Author: Dr. Richard L. Benkin
Publication: Freechoudhury.com
Date: July 22, 2008
URL: http://www.freechoudhury.com/images/India&Israel.htm
Along with the United States, India and Israel
are the nations most prominently in the crosshairs of Islamists everywhere.
Superficially, the two countries could not differ more: population, area,
poverty levels, urbanization, and so forth. Their more essential commonalities,
however, make them natural allies against the same enemies: genocidal Islamists
from the outside; and a politically ascendant moral weakness from the inside.
They came into being within a year of each
other shortly after World War II. Both waged a protracted resistance against
European occupiers, which along with the post war collapse of the British
Empire won both peoples independence on their ancient soils. Neither birth
was without trauma, however. Both nations faced partition demands from South
Asian Middle Eastern Muslims who refused to live under Hindu or Jewish leadership.
Though it was a blatantly racist demand, the international community capitulated
and offered to partition the new countries. While it did not even debate the
legitimacy of these Muslim demands, we can only imagine how it would have
reacted if the situations were reversed and Jews and Hindus refused to live
in Muslim countries. Quite differently if history is any guide. Ancient Jewish
communities in newly created Syria and Iraq were in immediate danger, yet
found no protection or even support for autonomous status.
In South Asia, Muslims accepted the partition,
and the largest and most rapid migration of people in history that accompanied
it; while exact figures have been elusive, estimates of at least 30 million
people are considered reliable with an additional 500,000 killed. Thus were
born the nations of Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan, part of which later became
Bangladesh. Yet, Muslim leaders to this day do not recognize India's legitimacy
as a Hindu country. They argue that since there were periodic Muslim leaders
in the pre-British era, the entire nation is Muslim in accordance with Muslim
law.
Whether out of pique, overconfidence, or religious
hatred, Middle Eastern Muslims rejected partition. They vowed to destroy the
Jewish state and carry out a massive genocide. Several Arab nations jointly
tried just that, but newborn State of Israel prevailed against all odds and
with the hostility of that same international community. The Muslim Arabs
miscalculated badly, something they would do again and again. Several subsequent
Arab attempts at genocide were equally disastrous, despite international passivity
(save the United States in 1973). Instead, Muslim race hatred was rewarded
with massive amounts of aid and an attempt to re-write some sort of historical
legitimacy for the Arabs. The Muslims of the Middle East, like their South
Asian brethren, still refuse to recognize this non-Muslim state's right to
exist.
As a result, both nations face the danger
of a potential fifth column. Indian Muslims hold clearly identified "Muslim"
political positions, often at odds with "Hindu" ones; and a large
part of the Israeli Arab community has made clear its loyalty to Arab positions
that undermine the Jewish state. Moreover, both Israeli Jews and Indian Hindus
need to wake up to the fact that, no matter how just their cause or how defensive
their actions, they cannot expect anything but opposition to their fight against
radical Islam from all but an oppressed minority of Muslims. The goal of Islamists
and their clients remains the same for India and Israel: their total eradication
and replacement by an Islamic State. For decades, Arab states made no secret
of their intention to destroy Israel; some still do. Europe's always lurking
anti-Semitism made marginalizing the world's only Jewish state easy; India
is just too big. The Muslim states tried aggressive warfare against both nations,
b
ut failing at it time and again changed tactics so that Israel and India face
terrorist attacks by their surrogates. Israel has had to deal with terrorism
longer, and many Indians believe that the success of Israeli counterterrorism
makes it a model for them. But the most curious and significant fact is that
both nations have the power to destroy their enemies; yet, both nations refrain
from doing so.
Neither country needs to suspend the rule
of law or otherwise become like their enemies to succeed; they are better
than that and need to remain so. Their enemies make it clear that they can't
wait to get their hands on some weapons of mass destruction so they can use
them against these two great democracies. On the other hand, both India and
Israel have had them for decades and have never used them. Alone they can
achieve success, but together they could be an indomitable force against Islamist
terror and the nations that support it. Moreover, they both have to cast out
the same demons and follow the same strategy for it to happen.
First, stop pandering to the enemy, both inside
and outside of the country. Indians call it pseudo secularism. Israelis just
call it appeasement. Both democracies bend over backwards to show the world
that they are sensitive to their Muslim minorities; but let's remember that
they are minorities in both countries. While free governments have no moral
right to deprive them of basic rights or of social or legal equality. But
that same system of morality does not require the majorities-Hindus in India,
Jews in Israel-to show their compassion by giving into every alleged slight,
merited or not.
Second, be unyielding in goals and principles.
Leaders in both Israel and India (as well as many in the United States) have
a basic misunderstanding how our enemies and their potential allies-who also
are out potential allies-understand our actions. Too often, they confuse "understanding"
with moral relativism. For instance, neither they nor their cohorts in Europe
spoke of "the white man's burden" to bring civilization to the rest
of the world. Yet, how different is that discredited concept from an Imam's
call to bring the rest of the world under Islam or peoples of all faiths under
Sharia law? And they have never publicly condemned that imperialistic and
racist policy. For decades, democracies have prided themselves on inclusion
and lowering barriers that previously limited interaction among ethnic and
religious groups. Yet, in India, the United Kingdom, and elsewhere, Muslims
are given free reign to apply Sharia law in various matters even if it conflicts
with natio
nal principles of freedom and decency. Those leaders who believe they are
showing their compassion are showing nothing more than weakness. For if we
are willing to look the other way when our enemies routinely violate our principles
we claim to hold dear, we appear to have no principles at all-something that
Islamists claim in order to seduce converts to their cause.
Third, characterize the enemy with the inflammatory
rhetoric that accurately reflects what they are. Imagine even one Jewish Sabbath
service at which the Rabbi exhorts the congregation to seek out all Muslims
and slaughter them; even imagine an Israeli Rabbi saying the same thing about
all Arabs. You can't; it doesn't happen. And we know that because if it did,
there would be world wide outrage, newspaper condemnations, cries or outrage
from every human rights NGO, and maybe even a UN investigation. Rabbis and
the Israeli government would be even quicker to condemn it. Yet, the converse
occurs every Friday at mosques throughout Israel-that's every Friday-official
PA and other Muslim radio stations even carry those racist and murder-inciting
statements. But the Israeli government does not issue equally loud condemnations
or apply laws against incitement to religious hatred (which it surely would
apply to Jews). It does not protest to the United Nations or to the various
Arab governments that claim to be "peace partners." Why not? Every
time a Muslim leader-secular or religious-uses the language of hate, Israeli,
Indian, and US leaders must loudly condemn it as such. Call on Amnesty International,
Human Rights Watch, and the UN to investigate it. Plaster every airwave with
our outrage and the indecent statements of imams and tyrants. Remain strong
together and others will join. Make those who would rather skulk away in silence
stand in front of television cameras and justify hatred again and again and
again until their duplicity and moral cowardice force a change.
Recently, I was part of a US Congressional
briefing about minority oppression in Bangladesh. When I rose to spoke, I
expressed my own outrage that I was the first speaker to call the action against
Bangladeshi Hindus what it really is: ethnic cleansing. I also asked if there
could be any doubt that Bangladesh's Vested Property Act is racist? Yet, no
one calls it what it is. Every time that hated law is mentioned, it should
be described as the "racist" Vested Property Act. Every time the
plight of Bangladesh's Hindus is noted, it must be called ethnic cleansing.
Our enemies use hyperbole all the time to paint themselves as victims, and
the world buys it. How much more important is it that we use the same language
to describe events that actually fit it!
Fourth, reject outdated perspectives and the
self-interest of governments in trouble. Indian and Israeli governments both
seek approval from Europe like it is some sort of moral arbiter in this world.
Yet, Europe's one consistent response to evil has been silence; appeasement.
Indian leaders especially need to drop their Euro-centric bias. For Europe
has never modeled moral behavior in the face of immorality. All of Europe
either participated or was complicit in the Nazi holocaust of the Jews; it
did nothing to stop genocide in its former African colonies of Nigeria (Biafra),
Rwanda, the Sudan, and in countless other places where the body counts have
been ignored. Can we really expect Europe to do anything but express regret
after Israel's 6 million Jews are murdered; or after there are no more Hindus
in Pakistan or Bangladesh?
Moreover, we have seen weak governments in
both countries choose the course of appeasement in the false hope of strengthening
their own position. In India, the left-center Congress Party has entered into
agreements with Indian communists upon whom they are now dependent. In Israel,
a Prime Minister facing imminent indictment has just concluded a deal that
broke Israeli pledges never to release terrorists who had Israeli blood on
their hands. Indians and Israelis must let them know that in an effort to
save their own skins, they are willing to sell out their children. And they
must do so with profound outrage.
Fifth, use the military power at your disposal
to dispatch those who are killing your own children-and generally calling
those who do heroes!
One final bit of perspective. Some years back,
my mother, wife, and daughter were enjoying a meal in a Jerusalem pizza parlor.
Several weeks later, an Arab terrorist walked into that same pizza parlor
and exploded a bomb, murdering 15 people including seven children. I realized
that if my mother, wife, and daughter were there that day, the people who
dispatched the murdered would have rejoiced in their deaths; and further that
anyone who would rejoice in the death of my mother, wife, and daughter, is
an enemy with whom peace is impossible.
And the time to act on that realization is
now; tomorrow might be too late.
