israel a friend indeed

[Guest guest]

http://www.rediff.com/news/2003/jun/20rajeev.htmRajeev Srinivasan, Israel: A

friend in need?, June 20, 2003There are several reasons why this is the perfect

time for India to enter into a strong alliance with Israel:Chanakyan theory of

statecraftCertain similarities that make them compatible in the 'clash of

civilisations'A realisation by Indians that Israeli concerns are validThe rabid

opposition of India's MarxistsLet me emphasise, however, that it is not

necessarily the case for India to be forever wedded to Israel, or indeed, to

anyone else: all tactical alliances are fluid and based on expediency. Indians,

naïvely, go for lifetime commitments, when a light-hearted affaire de coeur is

the right answer. The BJP has learned this art of compromise, but the Congress

never did. But that's no surprise considering their 'leaders' are selected more

for their ability to kiss Nehru dynasty ass than for any inherent competence.

Chanakya in his classic Arthashastra (translated and edited by L N Rangarajan,

Penguin India, 1992, 868 pp., Rs. 395) speaks about the national interest. He

has a dictum that by definition, a state's immediate neighbours are enemies; in

India's case this is amply borne out by China, Pakistan and Bangladesh. As an

illustration, China was not India's enemy for 2,200 years as some Chinese

strongman said recently: that was because there was a country in between, the

buffer state of Tibet. As soon as they swallowed Tibet, they became India's

neighbour, and therefore, enemy.Chanakya defines six methods of foreign policy

that the nation could pursue in order to advance its interests:Samdhi, or

making peace via a treaty, when one is relatively weakVigraha, or active

hostilities, waging war, when one is stronger than the enemyAsana, or staying

quiet, as in an armed truce, when the enemy is equally strongYana, or preparing

for war, building up one's capabilities, when one has certain

advantagesSamsraya, or seeking support from others, when one is depleted in

strengthDvaidhibhava, or dual policy of making peace with one neighbour to

pursue, with his help, the policy of hostility towards another, when this is

necessaryOf these, Chanakya is clear that actively waging war is the last

resort, and that it is only when other means are exhausted that one should

pursue this direction. It may well be that India is simultaneously pursuing

yana by building up her military and economic strength, and samsraya by seeking

support, both sensible policies. Israel is a good fit in both strategies, for it

does have the military technology India needs, and its support irritates only

those who are inimical to India anyway.Chanakya would suggest war against

Pakistan, and armed truce against China. Chanakya also defines the 'Middle

Power' (madhyama) and the 'Neutral Power' (udasina), powerful states that may

have an interest in the nation's affairs. The US fits in with the definition of

'Neutral Power', one that is more powerful than both us and our immediate

enemies. Israel is clearly an ally of the Neutral Power. Theoretically, there

is thus good reason for India to ally herself with Israel. There is also an

eminently practical reason: the stark reality is that India and Israel are the

only two states that are actively resisting being overwhelmed in a giant

Islamic crescent ranging from West Africa to Indonesia. And we are the only two

states that have the fundamental religious foundations to resist

dhimmitude.There are a number of other similarities: for instance the issue of

'holy sites' in Palestine and in Ayodhya. Furthermore, it is amazing how the

antediluvian Marxists around the world despise both Hinduism and Judaism; but

they are quite happy to be water-carriers for Islamism in contrast. Little do

the Marxists realise that they will be the first to be liquidated in an

Islamist State. This is much like black Muslims in the US who do not appreciate

the irony that their ancestors were enslaved by Muslim slave traders who rounded

them up and frog-marched them in chains to board waiting European ships.The

whole issue of the primal rights to the land in Palestine, in particular in

Jerusalem, is quite tortuous. The American scholar Daniel Pipes suggests

convincingly that Jerusalem in fact was not a major holy site for Muslims. It

is not mentioned even once in the Koran, says Pipes. Muslims claim that the Al

Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem (also the Temple Mount, Judaism's most sacred spot) is

where their Prophet descended to after going to heaven. However, that spot was

only referred to as the Far Mosque, and its alleged association with Jerusalem

is recent. It is true that Judaism is very much in the fire-and-brimstone

tradition of the desert, and therefore philosophically the opposite of the far

more humane tradition of the forest, which suffuses all the Indic faiths.

However, it is also true that Hindus and Jews have suffered most grievously

from the excesses of Islamic and Christian dogma and belligerence. Because of

this, both also turned inwards: thus the ossification of caste in Hinduism and

the Orthodox Jews' strict rules about how Jewishness is only inherited through

the mother.Despite all this, there is one incredible fact that almost all Jews

I know recognise: that out of 148 nations in which Jews have lived, they were

oppressed in 147 of them, and the sole exception is India. For instance, the

Jews of Cochin landed in 72 CE at the great port of Muziris (Kodungalloor) on

the Malabar Coast. Joseph Rabban was elevated to chieftain of the village of

Anjuvannam achandrataram -- so long as the moon and stars exist -- by King

Bhaskara Ravi Varman around 1000 CE. I know a lady named Esther, a white woman

with bright red hair, who wears a sari and speaks immaculate Malayalam, as she

should: her ancestors have lived unmolested in Kerala for 2,000 years, since

the destruction of their Second Temple!Young Israelis come by the thousands to

India after their compulsory military service these days. Locals in Hampi and

McLeodganj and Dharamsala may complain about their 'raves', but it must be a

wonderful experience for these youngsters to know that there exists a land

where they are not hated just for being Jews. Furthermore, there was an

extremely interesting offer from Israel in the early 1980s. Just after they

bombed and destroyed Iraq's Osiraq nuclear reactor on June 7, 1981, the

Israelis contacted India and asked for cooperation in likewise destroying

Pakistan's reactors at Kahuta. They only needed refueling facilities for their

planes, and permission to use Indian airspace. Of course, the Nehruvian

Stalinists in power in India at the time were horrified: whatever would our

Arab friends think! In hindsight, bombing Kahuta then would have set back

Pakistan's 'Islamic Bomb,' although their kind friend China would still have

given them the components for screwdriver assembly.As predatory and missionary

desert faiths continue to impose themselves on all the peoples of the world, it

is important for the Jews and Hindus, both victims, to stand by and support each

other. It is indeed a clash of civilisations. There is also the growing

realisation by many Indians that they have been led up the garden path by all

the rhetoric about Palestinians. Nehruvian Stalinists justify the loud

breast-beating they indulge in about Palestinians on several grounds:Compassion

for 'suffering' peoplesThe warmth Arabs will feel if India supports

PalestiniansOpposition to colonialism/European imperialismIn point of fact,

Palestinians do not deserve support from Indians on any of these

grounds.Compassion: Palestinians swamp the media with their comparative

victimhood. Yet there are plenty of others more deserving of compassion. After

all, charity begins at home. Consider the ethnically cleansed Kashmiri Pandits,

rotting away in refugee camps. Or consider the Hindus of Bangladesh: literally

every day I hear about yet another atrocity committed, most often gang rapes

and murders, or abductions and forcible conversions, of young Hindu women. Why

is it that all the champions of the Palestinian cause in India have no tears

for these people, our own? Why aren't they assailing Pakistan and Bangladesh?

Indians need to rally around the slogan: 'Let my people live!'Arab goodwill for

India: This is laughable. What has India got to show for its pains in supporting

Palestine? Nothing, nada, zilch! As Americans might ask, 'What have the Arabs

done for us lately?' The only Arabs who were even half-way decent to us were

the Iraqis. All the other Arabs despise Indians. In fact, most Arabs don't even

have much goodwill for Palestinians, else they would have helped them rebuild

their lives, instead of forcing them to live as refugees and using them as

jihadi cannon-fodderAnti-imperialism: This is a throwback to the days of the

despicable NAM, when Nehru and company used to feel self-important as the

'leaders' of a bunch of banana republics. But the time for all this inane

rhetoric is far gone. What is happening in Israel and Palestine is not

imperialism, but the struggles of a numerically small civilisation to avoid

being swamped by violent neighbours. And these neighbours have the full support

of the world's Leftist media: remember the godawful fuss they made about

'Jeningrad', until it was shown to be a fabrication, special delivery for the

television cameras of gullible networks?I too at some point in my

impressionable youth swallowed the Indian media rhetoric about Palestinians.

There were some Palestinians at the IIT Madras, who had tales of teenage years

spent cradling AK-47s fighting against an implacable enemy, a coloniser, a

continuation of the colonial European assault on Asia. Later I met Israelis at

Stanford, and I used to harangue them about what terrible imperialists they

were.But slowly it occurred to me that the Jews were more sinned against than

sinning, and I am sure I am not the only Indian who has come to this

conclusion. Their motto after millennia of oppression, 'Never again!' holds

resonance for Hindus. Today we are up against the same enemy: one that views us

both literally as untermenschen, sub-human monsters, spawn of Satan, fit for

nothing but slaughter; the moral equivalent of vermin, as whites in American

classified Native Americans two centuries ago.There are acts of barbarism that

do take place in Israel's struggle to exist. Thus Ariel Sharon is rightly

condemned as the Butcher of Sabra and Chattila refugee camps in Lebanon, when

Israel's ally, the Christian Phalangist militia, went on a rampage against

Palestinians. That is surely deplorable. However, the very same people who

condemn Sharon, the Marxists of India, are full of eulogies for Mufti Mohammed

Sayeed. Do you know, gentle reader, that Sayeed is called the Butcher of

Anantnag for his role in terrorising Kashmiri Hindus? Here's verbatim email I

got from Kashmiri Pandits in response to my column The Perfect Con Job: The

Kashmiri Loot of the Nation.'The irony of seeing the butcher of Anantnag (when

in 1985-86 riots in Anantnag Kashmiri Pandits suffered at the hands of Mufti's

men) rise to become the CM of the state today is heart-wrenching. Mufti was at

the helm of the KP massacre and lootings in Anantnag way before his 'boys' came

into action in the Valley.''In 1986 there were anti-Hindu riots in south

Kashmir. We the Hindus in Kashmir know that they were instigated by Mufti

Sayeed. Reason: Central Govt. under Rajiv wanted to overthrow the GM Shah

government. After the riots Central Rule was applied.''Mufti is the butcher of

Anantnag. He orchestrated the Anantnag riots in early 1986. This single

incident triggered the start of our exodus. And now, he is being rewarded with

the CM-ship of the state. Only in India!' For more details on the Anantnag

riots, try the URL http://www.ikashmir.org/PastPresent/chapter16.htmlSo why are

Indian Marxists so gung-ho about Mufti Mohammed Sayeed and not about Ariel

Sharon? Their Chinese handlers must have told them that it is important to keep

the Marxist-Islamist nexus going, and to keep India and Israel away from each

other. And that is the final reason: the major hue and cry raised by Marxists.

Since by definition everything they want is anti-India and pro-China, it is an

excellent reason to proceed forthwith with an Indo-Israeli tactical alliance.

Clearly, that would be positive for India and negative for China (for instance

the Phalcon and the future Arrow weapons deals). Rajeev Srinivasan

Discover your Indian Roots at - http://www.esamskriti.com, 700 pictures, over

140 articles.To mail - exploreindia (AT) vsnl (DOT) net, to Un write

back.Long Live Sanatan / Kshatriya Dharam. Become an Intellectual

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Happiness are meant to be sharedBe Open Minded, pick up what yu like from the

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Stop cribbing, ACTION is what the Indian scriptures talk aboutTake the battle

into the enemy camp, SET THE AGENDA, be proactiveIn an argument, no emotions,

be detached, get yr facts right, then attack with the precision of a missile