Posted on 06/22/2003 9:30:24 AM PDT by Courier
Don't condemn Israel to India's fate
M.D. Nalapat Jun. 22, 2003
On August 15, 1947, India became free. But the day before, nearly a third of the country had been cut away from it to form Pakistan.
Since 1948 Pakistan has conducted a continuous war with India, from overt conventional assault as in 1948, 1965 and 1971, to the covert war that has engulfed Kashmir since 1989. The bigger neighbor has exhibited all the hesitation and restraint typical of a democracy, while Pakistan, where the army has been in effective control since the first declaration of martial law in 1958, has shrewdly played its limited cards to great effect, combining with the United States "against communism," and with Communist China against India, getting repaid with weapons for use against one of the only three consistently democratic countries in Asia, together with Israel and Japan.
After India's first nuclear test in 1974 China began funneling technology to Pakistan which, by the end of the 1980s, made it the only Muslim country with a nuclear device, together with missiles that could hit large parts of India. The US, which after the Soviet collapse had bought the Saudi argument that Pakistan could be a bridge into Muslim Central Asia, looked the other way while this cross-border proliferation took place, while putting a virtual technological quarantine on India.
By creating a state with an ideology totally opposed to that of its neighbor, Britain condemned India to a constant state of external conflict and internal insecurity. Looking at the present meltdown in Pakistan, it does not seem likely that peace will break out anytime soon.
The constant chatter about an "imminent" India-Pakistan conflict has resulted in a flow of foreign investment to India that is less than 10% of that going to China. Most of the diplomatic interaction between New Delhi and the European Union or the US is an endless rehash of formulae for "resolving" differences between the two countries.
For that to happen, either Pakistan or India would have to give up its core ideology, for Pakistan is an Islamic republic where jihad is the official motto of the army, while India is a democracy.
WERE AN independent state of Palestine to be established alongside Israel, the latter would be condemned to the same fate that India has faced for the past 55 years a permanent state of insecurity. Just as Pakistan believes it is the successor to the Mughal Empire and that therefore historical justice demands it reestablish Muslim rule over the whole subcontinent, almost every Palestinian believes that the entire territory "from the river to the sea" belongs to him by right.
Yet just as the "Pakistani" identity was a fiction brought to life by the colonial power, so was the "Palestinian" identity. In reality, there is no "Palestinian people" with features distinct from the other Arabs of the region.
Were an independent state of Palestine to be created, Arab Israelis might suffer from dual loyalty. Just as Pakistan tries to establish its influence over India's 156 million Muslims by posing as their champion, elements within the proposed Palestinian state would try to create an allegiance between Arab Israelis and the new country.
In brief, the creation of an independent Palestinian state on the lines laid out in the road map would not bring peace. Instead, it would condemn Israel to decades of conflict with its new neighbor.
If Israel tries to please the US, the UK, the rest of the EU, and assorted busybodies around the world by failing to ensure that it has defensible borders, and if it agrees to the creation of an entity that by its very nature will be hostile to it, its present leaders are creating a monster that will certainly emaciate, and may even devour, their nation.
What needs to be done is for Israel to annex the territory required to be secure, while ensuring that the residue gets formed, not into a single state but into several entities such as a city-state of Gaza, on the Singapore model. Some of the territory abandoned by Israel could get absorbed into Jordan, where One Person, One Vote would then become the norm, as it is in India or Israel.
India and its people are still suffering from the "unwisdom" of its leaders in permitting the creation of a country that has become an ulcer on its flank. Will Israel's leaders learn from this example, or will they too condemn their people to the kind of hell Pakistan has created for its neighbor?
They must not allow Israel's borders to be militarily indefensible nor welcome the creation of a state whose people find their identity solely in the quest for Israel's destruction.
The writer is director of the School of Geopolitics, the Manipal Academy of Higher Education, India.
The only problems with this man's analysis is that Israel is not the size of India.
When the Arabs assault, and it is inevitable, Israel may be forced to the nuclear option to survive. The sad fact is that it may be too little too late.
Write it down, put it away. It may be you or your children or your grandchildren who take it out remember and weep. If George W Bush creates a Palestinian State he is planting the seeds of a nuclear war.
Partition was a good thing. It was horrific and cruel but it was good in the long-term.. i.e., good for the Hindus of India. Extracting a tumor is better than living with it.
The flaw with the Israel analogy, as you correctly point out, is this: Israel is much much smaller. It may not be able to survive. But the status quo is like India being forced to deal with bin Ladenites not as terrorists, but as elected representatives.
If George Bush doesn't create a Palestinian State, a nuclear war is just as inevitable --- more so in fact. And the security of the people of the United States is put at higher risk because of its association with the occupiers (Sharon's word) of the West Bank.
In short, the American people can no longer be expected to pay for the unfortunate circumstance that Israel is surrounded by 250 million backward people steeped in hatred, because, as 911 showed, the price is now our lives. As long as the occupation continues, Americans, as well as Israelis, are at risk.
Something big has got to change --- and that big thing is the creation of a Palestinian State. Why? Because it takes the heat off us baby, and that's what George Bush constitutional duty requires him to do, i.e., protect the American people.
If, after the new state is created, Palestinians break the treaty and attack Israel, there is at least a chance that world opinion will finally swing against Palestine, and some possibility may then arise for transport of hostile Arabs out of the region. It's a long shot, but it's the only shot Israel has. The status quo is an intolerable indulgence which the United States and the world can no longer afford.
If the treaty is not signed within the next five years, the United States is going to walk away from its longtime ally, and shortly thereafter, the State of Israel will be no more.
For our part, in the near term, we should commit American troops to hard fighting in the region if necessary, and take out or cripple Hamas, Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad. We should continue to put the squeeze on Syria, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and Iran through our military presence in the Iraq, Qatar, Kuwait and Afghanistan. We should do everything we possibly can to make the State of Israel secure alongside its new neighbor, to include committing American troops to a buffer zone for an extended period of years.
But a real treaty has got to be signed on the bottom line --- and soon. This cannot go on for another fifty years.
There is not one infinitesimal chance. Not one.
However, lots of good liberals will go watch "Piano" and get tears in their eyes and pity in their hearts for the poor Jew in the movie.
Well said.
The writer is director of the School of Geopolitics, the Manipal Academy of Higher Education, India.
Oye Vey!
A beautiful thing that brought into creation the warped, perverted Islamic entity!
THose people who join the Taliban now, the Pashtuns of what became Pakistan and the border areas of Afghanistan were led by a great leader called Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, aka the Frontier Gandhi.
He felt personally betrayed when the Indian Congress Party of Nehru agreed to the British and Jinnah led partition of India.
Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, leader of the Pashtuns, was a follower of Gandhi, agreed with him and wanted the Pashtuns integrated into a greater India. He mistrusted Jinnah, considered him a egotistical opportunist who would sell his mother for his dreams of power. Khan was right.
Imagine if such a leader had led the Pashtuns.
Your analysis is rather limited and shortsighted as to what would an India be if it did not have to deal with Pakistan for half a century.
I don't how anyone can look upon the current conditions on the subcontinent as a result of the Partition and proclaim it a good thing.
For example u cite the problems of Kashmir; without Pakistan how can you say that the situation would be the way it is today.
Sure, but for how long? Notice what happened in Bangladesh... they started off well, with a tolerant, secular Muslim named Mujibur aka Banga-bandhu at the helm. It took no more than one generation for the rabid-Islamists to take over & well, the rest is history.
I have an instrinsic distrust for large Islamic populations within non-Islamic, secular societies. I'd rather they not be there. Sure, the occasional Frontier Gandhi and Bangabandhu may show up, but by and large they tend to be a problem, in my opinion. But that's just me, and I expect you disagree.
Did it ever occur to you that Jihadi muslems are in the minority in India precisely because of Partition? What does it take to gain power in a secular democracy? Critical mass, in either money or population. The Muslims of contemporary India have neither. They are for the most part impoverished, and scattered across India. There are pockets, e.g. in parts of Kerala and Hyderabad and eastern UP, but nothing large enough to create a political bloc of its own. Had Partition not taken place, the "Indian" states of Sindh, Baluchistan, NWFP, etc would have almost certainly put Muslims into Parliament. And I certainly don't believe these "Indian" Muslims would be immune to the worldwide rise of hardcore Islamism that began during the Cold War years.
As for the "Indian" provinces of Bengal and Punjab, they would be chaotic at best, violence-torn at worst. I'm sure you're aware of the riots in Calcutta/Noakhali and those in Punjab during Partition. They were animalistic and barbaric, and if nothing else they ought to tell you that Hindu-Muslim hatred was a very real thing, and not something the colonialists conjured up "to keep India down". I realize thats the Indian secularist fantasy du jour but unfortunately the facts belie it. Islam does not coexist well with others, especially not when it reaches a certain critical mass. It had reached that in what is today Pakistan, and the provinces of Bengal & Punjab. Partition was necessary. Think of it like removing a cancerous tumor from the body.
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