Nothing better illustrates the truth of Talleyrand’s claim that “speech was given to man to disguise his thoughts” than the recent telephone exchange between Narendra Modi and Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The occasion, the topic discussed, and the context in which it took place, all highlighted today’s single most ominous threat to global peace as well as the one possible path to reconciliation revealed by Israel’s frustrating parliamentary election. If any one man can help to find a solution, it is the President of Israel, Isaac Herzog, the son of a legendary former President, and himself soldier, lawyer and politician.
In June 2014, Mr Herzog famously criticised Mr Netanyahu for not engaging the international community in finding a solution to the Israeli impasse, failing to present a proposal for peace with Palestinians, and not working effectively with the American President, Barack Obama . Mr Herzog blamed Mr Netanyahu’s “loathing and hostility for Barack Obama” as one of his greatest failures, since it put Israel’s security at risk.
According to Mr Netanyahu’s recent reported conversation, he “officially invited” Mr Modi “to light a ceremonial torch (often called a celebratory flame or lamp) on Israel’s next Independence Day, May 14, along with the heroic Captain Smit Machchhar who suffered life-threatening injuries when he aborted his first officer’s treacherous mid-air attempt to hijack the Dubai-Tel Aviv Flydubai Flight 1073 , of which Machchhar was the captain.
The Israeli leader explained afterwards, “Mr Modi thanked me for the invitation and said that on the ground and in the air, India and Israel fight terrorism together. He expressed his appreciation for the courageous and long-standing relationship between us”, meaning Israel and India.
Not every Indian will agree with that declaration. Many might see in it an attempt to play the victim card during a time of war to muster support for Jews against Iranians, Lebanese and millions of hapless Arabs who are themselves victims of a vicious war. Many others cannot but fail to note the rough and ready methods used by far richer, modern and efficiently organised Jews to oust Palestinians from the only homes they have ever known, especially in the West Bank where some Israelis now invite comparison with the Nazi oppressors who tried so cruelly to purge Germany of Jews.
Jewish settlers are white Europeans whereas the indigenous Palestinians are brown Asians. No matter how many Mizo, Manipuri or other northeastern Indian tribes are sanctified as “lost” Jewish tribespeople and welcomed to Israel, no one can separate this seeming generosity from modern Israel’s need for low-paid labour. Israel needs sturdy young men and women to dig and delve even in this age of mechanised agriculture, especially now that many of yesterday’s kibbutzim, fashioned out of the desert by the loving toil of the pioneers, are luxurious holiday resorts.
As for relations between India and Israel, they were distinctly cold, if not frigid, under Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi. In fact, elderly Zionists recall that Mahatma Gandhi rejected their request for help long before Israel became independent. Apparently, he wanted no truck with a cause that he must have known would displease many Asians, especially Arabs.
That was not Captain Machchhar’s thinking as he battled his co- pilot to prevent him from hijacking the Flydubai flight with 174 passengers going from Dubai to Tel Aviv on September 30. He was attacked with an axe and sustained injuries to his head and neck but managed to open the cockpit door, allowing crew members and passengers to overpower the co-pilot and enable the aircraft to make an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia. Israeli officials say the co-pilot intended to crash the aircraft.
Nobody knows for sure as yet but Mr Modi and Mr Netanyahu have rightly lauded Machchhar for his bravery. President Isaac Herzog’s invitation to him to visit Israel to receive the Presidential Award for Civilian Heroism, Israel’s highest decoration for bravery by civilians, is a well-deserved honour. Wounded though he was, Machchhar managed to open the cockpit door and save so many lives. Unlike Mr Modi and Mr Netanyahu, he is not a politician. He has no axe to grind, he serves only his professional duty. He must know, therefore, that the definition of a terrorist varies from country to country, and that one man’s terrorist is often another’s freedom fighter.
Israel, too, evokes contrary responses like the ancient dispute over Jammu and Kashmir, and Mr Modi’s blissful view of unifying anti-terrorism is not shared by all Asians. But no one can disagree that stable growth demands economic development for which the two-state formula devised by the Norwegians and endorsed by the United Nations is the best foundation.
That is the nub of the matter. It calls for divisible land, cooperation for sustainable growth, a future beyond the 120-seat Knesset, freedom from the machinations of Hamas and Hezbollah as much as from the bully boys among the West Bank settlers, and escape from the will o’ the wisp of a 61-seat majority which is now regarded as essential for peace with Israel.
In theory at least, that should not be impossible if those Jews and Arabs who are Israeli citizens cooperate in the cause of the future. Arabs now comprise some 20% of Israel’s population. They have won 19 Knesset seats. Yes, Mr Netanyahu’s hard-line Likud Party is ostensibly committed to keeping Arabs in their place. But just as Shin Bet, the domestic Israeli under-cover agency, is suspected of having surreptitiously entered the fray from time to time for tactical reasons, Jewish-Arab cooperation can find a rationale in working together to save the future.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: deccanchronicle.com
