassin to restrain the militants during the fleeting periods of peace. The spiritual guide had usually succeeded in ensuring that his followers were not the first to break a truce.” 

Moreover, the Hamas leader was keeping his followers restrained even after Israel declared “an all-out war” on Hamas; the September attempt on Yassin’s life was a part of this very Zionist drive.

It is therefore no wonder that Hamas militants have said they are no longer bound by their self-imposed restraint. Immediately after the assassination, militants reportedly shouted on loudspeakers: “Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, rest in peace. They will never enjoy rest. We will send death to every house, every city, every street in Israel.” And a Hamas leader said: “Our mourning will never end until hundreds of Israelis are killed, until Sharon is dead.” 

This is the real threat facing the whole of West Asia today.

NOT A MORAL QUESTION

SOME people may ask whether such an escalation of violence will be justifiable or condemnable. But posing the question in such a fashion will be outright wrong, as the question is not a moral one and cannot be addressed in this abstract manner.        

The real question is not of the justifiability of violence or otherwise. The thing is that it is the Israeli Zionist lobby that has, by its actions, been giving a boost to the sense of desperation among the hapless Palestinians and thereby fuelling militancy in their ranks. We all know that, some three years ago, it was the same Ariel Sharon who provoked the second Palestinian intifada by trying to forcibly enter the Al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, the third most scared place for the Muslims after Mecca and Medina, and the troops accompanying Sharon killed several protesting Palestinians on the spot, including an eight years old child. 

This is the really tragic aspect of the question --- that while Palestinians and also the common Israelis in increasing numbers want a durable peace in West Asia, and Palestinians are even prepared to make substantial concessions for the purpose, the Zionists are not prepared to accept any such idea. Nay, it would not be wrong to say that, but for such an adamant attitude on part of the Zionists, the Palestinian question could have been solved long ago. In fact, it is the Zionists who backed out from the Oslo accord of 1991 and the subsequent Madrid accord, even though it was very clear that, side by side with Israel, the creation of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, and a few other steps like the return of Palestinian refugees and the dismantling of illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip could go a long way in solving the problem once and for all. 

And the Zionists are doing all this when the Israeli masses are increasingly craving for peace and Sharon’s own approval rating at home has nosedived. 

All this reminds we Indians of the mythological story of how the Kauravas refused to give the Pandavas even an inch of land, which eventually led to the Mahabharata war --- and even to the total destruction of the Kauravas.

ZIONIST DEPREDATIONS

APART from Sharon’s provocative attempt to force his way into the Al Aqsa mosque, consider the following, among other things:

1. It is the Zionist lobby that went back on its word after promising that nearly 80 per cent of the illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied areas would be dismantled, while “most Israelis now believe the occupation of Palestinian land is untenable” (Hindustan Times, editorial, March 23).

2. It is the Zionist lobby that has off and on been preventing the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip and West Bank from entering Israel, thereby depriving them of jobs and thus heaping upon them indescribable miseries including starvation.

3. It is the Zionist lobby that unleashed brutal repression upon the Palestinian people in order to crush their intifada by force. 

4. It is the Zionist lobby that encircled the PLO chairman and Palestinian Authority president Yasser Arafat in his Ramallah headquarters for more than 40 days, in a bid to assassinate him.

This is, however, not the first time that the Zionists have resorted to political assassination. Earlier, they had killed the general secretary of the Democratic Front for Liberation of Palestine and leaders of some other Palestinian groups, as an integral part of their strategy.

In view of all these things, the only conclusion one can draw is this: If a new wave of violence erupts in West Asia, its responsibility will squarely lie on the Zionists and their imperialist mentors. The only danger is that the militant fundamentalists among the Palestinians, if they get an upper hand, may make it an issue between Muslims and others. That this line of struggle will be wrong, goes without saying. For example, among the Palestinians themselves, it is not the Muslims alone but also Christians who are fighting for freedom.   

US IMPERIALIST BACKING

THIS brings us directly to the dirty role the US imperialists have been playing in West Asia. In fact, the US has been backing the Zionists ever since 1948 when an imperialist conspiracy led to the creation of a state of Israel while denying statehood to the Palestinians. That this was in utter violation of a United Nations resolution on the issue, was no cause of headache to the US. 

It may be underlined here that even in the latest case, the US has craftily avoided to condemn Yassin’s assassination, even as a diplomatic show, even while France, Germany, Russia and many other countries have unequivocally condemned the heinous act. The US state department only said that this act would increase tensions and make it harder to pursue peace in the Middle East. Internal security secretary Tom Ridge was, however, quite prompt in reacting to the Hamas warning to the US. “If they are threatening the United States, we have to take it quite seriously,” he told reporters in Washington.

The fact remains that, even though pontificating to the whole world on the need of a war against terror, Bush has always been shielding the Zionist terror in the Middle East. Nay, Bush’s attitude to Israel has been in continuation with the policy pursued on the issue by his predecessors, whether Democrats or Republicans. It is now an open secret that the Zionists could not have dared to ignore the several UN resolutions on the Palestinian question without the not at all secret support from the US governments so far. There also were occasions when the US exercised its veto power to save Israel from any condemnation in or action by the UN Security Council. 

To quote The Hindu editorial again: “the United States is almost as guilty since it has persistently condoned the brutal methods that the Sharon government has used against the Palestinians. The promise that once existed of a peaceful West Asian future in which two nations would exist side by side has withered because Washington could not shake off its partiality for Israel. Although the American leadership knows very well that the injustice perpetrated on the Palestinians is a root cause of Islamist extremism, it refuses to address the issue even as it prates about its campaign against terror.”

Here, one may also recall that (1) when Bush outlined a road map for West Asia in June 2002, it was heavily skewed in favour of the Zionists, and moreover (2) Bush gave a silent burial to his own road map when the Zionists criticised it, as they did not want to give even slight concessions to the Palestinians. This has been totally against the stringency with which Bush has been pursuing his imperialist hegemonistic agenda in other parts of the world. 

This strange behaviour on part of Bush is, however, not something beyond comprehension. The fact is that Israel has always been the US imperialists’ heavily armed goon in West Asia and an integral part of their hegemonistic agenda. Any acts on part of Israel against the Arabs and Palestinians, even the most condemnable ones, do not deserve any adverse reaction --- insofar as the US imperialist thinking goes.   

The Hindu warning is therefore quite apt: “The US might soon have reason to regret its inhuman attitude to the Palestinians.”

VAJPAYEE GOVT’S SILENCE

IN this regard, the Vajpayee regime’s attitude has been as deplorable as the US attitude. While refraining from condemning the dastardly assassination, the government of India (GoI) under Vajpayee only advised “restraint” to all parties, forgetting that to advise restraint to the oppressed is a de facto encouragement to the oppressor.  

This is, however, not surprising. The fact is that during the last six years the BJP led NDA government has dismantled our earlier, time tested foreign policy in its bid to earn the goodwill of American imperialists and become their Man Friday in South Asia --- the same as Israel is in West Asia. 

It is well known that our earlier, consensual foreign policy was a principled one as it was based on a struggle for peace and total disarmament around the globe, on non-alignment, support to national liberation struggles and opposition to imperialist designs in all spheres --- political, economic, military and others. It was that foreign policy that had earned India a lot of praise in the whole world and made it a natural leader of the third world countries. India once used to be a reliable shelter for freedom fighters from all the countries. It raised its voice in support of the liberation of dozens of countries from Indonesia in the east to Namibia in the west. Palestinians too always counted on India’s principled support to their eminently justified quest for a homeland, and India was the first country to give recognition to Palestine as a state, allowing the PLO to open its embassy in New Delhi. India always raised its voice whenever imperialists intervened in any part of the world, as in Suez, Vietnam, Korea, Iran, Congo, Nicaragua and other places. It was therefore not surprising if Castro, during the NAM’s New Delhi summit in 1983, heaped lavish praises on India’s role in world affairs. It was also not surprising if Mandela, after his release from jail in 1990, chose India as his first destination. Nor was it surprising if the then prime minister, V P Singh, and other Indian delegates were the guests of honour at the celebration of Namibia’s independence in the same year. 

But, sadly, all that is a thing of the past now. India, under the BJP, has now adopted a totally contrary foreign policy, even while paying lip service to non-alignment. 

Here we will not go into the details of how the Vajpayee government has surrendered our vital interests in the economic and trade spheres in order to appease its imperialist masters. Nor will we talk of why the GoI under BJP has stopped all talk of disarmament; it is not even prepared to demand that the US disband its nuclear base in Diego Garcia, which threatens all the countries on the Indian Ocean rim, including India. 

But who can forget that the same GoI withdrew recognition from the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic? And it was the same GoI that gave the marching order to the former PLO ambassador, known as a great friend of India, simply because he was present at a meeting in Hyderabad that was organised to protest the communal violence in Gujarat. Vajpayee was the first prime minister to invite and extend red carpet welcome to an Israeli prime minister --- and to whom? --- to Sharon, that butcher of the Shattila and Shabra refugees. Moreover, the GoI under Vajpayee has forged closer ties with Israel in military spheres while, during the last six years, it has been conspicuous by its silence of the question on Palestinian struggle for a homeland. 

The Vajpayee government’s silence is particularly abhorrent in view of the fact that Yassin’s assassination has intensified the threat to Yasser Arafat’s life. Even the US state department felt compelled to urge Israel to keep its promise of not harming Arafat. But the Vajpayee government is not prepared to issue even such an appeal.

But can anything else be expected from a government that is sulking ever since the US gave Pakistan the status of a major non-NATO ally? From one that was itching to send our troops to Iraq for policing job on behalf of its US masters? It is another matter that it could not do so because of intense mass pressure at home.  

However, it is the same pressure from the masses of India that will soon force the Vajpayee government to give an account of all its misdeeds --- not only in the economic and political spheres but also in the sphere of foreign policy whereby it has lowered the country’s prestige in the world arena.