I understand israel's frustration and their retaliation. i also see the root cause of this as the failure of the israeli and the american leadership to recognize the democratically elected (hamas) government in palestine.


regarding the southasian participation in this - it's more like enemy of my enemy of my enemy is my friend even if he is my enemy. i can see the same junta trot out in full force in support of the people of pakistan if india ever mustered the cojones to bomb LeT-JuD strongholds - leave alone the fact that the now suffering people abetted terrorists in their midst.

In Germany they first came for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant.

Then they came for me —
and by that time no one was left to speak up.

How about "south-asians" demonstrate for genuine south asian issues for which there is no publicity. Its easy to march for Gaza, a million people around the world are doing it already. How about a march for the people of Swat who are losing life and home away from the world media spotlight.

http://www.dawn.com/2009/01/15/top1.htm

2 · Fazgun said

...Then they came for me —and by that time no one was left to speak up.

there's a story for every occasion. here's one that's a favorite among indians.

Prithviraj Chauhan and Muhammad Ghori fought seventeen times. Sixteen times he defeated ghouri and spared his life.Seventy was the last one. Ghori castrated Chauhan and burnt out his eyes with rods. Chauhan committed suicide out of shame and is buried in afghanistan.

personally, i am interested in this as a human and an individual, rather than as a desi. to me, my desi identity has no bearing as to why i should or should not be interested in the ME conflict. but, then, i take interest in conflicts around the world that are given relatively less importance by the general world community. on the other hand, one of my (jewish) colleagues told me the other day that i SHOULD be interested in the ME conflict. i asked him why, and he said that it's very important to the western world. that sense of hierarchy of conflicts irritates me - so i told him that i should feel compelled to be interested in the ME conflict the day that he feels compelled to be interested in the pakistan-india conflict.

i caught this editorial in the guardian re american press coverage of the conflict.

Are there no South Asians who are pro-Israel? I have two allegiances - to India where I was born,and America where I live - Hamas hates both. In this case, Israel's enemies are my enemies too and so regardless of the moral high ground, I want to see Israel win. All this pontificating about Israel's brutality misses the point that the other side is extremely brutal also - I am perfectly willing to follow my self-interest here.

Hinjew-Brown Brother does your neighbor in America differentiate between you and a Arab. Do you get the brown treatment at the airport,etc. What exactly is your self interest?

http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=156939

"Government employees, including policemen, teachers and LHVs, walk around with resignations in their hands. In case they are accosted by armed militants opposed to the government and to women working they can produce these resignations to avoid being kidnapped, killed or punished"

...

"in about the last three weeks targeted killings have also begun. The militants are killing people, slitting their heads and then keep their heads on their bodies and order that no one remove the bodies before midday. Policemen, social activists, ordinary citizens, political people and citizens have been killed."

...

"Burning of schools was unheard of in Swat and over 200 have been torched."

From the post, it sounds like you assume that most readers would be pro-Palestinian. Why?

Are there no South Asians who are pro-Israel?

Hinjew-Brown Brother does your neighbor in America differentiate between you and a Arab. Do you get the brown treatment at the airport,etc. What exactly is your self interest?

I thought I mentioned this - I think it is in both America's and India's interest that Israel win over its extremist Muslim enemies.

Hinjew-Brown Brother is it win or win over. There is a difference and killing 500+ innocents does not win or win over.

While I am generally pro-Israel, I view current conflict as driven by Israel's domestic politics rather than any serious threat to its security.

Adding my name to the growing list of comments about the relationship between Hindus and Muslims having a bearing on the Israel vs Gaza situation.

In my view, the possibility of Hindus being persecuted by these self-same activists (if & when they gain power) is very high. So, the only Hindus who support Muslim groups/causes (even token Muslims) in their fights vs non-Muslims are suicidical or delusional commies or both.

If they had tried to garner support without all the endless anti-Jewish bigotry things might be seen differently. Cuz they have the same level (or worse) of bigotry towards Hindus.

And I do not think it is in India's interest. Maybe in the BJP's and Hindutva's interest but not in the national interest. Thank God for the Congress Party that knows not to overreact as did the Bush neocons.

5 · ak said

personally, i am interested in this as a human and an individual, rather than as a desi. to me, my desi identity has no bearing as to why i should or should not be interested in the ME conflict.

Word. That's exactly how I feel and that's why I didn't blog about this issue, despite some really unproductive emails demanding that we cover it (even if the links they were including had no desi angle).

This is what is so great about the bunker. There are no assigned stories; you write about what moves you. And like all of you, we don't all agree on every point about everything. Taz did the leg work of interviewing desis who showed up at a protest. That makes it topical AND interesting.

Prithviraj Chauhan and Muhammad Ghori fought seventeen times. Sixteen times he defeated ghouri and spared his life.Seventy was the last one. Ghori castrated Chauhan and burnt out his eyes with rods. Chauhan committed suicide out of shame and is buried in afghanistan.

Fuck Hamas, Hizbollah or whatever they are called and send those europeans back to Europa!
All that over a fairy tale book with alot of imaginary friends.. gives you the right to Disneyland.
Why is Israel in the Eurovisionens Melodi Grand Prix when they are geographically located in western Asia ?

What about posting something about Kashmir or something. You know brown related issues that the westen media loves to ignore!

o)

Is this a South Asian American issue?

Well, it is certainly an American issue, so the answer to your question is yes. Given that the U.S. is Israel's most important patron, Israel's actions with American-supplied weaponry will come to reflect upon the U.S. As I've argued in the past, Israel tends to over-react to terrorism, while the Indian government does not react at all. Both approaches to terrorism are seriously flawed. Israel's use of collective punishment upon Palestinians only improves the status of groups like Hamas or Hezbollah. OTOH, India's impotence to either strike at Pakistan, or internally, implement modern law enforcement methods. Basically, terrorists targeting India face no downside.

Bear in mind, the most effective U.S. efforts in the Middle East came about when the U.S. was willing to crack some heads together, both Israeli and Arab. When Nixon gave aid to Israel in the Yom Kippur war, they also put pressure on Israel to not completely demolish the Egyptian army. Egypt, seeing America's actions, realized that it could not beat Israel on the battlefield, and seeing the Soviets not do much on their behalf, chose to ally itself to the U.S. and make peace with the Israelis.

In the case of Jordan, King Hussein wanted to get back in America's good graces after Gulf War I. Because of the high Palestinian population in Jordan, and Arafat's idiotic support of Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait, Jordan sat that war out, while Saudi Arabia and Egypt provided support to the U.S. George H.W. Bush understood the king's predicament, and while Israel originally opposed the Madrid peace talks, Bush forced the Israelis to show up.

Before the Iraq war, neocons argued that peace in Jerusalem has to first go through Baghdad. Then, they said it has to go through Tehran. It is clear that it goes through Washington.

It is very sad. I was at the protest on Saturday and Sunday as well. It was amazing to see that this isn't just an issue that only Palestinians and Arabs care about. I stood protesting and marched with people of all religions and faiths, which in my mind gives this issue even more importance.

I actually have some of the same pictures as you, only a few peole away. I still don't get how that guy climbed up on the street light though. -

Salman

We may disagree with the politics of Hamas, just as we may disagree with the politics of the British Labor Party, but it does not follow that we should condone the slaughter of all leaders and members of Hamas, their families, government employees, and random members ...

When the British Labor Party starts lobbing missiles at Manhattan, then we'd have something to talk about.

if given the opportunity, Hamas and supporters of Hamas would have no problem putting non-Muslims to death. why would you be concerned about them....
you would have to be out of your mind to be upset over the poor Palestinians, especially when you know if the tables were turned, they would do far worse to you than anything being done right now.
sadly, the heavy-handed tactics of the Israelis are the only thing the Arab Muslim world understands. Historically, they don't seem to understand the concept of peace, and living in peace with one's neighbors

17 · voiceinthehead said

sounds like an urban legend

like i said. take a pick of the story dat helps righteousness blossom in your breast.

btw - i do want israel to stop because my best friend through college is now at uGaza. so it's an emotional issue and it's stupid to try to rationalize this one way or the other.

18 · 3rdEye* said

Why is Israel in the Eurovisionens Melodi Grand Prix when they are geographically located in western Asia ?

last year, i worked with a couple of israeli philosophers, and we were all trying to figure out an explanation for this.
also voieinthehead #10, i'm glad you raised the point about india-plo affinity since the NAM days. which has changed quite a bit these days. indian foreign policy and media have a decidedly pro-israel tilt these days, a relatively recent development.

So what should Israel do? Keep letting Hamas bomb them and kill there citizens (albeit a lot less in number). They have tried to blunt Hamas' attacks and have been successful to a certain extent, but if they are continously being bombed, they have to do something. Not everyone is like us Indians in terms of terrorism tolerance.

Though the Gaza situation is very sad, but Hamas, being the elected government, should also think about lives of their own citizens. War is no solution to the mid-east conflict as much as it is not to the Kashmir conflict.

2 · Fazgun said

In Germany they first came for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.
blah, blah
Then they came for me —
and by that time no one was left to speak up.

Population growth rate: (2008 est.)
West Bank: 2.225% Israel: 1.71 United States: 0.88
Birth rate births/1,000 population (2008 est.):
West Bank: 25.95 Israel:20.02 United States:14.18
Death Rate: /1,000 population (2008 est.)
West Bank: 3.7 Israel:5.41 United States:8.27

There seems to be little danger of no-one being left. The demographics are against Israel and once it reaches a tipping point, well,... the Arab leaders have made it clear what they think of Israel's right to exist. The Palestinians are literally F&*^ing Israel to death.

Once Israel increases the west bank death rate to ~1000 we'll worry about them coming for someone else. Right now it is 3.7

21 · roger23 said

We may disagree with the politics of Hamas, just as we may disagree with the politics of the British Labor Party, but it does not follow that we should condone the slaughter of all leaders and members of Hamas, their families, government employees, and random members ...

When the British Labor Party starts lobbing missiles at Manhattan, then we'd have something to talk about.

I found that comparison in SAMAR problematic as well, which made me NOT want to read the article. I still will, I'm just sayin'...there are ways to educate and persuade people, and analogizing Hamas to Labor ain't it. If we want to move beyond this "my stance is rooted in cement"/talking-past-instead-of-to-each-other impasse, we have to be excruciatingly careful about how we express ourselves.

i'm glad you raised the point about india-plo affinity since the NAM days. which has changed quite a bit these days. indian foreign policy and media have a decidedly pro-israel tilt these days, a relatively recent development.

The PLO of yore was a secular outfit fighting for a secular Palestine. With the islamisation of the palestinian independence movement over the last two decades, now you have muslims of Indonesia marching the streets in support of Palestine. Somehow, it has become the norm for a muslim in Kumbakonam to support this cause not as a human rights issue but as a muslim issue. I assume India's official stance changed due to blowback from Kashmiri islamisation.

portmanteau said

last year, i worked with a couple of israeli philosophers, and we were all trying to figure out an explanation for this

So you are secretly suggestioning that India needs a The European Broadcasting Union membership.. so we can kick some ass at the Eurovision Song Contest.

Sa re ga ma pa dha nee sa.. Haha
___

Btw how many arabs protested on the streets against the terror attacks in India like the lastet one in Mumbai?

o)

Sorry but this is not South Asia's fight. If anything, as an Indian we should be more supportive of Israel. From a purely "what have you done for me" standpoint, Israel provides weapons to India's military, it provides sensitive border technology to keep watch of terrorists crossing into Kashmir, it helps advance Indian interests in the U.S., etc. Hamas comes from the same strain as Lashkar.
Israel is dedicated to a two state solution. When will Hamas remove the destruction of Israel as a state bit from its charter?

Emotions run high on both sides of the debate, of course. But for those observing the continuously unfolding trgedy, it is important not to over-identify with either side of the conflict, as doing so tends to muddy the waters even further.

In particular, the analogy often made between the Kashmir conflict and the Israel-Palestine conflict is spectacularly misguided. For starters, India and Pakistan are two sovereign states engaged in a conflict over a disputed territory. The situation in Israel/Palestine is much more complex. Half a century ago Islamofascist terrorism did not exist as a coherent movement. The "Big Bang" of the conflict in the Middle East was ignited in the maelstrom of European anti-semitism, neo-colonialism, guilt over the Holocaust, and 19th century notions of nationalism and nation-building. Before massive Jewish European immigration to Palestine in the 1930s and the UN's creation ex-nihilo of the modern state of Israel, with blatant disregard for the sense of unfairness and abject violation that the Palestinians were bound to feel, Jews and Arabs lived together more or less peacefully in Palestine for a thousand years. You may be pro-Israel or antu-Israel and that is a perfectly valid option. But let's not mischaracterize the original sources of the conflict.

And Fazgun, is the treatment I get at an airport supposed to somehow translate into support for a terrorist organization? I have been given shitty treatment at airports and good treatment. I was
passed right through while some older white dude got the once over. The process is not random, but far more people I have met know the difference between an Indian and an Arab (maybe I don't live in redneck areas) . But who cares. Your logic seems to be that becuase some people in the U.S. can't tell the difference all billion Indian should be sympathetic to the Palestinian cause.

If anything, as an Indian we should be more supportive of Israel.

Israel’s Gaza Venture Hits Chord in Wounded India Israel hasn’t won much praise for invading the Gaza Strip. This unpopularity abides even though Israel is bombing Gaza to stop Qassam rockets from hitting its own towns.

Still, Israel has at least some supporters in what might seem an unlikely place: India.

India discerned that it had little to gain by keeping Israel at a distance, since Arab nations would surely back Pakistan over India regardless of the latter’s policy on Jerusalem.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aOZwFAGfnokY

26 · DizzyDesi said

West Bank: 3.7 Israel:5.41 United States:8.27

if we're going to talk numbers, are these comparable?
if it turns out that israel is an 'older' society (ie has a lot more older people) than palestinians on the west bank, these numbers don't mean anything. i don't know about relative demographic profiles, but nevertheless, these numbers will not support a conclusion that israel is being destroyed. what must be compared are number of people dying because of targeted violence on each side. and once you make that comparison, quality of life also counts for something (which is why people use QUALYs or DALYs).

while on the one hand numbers do count for something, this problem seems insoluble because both parties have come to lack trust in each other (for good reason).
i read this insightful (pro-israel) piece which makes a number of interesting points. unfortunately, i suspect a moderate palestinian can write a similar piece which highlights the recalcitrant and vehemence of hardline israelis.

30 · Ram said

Sorry but this is not South Asia's fight. If anything, as an Indian we should be more supportive of Israel. From a purely "what have you done for me" standpoint, Israel provides weapons to India's military, it provides sensitive border technology to keep watch of terrorists crossing into Kashmir, it helps advance Indian interests in the U.S.

again, empirically, this claim is not easy to make. what if india's vehement support of israel further riles up kids in terror-camps our neighbors sponsor? and promotes radicalization within and just outside india's borders?
this issue shouldn't be india's fight at all. on an individual level, though, indians or ABDs can go on doing whatever their conscience desires. all i'm saying is, from a purely self-interest POV, it is hard to say what diplomatic stance is best for india, other than the usual 'this is unfortunate for all parties concerned. we are sorry for your loss.'
israeli technology we'll prolly get as long as we're not cozy with the palestinians, and the us will continue the status quo with india. after all, they don't want us to divert the attention of the pakistani military. which seems to be our only trump card these days. other than asking pakistan to take our dossier seriously, what else has the us done? the US has not set any deadlines, made any concrete demands for action, and they agree that nothing in the dossier proves that the pakistani govt/army/isi were involved in mumbai, only non-state actors. the us looks out for itself, and so should we. we should have working displomatic relations with the arab world at any rate: there are tons of indian citizens there and if we're going to deal with stopping wahabbi funds from reachig our shores we've got to be able to talk to saudi arabia at the very least.

ram: just wanted to make clear that i agree that this is not india's fight. but i just elaborated my own rationale @ 35.

29 · 3rdEye* said

So you are secretly suggestioning that India needs a The European Broadcasting Union membership.. so we can kick some ass at the Eurovision Song Contest.
Sa re ga ma pa dha nee sa.. Haha

actually, the thought of yet another desi singing show makes me sick :)

Actually, as a South Asian, I think this issue gets far too much attention, compared to, e.g., the Naxalites or the LTTE.

Flags flapped in the 75 degree perfect Californian weather, flags of Mexico, Philippines, and of course, Palestine. I was standing in front of the Federal Building in Los Angeles, in solidarity with thousands of people of all race, age, and religions. I was one of many who this past Saturday, congregated in their city centers to protest the attacks on innocent lives on the Gaza strip.

I hope the protest that you want to did not turn into death to Israel and other antisemtic comments that most of these rally's turn into. But the funny thing is that the white liberal soymilk drinking elite types at these rally are standing next to the extreme islamists is something I have never understood.

This topic is so complex and convoluted. A few points I guess...

- Israel IS the only representative republic surrounded by nations that do not recognize its right to exist.

- People of palestine, particularly its leadership, have been used by the surrounding Arabic neighbors as tools of unconventional warfare against Israel. All the oil money and glitzy construction projects around the oil rich Arabic nations, yet the conditions that their "own" brethern live in is pitiful.

- Israel shot itself in the foot by not only occupying, but settling the lands won in the 1967 war. It made their position static and inflexible. Not only are you defending yourselves from hostile nation states, but now you're occupying land and settling, exposing your population even further. The recipe for the insurgency was set as soon as the first Israelies settled land in Gaza/West Bank.

- Palestinian leadership have NOT served their people well. Short sighted decisions influenced by unreaslistic expectations, corruption, infighting, and getting involved in local disputes in other Arab nations by taking sides has resulted in reduced government support from Arab nations as they are weary that Palestinian insurgents will come to bite their regimes some day. I hope the people of Palestine demand more from their leaders than simply being neighborhood strongmen/thugs.

- There is considerable conflict between Hamas and Fatah. If you are going to step into the role of governance, then one has to evolve with the job. Right now, Hamas and Fatah/PLO have split the territory between Gaza and the West Bank. The Fatah/PLO element is willing to negotiate with Israel, Hamas isn't.

- While the recent Lebanon conflict had wide ranging support from the middle east, particularly Iran's support of Hezbollah, it doesn't seem Hamas is as well liked by Arabs, therefore not recieving the same type of support. In essense, the Arab governments are condeming this on the surface, but in the background, everyone is working to undermine Hamas. On the Egyptian side, they are blowing up tunnels used smuggle arms into Gaza.

- I don't think Israel has a real strategic objective here. It is tactical in nature and focused against Hamas. Their goal is to show Hamas is weaker than Fatah/PLO and are thinning Hamas ranks.

What is true of every war, conventional or not, innocents will die. Leadership of all sides needs to re-evaluate their approach if betterment of the lives of ALL their people is what they're seeking. This conflict has been going on far too long and people need to live with the reality that Israel isn't going anywhere, nor are the conditions of Palestinians getting any better, or Israel being safer long term.

When was the last time Arab-Americans or for that matter, South Asian Muslims took to the streets to protest terrorism against innocent Indian children, women, and men?
When was the last time Arabs or Muslims in America protesed on behalf of any cause except Muslim causes?

39 · Suki Dillon said

But the funny thing is that the white liberal soymilk drinking elite types at these rally are standing next to the extreme islamists is something I have never understood.

the enemy of your enemy...

32 · Ram said

The process is not random, but far more people I have met know the difference between an Indian and an Arab (maybe I don't live in redneck areas) .

You just hurt the feelings of many desi posters here who feel deeply flattered and validated whenever some ignoramus mistakes them for middle easterners. Any colored person with an alien name, such as Obama, can sometimes be mistaken for an arab by ignorant rednecks. There is also the fact that numerous indians were carried off as slaves by the muslim invaders to be sold in the slave markets of Samarkand, Bukhara, Baghdad, Cairo and other islamic cities, so for south asians to boast that they look like middle easterners is akin to africans claiming they look like americans because there are millions of americans who are descended from african slaves.

Bear in mind, the most effective U.S. efforts in the Middle East came about when the U.S. was willing to crack some heads together, both Israeli and Arab. When Nixon gave aid to Israel in the Yom Kippur war, they also put pressure on Israel to not completely demolish the Egyptian army. Egypt, seeing America's actions, realized that it could not beat Israel on the battlefield, and seeing the Soviets not do much on their behalf, chose to ally itself to the U.S. and make peace with the Israelis.

Within the error bars of accuracy of wikipedia articles loads and loads of revisionism all the comments above. I pick this one to respond. Why do Israel apologists conveniently forget the cold-war games to hide their selfish interests in the middle-east conflict ?

Yom Kippur war
Aid to Israel
On commencement of hostilities, American leaders expected the tide of the war to quickly shift in favor of the better-equipped IDF and that Arab armies would be completely defeated within 72 to 96 hours. [69] American supplies to Israel until then had consisted of ammunition, particularly AT and AA ammunition.[70] It became clear however on October 9 that no such quick reversal would occur, and that IDF losses were unexpectedly high.[41]
On that same day, in response to the Soviet Union's airlift to Egypt[61], President Nixon ordered the commencement of Operation Nickel Grass, an American airlift to replace all of Israel's material losses.[71] Israel began receiving supplies on October 13. According to Abraham Rabinovich, "while the American airlift of supplies did not immediately replace Israel's losses in equipment, it did allow Israel to expend what it did have more freely".[72] By the end of Nickel Grass, the United States had shipped 22,395 tons of matériel to Israel. The Israeli National Airline El Al took part in the airlift and flew 5,500 tons of materiel.[73]
The United States also conducted its own seaborne supply operation, delivering 33,210 tons to Israel by October 30.[74]

Nuclear alert
In the meantime, Brezhnev sent Nixon a letter in the middle of the night of October 23–24. In that letter, Brezhnev proposed that American and Soviet contingents be dispatched to ensure both sides honor the cease-fire. He also threatened that "I will say it straight that if you find it impossible to act jointly with us in this matter, we should be faced with the necessity urgently to consider taking appropriate steps unilaterally. We cannot allow arbitrariness on the part of Israel."[81] In short, the Soviets were threatening to intervene in the war on Egypt's side.
The Soviets placed seven airborne divisions on alert and airlift was marshalled to transport them to the Middle East. An airborne command post was set up in the southern Soviet Union. Several air force units were also alerted. "Reports also indicated that at least one of the divisions and a squadron of transport planes had been moved from the Soviet Union to an airbase in Yugoslavia".[82] The Soviets also deployed seven amphibious warfare craft with some 40,000 naval infantry in the Mediterranean.
The message arrived after Nixon had gone to bed. Kissinger immediately called a meeting of senior officials, including Defense Secretary James Schlesinger, CIA Director William Colby, and White House Chief of Staff Alexander Haig. The Watergate scandal had reached its apex, and Nixon was so agitated and discomposed that they decided to handle the matter without him:
When Kissinger asked Haig whether [Nixon] should be wakened, the White House chief of staff replied firmly 'No.' Haig clearly shared Kissinger's feelings that Nixon was in no shape to make weighty decisions.[83]
The meeting produced a conciliatory response, which was sent (in Nixon's name) to Brezhnev. At the same time, it was decided to increase the Defense Condition (DEFCON) from four to three. Lastly, they approved a message to Sadat (again, in Nixon's name) asking him to drop his request for Soviet assistance, and threatening that if the Soviets were to intervene, so would the United States.[83]
The Soviets quickly detected the increased American defense condition, and were astonished and bewildered at the response. "Who could have imagined the Americans would be so easily frightened," said Nikolai Podgorny. "It is not reasonable to become engaged in a war with the United States because of Egypt and Syria," said Premier Alexei Kosygin, while KGB chief Yuri Andropov added that "We shall not unleash the Third World War."[84] In the end, the Soviets reconciled themselves to an Arab defeat. The letter from the American cabinet arrived during the meeting. Brezhnev decided that the Americans were too nervous, and that the best course of action would be to wait to reply.[85] The next morning, the Egyptians agreed to the American suggestion, and dropped their request for assistance from the Soviets, bringing the crisis to an end.

I stand with Israel. There are no innocent civilians in Gaza as they host HAMAS in their homes and give aid and shelter. Israels's enemies are mine. These are the people who celebrate 9/11 in the streets and are the same as the Mumbai terrorists.

39 · Suki Dillon said

I hope the protest that you want to did not turn into death to Israel and other antisemtic comments that most of these rally's turn into.

I think this is from the same rally. And they wonder why real americans doubt their patriotism.

When was the last time ... South Asian Muslims took to the streets to protest terrorism against innocent Indian children, women, and men?

stop making an ass of yourself. you have no handle on the southasian dynamic if you are coming out with an ignorant comment like that. the condemnation of the mumbai attacks and the expression of sorrow was universal - including several editorials from the Dawn in Pakistan. do you read the newspaper?

Disclaimer: I fully sympathize with the grievances of Israel and US wrt to middle-east sponsored terrorism and don't agree with the muslim neighbours refusal to recognize Israel.

Flags flapped in the 75 degree perfect Californian weather

41 · Ram said

When was the last time Arab-Americans or for that matter, South Asian Muslims took to the streets to protest terrorism against innocent Indian children, women, and men?
When was the last time Arabs or Muslims in America protesed on behalf of any cause except Muslim causes?

How about NEVER?

Gaza may be a "slum" compared to Israel and the West but compared to the nations of south asia it looks like a pretty well developed place. The palestinians all look very well fed, very well clothed and very well housed compared to subcontinental standards. When are these bangladeshi, pakistani, and indian muslims going to take to the streets to protest the oppressions of their fellow desi muslims by their own muslim leaders and elites? Or to protest the mistreatment of desi muslims in the arab nations?

Btw how many arabs protested on the streets against the terror attacks in India like the lastet one in Mumbai?

It's horrible the killing of civilians by Hamas, proudly promoting their killing of civilians, and hiding themselves purposely among the civilians that elected them into power, so Isreal is forced to strike in areas that have civilians. My heart goes out the Isrealis and particularly the Palestinians particularly the children that are being killed.

BUT - I think this article states it well - "Isreal is the Opium..." When do Arabs protest the murdering of other arabs by arabs? Between Iran? Iraq? Egypt massacreing Palestinians a few years ago, when they thought Palestinians were too uppity. None of that can be protested - the govts shut that down. But hate the Jew, and it's encouraged in all it's glory. Until many of these country's residents stop looking at a scapegoat (Isreal) and try to solve their own problems things aren't going to get any better.

One of my muslim Indian friends sent me this:
Isreal is the Opium

41 · Ram said

When was the last time Arab-Americans or for that matter, South Asian Muslims took to the streets to protest terrorism against innocent Indian children, women, and men?
When was the last time Arabs or Muslims in America protesed on behalf of any cause except Muslim causes?

Thank you!! That is what I have been wanting to say but couldn't articulate it succintly. :) I'm Muslim, South Asian, and American, but like others have said, that shouldn't define the causes I support. One of my major beefs with the Muslim community is the fixation on Israel - as if THAT the source of all your troubles. It's this whole racist, Arab-centric view of Muslims today that over-shadows every other cause in the world. Muslims don't stand up for Muslim causes - they stand up for Palestine (which btw has both Muslims and Christians). Palestine is arguably a very important cause, but no more important than stopping teenage boys from becoming suicide bombers or preventing domestic violence or any other problem within our Muslim community.

(I'm not a pessimist, by the way, I think some Muslims are making great strides to move beyond the Arab fixation and looking to really address the problems in the greater "Muslim community" - there is hope!)

There are no innocent civilians in Gaza as they host HAMAS in their homes and give aid and shelter

Actually, as a South Asian, I think this issue gets far too much attention, compared to, e.g., the Naxalites or the LTTE.

Word. That's exactly how I feel and that's why I didn't blog about this issue, despite some really unproductive emails demanding that we cover it (even if the links they were including had no desi angle).

This is what is so great about the bunker. There are no assigned stories; you write about what moves you. And like all of you, we don't all agree on every point about everything. Taz did the leg work of interviewing desis who showed up at a protest. That makes it topical AND interesting.

Another point to consider, from an counter insurgency POV.

If both primary groups, Palestinians and Israel have failed strategies, what does a solidarity march across the world for the people of Palestine look to both of these agents? While people are voicing their need for peace, in effect, there may be some unintended consequences (any Game theorists here, is this valid?)

Israel POV: World is rallying to the cause of Palestinians, who don't recongize Israel's right to survive (Hamas is in governance). We are in a corner and have no option other than to fight our way out. It's always been this way. The world is coopted to the Arab cause and they've rarely been on our side.

Palestinians: People are rallying to our cause, so we must be doing SOMETHING right, therefore continue along the current path. We can get all the land back by defeating Israel.

This is obviously very simplistic. Neither behavior is productive for long term peace as one group is paranoid (for good reasons) and another is pissed off (for good reasons as well). There are several players in between who profit from either a strong Israeli position or strong Palestnian one. Some of the folks that support "the cause" are pit against each other as well (Iran/Saudi) and want bragging rights.

The objective of any political process needs to aimed at toning down Israel's paranoia and expectations of the Arab/Islamic world that a compromise with Israel isn't being weak, it's the right thing to do for everyone.

Again I share all grievances of US and Israel wrt terrorism. But if the next generation of Americans (as signified by the moral high ground of Obama's admin) are going to solve world's problems don't forget historical contexts (assuming we go as far back as the dismantlemant of British empire)

- British role in the Palestinian mandate of 1947-1948 (European games/interest post-second world war)
- British & French role in the Six day war
- American/Soviet interests via cold-war games
- European strategic interests in th region

This all ties up because the people who didn't like Egypt's siding with US led to assasination of Anwar Sadat president of egypt by Zahwiri who founded Al-Q and the politics of which is being felt even today.

In particular, the analogy often made between the Kashmir conflict and the Israel-Palestine conflict is spectacularly misguided. For starters, India and Pakistan are two sovereign states engaged in a conflict over a disputed territory. The situation in Israel/Palestine is much more complex. Half a century ago Islamofascist terrorism did not exist as a coherent movement. The "Big Bang" of the conflict in the Middle East was ignited in the maelstrom of European anti-semitism, neo-colonialism, guilt over the Holocaust, and 19th century notions of nationalism and nation-building. Before massive Jewish European immigration to Palestine in the 1930s and the UN's creation ex-nihilo of the modern state of Israel, with blatant disregard for the sense of unfairness and abject violation that the Palestinians were bound to feel, Jews and Arabs lived together more or less peacefully in Palestine for a thousand years. You may be pro-Israel or antu-Israel and that is a perfectly valid option. But let's not mischaracterize the original sources of the conflict.

Thank you for bringing us back to the true root of the issue.
I'm tired of seeing this conflict used as an Anti-Muslim or Anti-Semitic agenda.

31 · Brown Skeptic said

The situation in Israel/Palestine is much more complex. Half a century ago Islamofascist terrorism did not exist as a coherent movement. The "Big Bang" of the conflict in the Middle East was ignited in the maelstrom of European anti-semitism, neo-colonialism, guilt over the Holocaust, and 19th century notions of nationalism and nation-building. Before massive Jewish European immigration to Palestine in the 1930s and the UN's creation ex-nihilo of the modern state of Israel, with blatant disregard for the sense of unfairness and abject violation that the Palestinians were bound to feel, Jews and Arabs lived together more or less peacefully in Palestine for a thousand years. You may be pro-Israel or antu-Israel and that is a perfectly valid option. But let's not mischaracterize the original sources of the conflict.

This is an excellent point: I'm not a supporter of Israel because in general, as a brown woman whose family was directly impacted by British rule in India, I'm not a supporter of colonialism. Jews were subjected to unimaginable horrors in the Second World War (and indeed, previous to that in various pograms) but that doesn't mean that Palestinian Arabs have to pay for the crimes that were committed -- for the most part -- by European Christians. It would have been better to give them their own Jewish state in Europe but of course the powers that be didn't want that. No, instead, they looked around for a piece of land that they didn't own and decided to make it over to the "Jewish nation" because of some half-baked theories put forward by a bunch of 19th century writers who looked to the Bible and the Talmud for inspiration. Then, Israel decided to offer a "right of return" to all Jews, whether or not they are born there while kicking out native-born Palestinian Arabs. If you think this is reasonable, then you have no problems with Idi Amin's decision to kick out the Indians there, right?

That said, Israel is there now and the two-state solution is the only one that is viable. I'm appalled by this particular war since it jeopardizes that solution further and because I see it as a cynical political move that seeks to tie Obama's hands before he can carve out the kind of independent stance that may be the only hope left for kick-starting this peace process.

Also, to Ram and darky and to everyone else who offers up the old "but the Arabs world is undemocratic and would treat us worse if it had a chance to..." argument, I fight for the world that I want to live in, not against a world that I abhor. This is neo-con rhetoric at binary best: oh, you're against the war in Iraq, then you must be for Saddam's atrocities. And at least here in Toronto, where I went to two massive rallies over the past two weekends, a large number of brown folks seem to be able to differentiate between decrying Israel's totally disproportionate attack on Gaza and supporting Hamas's rocket attacks, though it must be mentioned here that Hamas is more or less a creation of the Israel that did not want to deal with the secular -- and much less violent -- PLO in earlier years. To support the people of Gaza in this moment of suffering is just that.

I wonder why this conflict, out of all the conflicts in the world, inspires so much passion? I've always wondered about that - it's not as if there aren't other intractable conflicts. In fact, some are much more violent and loss of life greater.

Any ideas, SMers?

*South Asians, as a group, don't have to provide solidarity with any other group. If an individual wishes to do so, that's different, and of course, there prerogative*.

*always makes me think of bobby brown

oops, didn't read all the comments. See some have tried to address that issue.

To be provocative, and because as an American I'm interested in Indian opinion on this issue: what has India gained from it's traditional pro-palestinian stance?

I wonder why this conflict, out of all the conflicts in the world, inspires so much passion? I've always wondered about that - it's not as if there aren't other intractable conflicts. In fact, some are much more violent and loss of life greater.

Any ideas, SMers?

B/c it's white people fighting against non-whites. The Left doesn't like Israel b/c they represent "the Man." That's the only reason they're able to hold their nose and get in bed with anti-gay, anti-female fanatics like Hamas. Brown on black violence (e.g., Sudan), brown on brown violence (e.g., Sri Lanka), black on black violence (e.g., Congo) just isn't as interesting if your main goal in life is hating on "the Man."

I knew how I personally felt, but what I wanted to know is, “Is this a South Asian American issue? As desis, why should we care?”

KXB raises the most pertinent point. In addition, there are two current conflicts in South Asia (Hindu/Muslim and Tamil/Sinhala) that have similar roots/discourse. And finally there are the geopolitics of it all, which tie the two together, as you can see from the "Hamas hates India and Israel" comment above as well as the post-colonial nationalist perspectives.

I'm tired of seeing this conflict used as an Anti-Muslim or Anti-Semitic agenda

thats how "politicians" and "special interest" group obfuscate issues that in no way aids novice folks like me who are trying to understand the problem, history and contexts first before taking sides and forming opinions based on my self-interests (laissez faire)

Archana-Thank you for articulating the proper response specifically the Idi Amin example.

Why a two state solution? Do religious states still have a place in the 21st century? Isn't secular Israel simply a better option? Edward Said had begun to campaign for a one state solution towards the end of his life. I think he was right.

And if you feel moved by what you learn, do something about it.

I think it's not enough anymore to say "do something." I think we need to start figuring out what that thing is - political activity for its own sake is not of interest to me, particularly by people who support the interests of the powerful. You HAVE taken the right position of this - which is pro-civilian and pro-human with an analysis of Israel's greater amount of power than the Palestinians. Denying this reality is akin to denying the Holocaust.

onparkstreet,

"To be provocative, and because as an American I'm interested in Indian opinion on this issue: what has India gained from it's traditional pro-palestinian stance?"

that is a very important and valid question. Because most readers here are American born they perhaps do not know all the details here. India was a leader of the NAM (Non-Aligned Movement) which was a grouping of 3rd world countries which tried to stay away from the true superpowers. In fact India from the late 60's became pro-Soviet country. To add to the irony countries like Cuba were fully paid up members of NAM. Anyway, NAM was always a strongly anti-colonist organization mostly due to the history of the countries nd hence pro-plaestinian as Israel was regarded as an outpost of US imperialism.

Anyway to cut the long story short Yasir Arafat was always welcomed as a head of state and embraced warmly by Indira Gandhi. Palestinian students were given spots in elite Indian universities (where invariably they had the reputation of drunks and louts who took forever to graduate) etc etc.

What India got was some support at OIC (Organization of Islamic Country) meetings, but obviously not enough as Pakistan and Saudi have consistently blocked India from becoming a member of OIC inspite of the large uslim population in India.

Sorry, Israel was regarded as an outpost of Western (not US) imperialism specially after the role they played in the Suez crisis.

my thoughts are with you, taz, as you moderate this thread.

60 · rob said

B/c it's white people fighting against non-whites. The Left doesn't like Israel b/c they represent "the Man." That's the only reason they're able to hold their nose and get in bed with anti-gay, anti-female fanatics like Hamas. Brown on black violence (e.g., Sudan), brown on brown violence (e.g., Sri Lanka), black on black violence (e.g., Congo) just isn't as interesting if your main goal in life is hating on "the Man."

This is factually untrue. Palestinians, like Israelis, cover the whole spectrum of coloration and phenotype, from Nordic-looking blondes to very dark skinned folks. If anything, there are more dark-skinned folks in Israel (Yemeni Jews, Ethiopian Jews, etc.) And there are more blonds in Israel as well. But Israel is not simply a "white" country. Of all the things this conflict is about - religion, nationalism, geopolitics, race is not one of them. It is not that simple.

It would have been better to give them their own Jewish state in Europe but of course the powers that be didn't want that. No, instead, they looked around for a piece of land that they didn't own and decided to make it over to the "Jewish nation" because of some half-baked theories put forward by a bunch of 19th century writers who looked to the Bible and the Talmud for inspiration. Then, Israel decided to offer a "right of return" to all Jews, whether or not they are born there while kicking out native-born Palestinian Arabs. If you think this is reasonable, then you have no problems with Idi Amin's decision to kick out the Indians there, right?

I understand the historical ties to the promised land and choosing that region over some corner in Europe and again wikipedia tells me that its was the Romans who drove the Jews out of Jerusalem besides the frequent crusades by Europeans ( there were some displacements by conquest of middle-eastern empires )
So it brings us to the question as to who are responsible for Israel's historical displacements - Europeans/ Christians or Arabs/Muslims ? But this maybe tangetial to solving the problem which is definitely two state peaceful co-existence. But these repeated wars and redrawing of borders, Israeli settlements etc. etc. make the solution kind of difficult

65 · Dr Amonymous said

I think we need to start figuring out what that thing is - political activity for its own sake is not of interest to me, particularly by people who support the interests of the powerful. You HAVE taken the right position of this - which is pro-civilian and pro-human with an analysis of Israel's greater amount of power than the Palestinians.

Power is not bad. We want bigots to be powerless. That's why I'm glad hamas, and by extension the Palestinians, are such. However, the coflict cannot be contextualized merely as israili vs. palestinians. the rest of the muslim world is not powerless, especially iran, which is very worrisome.

unfortuamtely, bush is right in the long run. until the rest of the middle east shames isreal by becoming a liberal democray, until jews are allowed in mecca, we will be in a state of war.

Here is the thing I dont understand. Where were these protest's when Muslims in the Sudan were commiting genocide? Now the violence is on them and now everyone is about peace? I dont get it. Is it a black thing?

I am against the killing of innocent people by Isreal, but I hate these protests that are nothing more then a exercise in bs. Muslim on Muslim violence is okay, but is it the non-muslim killin muslim thing that has the worlds population in such a bad mood?

It is like when black people protest when a white guy kills a black person, even though the number one human killer of black people is other black people and nothing is done when that happens.

Personally I am just going to shake my head in protest because that is about as active as I can get in wars that involve one groups belief in a fable over another groups belief in another fable.

This is factually untrue. Palestinians, like Israelis, cover the whole spectrum of coloration and phenotype, from Nordic-looking blondes to very dark skinned folks.

I haven't seen to many "Nordic-looking blondes" in Hamas, but whatever. If calling the Israelis "white" bothers you, fine--culturally European. Now, give me more nuance about how some Israelis are from Baghdad or whatever. You know what I mean--it's their whiteness/Euroness that allows their opponents to call them "colonizers" in a way that doesn't apply to the Turks in Constantinople or the Mughals in Delhi. This is the real reason why the issue gets so much coverage.

In comedian George Carlin's immortal words: That whole region has practioners of three religions whose followers have been fighting since forever that "My God's dick is bigger than your God's dick". There's never going to be peace there.

M. Nam

I dont see how this is a Desi issue anywhere in the world. Yes as Americans or Australians or Canadians one might choose to join different suppport marches. Sadly I ll have to ask "where were the support marches in the Western world when terrorists attacked Mumbai".
Israel exists because of the support of USA. There is a very simple solution - cut Israel loose from the apron strings of USA. Then it would be a fair fight and both parties can wipe each other out to extinction. For the record - I am a great fan of Israel. Also, I am old enough to remember the first intifada - circa 1989 - after a while it gets boring and one realizes that both sides dont really want peace.

Post by Taz where she ignores SM's non-partisan stance and tries to convince us that we should all support her Bengali/Muslim/lefty cause because we happen to be brown? Check.

The worst part about this post is that there is a very valid comparison to be drawn between Partition and Zionism, but Taz butchers it in the hope of advancing her cause. I'm a Palestinian sympathizer and this even turns me off. There are plenty of valid reasons to reject Zionism and Western hegemony without relying on some sort of nebulous "Brown peope unite" BS.

72 · ShallowThinker said

Here is the thing I dont understand. Where were these protest's when Muslims in the Sudan were commiting genocide? Now the violence is on them and now everyone is about peace? I dont get it. Is it a black thing?

Speak for yourself, ShallowThinker. I've gone to protests over the Janjaweed killing and rape in Darfur and about Tamil civilians killed by the Sri Lankan Army; to vigils about the Columbian trade unionists murdered by their right-wing government and for AIDS victims. I could go on and on about all of the different political positions I have but I won't. I'll only say that I make those opinions known in whatever form seems appropriate: public protests are generally a tactic used to try and change a current public policy or government opinion so here in North America, they were an organizing tool for the anti-war movement and will be one for Gaza. Where there is widespread condemnation already, as of the Muslim militias in Darfur, you are more likely to have letter writing or contact your MP/Congressperson campaigns to get them to do something more about it.

Those who've questioned the passion displayed on this particular issue given that it isn't a "South Asian" issue: don't judge others by your own inaction or disinterest in things that don't affect you personally.

Is the coverage that this conflict is getting overblown? Absolutely. Does that mean that everyone who has an opinion or takes an action about Israel-Palestine doesn't care about anything else? Nonsense.

As for the two state solution.... someone asked why not just a secular Israel. Mostly because Israel will never agree to a secular democratic state wherein Jews and Palestinians have equal rights. They are too afraid that Palestinians will control the government of such a state.

It would have been better to give them their own Jewish state in Europe but of course the powers that be didn't want that. No, instead, they looked around for a piece of land that they didn't own and decided to make it over to the "Jewish nation" because of some half-baked theories put forward by a bunch of 19th century writers who looked to the Bible and the Talmud for inspiration. Then, Israel decided to offer a "right of return" to all Jews, whether or not they are born there while kicking out native-born Palestinian Arabs. If you think this is reasonable, then you have no problems with Idi Amin's decision to kick out the Indians there, right?

You could level the same charges against those who put forward the idea of Pakistan - the idea that the Muslims of South Asia formed a unique culture separate from the Hindus, and thus needed their own country. Of course, that idea was disproven once Bengali Muslims no longer wanted to be dominated by their Punjabi co-religionists. Yet, if you suggest that Pakistan was a historical mistake, you are considered out of bounds.

What were the size of those different protests, Archana? It seems to me that the largest ones in the West tend to be the Palestinian-Israel ones (except for the Iraq war, in the recent years). Also, attending a protest isn't the only way to show interest in an issue, and may not even be the most productive one.

You may attend a lot of protests, but most people don't, and if you look at the coverage at, say, the BBC, you still see more coverage of this issue than others. I'm just curious as to other opinions on why this is.

*I think it has become a cause celebre, and a proxy, in the west; the issue that defines you politically, more than any other. It's a signal for some, I think. I am not saying that's the case for everyone, just the casual observers.

The Sikh community jumped on board earlier this week.

Did they? Really? So a few Sikhs joined the protest and all of a sudden 'the Sikh community' in its entirety joined in? Wow. That's quite a trick, that's almost as good as turning water into wine. Amazing stuff.

I dont see how this is a Desi issue anywhere in the world.

In the UK it is the Pakistani / Bangaldeshi Muslim cause par excellence. The entire identity of British Pakistanis seems predicated on Palestine and the supremacy and suffering and victimhood of the 'Ummah'.

Personally speaking, I feel sorry for the innocent Palestinians, but I feel sick spending five minutes in the company of anti-Semites who talk about Jewish conspiracies, speak of Jews as if they are cockroaches, and talk of destroying Israel, not peaceful co-existence, which is invariably what I hear when I talk to those protesting against Israel, in particular from among the British Desi Muslims whose whole existence and identity seems based on this issue sometimes. I don't want to be associated with such people. They are like the worst kind of RSS psychopath ranting about Muslims and Christians, except these bigots are valorised by much of the Left, and their attitudes are unchallenged within their communities.

Did they? Really? So a few Sikhs joined the protest and all of a sudden 'the Sikh community' in its entirety joined in? Wow. That's quite a trick, that's almost as good as turning water into wine. Amazing stuff.

The sikh who made the comments was Sonny Singh Suchdev, the same guy who when he was a kid and was attacked by black youths for wearing my turbans blamed white people and these comments were posted on racewire a blog that play the race card for everything.

72 · ShallowThinker said

Here is the thing I dont understand. Where were these protest's when Muslims in the Sudan were commiting genocide? Now the violence is on them and now everyone is about peace? I dont get it. Is it a black thing?

This is a very interesting point, and the basis of my position on this conflict. The only reason why you see so much protest is that Israel is considered a democracy, and its decision-making is expected to be tempered by (international) public opinion. Sudan's Bashir, on the other hand, is a dictator, so no point in protesting against him, he would just ignore it.

The whole protest business is driven by the idea that Israel is special, even though the Israeli response to protests is similar to Bashir's -- ignore them, and continue with whatever it wants. This suits the Arabs, as protests show that there is nothing special about Israel, its response is as good as any non-democratic one.

Since Israel does whatever it wants, my view is that there is no point in protesting, it is better to treat Israel as another middle-eastern country that fights with other middle-eastern countries. The behavior and attitude of the average Israeli towards Indians is similar to that of Arabs, as this report shows. Not very surprising, geography is not just destiny, it is also personality.

Yes, Israel sells India weapons, and trains our commandos for a fee. But they have also trained Tamil Tigers and the Afghan Mujahideen, and they are chummy with Pakistan, so it is better not to read too much into this. Their relations with India are not driven by love, it is mostly self-interest. It is not all that different from Saudi Arabia selling us oil, while supporting Pakistan on the side. If Pakistan was a non-Muslim nation, Israel would have sold them weapons as well. Weapon manufacturers are interested in markets as much as anyone else.

Bottom-line: There is no difference between Darfur and Gaza. As a human being, you should be upset with both. But don't expect your protest to matter much. Better to ignore the whole mess and mind your own business. The actors involved don't think very highly of us, and given a chance, would support folks who create problems for us. So what happens to them both shouldn't matter to us much.

I haven't seen to many "Nordic-looking blondes" in Hamas, but whatever. If calling the Israelis "white" bothers you, fine--culturally European. Now, give me more nuance about how some Israelis are from Baghdad or whatever. You know what I mean--it's their whiteness/Euroness that allows their opponents to call them "colonizers" in a way that doesn't apply to the Turks in Constantinople or the Mughals in Delhi. This is the real reason why the issue gets so much coverage.

You sneer at nuance, rob, but it's not misleading at all: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Israel#Ethnic_groups

39% from "baghdad" (in your ecology of descriptive terms) and 37% from "colonizer" lands (again, your usage).

Also, "Hamas" is not a good stand-in for the "the Palestinians." This fetish of seeing putatively democratic elections as an expression of the pure, true voice of an entire population is widespread and finds it's most vocal proponents among supporters of the current bombardment in Gaza. Libertarian disengagement simply isn't possible there because if you don't pick sides there are dire consequences for all of you and yours.

79 · onparkstreet said

What were the size of those different protests, Archana? It seems to me that the largest ones in the West tend to be the Palestinian-Israel ones (except for the Iraq war, in the recent years). Also, attending a protest isn't the only way to show interest in an issue, and may not even be the most productive one.

But you're making my point for me -- street protests (and their size) aren't the only expression of political opinion! As I said in my comment above, since there are already (mealy-mouthed) calls for action by the Canadian govt against the Janjaweed, as also for both the LTTE and the Sri Lankan govt to stop targeting civilians, the tactic there is to contact your representatives and say what are you doing about this. Palestine is different because there is such a pro-Israeli tilt in the govt and media that people feel that they have to take to the streets to show that this is not a stance they agree with.

*I think it has become a cause celebre, and a proxy, in the west; the issue that defines you politically, more than any other. It's a signal for some, I think. I am not saying that's the case for everyone, just the casual observers.

I think you're right about this. But is there something inherently wrong with this? Wasn't Apartheid a cause celebre at a not-so distant point in time? I do think one's position on Palestine now (as on Apartheid years ago) probably -- not always -- but probably defines you politically.

And KXB: No, I don't think the creation of Palestine compares to the creation of Pakistan, mostly because the majority population in the areas that became Pakistan were already Muslim. Not so the case in Palestine. That being said, I do think of the partition of British India as another colonialist act that resulted in millions of deaths. Would the subcontinent have been better of a secular democracy that wasn't partitioned? Probably. Does that then mean that I think India should overrun Pakistan and Bangladesh? No. Just as I think that even though the creation of Israel was a colonialist act that displaced the reparations due to the Jewish population of Europe onto Palestinian Arabs, at this point in time the solution has to include an Israeli state in that region.

This is a very interesting point, and the basis of my position on this conflict. The only reason why you see so much protest is that Israel is considered a democracy, and its decision-making is expected to be tempered by (international) public opinion. Sudan's Bashir, on the other hand, is a dictator, so no point in protesting against him, he would just ignore it.

Apartheid South Africa was the subject of global protests. Given the nature of their gov't, shouldn't they have been immune to int'l public opinion as well?

79 · onparkstreet said

You may attend a lot of protests, but most people don't, and if you look at the coverage at, say, the BBC, you still see more coverage of this issue than others. I'm just curious as to other opinions on why this is.

I think it's kind of a cycle. Media focus on Israel/Pali fuels passion in viewers, passionate protestors make great media stories, more people hear about what's going on and choose a side, they stage more protests, the media increases coverage for ratings, etc etc.

I have stayed mum with many friends as they change their facebook statuses to reflect their position, since I didn't have time for an ugly debate. But once I did sit down with a friend and asked why he cared so much about Palestinians and not about other Muslim causes (especially violence perpetrated by Muslims), he said it was because he didn't know about them. I gave him some conflicts to look into and he was grateful to learn about them. Maybe we just need to speak about other atrocities more loudly.

I've never organized a protest, but I seriously considered doing one for Mumbai. Next time maybe I'll go through with it, but hopefully there won't be a next time!

You make fair points. I just don't want to get caught up in the emotionalism - it makes for poor decision making, at least for me.

OT: Archana, where did you get that book you have pictured on your blog? Hilarious.

if i may be permitted to make a blanket statement that will surely draw some flames, the spectacle of near consensus Israeli support for the bombardment of Gaza is the result of Benny Morris syndrome--wherein the Israeli public willfully compartmentalize slaughter and just defense. Benny was among the first to get access to the archives covering the period called "nakba" by the Palestinians and he wrote several books based on this archival research which established, beyond argument, that there were atrocities committed by the Israelis against Palestinians during the formation. In the early 2000s he never once recanted on the facts but said several times that it was all necessary and if given the chance he would change nothing. It is not that the Israeli street is constrained by a different set of facts (though different images via the news, definitely) but that they find it all too easy to slip into Morrism-isms when under duress

this is why i don't discuss anything to do with this mess with my orthodox cousin who lived in Jersualem for many years and, when war is not the topic, waxes nostalgic about her multi-ethnic and multireligious circle of friends and social life.

Nayagan,
Would you disagree with the claim that the Israelis are "constructed" as white and European?
Why else the use of the term "colonizer" when that's not applied to non-whites (e.g., to the Turks who kicked Byzantium out of Anatolia)?

83 · bleah said

72 · ShallowThinker said

Here is the thing I dont understand. Where were these protest's when Muslims in the Sudan were commiting genocide? Now the violence is on them and now everyone is about peace? I dont get it. Is it a black thing?

This is a very interesting point, and the basis of my position on this conflict. The only reason why you see so much protest is that Israel is considered a democracy, and its decision-making is expected to be tempered by (international) public opinion. Sudan's Bashir, on the other hand, is a dictator, so no point in protesting against him, he would just ignore it.

The whole protest business is driven by the idea that Israel is special, even though the Israeli response to protests is similar to Bashir's -- ignore them, and continue with whatever it wants. This suits the Arabs, as protests show that there is nothing special about Israel, its response is as good as any non-democratic one.

Since Israel does whatever it wants, my view is that there is no point in protesting, it is better to treat Israel as another middle-eastern country that fights with other middle-eastern countries. The behavior and attitude of the average Israeli towards Indians is similar to that of Arabs, as this report shows. Not very surprising, geography is not just destiny, it is also personality.

Yes, Israel sells India weapons, and trains our commandos for a fee. But they have also trained Tamil Tigers and the Afghan Mujahideen, and they are chummy with Pakistan, so it is better not to read too much into this. Their relations with India are not driven by love, it is mostly self-interest. It is not all that different from Saudi Arabia selling us oil, while supporting Pakistan on the side. If Pakistan was a non-Muslim nation, Israel would have sold them weapons as well. Weapon manufacturers are interested in markets as much as anyone else.

Bottom-line: There is no difference between Darfur and Gaza. As a human being, you should be upset with both. But don't expect your protest to matter much. Better to ignore the whole mess and mind your own business. The actors involved don't think very highly of us, and given a chance, would support folks who create problems for us. So what happens to them both shouldn't matter to us much.

Since the mid 80s and the continued nuclear development of Pakistan nuclear program, India and Israels interests have converged in many ways, so I don't think the selling of weapons is purely out of self interest. I think the civilian deaths are horrible but what is Israel to do if Hamas or whoever has no problem using civilians as shields? Also, the support many Arabs have shown Pakistan in its quest for Kashmir irks me at best when what Israel did to its minorities has been mirrored by Pakistan. Complaining when people you identify with are victims and making excuses or providing reasoning when they are the aggressors isn't going garner much empathy.

This conflict gets more eyeballs / coverage / protests / tears than anything else in the world. Recently there were fights in Somalia / Congo / Srilanka that involved more or less the same number of casualties. I'm actually sad at all those violent acts.

Having said that, I think the western and Arab/Muslim media covers this particular conflict in much detail because of religious reasons and India because of its massive Muslim population gives a partial coverage not the continuous ones we see in other places. I have no bones to pick and no sides to choose.

Muslim nations and people who fight for ONLY Muslim causes all over the world resemble the European crusaders and their supporters of the 11th to 14th centuries. Then Christians were unhappy that their holy place is in the control of Muslims. Now it is vice versa.

To be provocative, and because as an American I'm interested in Indian opinion on this issue: what has India gained from it's traditional pro-palestinian stance?

I think Nehru probably got a few awards. That's about it.

In a nutshell, the reason that so much attention is paid to this conflict is because it was the detonating event and one of the factors currently propagating Islamic extremism. Had there never been a partition and abrogation of the Palestinian's right to the land and to self-determination, had the Zionists not aimed in the 1970s at creating a "Greater Israel" stretching from the Mediterranean to Transjordan, you can bet your bottom dollar that there never would have been such a thing as Hamas or Hizbullah or Al Qaeda for that matter.

A secondary reason for all the attention paid to this conflict is a significant strain of Christian Zionism in U.S. Evangelicalism. Many Americans believe that this conflict is pivotal in the apocalyptic drama of the end times and that Israel is key in Jesus' Second Coming. Another way in which religion has entered into and continually complicates attempts at coming to a rational, equitable solution.

94 · Skeptic said

Had there never been a partition and abrogation of the Palestinian's right to the land and to self-determination

I'm not a fan of Israel's actions, but the essentially tribal Arab street treated the Palestinians like crap pre-Israel. Their new found love for Palestinians - and you still don't see it much in governmental behavior - has much more to do with Israel than with solidarity for Palestinians. So, maybe you wouldn't have seen Hamas or Hezbollah, but the plight of the Palestinians would've been similar - a destitute people without a land or autonomy.

95 · why said

94 · Skeptic said

Had there never been a partition and abrogation of the Palestinian's right to the land and to self-determination

I'm not a fan of Israel's actions, but the essentially tribal Arab street treated the Palestinians like crap pre-Israel. Their new found love for Palestinians - and you still don't see it much in governmental behavior - has much more to do with Israel than with solidarity for Palestinians. So, maybe you wouldn't have seen Hamas or Hezbollah, but the plight of the Palestinians would've been similar - a destitute people without a land or autonomy.

You may very well be right. However, the question put was "Why is so much attention paid to this conflict?" In the end, the Palestinians would have been badly off even without the creation of Israel, but the upside for the rest of us (i.e. the Western world) is that we wouldn't have to worry about anti-Zionist Islamist fanatics flying jetliners into our office buildings.

Any south asian who has labored in an Arab country will testify to how Arabs, including Palestinians, because they believe that their fellow Arabs owe them, are an extremely racist people [by "racist people" i mean that a majority of them are racist and not all of them]. Even towards fellow Muslims.
My Uncle, a practicing Muslim and an AIIMS [All India Institute of Medical Sciences] trained Doctor, quit after a decade from a Jeddah, Saudi Arabia hospital when, at times even incompetent Arabs were routinely promoted out of turn and according to my uncle, not a week would go by when he wasn't reminded of his racial inferiority. My uncle who is of Kashmiri extraction, is a small, dark skinned gent and is often mistaken for a Bangladeshi. Apparently, in the middle east, even Pakistanis consider themselves racially superior to Bangladeshis, and feel the need to remind everybody around them that, they are not "Kala [black] bengali or malyalee". [Muslim solidarity, my kundi]
The sad part is that, despite the upheaval in my uncle's life, bought about by racist Saudi overseers, he still can't bring himself to utter a bad word against the Saudis because he really believes that they are superior to the sub-continent Muslim and special to God. Why?
"Because Prophet Muhammad was a Saudi; two of Islam's holiest shrines, Mecca and Medina are in Saudi Arabia and last but not the least, God "blessed" the Saudis with gazillion gallons of Oil."

94 · Skeptic said

you can bet your bottom dollar that there never would have been such a thing as Hamas or Hizbullah or Al Qaeda for that matter.

Not sure about this. Wahhabism and the Deobandi movements predate Israel, and the Saudi petrodollars that fund the spread of Wahhabism aren't directly related to Israel, nor was the US funding for Taliban as an opposition to the USSR in Afghanistan.

As others mentioned, these rallies quickly turn from pro-Palestinian to anti-Semitic. Chants of "Khaybar, khaybar, ya yahood..." would probably be cheered. My main beef with these rallies is that large numbers of Americans who have nothing to do with the region join in to seem cool (wearing a kaffiyeh only adds to how multicultural they are) Ironically, the "Zionist-Imperialist regimes" in Washington and Tel Aviv permit such rallies and allow both sides to publish their views, while demonstrations against the Gaza campaign are brutally crushed in the West Bank, Jordan and other Arab countries.

#95: you're right. Arab govts have treated Palestinian refugees like shit; they weren't even allowed to work in Lebanon til 2005, and don't have citizenship elsewhere. However when the regimes themselves are threatened, they quickly play the "Zionists are oppressing Arabs" card and it always seems to work.

"The Palestinians want to wipe out the Israeli's, but can't. The Israeli's could wipe out the Palestinians, but won't."

99 · Ballantine's said

As others mentioned, these rallies quickly turn from pro-Palestinian to anti-Semitic. Chants of "Khaybar, khaybar, ya yahood..." would probably be cheered. My main beef with these rallies is that large numbers of Americans who have nothing to do with the region join in to seem cool (wearing a kaffiyeh only adds to how multicultural they are)

This is probably an accurate description of a certain segment of anti-Israel protestors. But in all fairness, a much larger number of "Americans who have nothing to do with the region" are members of Evangelical denominations in which Christian Zionism is a central part of the theology. Their dollars and their votes are tremendously important in propping up the state of Israel both directly and indirectly. Clearly a lot of Americans that are not direct parties to the conflict are engaged on **both** sides, and often for all the wrong reasons.

Is the situation in gaza really a south-asian issue?? Not by a long shot. if people protest Israeli actions strictly based on "humanatarian" ground, did these same people go to the streets to protest the daily barrage of rocket strikes that hammas was unleashing on Israel? Israel and all solemn nations have the right to defend themselves. It is sad if innocent Palestinians are getting killed... but should be a lesson on what happens when you democratically elect a violent terrorist organization to represent you.

Nayagan,
Would you disagree with the claim that the Israelis are "constructed" as white and European?
Why else the use of the term "colonizer" when that's not applied to non-whites (e.g., to the Turks who kicked Byzantium out of Anatolia)?

i see what you're getting at--"colonizer" is unevenly applied in popular discourse and also misunderstood by those who deploy it the most. Though it seems too easy an answer, i'll not disagree with your argument. Regarding why leftists latch on to this issue in an emotional and gauche fashion, I can't be sure (though surely it has something to do with how many rightwingers do as well), but I'd have to question your powers of deduction as you have described me on numerous occasions as a 'leftist.' Even once as your 'favorite one.' (which did nothing to salve the sting of such a labeling)

I am from Kashmir, India and recently finished my graduate studies from a Massachusetts University, where, whenever there would be a pro-Palestinian rally or anti-Israel protest, one noticed protesters of all color and creed, including Jews [btw, jewish students protesting against Israel flies against everything muslims in india believe about them]. Indeed, some protests were even organized by South Asian Muslim students who were very active on the Palestinian issue.
But, when I would organize a talk on Kashmir, the only people who would volunteer to help were the Pakistani students who, since I consider the Kashmir under Pakistani control occupied territory, would much rather manage without me. The Arabs couldn't care less, at least that is my experience.

And the funny part is that, the South Asian Muslims tolerated this double standard. Go figure.

100 · Quoting GC said

"The Palestinians want to wipe out the Israeli's, but can't. The Israeli's could wipe out the Palestinians, but won't."

How kind of the occupying masters to not just wipe out all the Palestinians. How so very kind of them. It is a mark of their superior moral stance. The fact that they are pacing themselves and slowly build settlements on existing Palestinian farm and other land--that is a mark of Israel's generosity.

In response to comments about Arab treatment of Palestinians: It is irrelevant how Arab governments treat Palestinian refugees. There should NOT be Palestinian refugees at all. Palestinians should be able to live on their land with dignity and full rights. They are refugees because they have been displaced from their land. I find it amusing how people talk about how badly Arabs treat people, as if that excuses Israel's right to occupy, demean, humiliate, and murder a group of people. By the way, the Arab nations have absorbed more Palestinian refugees than not. The argument that Arabs have only recently discovered support for Palestinians is about as ignorant as it gets. Basically, those are the kinds of smoke screen arguments that Zionists throw up all the time. I mean, one could argue that Indians should not be out protesting against the abuse of Palestinians when it doesn't even feed its own poor. I could argue that Americans should not be out protesting when it is itself occupying Iraq and Afghanistan, allows torture, and holds prisoners with no rights in Gitmo.

The bottom line is that Israel's military occupation is one of the most brutal in its execution, immorality, and viciousness. Most Zionist Jews don't even consider Palestinians to be human. When asked about the killing of children in the latest attacks (Israel's blockade on Gaza has been just a vicious), a colleague of mine, who often talks about Chinese brutality, shrugged and said, "Well, those kids are going to grow up to be terrorists anyway." This is the kind of mindset that allows Israeli occupying forces to use White Phosphor (a chemical weapon) and carpet bombing in Gaza--they are killing animals.

73 · rob said

This is factually untrue. Palestinians, like Israelis, cover the whole spectrum of coloration and phenotype, from Nordic-looking blondes to very dark skinned folks.

I haven't seen to many "Nordic-looking blondes" in Hamas, but whatever. If calling the Israelis "white" bothers you, fine--culturally European. Now, give me more nuance about how some Israelis are from Baghdad or whatever. You know what I mean--it's their whiteness/Euroness that allows their opponents to call them "colonizers" in a way that doesn't apply to the Turks in Constantinople or the Mughals in Delhi. This is the real reason why the issue gets so much coverage.

I don't think colonialism is the same phenomenon as Zionism, although of course there are some similarities. Ultimately, it's a question of equity. A dispassionate observer would agree that brazen, often violent dispossession of a territory continuously occupied by one group of folks for hundreds of years by another group that has a more tenuous and historically distant a claim, is troublesome, to say the least. This is ultimately the aim of Zionism. This is a modern day phenomenon that is only several decades old and people are able to witness it and get involved emotionally through the wonders of modern telecommunications in a way that was not possible centuries ago during the Turkish and Mughal conquests.

But, when I would organize a talk on Kashmir, the only people who would volunteer to help were the Pakistani students who, since I consider the Kashmir under Pakistani control occupied territory, would much rather manage without me. The Arabs couldn't care less, at least that is my experience.

Look people, I am going to start deleting the comment of the next person that asks why this was blogged here. Are you guys freaking blind? There were South Asian AMERICANS in the protests pictured above. That makes it a Sepia Mutiny issue. For the last time: we blog primarily about AMERICAN issues that have any South Asian AMERICAN hook to them. Don't ask us why we don't blog about some conflict in India. If there was an internal Indian issue and one of our bloggers was knowledgeable about it or went to a protest about it then we may choose to blog it. This also isn't a place to make stupid comments like "all arabs are racist." No, in fact you are a bigot for writing that.

So let me spell it out clearly. American + by,involving,about,tangentially related to someone of South Asian decent + in the news/topical = possible SM Post. Any questions?

105 · Ven said

The bottom line is that Israel's military occupation is one of the most brutal in its execution, immorality, and viciousness.

Here here! Given what I know about the conflict, I would have to agree completely. I think even most non-Zionist and anti-Zionist Jews can see this clearly and are quite embarrassed by what the State of Israel is doing quasi in the name of Judaism. It bears repeating that Judaism does not equate to Zionism and there are some prominent rabbis and religious Jews that vehemently oppose the existence of the State of Israel as a "homeland for the Jewish people".

Sorry for having mislabeled you, Nayagan!

brown #109:

Sure, a small number of Jews are opposed to the State of Israel's existence on religious grounds, and this same small group (Neturei Karta) joins in most of the big Palestinian rallies but it's still a tiny fraction of the total Jewish population. A fraction of Jews, Muslims, Christians, etc. endorse terrorism on religious grounds as well, that doesn't make the vast majority who practice the faith peacefully "heretics".

112 · Ballantine's said

brown #109:

Sure, a small number of Jews are opposed to the State of Israel's existence on religious grounds, and this same small group (Neturei Karta) joins in most of the big Palestinian rallies but it's still a tiny fraction of the total Jewish population. A fraction of Jews, Muslims, Christians, etc. endorse terrorism on religious grounds as well, that doesn't make the vast majority who practice the faith peacefully "heretics".

My point is not that Zionism can be construed as "heretical" from the point of view of Orthodox Judaism. This may or may not be the case and it is not a debate I am qualified to engage in, and in any case I think the role of religion in this debate should be toned down rather than further accentated. I simply meant to make the observation that one may be a Jew religiously while holding dissenting political views about the nature and genesis of the Israel/Palestine conflict, West Bank settlements, refusal of the Palestinian right of return, etc.

DO NOT RESPOND TO TROLLS.
Troll comments and replies to troll comments will be deleted. Follow the commenting guidelines. Keep it civil and don't even think about ranting on this thread.

My point is not that Zionism can be construed as "heretical" from the point of view of Orthodox Judaism. This may or may not be the case and it is not a debate I am qualified to engage in, and in any case I think the role of religion in this debate should be toned down rather than further accentated. I simply meant to make the observation that one may be a Jew religiously while holding dissenting political views about the nature and genesis of the Israel/Palestine conflict, West Bank settlements, refusal of the Palestinian right of return, etc.

Brownskeptic, this is the second time you've posted exactly what I would have wanted to say. Thank you.

102 · chitowndesi said

Is the situation in gaza really a south-asian issue?? Not by a long shot. if people protest Israeli actions strictly based on "humanatarian" ground, did these same people go to the streets to protest the daily barrage of rocket strikes that hammas was unleashing on Israel? Israel and all solemn nations have the right to defend themselves. It is sad if innocent Palestinians are getting killed... but should be a lesson on what happens when you democratically elect a violent terrorist organization to represent you.

Well, if Israel doesn't want rockets pelted at them, then maybe it should not OCCUPY other people's lands. How about not building settlements in the West Bank? How about not controlling the air, borders, and waters of Gaza? How about agreeing to 1967 borders? How about agreeing to Palestinian right of return? How about not controlling Jerusalem?

Basically, if Israel doesn't want to bomb helpless civilians for retaliating against OCCUPATION, how about ending occupation?

Oh, right--Israel has a right to exist. It will exist. It owns most of the land. Unless it is willing to consider that Palestinians have a right to LIVE WITH DIGNITY in their own land, it will not have peace, and it does not want peace--evidenced by its occupation of West Bank and the horrific blockade of Gaza for two years.

How about Israelis elect a non-terrorizing government? Why not punish Israelis to bringing in people into power who are committing to continuing occupation?

Also, just because Israel--a terrorist occupying power--calls Hamas a terrorist organization doesn't make Hamas one. Hamas has as much legitimate right to exist as does Israel.

Pro-Israel demonstration in Florida

It was a show of unity and solidarity between various Hindu, Jewish and Christian groups which came and stood together against the nefarious design of Jihadi terrorists. The crowd was not to be deterred by a windy South Florida afternoon and lit candles and immersed flowers in the ocean in the memory of victims. A resolution adopted on this occasion urged the government of United States to intensify its campaign against global terrorism, particularly the one perpetrated by its so-called allies and others in the Indian sub-continent and declare such nations as Rogue nations.

Coalition of Community Organizations United against Global Terrorism
Americans Against Hate
Ramat Shalom
Christians and Jews United for Israel
Unitarian Universalist Congregation
World Wide Christian Center
Shiva Vishnu Temple
South Florida Hindu Temple
Jain Center Of South Florida
Shiva Mandir
Florida Arya Samaj
Sindhi Association of Florida
Florida Security Council
Shri Laxmi Narayan Temple
Palm Beach India Association
International Kashmir Federation (IKF)
Indian Religious and Cultural Center (IRCC)
United Hindu Front
World Hindu Council of America

I attended a huge Pro-Israel demo in ATL last week and there was a large Indian contingent as well. Good to know other communities are joining up as well.

Of course in SM world, we're fringe elements interfering with pan-desi "We are the same and we're so awesome for saying so" shtick.

I think Taz, who I think is bangladeshi, really needs to absorb these facts.

Thanks sweetie. I've lived in Saudi Arabia for three years and I know exactly how they treat people. But this isn't a Saudi's are racist thread. All Arabs are NOT Saudi like, nor can you stereotype them the same (Saudi has a ridiculous amount of religious and financial privilege compared to other Arab nations), just the way all South Asians Americans are not Hindus - the fundoos on this thread have so conveniently forgotten the rich diversity India has to offer, including many, many Muslims.

This thread is about Gaza, a refugee camp 20 miles long and 4 miles wide, with controlled borders on all sides getting bombarded by huge bombs at UN sites, hospitals, & schools. It's like shooting at fish in a barrel. 90% of people in Gaza depend on food from the UN to survive and the UN was bombed this morning. It's about the parrellels this crisis has to America's Civil Rights movement, to South Asia's struggles for independence (both Israel and India partition happened in 1947), and how as desis in America we have multiple ties to needing to be compassionate about this issue.

I interviewed and posted this piece because I felt there was a need for dialogue in OUR community on this issue. I don't really care, or am pushing, a particular stance, I just wanted people to have a place to have a discussion. I'd really appreciate if you respected that instead of derailing the conversation mush.

Taz,
Thank you for making this post. As you can imagine, there will be a lot of Hindu and other fundoos who will try to obfuscate the reality of the Israeli occupation by regurgitating all the talking points of the AIPAC controlled US media. I am glad that there are some people who are getting news beyond the strictly controlled enternews that is US media, and the protests throughout America have been very reassuring.

And for those who are celebrating pro-Israel protests in the US: Really? Is billions in dollars in US aid, US weapons, and US veto of any sanctions against Israel's flagrant human rights abuses not enough? You all need protests as well. Pathetic.

brown skeptic #113:

"I simply meant to make the observation that one may be a Jew religiously while holding dissenting political views about the nature and genesis of the Israel/Palestine conflict, West Bank settlements, refusal of the Palestinian right of return, etc."

fair enough. but my initial response to you was based on your statement that some prominent rabbis had questioned the right of the State of Israel to exist in their holy land. the Neturei Karta are certainly entitled to their beliefs, but the problem is that this tiny number of Jews are exploited by the anti-Israel groups to essentially say: "See we're not racist, even the true Jews agree that this Zionist state has no legitimacy". They frequently appear on Arab TV and were even invited to Ahmadinejad's Holocaust conference (lol). Projecting the opinion of a group that numbers only a few thousand as the only true Jewish opinion is ludicrous. IMO, this is no different than white supremacists saying "Hey we're not racist. Bill Cosby said what we've been saying all along in his Pound Cake speech. Why can't all blacks be like him??"

I know this was not what you were trying to imply, but I wanted to clarify my response

Taz is much nicer than I. It's deleting time.

This is the kind of mindset that allows Israeli occupying forces to use White Phosphor (a chemical weapon).

White Phosphorous is not a chemical weapon.

White Phosphorous (WP) is a smoke screening agent and when it doesn't burn through, an incendiary. It is not classified as a chemical weapon by the CWC, that belongs to the likes of Sarin, VX, Mustard Gas. Frankly, a 155mm explosive artillery shell is more deadly than WP. The former, by design, would kill/maim anyone exposed within a certain area. The later would create a thick smoke screen as soon as its exposed to air, which by definition is quite unpleasant (no one wants to inhale smoke, but it isn't deadly). If an unburned piece of WP lands on someone, it will seriously burn them. But WP is not a chemical weapon. If that's the definition used, then all explosives/incendiaries are chemical weapons (and deadlier). WP has been used in hand grenades, mortars (infantry weapons), so it isn't a chemical weapon, rather type classified under conventional munitions.

Wikipedia has a comprehensive entry on White Phosphorous.

just the way all South Asians Americans are not Hindus - the fundoos on this thread have so conveniently forgotten the rich diversity India has to offer, including many, many Muslims.

neither are all (self identified) hindus right wing fanatics (in fact a minority of them are).

83 · bleah said

72 · ShallowThinker said

Here is the thing I dont understand. Where were these protest's when Muslims in the Sudan were commiting genocide? Now the violence is on them and now everyone is about peace? I dont get it. Is it a black thing?

The whole protest business is driven by the idea that Israel is special, even though the Israeli response to protests is similar to Bashir's -- ignore them, and continue with whatever it wants. This suits the Arabs, as protests show that there is nothing special about Israel, its response is as good as any non-democratic one.

Since Israel does whatever it wants, my view is that there is no point in protesting, it is better to treat Israel as another middle-eastern country that fights with other middle-eastern countries. The behavior and attitude of the average Israeli towards Indians is similar to that of Arabs, as this report shows. Not very surprising, geography is not just destiny, it is also personality.

Yes, Israel sells India weapons, and trains our commandos for a fee. But they have also trained Tamil Tigers and the Afghan Mujahideen, and they are chummy with Pakistan, so it is better not to read too much into this. Their relations with India are not driven by love, it is mostly self-interest. It is not all that different from Saudi Arabia selling us oil, while supporting Pakistan on the side. If Pakistan was a non-Muslim nation, Israel would have sold them weapons as well. Weapon manufacturers are interested in markets as much as anyone else.

thank you!
and archana, at 57, very articulate comment: thanks.

and archana, at 57, very articulate comment: thanks.

Port, do you really think Hamas is an Israeli creation? I'm not up on the whole issue to any degree of sophistication, but why wouldn't the Israelis create some liberal Palestinians if they are the puppeteers? This Hamas thing is not good for business, no? I'd grant the Palestinians a little more agency, personally. . . .

Jesus Christ the mutineers are thin skinned!!

My post was removed because I dared to point out the blatant anti-India and pro-terrorist cartoons on a magazine, quoted approvingly by the blogress?? Nowhere in my post did I use racist, abusive, illiterate, content-free commercial language. Neither was it personal or non-issue-focused, intolerant and anti-secular.

Grow up.

118 · Nemo said

Of course in SM world, we're fringe elements interfering with pan-desi "We are the same and we're so awesome for saying so" shtick.

Please quit assuming that the "SM world" is some monolithic realm. Your statement was somewhat obnoxious ("shtick"?). And it's not a question of "we are the same". A more accurate characterization would be that many of feel that what unites us culturally outweighs what divides us. That doesn't mean that disagreement doesn't exist. It very much does.

120 · Ven said

And for those who are celebrating pro-Israel protests in the US: Really?...You all need protests as well. Pathetic.

Poorly-worded screeds that conflate unrelated issues generally succeed in alienating your supporters, not convincing your opponents.

127 · ThinkSkinned said

My post was removed because I dared to point out the blatant anti-India and pro-terrorist cartoons on a magazine, quoted approvingly by the blogress??

Please see my earlier comment. Not all of us are comfortable with what was quoted.

I do feel sorry for the palestinians whose families are dispossessed and who have been pushed out of the land they lived in
for generations. However, in my view, many of the anti Israeli protests are not motivated by any particular fellow feeling
for the Palestinians because they lost their land. They are very often motivated purely by religion, and this motivation is
very strong, to the extent that many intellectual critiques of Israel are informed (either knowingly or otherwise) by it.
You never really see protests by left wing academics and leading muslim supporters of the Palestinian cause when minorities
in Islamic countries are persecuted. One never reads critiques of the policies of practically every muslim majority country
in the world to deny equal rights to people of a non muslim or minority muslim sect persuasion. Even if such critiques exist,
they are few and far between. For example, leading academics and opinion writers in the US are perfectly willing to get
indignant about Israeli acts in Gaza, but they also often ignore the actions of Hamas in provoking this action. Similarly,
many of them are probably not even aware of the history that most Islamic nations have in persecuting and essentially
destroying religious minority communities. There is ample evidence of this in India's neighborhood, and in India itself.
Given this background, I (who am Indian) and many of my compatriots find it hard to make common cause with people who
protest against Israeli atrocities in the region. This was not the case when Mr. Arafat was alive, for two reasons,
the first being that he was a secular figure, and he at least made a case for Palestine in India that was purely
secular (i.e that they were displaced), and he was pretty much the only important political figure who was supportive
of India in the region, and the second was that during his time, the Islamic terrorism directed against India was not
so virulent.

On the actual matter of the Israel-Palestinian dispute, I think it is a very sad dispute where there is no viable
solution that would satisfy either party. The appropriation of the Palestinian cause by religious forces in the
region into a Palestinian *muslim* cause makes it untenable for Israel to agree to any solution where they would
have to compromise (either in terms of land or otherwise), since they probably believe in the story of the camel,
its master and the tent. Of course, this circumstance is partially their doing. Beyond this, I really don't know
what to think.

PS: Ven, at 120. I am hindu, but no fundoo, unless you think that not supporting the Palestinian cause as espoused
by many means I am a fundoo. Also, answer me this: Why should I support and give legitimacy to the people who are
going to turn around and make arguments for the further Partition of India (e.g Kashmir and ...) on religious
grounds, and who have problems with the very existence of non muslims in the region?

This thread is about Gaza, a refugee camp 20 miles long and 4 miles wide, with controlled borders on all sides getting bombarded by huge bombs at UN sites, hospitals, & schools. It's like shooting at fish in a barrel ... I don't really care, or am pushing, a particular stance,

Wow, I wonder how you would write if you did push a particular stance then! As for the parallels to the civil rights movement or Indian independence, I dont recall either attempting to kill civilians as a strategy and Palestinians might try to learn from that example.

#128 Anna,

I agree with you too. You approached the issue from one angle and I did from another. Taz quoted the magazine piece approvingly, and I took issue with her quoting a magazine with an admittedly pro-terrorist stance (Pakistan extending the olive branch to India? WTF). What I don't understand was the rationale in removing the post.

It's about the parrellels (sic) this crisis has to America's Civil Rights movement, to South Asia's struggles for independence (both Israel and India partition happened in 1947), and how as desis in America we have multiple ties to needing to be compassionate about this issue.

The above statement is problematic and borderline offensive to people of South Asian or African-American descent. Taz cited two movements widely renowned for their non-violence and compared them to Hamas, which most of the world acknowledges is a terrorist organization. Hamas is currently engaged in violence, regardless of who you think is responsible for initiating it.

There is a legitimate case to be made against the violence currently occurring in Gaza, just as there is a thoughtful comparison that could have been made between Partition and Zionism. Neither are served by drawing misguided parallels to further an agenda and to that end I have to agree with #130.

the land they lived in for generations.

I don't say this as an anti--Israeli or anti-Palestinian statement, but what's the statute of limitations on stolen land? 100 years? 25 years? 500 years? 1000 years? 2500 years? I think that's a really important question, but with no obvious answer. When I was a kid, and would visit my grandparents during the summer in Delhi, they would always gripe about the architecture, which was "too Islamic, too British"--Islamophobic? Anti-European? Maybe, maybe not. . . . . at any rate they were glad I was studying in the US--this blog makes me wonder if I'm "Islamophobic'--by the standards of the blog, I guess I am--but--were my grandparents wrong? I'm not so sure.

126 · rob said

but why wouldn't the Israelis create some liberal Palestinians if they are the puppeteers?

Abbas isn't the strongest leader, but Israel, with its policy on settlers, its hard line on checkpoints, walling in the Palestinians, and assorted other policies on relief, has not given him any political capital at all, despite what are generally believed to be his good intentions. And every instance of retaliation/defense of Israel by the use of disproportionate force only serves to further radicalize the marginalized and dispossessed populace. Yes, Palestinians do bear responsibility for their choices, but the cycle has been escalating in both directions for a long time now, so it is not a simple matter of describing Israel's actions as military, and Hamas's as terrorist.

Israel, with its policy on settlers, its hard line on checkpoints, walling in the Palestinians, and assorted other policies on relief, has not given him any political capital at all

Yeah, I agree--as I tried to indicate upthread, I'm no shill for the Israelis, nor do I really care that much about the whole issue.

135 · rob said

nor do I really care that much about the whole issue.

My best explanation for the general international outrage is the fact that Israel's existence today depends fundamentally on unconditional US support both diplomatically and militarily, whereas the other side isn't really represented in US politics in either viewpoint or actions, and this outrage is magnified at times when Israel claims, and gets, the moral high ground in international diplomacy, even as it engages in disproportionate violence, and unapologetically pursues its agenda of land grabs, segregation inside Israel, as well as piling on harrassments, indignities, and worse (analogies to apartheid and ghettoes might be incendiary, but I don't think they are entirely inappropriate in context).

All the outrage achieves nothing in practice, though, except as a fig leaf for the right to point to persecution and double standards - hysteria that is laughable, given the absence of influence those protesting have on actual political events. (Independent of all this outrage and showboating, I do wish much more was done by actual US politicians to curtail the spread of Wahhabism all around the world aided by dollars pumped in by the western world, and a repressive regime propped up by American actions.)

My best explanation for the general international outrage is the fact that Israel's existence today depends fundamentally on unconditional US support both diplomatically and militarily, whereas the other side isn't really represented in US politics in either viewpoint or actions, and this outrage is magnified at times when Israel claims, and gets, the moral high ground in international diplomacy, even as it engages in disproportionate violence, and unapologetically pursues its agenda of land grabs,

Yeah, I see what you mean. But I think one has to take seriously the view I was trying to make upthread,, which is that Israel gets a lot more attention for killing people than does, say, Sudan, Congo, Sri Lanka, etc.--this is b/c Israelis are (constructed as) white/Euro. This had always puzzled me (i.e., why is this Israel/Palestinian thing such a big deal, given that a lot more people are killed in Kashmir, etc.), so I asked white friends, and they gave me this idea (without missing a beat--so, I think it's "true.") What do you think?

34 · portmanteau said

26 · DizzyDesi said

West Bank: 3.7 Israel:5.41 United States:8.27

if we're going to talk numbers, are these comparable?

The intent of the numbers was not to imply that palestinians are healthier or safer or anything like that. It was just to show that their population is growing quite rapidly and
1. They are in no danger of getting cleansed which the Niemöller poem implied )
2. Propotionately, Israelis are becoming an increasingly smaller minority in the region..

I found the poem annoying becasuse is it really so hard for the poster to think of examples of communitites being systematically cleansed and... yeesh Godwin's law in the 2nd post?

Recently with the Mumbai attacks I experienced some very strong emotions that made me react in ways that were contrary to most of my beliefs when I am calmer. I was born and grew up in Mumbai. Most of the places that were attacked are places I have been to a number of times. I used to pass through VT / CST almost everyday. During most of the Mumbai attacks I wanted something done. I didn’t care what it was, I didn’t care whether that meant bombing Pakistan military camps, I didn’t care if innocent people died. I wasn’t thinking if this is going to cause a bigger conflict. I wanted revenge; some action which will make sure that people responsible for this were punished / killed. These kinds of thoughts were building up from the past year due to the frequent bomb blasts in various parts of India, but they just erupted during the Mumbai attacks. Since then I have been able to calm down and think more logically and less violently. But I seriously suspect that if I had lost someone from my family it would have been extremely difficult for me to stay sane without having some sort of revenge (paradox?)

These experiences have made it slightly easier for me to empathize with people on both sides of the Gaza conflict. I can better imagine living in the constant fear of loosing family members. I can try to imagine what happens to those that have already lost near ones.

If I were an Israeli citizen I would feel a lot of insecurity and anger most of the time. There are people around me that want to kill me, my family, wipe out the entire Jew community. I know that we have resisted for so long, mostly with the help of the US and Europe. What happens if for some reason the US is weakened / unwilling to help? What happens if Iran drops a nuclear bomb on us? Why should we as a nation stand idly by and wait for suicide bombers or worse? The only way out that I see is to make sure that the Palestinians and other Arab nations stay scared of us or we actually end up destroying them completely. I can see that some of the treatment of the Palestinians is wrong, but why do they have to be so stupid as to have elected Hamas. Why does Hamas have to keep firing rockets at us all the time? The history of the Arabs shows that they will never leave their violent ways. I don’t see any other option for my long term survival. Do you expect us to live forever without any peace of mind, expect us to wait for these people to destroy us?

If I were a Palestine living in Gaza I too would feel a lot of insecurity and anger most of the time. There are people who are regularly killing my people and robbing me of my dignity. I don’t have enough food to feed my children. (UN/Red cross claim that malnutrition in Gaza even before the present conflict was one of the worst in the world). The Israelis took away most of our land and I see/ hear that they are still expanding their borders. When will they stop? Who gave the Israelis the right to rule over me and decide how much food, medicines enter Gaza? Am I supposed to tolerate this? Fatah wasn’t doing anything for my cause, that’s why I voted for Hamas. There have been a few times when I have regretted this decision. Maybe now is one of those times or maybe now is one of those times when I am glad that I voted for Hamas, at least they are doing something, standing up, showing that we too are human beings. And suppose I am one of those Palestinians who have lost family/ family member in the conflict do you not expect me to join Hamas in this fight for my dignity, freedom, revenge.

I can empathize to a certain extent with the Israeli and Palestinian citizens. However I can empathize much less with both their leaderships. I can imagine that partly the leaders are driven by the same emotions that the citizens feel. But I am sure that both these leaderships also take significant advantage of these fears and feed these fears to achieve selfish goals or goals they feel are extremely important. Like John Adams wrote 'Power always sincerely, conscientiously, de très bon foi, believes itself right. Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views, beyond the comprehension of the weak'

which is that Israel gets a lot more attention for killing people than does, say, Sudan, Congo, Sri Lanka, etc.--this is b/c Israelis are (constructed as) white/Euro. This had always puzzled me (i.e., why is this Israel/Palestinian thing such a big deal, given that a lot more people are killed in Kashmir, etc.), so I asked white friends, and they gave me this idea (without missing a beat--so, I think it's "true.") What do you think?

As I said earlier, I think the international coverage has more to do with religion than anything else, where they can identify with one or the other side. For example, Sri lankan Tamil issue gets front page coverage in Tamil press but deemed not so important in say Hindi or Oriya newspapers / television channels.

Looks like the mostly Christian west takes the side of Israel and the Muslim countries and Muslims take the side of Palestinians. India used to be on the Palestinian side, but not anymore. I wonder where China is on this issue.

rob, i was agreeing more with the larger point made in #57: the creation of israel in palestine and flimsy justification thereof. and the fact that there is a middle-ground, as archana says: you can say the rocket attacks made from palestine are horrible, and also condemn the disproportionate retaliation by israel.
i missed the hamas comment in the last line; but going by the general tone of the comment, i think 'created' in that context probably means that israel's policies allowed extremists like hamas to gain sympathizers and sidelined more moderate organizations within palestine and the arab world. i certainly don't think that israel actually organized/created hamas in a direct way. but there are covert ways of sidelining more reasonable actors to justify your own immoderate agenda. i can imagine (note: only imagine, not assert :)) a scenario where you try to shore up an extreme enemy organization by debilitating or refusing to work with moderate opponents, so you can then justify your own hardline stances. i'm not saying this is israel's case wrt to hamas (i'm not knowledgable enough to say), but a lot happens behind closed doors that we don't know about. and even if there was no intention involved to encourage hamas, some actions by israel may have inadvertently led to the strengthening of hamas (this is speculation, again; but plausible enough).

When I was a kid, and would visit my grandparents during the summer in Delhi, they would always gripe about the architecture, which was "too Islamic, too British"--

138 · DizzyDesi said

The intent of the numbers was not to imply that palestinians are healthier or safer or anything like that.

i didnt mean that either. i see your sentiment/point, all i'm saying is population growth is often less anyway in wealthier countries (eg developed north european countries) or those with disproportionate number of old people (eg japan). so the numbers to bring up here probably would be killed as a result of warfare, not gross birth/death rates. also another confounding factor would be that the high birth rate of palestinians may have something to do with the anticipated life expectancy of children also (or perception of the society). so imagine a scenario where most of the israelis in the gross death rate you present are dying because of old age (because israel is wealthier, has a far better medical infrastructure, actually their health care system is cited as a role model in US health care reform debates :)), but most palestinians are dying before their natural life expectancy. i'm not saying that is the case: just a fair possibility.

so no qualms about your point: just the usefulness of that particular metric.

140 · Ponniyin Selvan said

For example, Sri lankan Tamil issue gets front page coverage in Tamil press but deemed not so important in say Hindi or Oriya newspapers / television channels.

ah yes, scheduled interruption by ponniyin selvan to show us how tamils have been sidelined yet again from the national discourse in india :)

Thanks for your feelings. But I don't really need it. My example is not to point out Tamils are sidelined, just to point out the extra media coverage for the conflicts in Israel/Palestine is due to the people identifying with one side or the other based on religious and holy land reasons.

103 · Nayagan said

but I'd have to question your powers of deduction as you have described me on numerous occasions as a 'leftist.' Even once as your 'favorite one.' (which did nothing to salve the sting of such a labeling)

you're sinister sometimes, n.
seriously, though, i think of you as more left than right, not extreme either way, but not really moderate either. i can't recall if you declared everlasting love for dear ayn either or the anarcho-vegans. which really makes you not-classifiable. i think i'm gonna go with queer. :)

127 · ThinkSkinned said

My post was removed because I dared to point out the blatant anti-India and pro-terrorist cartoons on a magazine, quoted approvingly by the blogress??

128 · ANNA said

Please see my earlier comment. Not all of us are comfortable with what was quoted.

ANNA - and all other bloggers - with all due respect, if SM/readers were not comfortable with what Taz quoted, you should have asked her to remove it from the post. Once she linked it in her post, it is unfair to tell readers that that article is off-topic for readers, esp. if their comments were relevant and follow the commenting guidelines. This is, after all, a discussion, and Taz quoting the article indicates that she meant for it to add to the dialogue. You took issue with what was quoted, not what ThinSkinned commented- to me, it makes no sense to remove the comment, but leave the quote.

If I were an Israeli citizen I would feel a lot of insecurity and anger most of the time. There are people around me that want to kill me, my family, wipe out the entire Jew community.

It's about the parrellels this crisis has to America's Civil Rights movement, to South Asia's struggles for independence (both Israel and India partition happened in 1947),

Pardon me, I don't see a parallel between Indian Independence movement and the current fight in Palestine. I don't think the Congress governments in the various British Indian provinces (fro 1937) were lobbing missiles at Britishers. Infact they were against using violence as a policy for coercing the Brits to leave.

ANNA - and all other bloggers - with all due respect, if SM/readers were not comfortable with what Taz quoted, you should have asked her to remove it from the post.

Please don't tell us how to run our house. We have over four years of experience with this. We know when and how threads devolve and turn off the vast majority of readers and we will continue to act accordingly. Sometimes the baby gets thrown out with the bathwater but on balance we do the right thing. Thanks.

It would be a different issue if the U.S. didn't push for democracy in a place that wasn't ready for it.
The people agreed and voted for the group they wanted in power..."Hamas." Are we spreading democracy or are we imperialists? If we are spreading democracy then we wouldn't advocate the embargo on a democractically elected government. We didn't like the results of THEIR election and so we decided not to play with them. If people can't do business and function like a normal society do you really suppose that they will? Did anyone do a poll in Gaza before the election? Was it really a surprise that Hamas won? So basically it was a front for some long drawn out theatrical bs.

We(the U.S. and other Western countries) put together and funded the current state of Israel.

Why is it an issue for anyone living in the U.S. ??? Because your TAX DOLLARS are the main source of funding for the Israeli military. Those weren't Israeli funded "smart bombs," that killed all those civilians, those were U.S. funded, U.S. designed smart bombs.

Our voices are being represented in Israeli without our permission and we are being taxed for it.

If you want to say the hell with it... its their war. Then get your hand out of my pocket!

133 · rob said

the land they lived in for generations.

I don't say this as an anti--Israeli or anti-Palestinian statement, but what's the statute of limitations on stolen land? 100 years? 25 years? 500 years? 1000 years? 2500 years? I think that's a really important question, but with no obvious answer. When I was a kid, and would visit my grandparents during the summer in Delhi, they would always gripe about the architecture, which was "too Islamic, too British"--Islamophobic? Anti-European? Maybe, maybe not. . . . . at any rate they were glad I was studying in the US--this blog makes me wonder if I'm "Islamophobic'--by the standards of the blog, I guess I am--but--were my grandparents wrong? I'm not so sure.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rob come on "stolen land," better that you are studying in the US? Did you study that it (the U.S.) is stolen land too or does that not count because they weren't members of a major religion or backed by millions of dollars? Manifest Destiny? Does that legitimize it? All that does is continue the fight because it validates ANYone's manifest destiny at any time. Taking that position, you better live it up, because its only a matter of time before ours is over and the next group with a mission decides that your house is part their destiny. With enough press, lobbyists, and money, any group can be made to look like the victim and those in their way the attacker.

I'm guessing that the Golden Temple is too Islamic as it was funded by a Muslim.

The state of Israel knows it has to eliminate a big chunk of Palestinians to counter act the birth imbalance of Arab-Israelis and Palestinians to Jewish-Israelis...otherwise by nature the Jewish-Israelis will be a minority in their own country of which is already a minority in the region. If they were really for peace they would be trying to be friends with their neighbors who surround them.

Anyway all of this is just a ploy to drag the U.S. into a war with Iran. I hope you have a manifest destiny for the moon.

117 · rec1man said

Pro-Israel demonstration in Florida

It was a show of unity and solidarity between various Hindu, Jewish and Christian groups which came and stood together against the nefarious design of Jihadi terrorists. The crowd was not to be deterred by a windy South Florida afternoon and lit candles and immersed flowers in the ocean in the memory of victims. A resolution adopted on this occasion urged the government of United States to intensify its campaign against global terrorism, particularly the one perpetrated by its so-called allies and others in the Indian sub-continent and declare such nations as Rogue nations.

Coalition of Community Organizations United against Global TerrorismAmericans Against HateRamat ShalomChristians and Jews United for IsraelUnitarian Universalist CongregationWorld Wide Christian CenterShiva Vishnu TempleSouth Florida Hindu TempleJain Center Of South FloridaShiva MandirFlorida Arya SamajSindhi Association of FloridaFlorida Security CouncilShri Laxmi Narayan TemplePalm Beach India AssociationInternational Kashmir Federation (IKF)Indian Religious and Cultural Center (IRCC)United Hindu FrontWorld Hindu Council of America

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Unfortunately the U.S. supported the election of this "Rogue" nation and then decided it didn't like the outcome.

Is this the age in which any country that is majority Islamic that doesn't lay down and let its people get trampled on by Apartheid like oppression being labeled as Terrorist and Jihadi?

So then by that arguement all Islamic countries should eliminate their military and sell off all their weapons to the U.S., Israeli and other "good" countries. If they retaliate or try to defend themselves then we will know who the terrorists are. Sounds like a great plan. Have fun on your mission.

You realize that this is only a blip in time and the cycle of bs has been going on for a long time. Its funny that your coalition is of Hindu, Christian, and Jewish people. Christians killed thousands of Jews and Hindus throughout history. Politics make strange bedfellows. I guess the Roman-Catholics don't count for the Christian part of this group because the Vatican is completely against the current actions of Israel which is killing Muslims and CHRISTIAN Palestinians.

Rob #126:

Hamas wasn't outright created by Israel, but its growth was definitely encouraged in the Palestinian territories (by allowing it unfettered fundraising and such) to weaken the grip of the PLO and hopefully create internecine warfare that would make the IDF's job a bit easier. What they didn't count on was Hamas' military wing turning on Israel.

As for why Israel would endorse an Islamist movement and not a liberal one, PLO/Fatah was pretty liberal and secular, but was also responsible for most of the terrorism waged against Israel up to that point (late 1980s). At that time, "Islamist = terrorist" weren't synonyms in the minds of most. I think the reason that the Palestinian issue dominates over other issues was that the PLO successfully pushed their image of a secular leftist group fighting imperialist tyranny. This is what gained them a lot of support throughout universities worldwide and also the support of various European and Japanese leftist terrorist groups.

Because your TAX DOLLARS are the main source of funding for the Israeli military.

Your gasoline dollars are also going towards plans to terrorise Indian cities. Are you cycling everywhere?

81 · Pablo said

I dont see how this is a Desi issue anywhere in the world.

In the UK it is the Pakistani / Bangaldeshi Muslim cause par excellence. The entire identity of British Pakistanis seems predicated on Palestine and the supremacy and suffering and victimhood of the 'Ummah'.

Personally speaking, I feel sorry for the innocent Palestinians, but I feel sick spending five minutes in the company of anti-Semites who talk about Jewish conspiracies, speak of Jews as if they are cockroaches, and talk of destroying Israel, not peaceful co-existence, which is invariably what I hear when I talk to those protesting against Israel, in particular from among the British Desi Muslims whose whole existence and identity seems based on this issue sometimes. I don't want to be associated with such people. They are like the worst kind of RSS psychopath ranting about Muslims and Christians, except these bigots are valorised by much of the Left, and their attitudes are unchallenged within their communities.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Anti Zionists are not necesarily anti-Jewish and many are not anti-Semite.

This would be due to the fact the ARABS ARE SEMITES! Look at a genetic / language map. You are going to see Semitic and then you are going to see a few branches. One of them is going to be Hebrew... and another one is going to be Arabic.

There are also many JEWISH Anti Zionists. Hello where did the history go? I think the AIPAC paid history to drown itself so that the word Semite only goes with Jewish people.

I'm not advocating wiping Israel off the map or killing any of its people but being Anti-Zionist is about being against the actions involved in creating the current state of Israel and believing that it wasn't supposed to be created. Its also about being against the current policies and actions of the state of Israel. Its not exactly "equal rights" living inside of Israel.

Now that the state has been created they're going to have change some policies or end up dissolving. When Israel prime ministers are on their way out they end up admitting to the reality of the situation but while they are in office they have to go along with the crazies who have their eyes closed.

The last time Olmert was leaving, before he came back for this time, he admitted that much would have to be given back if Israel truly wanted peace ...
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2008/09/200892963411387754.html

153 · amaun said

Because your TAX DOLLARS are the main source of funding for the Israeli military.

Your gasoline dollars are also going towards plans to terrorise Indian cities. Are you cycling everywhere?

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
And so are your tax dollars/gasoline dollars. This is assuming that the Mumbai attacks were funded by oil money which hasn't been proven. I don't drive. I do bike actually. At the same time anything I buy has been shipped from somewhere. Your gasoline dollars are also going to drown Pacific Islanders and Bangladeshis due to the increase in temperature and the rising of the ocean.

These are all major reasons why offshore drilling might be the temporary solution but if we don't want to be spending billions in dollars to fund Israel's and other countries' militaries to maintain our position in the ME
and many more on getting ourselves out of these messes we get dragged into

We are going to need non-toxic, renewable, energy sources that also don't starve other people(corn/soy..etc. fuels).

I'd rather see my tax dollars go to education so that we will have a new generation that learns how to create solutions that don't include killing people.

Over the last few years, Bush administration has given more than 10 Billion dollars to Pakistan and it is quite possible that Mumbai attackers are funded with part of that money.

157 · Ponniyin Selvan said

Over the last few years, Bush administration has given more than 10 Billion dollars to Pakistan and it is quite possible that Mumbai attackers are funded with part of that money.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Was it the Bush administration or the citizens of the U.S.? We do have the right to vote? Congress people vote for budgets right? We vote for these people right? The same people that sign off on thousand page bills at 11 pm without reading half of it such as the Patriot Act.

Half of the country sat on there... and decided not to vote against Bush, right?

Yes, billions of dollars to Pakistan, billions of dollars to India and joint military training exercises and equipment and weapons, billions of dollars to Israel, sold billions of dollars worth of weapons and aircraft and secrets to Saudi Arabia, U.S. central command in Qatar - paying for rent, U.S. offshore companies in Dubai to do business with Iran, looks like we got them all in our pocket...huh? While we don't know exactly who funded the attackers in Mumbai you can be sure the U.S. funded whomever it was because we give all of our money away.

Get out and vote.

If you live and work in the U.S. we/you are part of the problem. Whatever side you choose.

And so are your tax dollars/gasoline dollars. This is assuming that the Mumbai attacks were funded by oil money which hasn't been proven. I don't drive. I do bike actually. At the same time anything I buy has been shipped from somewhere. Your gasoline dollars are also going to drown Pacific Islanders and Bangladeshis due to the increase in temperature and the rising of the ocean.

Absolutely!! you forget the effect of large scale beef and pork farming on the methane content of the atmosphere. what a merry pickle we are in! in order to save the planet from cow farts, we need to kill cows. But that extermination would be loathsome beyond loath. i am pulling the icicles off my nose hair in frustration and it's causing little dimples to appear in my forehead. if we all did that, we may be able to suck all the methane into our collective cranium pits.

146 · ak said

ANNA - and all other bloggers - with all due respect, if SM/readers were not comfortable with what Taz quoted, you should have asked her to remove it from the post. ...Taz quoting the article indicates that she meant for it to add to the dialogue. You took issue with what was quoted, not what ThinSkinned commented- to me, it makes no sense to remove the comment, but leave the quote.

ak, I appreciate the courteous way you expressed yourself. I wish others were so constructive and civil; what a different blog this would be. :)

We don't have an editorial board which vets each post before it is published. Each of us writes what we want, when we want, with almost no interference or comment from the other bloggers. I'm making a point of responding to you when it may not be entirely productive (for the sake of the thread) to do so because I want to stress that there is no "SM" position. We each speak for ourselves. When that is the case, why would we remove part of Taz's post? We wouldn't.

If we removed everything which readers were uncomfortable with, there would be no blog left. :) There's such a diversity of opinions among all of you, someone is bound to be offended by something; that's why it always surprises me that people forget how there is a diversity of opinions IN the bunker, as well. We don't "remove" things from or "edit" any posts unless they are our own.

Additionally, I didn't remove any comment. I did not moderate this thread. Contrary to what has been published online, I am NOT SM Intern, nor am I the only blogger who asks our genderqueer volunteer to moderate posts. We all employ SM intern. I never saw what commenter ThinSkinned initially posted, so I had no way to take issue with it.

We're all allowed our own opinions and I've tried to be respectful during this discussion while indicating that I don't necessarily agree with every part of the post which inspired it. Still, Taz did the legwork of interviewing Desis at this protest and by doing so, she made a current "general" issue or conflict one which was appropriate for discussion on SM. I respect that passion and effort, even if I don't agree with everything which was said.

156 · Raj said

I'd rather see my tax dollars go to education so that we will have a new generation that learns how to create solutions that don't include killing people.

What if the education just ends up making them better at killing people?
A lot of the terrorists do have engineering degrees after all.

The so called Palestine did not exist before Israel was formed. http://www.rbooker.com/html/the_myth_of_palestine.html Therefore there is no such a being as a Palestinian, just Arabs.

As for Israel giving a dis proportional response, it is whow wars are fought, not a game of football.

161 · NV said

156 · Raj said

I'd rather see my tax dollars go to education so that we will have a new generation that learns how to create solutions that don't include killing people.

What if the education just ends up making them better at killing people?A lot of the terrorists do have engineering degrees after all.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Agreed, this is a possibility. I know quite a few engineering students that will not take a job with a defense contractor no matter the amount of money...these same wouldn't side with any army---state sponsored or not.

If you had a choice would you want your tax dollars going to facilitate this war or to give a child the choice with a better education then they have right now? Education is going down the drain. Children are learning that we solve disputes no matter how small...violently.

162 · Rajesh Harricharan said

The so called Palestine did not exist before Israel was formed. http://www.rbooker.com/html/the_myth_of_palestine.html Therefore there is no such a being as a Palestinian, just Arabs.

As for Israel giving a dis proportional response, it is whow wars are fought, not a game of football.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yeah it was called Trans-Jordan and it was ruled by the British. The majority of brown people there were Arabs in land they consider Palestine.

There was no "India" before the British came either. If they did the same thing to the subcontinent and transplanted thousands of people there that were not from there (for thousands of years) would your point be that there was never such thing as "India."

The modern state of Israel was created by Europeans as well. It didn't exist in the early 1900's. The term Israeli has been created with the creation of the state. Anti-Zionists Jews don't believe that Israel is supposed to exist until their Messiah comes.

Israelis and Palestinians are real people and aren't going anywhere. So the solution is not going to be violence. As long as it is violence and oppression there will be a war waiting to happen because this will only continue the cycle.

I'm for peace over prophesy.

Rajesh Harricharan - "long obscure rants may be deleted." Try it again with brevity. People may actually read it then.

I will concede here that I cannot be dispassionate on this issue because Iam a Hindu who is a Zionist. call ms Hinjew :-). If I were not physically disabled I would go join the IDF in this fight.

Sorry sm intern I should have just included a link.

There will always be arguement on what happened and for what reasons(to your deleted comment).

The fact is now that there are PEOPLE existing called Palestinians and Israelis.

Neither of them deserve to be exterminated.

The U.S. is real and was founded by a bunch of traders/traitors. The history of the U.S. is only marvelous and beautiful to the U.S. The natives and the Brits weren't exactly rejoicing the create of this country.
There was never such thing as an American / U.S. citizen before these people came. These people deserve to live too, even though the founders and generations after them killed millions to create this country.

166 · Rajesh Harricharan said

I will concede here that I cannot be dispassionate on this issue because Iam a Hindu who is a Zionist. call ms Hinjew :-). If I were not physically disabled I would go join the IDF in this fight.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
War is not a sustainable solution for Israel or for any other country for that matter.

>I want to stress that there is no "SM" position. We each speak for ourselves.

If this is the case, it would've been better if the poster just said: this issue is relevant, what do y'all think? All that jazz about Sikh support and the Sameer magazine and partition sounded rather artificial to me, an effort to south Asianise the issue. As you see from the responses, people here think about things beyond South Asia, and there is no need to create South Asian fig leafs to hear what people are thinking.

In my view, just like the protests, this post is counterproductive. It serves to reinforce the Israeli narrative of the country following democratic principles (and hence amenable to others' opinions), while also supporting the Arab proxy campaign to show that their no-democratic regimes are not that bad. The best response to the issue is the studied silence of Obama. I suspect the crisis will end before his inauguration.

There was no "India" before the British came either

171 · NV said

There was no "India" before the British came either

A.) Yes there was. It may not have always been under one state, but the idea of there being a unique civilization called India is very old. B.) It's irrelevant anyway. With the exception of China and maybe Iran every civilization on Earth looks young compared to India.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
That was the point. There was no state called "India" before the British. There was more than one civilization on the continent with many DIFFERENT traditions. There were many different empires over time. Non of which ever ruled the whole continent. Even the British did not hold the whole sub-continent as the Portuguese and French held parts at different times. The idea of Indianess came about from fighting for independence from the colonists.

It's 14 degrees in NYC today and 84 degrees in LA. Damn! (Not really a threadjack since Taz's pictures show warm and sunny LA which taunt me everytime I check out SM today).

Gujudude@123,

What do you have to say about the controversial use of US-supplied cluster bombs and depleted uranium weapons which may have been used or is it anti-Israel media hype ?

160 · A N N A said

We're all allowed our own opinions and I've tried to be respectful during this discussion while indicating that I don't necessarily agree with every part of the post which inspired it. Still, Taz did the legwork of interviewing Desis at this protest and by doing so, she made a current "general" issue or conflict one which was appropriate for discussion on SM. I respect that passion and effort, even if I don't agree with everything which was said.

Thanks, ANNA - these kinds of well thought-out responses are partly why I prefer SM to any other brown blog (also, I find the quality and variety far greater) - your sense of responsibility to your readers is so prevalent. Rarely would you find a blog where a blogger - who did not even write the post in issue - would take the time to write such a response, and I really appreciate that.

As for Israel giving a dis proportional response, it is whow wars are fought, not a game of football.

As you see from the responses, people here think about things beyond South Asia, and there is no need to create South Asian fig leafs to hear what people are thinking.

I don't care what people here think about. We care an write about what we think about per our own internal guidelines. And please read my comments up above. When you use the term South Asia(n) without immediately following it with "American" then it implies you don't understand what this blog primarily about.

What do you have to say about the controversial use of US-supplied cluster bombs and depleted uranium weapons which may have been used or is it anti-Israel media hype ?

The discussions as it relates towards conventional ammunition is murky and needs a bit more background than the average news article generally provides or people know. There are specific tactical reasons why cluster munitions and depleted uranium exist. Cluster munitions (essentially anything that dispenses bomblets or little grenades) are technically designed too fight against large enemy concentrations and they detonate some distance above ground. There are other uses as well, where you DON'T want to use a regular bomb, but still want to destroy a target by disabling it. DU is the best armor penetrating material out there.

The issue is two fold:

1) Is one against cluster munitions in general? Many of the human rights groups fall here, but their position is also fundamentally opposed to military/wars overall.

2) Is one against how cluster munitions function and how it is used? Many governments fall here. They don't like the unexploded ordnance aspect and use in more populated areas.

For the first question, I would submit that if cluster munitions were banned outright (which means Russia, China, USA, India and some other big armies), to get the same tactical effect, the military would just use more regular bombs in volume. This is more destructive. For folks concerned with Human Rights, this won't change a thing.

For the second question, if one is against the residual effects of cluster munitions (bomblets don't function as intended), then technology is the answer. The US government is already looking at technology to ensure all bomblets work as designed by requiring a 99% reliability rate (theoretically 100% impossible with any actual manufactured product). They're looking at achieving this through the use of different fuzing technologies instead of the mechanical fuzes used today.

Depleted Uranium is a smaller issue, IMO. It's armor/fortified position specific, not anti-personnel. As long as there are tanks and armor, DU isn't going anywhere as it is superior to any other kinetic energy weapon (projectile). Also it is expensive, so people don't want to simply use it up. Economic reality says it's judicially used.

What complicates all of this is how some 21st century warfare is progressing. Nation states against agents that will entrench themselves amongst the population. Using populated urban areas as cover is wrong, so is trying to defeat guerrilla fighters with conventional tactics. But, if that's all either side sees as their options, DU/Cluster bombs or not, people are going to get caught in the crossfire.

This is a good read. US State Department brief on Cluster Munitions Policy. Hopefully people find the discussion between reporters and government informative.

Here is the DoD new cluster munition policy.

What Abhi means by this is ("We know when and how threads devolve and turn off the vast majority of readers and we will continue to act accordingly.") is that they will shut off comments/threads that run counter to their politics. Please don't insult our intelligence by feigning ignorance on this one either. Post deleted by the censorship police in ....

Folks, this is a private website. Unless we're the bloggers, we're ALL guests. If the post or discussion doesn't fit your taste, no one is forced by some unseen force to type out a post. The option of not reading and posting exists...

It appears that basically an opinion on Israel vs Palestine conflict is formed based on one's "connections" to the following factors at various levels of interests and motivations -
(a) strategic/geo-political/ (b) human-rights/humanitarian (c) academic/intellectual (e) personal (religious, relatives,friends etc.)

57 · archana said

This is an excellent point: I'm not a supporter of Israel because in general, as a brown woman whose family was directly impacted by British rule in India, I'm not a supporter of colonialism

If you take the gender part out, I think that pretty much applies to 99% of the people who are on this blog or of Indian origin in general.

Taz- came upon this late today. Thank you very much for this thoughtful post. It is indeed heartening to see various communities rally behind each other instead of sticking to their own causes and then wondering why nobody else shows up (we're working on that in San Diego...)

This is a slightly confusing issue, but the humanitarian aid crisis is not. The death toll in Gaza stands at 1000+ while the Israeli toll is less than 30. The IDF has attacked UN facilities as well as clearly defined civilian targets. Whether or not one agrees with Hamas, the civilian casualty rate is horrifyingly high with, may I add, not much of anywhere to go to get away from it.

I'm working on a review of Israeli and Palestinian Docs- I'll have a list for your consideration in a few days.

Somebody made a comment about the birthrate-saying that the Palestinians out produces Israelis...
here are a few things for consideration.

In regards to Gaza's inhabitants. Most are not from Gaza. They are from villages within 50 miles of the wall- many of which were Arab (Muslim and Christian) villages for over 500 years. Ashkalon is a good example of this. While it is true that some Arabs left in 48, a good number were expulsed, many by the forces of the Haganah/Irgun, a paramilitary force which eventually became part of the IDF. Ariel Sharon was part of this group. They are responsible for the massacre of the village of Deir Yassin as well as at least eight other villages over five days in April, and the expulsion of over 40 villages from around the Gaza Strip during May in 1948 (a practice which continued through 1950).

Most of these villagers were never compensated for their houses, orchards, fields, businesses, etc. in part because the JDF put these holdings in a category which placed them outside the purvey of the Israeli government and into private administration.

Thousands of Palestinians were removed this way. (see Benny Morris and the New Historians)

In contrast, between 1948 and 2006, over 2 million people immigrated to Israel, over 60,000 in 2000 alone. (source:http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Immigration/immigration_by_country2.html). Israel has replaced the original Arab inhabitants at least once over through immigration practices. Immigration is still actively encouraged, especially from the developed nations.

This in addition to controlling the water resources.

Just something to think about.

176 · Abhi said

As you see from the responses, people here think about things beyond South Asia, and there is no need to create South Asian fig leafs to hear what people are thinking.

I don't care what people here think about. We care an write about what we think about per our own internal guidelines. And please read my comments up above. When you use the term South Asia(n) without immediately following it with "American" then it implies you don't understand what this blog primarily about.

I was talking/responding to the poster and Anna. I don't care what you think about. Who are you? I have seen you making such intrusive and bossy comments like this often, are you the headmaster here? Maybe you "own" this blog?

182 · zazou said

In contrast, between 1948 and 2006, over 2 million people immigrated to Israel, over 60,000 in 2000 alone. (source:http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Immigration/immigration_by_country2.html). Israel has replaced the original Arab inhabitants at least once over through immigration practices. Immigration is still actively encouraged, especially from the developed nations.

Zazou: In the interest of clarifying what you said...

After the 1948 War of Independence, 758,000—866,000 Jews were either expelled or fled the surrounding Arab nations into Israel. 711,000 Arabs fled Palestine during the same time, to other Arab nations. While Israel accepted these homeless Jews into its society, most of the Arab nations, which are roughly 650 times the size of Israel, did not accept the Arabs.

“particularly some 360,000 Arab refugees who left, or were expelled from, Israel-ruled parts of Palestine during the fighting in the Holy Land” - Background Paper No. 47. The United Nations: April 20, 1949. Retrieved on May th , 2007 from http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/

“the estimate of the statistical expert, which the Committee believes to be as accurate as circumstances permit, indicates that the refugees from Israel- controlled territory amount to approximately 711,000” -General Progress Report and Supplementary Report of the United Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine, Covering the Period from 11 December 1949 to 23 October 1950, United Nations: 23 October 1950

So basically the replacement could've been mutual...

Something to think about

Reg 181
I beg to disagree
Large numbers of hindus in India and abroad rejoice at Israel
as the one country having the guts to hit back at the ummah

If you notice even the UPA is doing no more
than mumble mumble at this

Hindus have demonstrated in large numbers worldwide
in favor of Israel

And the Gaza women seem to be fat and having 6 kids

Perhaps they could move to bangladesh where 20 million
hindus are missing from 1947 to today, based on
missing numbers in census

183 · Bleah said

I don't care what people here think about. We care an write about what we think about per our own internal guidelines. And please read my comments up above. When you use the term South Asia(n) without immediately following it with "American" then it implies you don't understand what this blog primarily about.

I was talking/responding to the poster and Anna. I don't care what you think about. Who are you? I have seen you making such intrusive and bossy comments like this often, are you the headmaster here? Maybe you "own" this blog?

Thanks for the much needed comic relief...that was hilariously misguided thinking

refer to #179

Oops I missed typing (d) diplomacy in my comment #180

This goes back a few posts, but when talk shifts to the unfortunate Palestinian refugees living in camps in Lebanon and other parts of the Arab world, rarely is any thought given to the Arab Jewish refugees who were in turn driven out of their own countries - places where they had lived for centuries - in the years following the creation of the state of Israel. Almost entire Jewish communities in countries like Morocco, Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Libya and later, Egypt, Lebanon and many from Tunisia were forced to flee as a result of brutal, violent attacks by the local Muslims, leaving almost everything behind with no compensation and very little assistance from the Arab governments. And yet you never hear about their stories or the many injustices they suffered. These refugees have been integrated into Israeli society or in other parts of the world where they settled - which wasn't easy in many cases. And yet the Arab countries have been unable to do the same for their Palestinian refugees and would prefer they remain rootless and deprived of many basic human rights. I wonder why that is so...

A few Iraqi jews fled to India in the late 40s and early 50s joining the existing Baghdadi Jewish community there, especially in Calcutta though most of them have now moved on to other countries like the UK, Canada, Israel etc. But again, rarely do you hear people demonstrate vocally for their property rights, right to return etc.

Arrrghhh Quote Failure...This is what I said

Thanks for the much needed comic relief...that was hilariously misguided thinking

refer to #179

189 · Galloping Granny said

Arrrghhh Quote Failure...This is what I said

Thanks for the much needed comic relief...that was hilariously misguided thinking

refer to #179

Exactly. Most people post comments for time-pass, it is entertaining. As far as that goes, it is irrelevant whether this blog is about South Asian or South Asian American or whatever. If you own the site and the posts, and only want some types of people to comment, and some types of comments, based on your Murdochian "internal guidelines", say so.

Bossy headmasters spoil all the fun.

180 · Priya said

It appears that basically an opinion on Israel vs Palestine conflict is formed based on one's "connections" to the following factors at various levels of interests and motivations -(a) strategic/geo-political/ (b) human-rights/humanitarian (c) academic/intellectual (e) personal (religious, relatives,friends etc.)

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
i'm not sure I understand how someone could not have a connection to
b.) human rights / humanitarian
That is unless you are a cannibal/homicidal, veternarian.

Regardless of what side of the issue a person could claim
b.) human rights / humanitarian
because no matter how much the news wants to make it a non human issue
both sides of this are humans.

Exactly. Most people post comments for time-pass, it is entertaining. As far as that goes, it is irrelevant whether this blog is about South Asian or South Asian American or whatever. If you own the site and the posts, and only want some types of people to comment, and some types of comments, based on your Murdochian "internal guidelines", say so.

Bossy headmasters spoil all the fun

So do people who continually derail otherwise productive conversations with their anonymous comments. If you think something is irrelevant then please don't introduce it in the first place. Thanks

190 · Bleah said

Exactly. Most people post comments for time-pass, it is entertaining. As far as that goes, it is irrelevant whether this blog is about South Asian or South Asian American or whatever. If you own the site and the posts, and only want some types of people to comment, and some types of comments, based on your Murdochian "internal guidelines", say so.

Bossy headmasters spoil all the fun.

I was being sarcastic...I was saying that your comment was pointless and misguided...

is that more clear?

>i'm not sure I understand how someone could not have a connection to
>b.) human rights / humanitarian

i guess we should ask this question to politicians and those who start wars for cooked up or for strategic reasons.
in the case of israel it is clear they wanted to do maximum damages to hamas organization (their sources of supply routes i.e. tunnels across the egyptian borders) before some big changes such as feb-10 elections and obama admin taking place. collateral damage is the concern of civilians who fall into categories (b,c,d,e) in comment #180, i suppose ?

wow, i've never heard that one -- even from my grandfather, a fanatic hindu if there was ever one :) fwiw, i think delhi has the one of most awesome and interesting visible architectural histories among modern cities.

It's not just my grandparents--please see, e.g., R. Nath, History of Mughal Architecture, Vol. IV, Part I, pp. 53-54 (Preface).

http://politicalmavens.com/index.php/2009/01/07/the-eloquent-words-of-a-hindu-israel-supporter/

The Eloquent Words of a Hindu Israel-Supporter
By Heather Robinson (bio)

* Tell a Friend
* Printer Friendly
* Font [+]
* Font [–]

Yesterday in New York about 800 people gathered outside the Israeli consulate to support Israel. Among those I met was Mr. Gaurang G. Vaishnav, executive vice president of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, or World Hindu Council of America. He was there in the cold, along with numerous fellow Hindus and Christians, joining Jewish Israel-supporters during this difficult time.

I have deepest admiration for people like this man, who can see past a mountain of terrorist propaganda and recognize that, tragic as is the loss of civilian life in this or any war, it will dwarf the horror that faces the free world and its people if fanatical groups like Hamas are not defeated. He sent me the following statement today:

“I am here as an active Hindu who is concerned by the ever increasing menace of Islamic Terrorism. We in India have suffered heavily at the hands of the Islamic Terrorism for 14 centuries. Latest episode of Jehadi attacks in Mumbai is still fresh in everyone’s mind. Israel and India represent oldest civilizations and they both also have similarity in that they have a neighbor who is bent upon destroying their existence. In both cases, the neighbors are using radical Islam to justify their heinous deeds against humanity. I believe that Israel has the right to defend itself against the naked aggression by Hamas. If the Jehaids are left unchecked, the whole civilized world would be in great danger of cultural suicide. While our organization cannot take a position on it because of its charter, I support this demonstration and I am sure I represent views of thousands of Hindus from India who live in the United States when I say that I wish Israel success in its efforts to eradicate the evil of terrorism by using all the means at its disposal.”

194 · Priya said

>i'm not sure I understand how someone could not have a connection to >b.) human rights / humanitarian

i guess we should ask this question to politicians and those who start wars for cooked up or for strategic reasons.in the case of israel it is clear they wanted to do maximum damages to hamas organization (their sources of supply routes i.e. tunnels across the egyptian borders) before some big changes such as feb-10 elections and obama admin taking place. collateral damage is the concern of civilians who fall into categories (b,c,d,e) in comment #180, i suppose ?

-------------------------------
exactly, homicidal

i've always thought the better solution would have been to give what is now unified germany to the jews.

the europeans are the original aggressors in this sad story.

200 · campmuir said

i've always thought the better solution would have been to give what is now unified germany to the jews.

the europeans are the original aggressors in this sad story.

-----------------------------------------------------
no their specialty is taking and trading land not giving it away at least not their own land that is.

http://www.canhindu.com/hindjewrally.pdf

Canadian hindus rally in support of israel

...and reading up more on wikipedia informs me that the 33-day 2006 Lebanon war could have been another reason for revenge by israel through this war. note in that war they agreed to ceasefire and in the present war and now they are adamant on not agreeeing to one soon. but definitely there is a disproportionately in terms of death and military prowess of the two sides. i guess it is some kind of continuation of the classic historical david versus goliath fight

203 · priya but definitely there is a disproportionately in terms of death and military prowess of the two sides.

Ummmmm--isn't asking the Jews to fight the Muslims 1:1 on death-toll (given the global population of each group) asking for, in effect, the extermination of the Jews? For shame!

Here is a fascinating article from The Atlantic magazine, 1920--on balance quite skeptical of Zionism (I try to be fair that way).

The difference: David vs Goliath. Goliath being the Arabs in Gaza by sheer number would wipe out Israel(David) if they could.
David (Israel) could wipe out the Arabs in Gaza but won't.

204 · Rajesh Harricharan said

The difference: David vs Goliath. Goliath being the Arabs in Gaza by sheer number would wipe out Israel(David) if they could.
David (Israel) could wipe out the Arabs in Gaza but won't.

Whatever. Just repeating this load of garbage won't make it true. Under the British your kind would have marveled at how the White man is allowing you to work for him for pennies rather than kill you. I know your kind--sniveling around the White Shahib. How kind of Israel for not committing outright genocide, but just handing it in doses over a span of 60+ years. How very kind of them to steal the Palestinian land slowly, with settlements here and there, instead of in one sweep. How kind of them to dehumanize, humiliate, and cage the Palestinians rather than wiping them out. How noble of Israel.

rec1man,
Wanted to commend you on your IQ piece--is that going to be published anywhere? You really should!

Reply to 207

I dont know who will publish it
because it makes a lot of approximations

The PC multicultural crowd
will definitely not publish it

Steve Sailer was kind enough to allow
it to be published on his blog

Steve Sailer was kind enough to allow it to be published on his blog

Yeah, that's where I read it. Don't let the "PC crowd" get you down re: publication--there are a lot of outlets these days--I will look around for one, if you want.

195 · rob said

It's not just my grandparents--please see, e.g., R. Nath, History of Mughal Architecture, Vol. IV, Part I, pp. 53-54 (Preface).

i'm not disputing the claim, although there were old hindu havelis that have been sold and rebuilt as commercial property in the old part of town. i was just taken aback by the sentiment. given that a: hindus in the delhi region, despite being rich in the past couple centuries (the merchants and moneylending class who were quite wealthy sinc ethe mughal era), haven't really been into public construction (say unlike in rajasthan) to the extent the mughals and the british have been. and b: the stuff is so beautiful; and actually does include, typical elements of hindu construction eg the chhatris in rashtrapati bhavan where a number of hindu craftsmen during its construction, a lot of the embellishment is clearly hindu in origin. even the mughal construction in delhi uses indic elements (i dont have my books on hand here, i'd give you references otherwise).
basically, what i'm saying is that hindus should build more if they want more public construction of the sort they'd like to see. i remember reading a nice article recently which talked about how all the up-and-coming cities of the world were financing iconic architectural projects, but for india (even though they were as poor). no pei, leibskind etc was being commissioned by wealthy indians to make any public statement whatsoever. this guy (maybe it was gurcharan das) was lamenting that we had no vision, and just not the class to get some world class public construction/buildings going. sadly, i've only agreed. most of what delhi has built for commonwealth building is sadly mediocre: that was a golden opportunity and we botched it as usual.
i know many hindus actually say that it is a shame that in delhi, any public architecture we've got that's worth anything was bulit by the mughals and the british (and you just have to see the jama masjid and you'll see what they mean). i'm not sure if that has to do with the fact that a lot of monuments etc built in pre-mughal times may have just been lost.

rob, the gurcharan das piece i was talking about is here (perhaps the only writing by him that may have been original in thought).

205 · Ven said

Under the British your kind would have marveled at how the White man is allowing you to work for him for pennies rather than kill you. I know your kind--sniveling around the White Shahib.

If you are incapable of controlling yourself and must rely on such ugliness to make an argument, refrain. Or we can delete such comments and if you continue to violate our guidelines, finally ban you. Your choice.

207 · rob said

rec1man,
Wanted to commend you on your IQ piece--is that going to be published anywhere? You really should!

it is an, uh, interesting approach. i'm going to read the model in detail and see what the brouhaha is about.

Shorter rec1man:

The Islams are coming to get us

fat ummah terror fist bumps in Gaza can move to the scene of their civilization's greatest crime. Hold all fist bumps accountable. they are solely responsible for bumping.

My approximated model contains approximations

The PC/Multiculti crowd suppressed my study of comparative scrotum size and how it relates to Kudumi length and intelligence

214 · Nayagan said

The PC/Multiculti crowd suppressed my study of comparative scrotum size and how it relates to Kudumi length and intelligence

Steve Sailer will publish it, if it doesn't match William Dembski's intellectual rigor.

Yes, billions of dollars to Pakistan, billions of dollars to India and joint military training exercises and equipment and weapons, billions of dollars to Israel, sold billions of dollars worth of weapons and aircraft and secrets to Saudi Arabia, U.S. central command in Qatar - paying for rent, U.S. offshore companies in Dubai to do business with Iran, looks like we got them all in our pocket...huh? While we don't know exactly who funded the attackers in Mumbai you can be sure the U.S. funded whomever it was because we give all of our money away.

Technically India does not get billions of dollars of U.S military or other aid. I don't think US spends money without a plan. Sometimes the plans go wrong. But they just don't spend the money in altruistic ways. If there is no return, they won't spend any money. I think it's quite natural. Pakistan has been behaving like a client state to US since its inception and getting paid in return. Nothing wrong there.

rob,

apology duly noted, wot wot! Cristal appams at the club later?

port,

I'll take 'sinister' (which may be, weirdly, another reference to 'the left') over 'sophistic.' The right loves a convert, especially a minority, and the left is enamored of authenticity-conferring POC 'perspectives'--having been courted by both, I chose neither in the vain hope that more would also disengage.

port@209
>i know many hindus actually say that it is a shame that in delhi, any public architecture we've got that's worth >anything was bulit by the mughals and the britis

off-topic but anyways - true..exceptions to your negative assessments generally lie only in th religious realm -

Bahai temple
Akshvardam temple
and many other temples/gurudwaras/churches/mosques - http://www.exploredelhi.com/places-of-worship/index.html

oh...forgot to mention the giant hanuman

what follows is all OT. sorry in advance!

217 · Priya said

..exceptions to your negative assessments generally lie only in th religious realm -

yes, yes i was thinking about that and its nice you made it explicit; and that is a major disappointment. we have gurudwaras, but they're still not the best example of their kind (imo). and yes, the bahai temple is nice. and i do want to see akshardham, but to tell you the truth i've always been put off by the robotics exhibition that everyone keeps talking about.

Steve Sailer will publish it, if it doesn't match William Dembski's intellectual rigor.

having been courted by both, I chose neither in the vain hope that more would also disengage.

i'm not sure if that has to do with the fact that a lot of monuments etc built in pre-mughal times may have just been lost.

A lot of pre-Islamic architecture was destroyed by Muslims. In Delhi and other places. That being said, no doubt Mughal architecture is beautiful.

200 · rec1man said

Canadian hindus rally in support of israel

mendacious comment to say the least. that rally seemed to be about mumbai.

My post was removed because I dared to point out the blatant anti-India and pro-terrorist cartoons on a magazine, quoted approvingly by the blogress?? Nowhere in my post did I use racist, abusive, illiterate, content-free commercial language. Neither was it personal or non-issue-focused, intolerant and anti-secular.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I know. I posted couple of links detailing Indians in pro-Israel rallies and they are summarily deleted. While jeering posts painting 'South Asians' who're pro-Israel as Hindu 'fundoos'(a term wholly used by the Razarkar diapora) is permitted.

Anyways, here some pics and videos from a huge Indian Rally outside the UN
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2008/12/india-free-men.html

Another huge Pro-Israel demo with Indians in NYC. Hindu's for Israel was my personal fav(5th pic down).
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2009/01/nyc-pro-israel.html

And as far as Taz goes I won't be surprised if SM signs up Natacha Paracha as another featured blogger. Maybe both can team up and do an expose on "Hindu(I mean Fundoo)-Zionism".

rec1man said:
I am here as an active Hindu who is concerned by the ever increasing menace of Islamic Terrorism. We in India have suffered heavily at the hands of the Islamic Terrorism for 14 centuries. Latest episode of Jehadi attacks in Mumbai is still fresh in everyone’s mind. Israel and India represent oldest civilizations and they both also have similarity in that they have a neighbor who is bent upon destroying their existence. In both cases, the neighbors are using radical Islam to justify their heinous deeds against humanity. I believe that Israel has the right to defend itself against the naked aggression by Hamas. If the Jehaids are left unchecked, the whole civilized world would be in great danger of cultural suicide. While our organization cannot take a position on it because of its charter, I support this demonstration and I am sure I represent views of thousands of Hindus from India who live in the United States when I say that I wish Israel success in its efforts to eradicate the evil of terrorism by using all the means at its disposal.

I have to say, I really don't understand this. One can be opposed to Islamic Terrorism and STILL see that bombing a civilian population mercilessly is not the means to that end. Someone please explain to me how this strategy achieves that supposed aim - of "eradicating the evil of (Islamic) terrorism". Frankly it sounds more like, "we're going to make you live through hell because a lot of you are Muslims, because some in your midst are members of Hamas, and for the fact that you dare to demand freedom of movement, for access to food, water and nutrition - cause we cut you off from that for two straight years." The fact of the matter is there are certainly SOME in Gaza who are firing across the border, Israel has also subjected the Gazans to inhumane conditions - ALL Gazans, even little kids, women, and men who have nothing to do with Hamas. That is not a smart strategy - just perpetuates a cycle of violence.

I am Hindu and i support Israel 100%. I even went to a pro-Israel rally.I didn't see Taz there. Oh wait she was to busy with the anti-jew and pro-hamas demonstrations

a lot of monuments etc built in pre-mughal times may have just been lost.

LOL--I love that slip into the passive voice--"have been lost"--kind of like the Romans "lost" Carthage? Oopsie-daisie! ;-)

Thanks for the link to the Das article.

ps.
It was that same civilian population in Gaza that got Hamas elected. If you vote for a terror organisation than you are also responsible for their actions.

Israel pulled out of Gaza in 2005, Instead of peace they got rockets fired at them from Hamas- a islamic terror organisation. Even during the so called truce they were firing rockets into Israel, smuggling weapons in and trying to dig a tunnel into Israel (offcourse with bad intentions)
The border is shut because Israel doesn't want to let in the suicide bombers (perfectly understandable).

About the deaths: MOST of them are Hamas members (this is accepted even by Hamas). Those civilians that died, well that's unfortunate BUT in every war civilians die (collateral damage). It is not like Israel is deliberatly killing civilians or trying to do a genocide in Gaza. If that was the case than all Gaza palestinians would be death by now.
It must also be accepted that Hamas USES the civilians as a human shield. That is a FACT, there are many youtube vid's where you can see Hamas leaders proudly saying that they are using civilians as a human shield. They are also using places like mosques, schools etc etc to hide their weapons or to fire at the Israeli's from those positions. ONLY Hamas is to blame for the civilian deaths.

Those muslim terrorists that attacked Mumbai and many other places in India have the same ideology as those Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists. India and Israel, Hindus and Jews face a common enemy. It is a enemy that wants to conquer and destroy our lands and people. That's why i SUPPORT ISRAEL FULLY

It is ludicrous to compare Hindus who are a majority of the population that originated in India and never left and the Jews in Israel. The racist reactionary thread that seems to be ghostwritten by Cheney or Wolfie wannabees sicken me.

You know people say that Israel is commiting a genocide in Gaza. Well if that's the case why have the population numbers in Gaza been growing year by year?????????
It is a very strange genocide if the people that are meant to be annihilated grow in population numbers year by year instead of shrinking.

Go Israel, Go Israel, Go Israel

215 · Ponniyin Selvan said

Yes, billions of dollars to Pakistan, billions of dollars to India and joint military training exercises and equipment and weapons, billions of dollars to Israel, sold billions of dollars worth of weapons and aircraft and secrets to Saudi Arabia, U.S. central command in Qatar - paying for rent, U.S. offshore companies in Dubai to do business with Iran, looks like we got them all in our pocket...huh? While we don't know exactly who funded the attackers in Mumbai you can be sure the U.S. funded whomever it was because we give all of our money away.

Technically India does not get billions of dollars of U.S military or other aid. I don't think US spends money without a plan. Sometimes the plans go wrong. But they just don't spend the money in altruistic ways. If there is no return, they won't spend any money. I think it's quite natural. Pakistan has been behaving like a client state to US since its inception and getting paid in return. Nothing wrong there.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
what do you mean by "Technically?" Beyond the (failed?) nuclear deal, there have been joint military exercises paid for by the U.S., sharing of weapons technology, funds for upgrading security technology (which obviously went into somebody's pocket instead of defense.) You are right about plans. One of the reasons for the (failed?) nuclear deal was for India to be the ally to counter China in the region.

228 · Gopal said

You know people say that Israel is commiting a genocide in Gaza. Well if that's the case why have the population numbers in Gaza been growing year by year?????????
It is a very strange genocide if the people that are meant to be annihilated grow in population numbers year by year instead of shrinking.

Go Israel, Go Israel, Go Israel

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Arab birthrate is higher than the Jewish-Israeli birthrate in and out of the state of Israel

"this is not a football game" what are you go go going for Israel for ?

to kill more people, eliminate the people in Gaza?

"win" a war? which is not possible unless they use the only nuclear weapons in the whole middle east in which case they would probably end up destroying their own country in the process.

“Is this a South Asian American issue? As desis, why should we care?”

The answer to this question is complex but personally i think this has been a very illuminating thread. On the one hand, some think like archana:

This is an excellent point: I'm not a supporter of Israel because in general, as a brown woman whose family was directly impacted by British rule in India, I'm not a supporter of colonialism

But yet others think like Deepak:

Those muslim terrorists that attacked Mumbai and many other places in India have the same ideology as those Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists. India and Israel, Hindus and Jews face a common enemy.

of course the issue can be seen both ways: as thru the anti-colonialist lens or as resistance to islamic fascism. and both views are interestingly anti-racist. but we also see here the limits of identity politics, or more specifically, where identity politics-- by attempting to identify a correct viewpoint based on the experiences of domination of poc--starts paralleling traditional racism by denying the diversity and thus full humanity that exists in non-white cultures.

i side more with deepak but i'd like to think i'd have the same views even if my relatives weren't threatened by islamic supremacists. after all, isn't that what we expect from whites: to stop being ethnocentric and start seeing the world beyond the narrow focus of their own self-interest, their own experiences?

This is an excellent point: I'm not a supporter of Israel because in general, as a brown woman whose family was directly impacted by British rule in India, I'm not a supporter of colonialism

If you take the gender part out, I think that pretty much applies to 99% of the people who are on this blog or of Indian origin in general.

I'm in favor of any political system that gives more rights and freedoms to women than the next guy. Whether they look like me or not.

what do you mean by "Technically?" Beyond the (failed?) nuclear deal, there have been joint military exercises paid for by the U.S., sharing of weapons technology, funds for upgrading security technology (which obviously went into somebody's pocket instead of defense.) You are right about plans. One of the reasons for the (failed?) nuclear deal was for India to be the ally to counter China in the region.

http://www.allbusiness.com/government/277045-1.html
..
This is part of the first instalment of a $701m out of the historic $3 bn economic and military assistance package announced in Camp David on June 24, 2003. .

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/06/24/pakistan.pentagon.money/index.html

Report: $6 billion in aid to Pakistan poorly tracked
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Pakistan has received $5.56 billion in military aid meant to combat terror
Report says the Pentagon cannot prove funds have been spent properly
Defense Dept. defends Pakistan's contributions, acknowledges accounting concerns

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The United States has not accurately tracked about $6 billion it gave to help the Pakistani government fight terrorism since 2001, according to a report released Tuesday.

Pakistan is the largest recipient of payments from the Coalition Support Funds, which gives money to 27 partner countries to help combat terrorism.

The country, which the Department of Defense considers a key ally in the war on terrorism because of its proximity to large swaths of ungoverned tribal land, has received $5.56 billion of $6.88 billion given out since September 11, 2001.

Ahmed Rashid claims in his latest book that Pakistan got $10 billion since 2001 from the US as aid.

The "nuclear deal" is neither a failed one nor an "aid" package offered to India. It is a deal between two countries. I'm surprised that you think joint military exercises amount to bilions of dollars. Are you a "progressive" ?. :-)

207 · rec1man said

Reply to 207
I dont know who will publish it because it makes a lot of approximations. The PC multicultural crowd will definitely not publish it. Steve Sailer was kind enough to allow
it to be published on his blog

Your "approximations" are nothing but self-aggrandizing BS in that hilarious example of brahminical hubris and deceit. No wonder that only a racist like Steve Sailer would publish that piece of crap.

97 · Zainab said

Any south asian who has labored in an Arab country will testify to how Arabs, including Palestinians, because they believe that their fellow Arabs owe them, are an extremely racist people [by "racist people" i mean that a majority of them are racist and not all of them]. Even towards fellow Muslims.
My Uncle, a practicing Muslim and an AIIMS [All India Institute of Medical Sciences] trained Doctor, quit after a decade from a Jeddah, Saudi Arabia hospital when, at times even incompetent Arabs were routinely promoted out of turn and according to my uncle, not a week would go by when he wasn't reminded of his racial inferiority. My uncle who is of Kashmiri extraction, is a small, dark skinned gent and is often mistaken for a Bangladeshi. Apparently, in the middle east, even Pakistanis consider themselves racially superior to Bangladeshis, and feel the need to remind everybody around them that, they are not "Kala [black] bengali or malyalee". [Muslim solidarity, my kundi]
The sad part is that, despite the upheaval in my uncle's life, bought about by racist Saudi overseers, he still can't bring himself to utter a bad word against the Saudis because he really believes that they are superior to the sub-continent Muslim and special to God. Why?
"Because Prophet Muhammad was a Saudi; two of Islam's holiest shrines, Mecca and Medina are in Saudi Arabia and last but not the least, God "blessed" the Saudis with gazillion gallons of Oil."

This the most truthful and meaningful post made here especially since it is written by a desi muslim, yet everyone has studiously ignored it. Why?

97 · Zainab said

97

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
the "saud" family did not rule that area until the 1700's so the prophet muhammad was NOT a "saudi" he was arab though. the land was not always "saudi" arabia. it only became that country in the 1900's.

97 · Zainab said

Any south asian who has labored in an Arab country will testify to how Arabs, including Palestinians, because they believe that their fellow Arabs owe them, are an extremely racist people [by "racist people" i mean that a majority of them are racist and not all of them]. Even towards fellow Muslims.
My Uncle, a practicing Muslim and an AIIMS [All India Institute of Medical Sciences] trained Doctor, quit after a decade from a Jeddah, Saudi Arabia hospital when, at times even incompetent Arabs were routinely promoted out of turn and according to my uncle, not a week would go by when he wasn't reminded of his racial inferiority. My uncle who is of Kashmiri extraction, is a small, dark skinned gent and is often mistaken for a Bangladeshi. Apparently, in the middle east, even Pakistanis consider themselves racially superior to Bangladeshis, and feel the need to remind everybody around them that, they are not "Kala [black] bengali or malyalee". [Muslim solidarity, my kundi]
The sad part is that, despite the upheaval in my uncle's life, bought about by racist Saudi overseers, he still can't bring himself to utter a bad word against the Saudis because he really believes that they are superior to the sub-continent Muslim and special to God. Why?
"Because Prophet Muhammad was a Saudi; two of Islam's holiest shrines, Mecca and Medina are in Saudi Arabia and last but not the least, God "blessed" the Saudis with gazillion gallons of Oil."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Apparently, in the middle east, even Pakistanis consider themselves racially superior to Bangladeshis, and feel the need to remind everybody around them that, they are not "Kala [black] bengali or malyalee". [Muslim solidarity, my kundi]

Are you sure its just racial or also because Bangladesh won its independence, with the help of India, from Pakistan? Pakistan tried to force its culture and language on people in its territory on the other side of India. So the Bangladeshis wanted independence. I'm sure there is some resentment of Bangladeshis and its not just because a lot of Bangladeshis are darker than Pakistanis.

While your uncle's sentiments are his honest sentiments and he won't really change what what he is feeling... Why would he ever think that Saudis would respect him as equal if he respects Saudis more than the members of his religion from his own country.

As the prophet muhammad was not a "saudi" i'm not sure how that stands. (I get it , those are his words, not your's).

227 · Fazgun said

It is ludicrous to compare Hindus who are a majority of the population that originated in India and never left and the Jews in Israel. The racist reactionary thread that seems to be ghostwritten by Cheney or Wolfie wannabees sicken me.

I don't intend to spend much time here debating and commenting BUT i do want to post a small reply to the posting of Fazgun.

We live in a free democratic society in which each of us has the right to form and express a opinion independently of what others think is right or wrong.
I have formed and expressed my opnion, as is my democratic right.
It saddens me that Fazgun than calls my posting a 'racist reactionary thread' and calls me a 'Cheney or wolfie wannabees' (whatever the hell that means) .
I am sorry but i refuse to fall in line with all those pro-palestinian anti-Israel comments. That is my democratic right and NO ONE can force me otherwise.
I REFUSE to be intimidated by Fazgun calling my posting a 'racist reactionary thread' and calling me a 'Cheney or Wolfie wannabees'.
It is easy to post such CRAP BUT it is difficult to refute my points on their merits. Fazgun has clearly proven that he can't debate and he can't refute my positions on their merits (and i don't think he will aver be able to do it) instead he resorts to pointless name calling.
How pathetic of Fazgun. You have clearly LOST the argument Fazgun.

BTW if you are sickend by my posting than you are a very very weak person:) Please drink some warm chicken soup so you can get better soon.

ps. For now this will be my last posting as i have no intention of wasting much of my time on this site.
Bye bye loser Fazgun i'll see you around.

Bye Bye Deepak

Why do islamic terror attacks occur so frequently ?????

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtePF8p-eIo

enjoy !!!

For Granny/Caetano- the "replacement" wasn't "mutual"- and it is indeed sad that many Mizrahi (Oriental Jews) felt they had to leave. That also is a complicated situation. In some cases, in North Africa, French colonial policy had already created a very negative situation by setting up a multi-tiered social structure which privileged Arab/Berber and Sephardic Jews (those who fled Spain during the Reconquista), Arab/Berber Christians over the Muslim population so there was a sort of 3rd and 4th class situation, thereby creating some really serious inner friction. In other cases, the Palmach/Mossad set up provocateur incidents to convince the Mizrahim that they were in danger( Iraq, Syria). And, of course, there were horrible locally produced incidence. When the Mizrahim arrived in Israel, most were considered backward at best, and suitable only for manual labor by the Ashkinazim. Starting in the 80's many left, often going to France or the US. Starting in the early 90's, a number have been returning to Tunisia and Morocco. Morocco, in particular, has been restoring old neighborhoods and temples. Moroccan Jews were protected by the Sultan of Morocco during WWII when Vichy France asked him to hand them over. The Sultan told Vichy that there were only Moroccans in Morocco and if they were going to take anyone, they would have to take him first.

And, yes, there has been talk of compensation and the right of return.

And I think there is another thing people need to think about in discussing who goes where- just because one is an Arab Palestinian does not make one the same as a Lebanese, Egyptian or Tunisian, just as being an Ashkenazi Jew is not the same as being Sepharid or Mizrahi or even an Ethiopian (Falasha) Jew.

I have a simple question for Fazgun and Ven: True or False, Does the charter of Hamas call for the elimination of Israel?

bamtram (@ 236),
I too found her (Zainab's) post very illuminating, and I largely agree with her
sentiments.

Generally speaking, as others (manju) have pointed out, this is a complex issue:
On the one hand, I have sympathy for the Palestinians who I feel have gotten a really
raw deal, both from the Israelis and from their arab neighbors who claim to support
them. It was no accident that Saddam's invasion of Kuwait resulted in the Palestinians
in Kuwait reasserting themselves and settling scores with many Kuwaitis.

On the other hand, I cannot really support the arab neighbors of Israel (and Hamas)
on this matter, for I know that their agenda is not simply an agenda to provide
some justice and comfort to the Palestinian population. Theirs is part of a larger
agenda which I want to have nothing to do with, since it also includes the targeting
of all non muslims in the region and beyond. I am ever mindful of the fact that the
Saudi government with all its wealth from selling oil has consistently backed the
most bigoted and racist strains of radical Islamic thought throughout the world, and
has provided the financial wherewithal for many of the Islamic terrorist organizations
that exist today. It is really difficult to make common cause with organizations like
Hamas, or even the Arab neighbors of Israel, who if they had their way would be happy
to allow the current Israel population to be massacred (for starters).

Two really good pieces, with plenty of food for thought:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/kamiya/2009/01/06/gaza_war/index.html

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/01/04/terrorism/

And thank you, Taz, for blogging on this really important issue. I've been concerned with the fact that, like the mainstream US media, Sepia Mutiny too seemed to have chosen to ignore something of such importance, funded as it is by the *3 billion dollars a year for 10 years* of US money and unlimited diplomatic support!

225 · rob said

LOL--I love that slip into the passive voice--"have been lost"--kind of like the Romans "lost" Carthage? Oopsie-daisie! ;-)

ok, rob, i didn't say anything when amitabh made the comment, but delhi has a lot of old hindu monuments that couldnt have survived to be destroyed by the mughals. it is, as you know, a city with a very long history (not a couple hundred years, but a lot more than that :)) second, for the stuff that is approximately from the same time as the mughal era, is not getting preserved (organizations like INTACH worked very hard to change that). if it is in private hands, people just sell it because of the propert values. secondly, i've come across no evidence that an important hindu monument was destroyed IN DELHI because of mughal invaders (i'm not denying that wars in delhi musn't have caused collateral damage (but the worst of them was probably in 1857, after the British were determined to avenge the mutiny), but i'm sure your friends from the hindu right would have let us know if any monument of importance was destroyed with intent. they love that sort of thing).
the passive voice was delibrate word choice: to indicate that natural processes may have destroyed the monuments that probably existed since 300 BC. nothing to do with mughal damage. it's easy to make allegations without proof. as soon as you tell me which delhi monument was destroyed by mughals only due to prejudice against hindus, i'll happily revise factual errors in my position.

232 · Manju said

i side more with deepak but i'd like to think i'd have the same views even if my relatives weren't threatened by islamic supremacists. after all, isn't that what we expect from whites: to stop being ethnocentric and start seeing the world beyond the narrow focus of their own self-interest, their own experiences?

i agree with you that having a south asian heritage can lead you to either position. i also like your point that self-interest and affinity (basically identity politics) need not be the only consideration in articulating our position. but i think the two viewpoints you present as two ends of the spectrum are creating a false dichotomy. you could say you support israel's right to exist, while acknowledging its creation by the british was an arbitrary and convenient process. further, you can say that the palestinians need an autonomous state of their own, and their right to statehood cannot be sacrificed for israel's defense. there has been an injustice done here (clearly the british had no right to disburse territory). yes, a two-state solution is the hardest outcome to achieve, but there are many reasons to think that it is the most fair outcome.

to those who think that jehadi terrorism will stop if all hindu swear allegiance israel and the US: well, i just don't think that makes sense. i am sure that even if the palestinian-israel issue was resolved, the extremists aren't going away (do you think mullah omar and his ilk are going to satisfied with anything other than a theocracy the world over? palestine is an emotive issue which they've chosen to adopt. if that ends, they can use kashmir, chechnya, even the muslim minority in china etc). all we can do is to make sure that the extremists are choked of their money, resources, arms, and new recruits. that also entails not alienating the moderates.

Port, what are they feeding you?

Timur himself recorded the invasions in his memoirs, collectively known as Tuzk-i-Timuri. In them, he vividly described the massacre at Delhi:

In a short space of time all the people in the [Delhi] fort were put to the sword, and in the course of one hour the heads of 10,000 infidels were cut off. The sword of Islam was washed in the blood of the infidels, and all the goods and effects, the treasure and the grain which for many a long year had been stored in the fort became the spoil of my soldiers. They set fire to the houses and reduced them to ashes, and they razed the buildings and the fort to the ground....All these infidel Hindus were slain, their women and children, and their property and goods became the spoil of the victors. I proclaimed throughout the camp that every man who had infidel prisoners should put them to death, and whoever neglected to do so should himself be executed and his property given to the informer. When this order became known to the ghazis of Islam, they drew their swords and put their prisoners to death.

One hundred thousand infidels, impious idolators, were on that day slain. Maulana Nasiruddin Umar, a counselor and man of learning, who, in all his life, had never killed a sparrow, now, in execution of my order, slew with his sword fifteen idolatrous Hindus, who were his captives....on the great day of battle these 100,000 prisoners could not be left with the baggage, and that it would be entirely opposed to the rules of war to set these idolaters and enemies of Islam at liberty...no other course remained but that of making them all food for the sword.[23]

According to Malfuzat-i-Timuri,[22] Timur targeted Hindus. In his own words, "Excepting the quarter of the saiyids, the 'ulama and the other Musalmans [sic], the whole city was sacked". In his descriptions of the Loni massacre he wrote, "..Next day I gave orders that the Musalman prisoners should be separated and saved."

During the ransacking of Delhi, almost all inhabitants not killed were captured and enslaved.

Timur left Delhi in approximately January 1399.

249 · rob said

Port, what are they feeding you?

yeah, ok, look at what i said:

not denying that wars in delhi musn't have caused collateral damage

and read this from wikpedia:

Informed about civil war in India, Timur began a trek starting in 1398 to invade the reigning Sultan Nasir-u Din Mehmud of the Tughlaq Dynasty in the north Indian city of Delhi. His campaign was politically pretexted that the Muslim Delhi Sultanate was too tolerant toward its Hindu subjects, but that could not mask the real reason being to amass the wealth of the Delhi Sultanate

timur was fuled by personal ambition. if you've ever taken a course on medieval indian history (and i'm just saying this without superiority; it's difficult to convey emotion online), you'd learn that whenever these guys commissioned their biographies, they made themselves look like protectors of islam. and when they had to motivate their armies, they used jihad. you're making a big mistake if you take these biographies at their word (which i've seen lots of amateur "historians" do online) . it's basically shilling. that's not how one reads primary texts. you know that, rob.

using religious propaganda to insidious ends? to feed personal ambition? now when have we not seen that? :)

Port,
No, I've never taken a course on medieval Indian history--I'll be upfront about that.
But what exactly is your position about why there are a lot of Hindu temples in S'rn India/Sri Lanka and not so many in Northern? I mean, some things are clear enough to not require hi-level exegesis. And I'm not disposed to go rattling on about this subject--I'm a live and let live type of guy, what annoys me highly is the attempt to say "up is down" as in "Rome didn't fall to the barbarians--yeah, those were--ummmm--nice tourists who moved into Italy."

And, BTW, one could, of course, find a university course making the claim that Rome didn't fall to the barbarians, all archaeological evidence (e.g., massive declines in trade in wine, loss of technologies for 100's of years (e.g., pottery-wheel in Britain), etc. etc.)) to the contrary.

basically, rob to clarify: if alexander was trying to conquer india (as a military feat, for its wealth, to enrich himself), would you call him anti-hindu? if his biographers (paid for their services) wrote that indians practiced a debased religion and so alexander was justified in killing them: would you take them at their word?
or would you think that they were making alexander appear righteous and religious?

"Excepting the quarter of the saiyids, the 'ulama and the other Musalmans [sic], the whole city was sacked". In his descriptions of the Loni massacre [Timur] wrote, "Next day I gave orders that the Musalman prisoners should be separated and saved."

Hmmm--that only coincidentally sounds like the tapes of the LeT orders wrt hostages in Mumbai?

The archaeological record shows that native indians have never created magnificent monuments like other civilizations. India has always been a pretty shabby place. Here is what the mongol-turk Babur who founded the Mughal Dynasty had to say about the land that he had conquered (note his contempt for indian architecture):

http://www.indiavideo.org/text/according-to-babur-india-as-primitive-place-with-no-manners-332.php

“Hindustan is a country that has few pleasures to recommend it. The people are not handsome. They have no idea of the charms of friendly society, of frankly mixing together, or of familiar intercourse. They have no genius, no comprehension of mind, no politeness of manner, no kindness of fellow-feeling, no ingenuity or mechanical invention in planning or executing their handicraft works, no skill or knowledge in design or architecture; they have no horses, no good flesh, no grapes or musk melons, no good fruits, no ice or cold water, no good food or bread in their bazaars, no baths or colleges, no candles no torches, not a candlestick”.

if alexander was trying to conquer india (as a military feat, for its wealth, to enrich himself), would you call him anti-hindu?

Ummmmm--yes!--is this supposed to be a difficult question? The only reason I can see for saying "no" would be some strong form of intentionalism, which seems pretty inapposite (e.g., "we wiped out the neighborhood only b/c we needed a better view of the open-air cinema--don't blame us").

Ummm---if I'm supposed to be insulted by Babur, I laugh at his ignorance--"they have no horses"--yeah, the whole Sanskrit/Indo-European language family isn't based around the horse. LOL!

253 · portmanteau said

basically, rob to clarify: if alexander was trying to conquer india (as a military feat, for its wealth, to enrich himself), would you call him anti-hindu? if his biographers (paid for their services) wrote that indians practiced a debased religion and so alexander was justified in killing them: would you take them at their word?
or would you think that they were making alexander appear righteous and religious?

If someone is trying to kill me I'd call him "Anti-me." I don't really care all that much about the contextualization that attempts to unearth his hidden motivation. At the end of the day it's violence towards me and I am not okay with that. Whether he wants me dead because he wants my money, wants me dead because he is envious of my wife, wants me dead because he wants my land, or wants me dead because he is motivated by some megalomaniacal desire to bring the world under one religion is relevant only insofar as it gives me insight into how his mind works so I can whoop his ass.

The fact that they want to use the "Kill the kafir" meme to whip up their people into a frenzy just ends up reflecting negatively upon their whole society rather than just the ruler himself. It implies that there is a basic civilizational flaw that makes them unable to ever be at peace or allow anyone else to live at peace.
My faith in humanity cannot withstand that admission.

257 · rob said

Ummm---if I'm supposed to be insulted by Babur, I laugh at his ignorance--"they have no horses"--yeah, the whole Sanskrit/Indo-European language family isn't based around the horse. LOL!

I'm no expert but as I understood it the horses of medieval India were usually bigger and better fed than the few-steps-away-from-being-wild ponies the central Asians brought to the table. Of course, they also had a whole lot of them relative to the settled empires of India, China, the Middle East, and Europe. I've heard it said that the Mongols marched with up to 7 horses to the man. That's pretty mobile.

The quoted text, though, just strikes me as a racist rant against the people of Hindustan. You'd see similar writing coming from the idiots who thought phrenology was good science.

Maybe it was India's karma to be conquered and humiliated by afghans, mongol-turks and europeans? If you believe in karma which hindus do.

260 · Zaheer said

Maybe it was India's karma to be conquered and humiliated by afghans, mongol-turks and europeans? If you believe in karma which hindus do.

How is life underneath the bridge troll?

Maybe it was India's karma to be conquered and humiliated by afghans, mongol-turks and europeans? If you believe in karma which hindus do.

LOL--you know, this kind of talk doesn't bother me--sticks and stones, old egg, sticks and stones. . . .

254 · rob said

Hmmm--that only coincidentally sounds like the tapes of the LeT orders wrt hostages in Mumbai?

ok: rob let's forget this argument. you want to impose contemporary ideas on historical documentation, and create a tendentious fictional history that connects all islamic actors across time with same intention and imbues them with the same ideology.
go ahead. but know it's not productive and absolutely violates all norms that all modern, professional historians follow.
i'm done here. if you think the tuzuk-i-timuri is some kind of document that historians should interpret at its word, god help you. in that case, do take everything kissinger writes in his memoirs as the truth: an accurate description of how and why it all went down the way it did.

255 · Zaheer said

Here is what the mongol-turk Babur who founded the Mughal Dynasty had to say about the land that he had conquered (note his contempt for indian architecture):

yes, of course, let's take babur's description of india at his word. we have another rob-like genius in our midst.

Port,
I think, with all due respect (and I mean that sincerely), that you may be the victim of deliberate decisions by the Indian Gov't to write the textbooks in certain ways--you just sound on this topic (unlike others) like you're living in upside-down world. Please see, e.g., Koenraad Elst, Negationism in India (1992).

258 · NV said

If someone is trying to kill me I'd call him "Anti-me."

do you believe that a hate-crime is differently motivated than a garden-variety crime? if someone kills me because it bothers him that i'm a dothead does differ morally from when someone kills to rob me of my dimaond necklace. does intent matter? well, it certainly matters in modern notions of blame and culpability and it matters in our legal system.
imagine if the mumbai terror incident was an incident motivated by class hatred. poor young men targeting the wealthy of south mumbai and first-world foreigners. it is very different from the actual incident which was fueled by religious animosity. we have to deal with it differently, for one.

265 · rob said

Port,
I think, with all due respect (and I mean that sincerely), that you may be the victim of deliberate decisions by the Indian Gov't to write the textbooks in certain ways--you just sound on this topic (unlike others) like you're living in upside-down world. Please

no, i learnt all i know about history from well-respected historians of american origin. and honestly, your interpretation/quotation of tuzuk-i-timuri is such bs that shows obvious ignorance of how historians look at primary docs. yes, a lot of muslims pillaged and ravaged india (but they had lots of other motivations than just killing infidels). for chrissake, timur was interested in attacking the delhi sulatanate, another muslim empire.
but really, do read that article about presentism.

267 · portmanteau said

that you may be the victim of deliberate decisions by the Indian Gov't to write the textbooks in certain ways

and yes, since when has the indian government mangled its history books in pro-muslim ways? when i was in school, the bjp was in power :)

Here's an excerpt from Elst on Tuzuk-i-Timuri--I really am puzzled at why you think the "haha, it's just an exaggeration" school of interpretation is infallible:

But, according to [professor of the type to which Port gestures], these were merely exaggerations by court poets out to please their patrons. One wonders what it says about Islamic rulers that they felt flattered by the bloody details which the Muslims chroniclers of Hindu persecutions have left us. At any rate, [such scholars] never managed to underpin this convenient hypothesis with a single fact.

do read that article about presentism

I did, and--presentism can get out of hand, but--you don't find that parallel between Timur's sack of Delhi and the LeT attack on Mumbai chilling? I mean, we are allowed to draw some parallels/lessons from history, no? Lest we be mere [herd animals] to the slaughter. . . .

and rob, no serious historian considers koenrad elst an authority on anything. i can't believe you picked such a kook (a well-known partisan historian and publicity hound; did you get onto him through steve sailer, by any chance?) to tell me that i don't know my history:

Manini Chatterjee, in a review in the Calcutta Telegraph, called Elst's book Ramjanmabhoomi vs. Babri Masjid a "very bad book".[50] She also said that it was marred by miserably tentative terminology, like "maybe" and "possibly".[51] Paul Teunissen's review of the same book criticizes Elst for the unfavourable portrayal of Syed Shahabuddin.[50]

Thomas Blom Hansen described Elst as a "Belgian Catholic of a radical anti-Muslim persuasion who tries to make himself useful as a 'fellow traveller' of the Hindu nationalist movement”[52] Ashis Nandy criticized the alleged dishonesty and moral vacuity of Elst.[53] Meera Nanda has criticized Elst and claimed that he holds Semitic monotheism responsible for the crisis of modernity.[54]

Sarvepalli Gopal in the book Anatomy of a Confrontation calls Elst "a Catholic practitioner of polemics" who "fights the Crusades all over again on Indian soil". He also says that it is difficult to take serious an author who "speaks of the centuries when there were Muslim rulers in India as a bloodsoaked catastrophe".[55]

Ayub Khan says that Koenraad Elst is the most prominent advocate of Sangh Parivar in the West. He further says: "Such is his importance in Hindutva circles that L.K. Advani quoted him at length while deposing before the Liberhans Commission investigation the demolition of Babri Masjid." In a reply to Ayub Khan, Elst says that he has been critical of the Sangh Parivar in his writings.[56]

Christian Bouchet criticized Elst's book The Saffron Swastika for having placed far too much trust in Savitri Devi's autobiography, and for claiming that Savitri Devi was bisexual.[57]

Hindu revivalists have been generally favorable to Elst's work. David Frawley wrote that Elst has a command of political and social issues in India that is unmatched by any western writer and researched in great detail.[58]

Elst has replied to most of his critics in books or in articles.[59]

i would shut up, if only i wasn't so outraged and flabbergasted.

270 · rob said

don't find that parallel between Timur's sack of Delhi and the LeT attack on Mumbai chilling?

i am not in the habit of comparing apples and pigs.

no serious historian

I dunno, Port, that seems to demonstrate that Elst is partisan, and has (a lot of!) partisan critics. Calling it 'a very bad book'--boo-hoo. I think your invocation of "well-respected," "modern, professional" and "serious" is a guise for an ideological fad. And, yes, unlike, science, history is subject to such fads. I tried to advert to one of the more crazy ones above, the fashion of Germanic historians (and their fellow-travelers) to claim that the traditional account of "Rome" falling to the "barbarians" was inaccurate--a fad that was demolished by the massive archaeological evidence to the contrary. Do you really think that the average, say, physician, in the US or in India (of whatever confessional or ethnic background) believes what you're saying? I am the first to agree that I live in a "bubble," but my experience is quite to the contrary.

fine, go to any historian of south asia with tenure in a reputed university who's published peer-reviwed work (perhaps, even at your undergrad institution) and see if they endorse (any of) elst's writings. i guarantee you that it will not happen. i'm that confident. elst is way-way out there.

273 · rob said

I dunno, Port, that seems to demonstrate that Elst is partisan, and has (a lot of!) partisan critics. Calling it 'a very bad book'--boo-hoo.

yes, ahmedinajad and other holocaust deniers are partisan and have a lot of partisan critics too. but i can tell the kooks from the sane people (sorry to go all godwin on you, but the boo-boo you made here is of that sort of magnitude).

OK, one last quote from my library shelf--this from a (seemingly non-partisan) book on the history of languages, Nicholas Oster, Empires of the Word: A Language History of the World (2005), pp. 222-23:

"After the Muslim invasions, India became a very different place. It is hard now to conceive what opposite and harshly existing extremes, both of daily life and of values deeply held, had to be reconciled to create the India now familiar to us. . . . [India's] rulers were now foreigners with an alien, and uncompromising, vision. They were firm believers that there was but one god, of universal dominion, and that idol-worshippers were fit only for conversion or death. . . . Their buildings were austere, and they believed that any graphic or sculptural illustration was tantamount to blasphemy."

This is the sort of "mainstream" (to my Western-educated self) stuff that I'm talking about (and that I was bred on here in my US education, and that is also consonant with the views of my grandparents back in the Desh), that makes you (to me) sound like you're in upside-down world. Can you tell me why Oster is wrong? (I'm open to learning. . . .)

i'm done here. if you think the tuzuk-i-timuri is some kind of document that historians should interpret at its word, god help you. in that case, do take everything kissinger writes in his memoirs as the truth: an accurate description of how and why it all went down the way it did.

So do we need to take everything what your "reputed" historians (can you name one, Romila thapar?) as nothing BUT the truth and accurate descriptions and ignore the Mughal / other Musim historian's documents and how they describe vanquishing the idolators / destroying their temples etc..

Rob,

Having studied in the Indian school system, I can tell you that Indian history books go through multiple levels of "secular washing" (similar to white washing). NCERT is the board that designs the syllabi and from the days of Nehru dominated by communist historians, In the BJP rule, they tried t replace the communist nuts with right wing nuts but were unsuccessful.

I wonder what these folks would say about Bin laden in the future, he is a revolutionary who is fighting the imperialists for class reasons and not for jihad (?).

if alexander was trying to conquer india (as a military feat, for its wealth, to enrich himself), would you call him anti-hindu? if his biographers (paid for their services) wrote that indians practiced a debased religion and so alexander was justified in killing them: would you take them at their word?
or would you think that they were making alexander appear righteous and religious?

Sure, if Alexander's historians wrote that Alexander wanted to get rid of a followers of a debased religion and going by his religious dictates waged a crusade, I'd do the following things.

1. See if the religious book followed by Alexander is available.
2. Get a copy and read to see if there are instructions to wage a crusade against idolators and polytheists and calls for demolishing those places in his religious literature.
3. If that tallies with what Alexander's historians say, that constitutes a stronger proof for me.

BTW, don't you think Alexander is glorified too much?. Because this warlord is of greek origin, he is called "great" and "civilized" whereas other warlords like Chengiz Khan / Attilla are called barbarians.

277 · Ponniyin Selvan said

Having studied in the Indian school system, I can tell you that Indian history books go through multiple levels of "secular washing" (similar to white washing). NCERT is the board that designs the syllabi and from the days of Nehru dominated by communist historians, In the BJP rule, they tried t replace the communist nuts with right wing nuts but were unsuccessful.

Speaking of washing, you forgot "progressive" in your standard laundry list of how offensive our textbooks are. And clearly it is the Congress that is responsible.

Of course, all these links can be immediately discounted because they were written by "liberal" "educated" "people".

Speaking of washing, you forgot "progressive" in your standard laundry list of how offensive our textbooks are. And clearly it is the Congress that is responsible.

Of course, all these links can be immediately discounted because they were written by "liberal" "educated" "people".

he.he. Thanks for your links. I don't have to say anything. :-)

280 · Ponniyin Selvan said

I don't have to say anything.

that's true. thank goodness they removed the polluting influence of twinkle twinkle little star from the textbooks. and the mention of the beef in 6th century ad? oh the hurt it caused me!

That's true. thank goodness they removed the polluting influence of twinkle twinkle little star from the textbooks. and the mention of the beef in 6th century ad? oh the hurt it caused me!

Ouch... I'm ok with the twinkle part, but I like the steak done medium well. Too bad they removed it.. :-)

276 · rob said

"After the Muslim invasions, India became a very different place. It is hard now to conceive what opposite and harshly existing extremes, both of daily life and of values deeply held, had to be reconciled to create the India now familiar to us. . . . [India's] rulers were now foreigners with an alien, and uncompromising, vision. They were firm believers that there was but one god, of universal dominion, and that idol-worshippers were fit only for conversion or death. . . . Their buildings were austere, and they believed that any graphic or sculptural illustration was tantamount to blasphemy."

i'm not sure which set of invasions is being referred to here (i cannot comment unless i know what is being referred to there). that said, i've heard great things about this particular oster work.

So do we need to take everything what your "reputed" historians (can you name one, Romila thapar?)

no, i learnt all i know about history from well-respected historians of american origin.

fine, go to any historian of south asia with tenure in a reputed university who's published peer-reviwed work (perhaps, even at your undergrad institution) and see if they endorse (any of) elst's writings. i guarantee you that it will not happen. i'm that confident. elst is way-way out there.

BTW, don't you think Alexander is glorified too much?. Because this warlord is of greek origin, he is called "great" and "civilized" whereas other warlords like Chengiz Khan / Attilla are called barbarians.

romila thapar is not american and i haven't read her too much. READ, what i said:

I'm just trying to understand the logic. If it is not OK to take the Muslim/Mughal historians at face value, because they are amenable to writing history as it suits the rulers of their time, can we not use the same standard to modern historians how so ever "reputed" they be ?.

Clearly, Romila Thapar etc. belong to a certain school of historians promoted by the government of the time who some of you think as "reputed" but some others think they are not.

284 · Ponniyin Selvan said

If it is not OK to take the Muslim/Mughal historians at face value, because they are amenable to writing history as it suits the rulers of their time, can we not use the same standard to modern historians how so ever "reputed" they be ?.
Clearly, Romila Thapar etc. belong to a certain school of historians promoted by the government of the time who some of you think as "reputed" but some others think they are not.

first, people who are paid to write someone's biography are not called historians.
when did i say here that i revere romila thapar? i doubt what we're talking about is even her area of expertise. is that the only historian whose name you know? why are you even bringing her up? what i was talking to about rob did not refer to her at all. note that i said "any historian." the adjective "reputed" modified "university." by reputed university, i mean not bob jones university.

when did i say here that i revere romila thapar? i doubt what we're talking about is even her area of expertise. is that the only historian whose name you know? why are you even bringing her up? what i was talking to about rob did not refer to her at all. note that i said "any historian."

What you said echoed Romila Thapar's views on Muslim invader's temple destruction. Good to know that you do not revere Thapar.

http://www.flonnet.com/fl1608/16081210.htm

Somanatha and Mahmud
Mahmud of Ghazni's raid on the Somanatha temple in 1026 did not create a Hindu-Muslim dichotomy. Indeed a rigorous historical analysis of five different narratives or representations of what happened yields surprising new insights.

266 · portmanteau said

258 · NV said

If someone is trying to kill me I'd call him "Anti-me."

do you believe that a hate-crime is differently motivated than a garden-variety crime? if someone kills me because it bothers him that i'm a dothead does differ morally from when someone kills to rob me of my dimaond necklace. does intent matter? well, it certainly matters in modern notions of blame and culpability and it matters in our legal system.
imagine if the mumbai terror incident was an incident motivated by class hatred. poor young men targeting the wealthy of south mumbai and first-world foreigners. it is very different from the actual incident which was fueled by religious animosity. we have to deal with it differently, for one.

The end result of desecrating my temples, I'd say, is a bit worse than simply killing me. But whether they desecrate our sacred places to loot them or just because they're assholes also doesn't matter to me. Desecration is desecration.

286 · Ponniyin Selvan said

What you said echoed Romila Thapar's views on Muslim invader's temple destruction. Good to know that you do not revere Thapar.

ps: you have shown your facility with history (paid biographer=historian!). i made my points without knowledge of romila thapar's outlook piece. below are some quotes that describe thapar's work. now can you please tell how exactly my views on temple destruction echo thapar's? can you elaborate? i presented no views on temple destruction, except a speculation that some ancient monuments (monuments=!temples, btw) may have been too old to survive until the mughal period. what is so controversial about that? stuff which happened around 300 bc may not be left standing in the early 16th century. otoh, some monuments may have been destroyed by muslim invaders (which i also accept). rob and i were having an argument about accepting the tuzuk-i-timuri at its word, and then later, about the kookiness of elst. what is so difficult to understand about that? and what does that have to do with romila thapar's views on somnath? you just want to align me somehow with thapar, and then because of my puported similarity with thapar, i must be wrong too. okay, enjoy yourself.

sm intern: my apologies again. this thread is so far gone :(

MAHMUD'S raid on the temple of Somanatha and the destruction of the idol has become an event of immense significance in the writing of Indian history since the last couple of centuries. According to some writers, it has been seminal to antagonistic Hindu-Muslim relations over the last thousand years. Yet a careful investigation of the representation of this event and related matters in various sources of this thousand year period suggests that this conventional view is in itself a misrepresentation of the reading of the event in terms of Hindu-Muslim relations.

In 1026, Mahmud of Ghazni raided the temple of Somanatha and broke the idol. Reference is made to this in various sources, or reference is omitted where one expects to find it. Some of the references contradict each other. Some lead to our asking questions which do not conform to what we have accepted so far in terms of the meaning and the aftermath of the event. An event can get encrusted with interpretations from century to century and this changes the perception of the event. As historians, therefore, we have to be aware not just of the event and how we look upon it today, but also the ways in which the event was interpreted through the intervening centuries. An analysis of these sources and the priorities in explanation stem, of course, from the historian's interpretation.

I would like to place before you five representations of this and other events at Somanatha, keeping in mind the historical question of how Mahmud's raid was viewed. They cover a wide span and are major representations. The five are the Turko-Persian chronicles, Jaina texts of the period, Sanskrit inscriptions from Somanatha, the debate in the British House of Commons, and what is often described as a nationalist reading of the event.

so that's what she is doing in the piece. i am not qualified to evaluate her work. nevertheless, do you want to make comments about her method? what do you think was wrong about her investigation? why do you think it's these documents that talk about ghazni's raid are not worth studying?

according to thapar:

INTERESTINGLY, what appears to be the earliest mention of a 'Hindu trauma' in connection with Mahmud's raid on Somanatha comes from the debate in the House of Commons in London in 1843 on the question of the gates of the Somanatha temple.33 In 1842, Lord Ellenborough issued his famous 'Proclamation of the Gates' in which he ordered the British army in Afghanistan to return via Ghazni and bring back to India the sandalwood gates from the tomb of Mahmud. These were believed to have been looted by Mahmud from Somanatha. It was claimed that the intention was to return what was looted from India, an act which would symbolise British control over Afghanistan despite their poor showing in the Anglo-Afghan wars. It was also presented as an attempt to reverse Indian subjugation to Afghanistan in the pre-British period. Was this an appeal to Hindu sentiment, as some maintained?

Did the local people make a distinction between the Arab and West Asian traders on the one hand, often referred to as Tajika, and the Turks or Turushkas on the other? And were the former acceptable and the Turks much less so? Clearly they were not all homogenised and identified as Muslims, as we would do today. Should we not sift the reactions to the event by examining the responses of particular social groups and situations? Hormuz was crucial to the horse trade, therefore Nuruddin was welcomed. Did the profits of trade overrule other considerations? Were the temples and their administrators also investing in horse trading and making handsome profits, even if the parties they were trading with were Muslims and therefore of the same religion as Mahmud?

About Koenraad Elst, I have read many of his works and find them to be rigorously researched in general. It is utterly ridiculous to present a litany of opinions in response to an argument. It is even more ridiculous to believe that a US based education is unbiased. Human thinking is structured and people cannot help framing things a certain way. Thus, what the social sciences in the US dish out is very much suspect and in fact there is awareness of this factor in academia now.

Rob, don't forget the muslim conquest of India lasted almost a thousand years with new and different dynasties taking part in the quest for power. I remember reading somewhere that in the course of this 1000-period they destroyed about 600,000 temples. Don't remember the source or the basis of this deduction but it sounds quite believable to me. Temples had a lot of wealth, and outrage at the worship of false gods was a great excuse to get at it.

289 · Divya said

It is even more ridiculous to believe that a US based education is unbiased.

you could take a cross-section of academics from all over the world, and get their opinion on elst regardless of their political affinities and predilections. and i agree that american social scientists are not unbiased (no one is!), but i assume that if most of them with many different agendas think elst is a little nutty, chances are that he is nutty. if historians the world over think elst's scholarship is problematic, is it not plausible to think that his 'scholarship' is suspect? surely, that does not absolve the american social sciences of its analytical problems. i mean psychology and psychiatry are not considered as 'methodologically rigorous' as physics, but within broad margins we depend on this disciplines to diagonose the mentally ill.

Temples had a lot of wealth, and outrage at the worship of false gods was a great excuse to get at it.

you have shown your facility with history (paid biographer=historian!).

he..he.. I just said Muslim/Mughal historians in the general sense. I never mentioned any aid biographer by name. This is what you said.

i didn't say anything when amitabh made the comment, but delhi has a lot of old hindu monuments that couldnt have survived to be destroyed by the mughals. it is, as you know, a city with a very long history (not a couple hundred years, but a lot more than that :)) second, for the stuff that is approximately from the same time as the mughal era, is not getting preserved (organizations like INTACH worked very hard to change that). if it is in private hands, people just sell it because of the propert values. secondly, i've come across no evidence that an important hindu monument was destroyed IN DELHI because of mughal invaders (i'm not denying that wars in delhi musn't have caused collateral damage (but the worst of them was probably in 1857, after the British were determined to avenge the mutiny),

But then my close relatives come from the temple town of Kanchipuram where we have a few thousand+ year temples majestic and standing.. I have been to a few. I need to assume that similar temples existed in the North but were demolished by the idol destroying crowd and that assumption is proven right by various chroniclers of the time. If you are saying that Hindu monuments did not survive till Mughal era (starting from 1526) but were rather destroyed by the Muslim rulers prior to 1526 in Delhi, that is at least believable. It is not true that Hindu monumens do not stand on their own for thousands of years on their own.

I think a thousand year anniversary is coming up for the following temple
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brihadishwara_Temple#History

And in Delhi,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qutb_complex

The most famous monument situated in the complex is the Qutub Minar; other important constructions in the complex are the Quwwat ul-Islam Mosque, the Alai Gate, the Alai Minar and the Iron pillar. Twenty-seven previous Jain temples were destroyed and their materials reused to construct the minar and other monuments of the complex.

"you could take a cross-section of academics from all over the world, and get their opinion on elst regardless of their political affinities and predilections."

Okay, here is Elst's website. Tell me what you find kooky (other than his looks, sorry I can't help but recoil at that beard). Your cross-section point does not help with the problem of perception. Even the most intelligent people at a given time believe the wrong things - like the earth revolving around the sun. It depends on the zeitgeist. If you take a poll 10 years from now you will get very different results on Elst. The pre-9/11 world thought hinduism in general was kooky (they still do but not to that extent). Any defender of hindus was thought to be kooky. But seriously, I challenge you to tell me what precisely you find kooky about Elst.

http://koenraadelst.bharatvani.org/

The end result of desecrating my temples, I'd say, is a bit worse than simply killing me.

290 · portmanteau said

is it not plausible to think that his 'scholarship' is suspect?

enough with the denials! if it's good enough for daniel pipes, the sangh, and the flemish right wing, it's good enough for me!

death to twinkle twinkle!

278 · Ponniyin Selvan said

BTW, don't you think Alexander is glorified too much?. Because this warlord is of greek origin, he is called "great" and "civilized" whereas other warlords like Chengiz Khan / Attilla are called barbarians.

O wise one, what culture, ideas and civilization did Chengiz Khan/Attila leave behind? Alexander the Great, spread Greek ideas and civilization in the areas he conquered.

December 23, 2008
Through Tel Aviv: India's Reckless Road to Washington
[http://www.counterpunch.org/prashad12232008.html]
VIJAY PRASHAD

On Thursday, November 27, in the middle of the Mumbai terrorist attacks, Imran Babar, one of the terrorists, called India TV from Nariman House. He used a cellphone that belonged to Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg, the co-director of the Chabad-Lubavitch Center. The following day, Babar and his associates killed Rabbi Holtzberg and his wife, Rivka. The phone call he made was not long. Babar opened with a comment that made little sense to most people: “You call [Israel’s] army staff to visit Kashmir. Who are they to come to J &K [Jammu and Kashmir]? This is a matter between us and Hindus, the Hindu government. Why does Israel come here?�

Little is known of Babar’s babbles outside the confines of Hakirya, the “campus� of the Israeli high command, and of South Block, which houses the Indian External Affairs and Defense ministries. What he referred to are the growing military and security ties between India and Israel. As well, he might have referenced the now rather solid links between the Hindu Right and the Israeli Right, and how their view of the conflicts that run from Jerusalem to Srinagar mirror those of the jihadis like Babar. Imran Babar and his fellow terrorists come to their critique from the standard anti-Semitism, anti-Americanism that blinds many aggrieved jihadis. Rather than make a concrete assessment of their grievances, they take refuge in as mythical a world as sketched out by the Israeli Right-Hindu Right, where Jews, Hindus and America are arrayed against Muslims.

That the terrorists attacked the Chabad-Lubavitch Center has renewed the call to see the commonalities between the victims of terrorism, whether those in a Haifa restaurant or a Mumbai train, between 9/11 and 11/26. To do so flattens out a significant differences, and reduces the violence to their acts themselves rather than to the social context that leads people to acts of terror. Mumbai provokes the Right to seek recourse to the solutions of war and surveillance, methods that might create a moment’s sense of security before the wily adversary finds a new technological means to strike back. There is no common technical solution: better sniper rifles or iris scanners, better intelligence databases or cattle prods. The weapons used to deal the fatal blow to the terrorists are also incubators of a new generation of terrorists. This is an elementary lesson, lost to those who seek the silver bullet.

Why Does Israel Come Here?

On September 10, 2008, Israel’s top army official, General Avi Mizrahi landed in New Delhi. He met with India’s leading army, navy and air force officials before leaving for a short visit to Jammu and Kashmir. Mizrahi, a long-standing officer in the Israeli Defense Force, lectured senior Indian army officers at the Akhnur Military Base, near the Indo-Pakistan border, on the theme of counterterrorism. Later, in Srinagar, Mizrahi and his Indian counterpart, Army Chief Deepak Kapoor agreed to joint counterterrorism activities, notably for Israeli commandoes to train Indian soldiers in urban combat.

The Mizrahi visit in 2008 is not extraordinary. He had been to India in February 2007. In June 2007, Major General Moshe Kaplinsky brought a team of IDF officers to Jammu and Kashmir, where they met senior Indian officials at the 16 Corps headquarters at Nagrota in the Jammu region near the India-Pakistan border. Kaplinsky’s team discussed the problem of infiltration, how militants from the Pakistani side enter the India. The 720-kilometer barbed wire fence, an echo of Israel’s wall, has not prevented the transit of militants. Kaplinsky came to push other, high-tech means, such as night-vision devices, to help interdict militants. En route to Israel, Kaplinsky’s team went to the Mumbai-based Western Naval Command.

In January 2008, to continue these contacts, the IDF’s chief, Brigadier General Pinchas Buchris came to India and met the top civilians and the top brass. They discussed the procedures to share intelligence on terrorist activity. A week after Buchris returned to Israel, India’s Navy Chief Admiral Sureesh Mehta spent time in Jerusalem, meeting IDF heads Gabi Askhenazi and Buchris. Between 2007 and early 2008, all three Indian defense chiefs visited Israel. The framework for these meetings is the 2002 agreement to form an Indo-Israeli Joint Working Group on Counter-Terrorism, a long-standing attempt to create an entente between the armies of India and Israel, and to consolidate the immense arms trade between the two countries (India is now Israel’s largest arms buyer).

The impetus for the relations goes back to the 1990s, when the governing Congress Party began to dismantle the dirigiste Indian State and to withdraw from India’s long-standing non-aligned policy. The Congress government believed that it was time to reassess its relations with the United States, and that the best way to get to Washington was through Tel Aviv. Stronger ties with Israel might soften the reticence in Washington toward India, and lead it to loosen its bonds with Pakistan and China. India banked on Israel to play the broker with Washington. (This is the argument of my book, Namaste Sharon: Hindutva and Sharonism Under U. S. Hegemony, New Delhi: LeftWord, 2003).

In January 1992, the Indian government recognized the state of Israel. The next month, Defense Minister Sharad Pawar called for Indo-Israeli cooperation on counter-terrorism. Israel’s Director-General of Police Ya’acov Lapidot visited India for an international police convention, and returned to Israel with news that the Indian government wanted Israeli expertise on counter-terror operations. Government spokesperson Benjamin Netanyahu told India Abroad (29 February 1992) that Israel “developed expertise in dealing with terrorism at the field level and also internationally, at the political and legal level, and would be happy to share it with India.� In the Congress years, the main arena of cooperation came in arms deals, as India’s massive purchases provided stability to Israel’s previously volatile arms industry.

When the Hindu Right came to power in the late 1990s, it hastened both the economic “liberalization� policy (with a Minister for Privatization in office) and it shifted its attentions to Washington, DC and Tel Aviv: an axis of the three powers against what it called Islamic terrorism was to be the new foundation of India’s emergent foreign policy. The close relationship between Netanyahu (then Prime Minister) and L. K. Advani (the Home Minister of India, and a brigand of the Hard Right) smoothed the path to intensive collaboration. Advani admires Netanyahu’s personal history as a member of the Sayeret Matcal (special forces) unit of the IDF; Advani himself has no such on-the-ground experience. In 1995, when in Israel, Advani happily received Netanyahu’s new book, Fighting Terrorism: How Democracies Can Defeat Domestic and International Terrorism.

Advani has since made it his practice to quote from the book, particularly the view that a “free society must know what they are fighting,� which is the “rising tide of Islamic terrorism.� This was all honey in Advani’s ear. He drew the central concepts of his counter-terrorism policy from his friends in the Israeli government: a wall at the border, threats of “hot pursuit� across it; demur against political negotiation, escalation of rhetoric; limits on civil liberties when it comes to suspects in terror cases. Netanyahu had purposely refused to distinguish between Iran and Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas, the PLO and the Muslim Brotherhood. Advani too began to collapse the distinction between Kashmiri separatist groups and post-Afghan war terror outfits based in Pakistan, between aggrieved Indian Muslims and Pakistani proxy forces. As well, Netanyahu and Advani crafted a stage on which to enact an endless battle between Democracy and Terrorism, where the role of Democracy is played by the United States, Israel and India and where the role of Terrorism is played by Islam. It is all simple and dangerous.

During his June 2000 visit to Israel, Advani underscored his adoption of Netanyahu’s framework during a lecture at the Indian Embassy. “In recent years we have been facing a growing internal security problem,� he said. “We are concerned with cross-border terrorism launched by proxies of Pakistan. We share with Israel a common perception of terrorism as a menace, even more so when coupled with religious fundamentalism. Our mutual determination to combat terrorism is the basis for discussions with Israel, whose reputation in dealing with such problems is quite successful.� Advani invited a team of Israeli counter-terrorism experts to tour Jammu and Kashmir in September 2000. Led by Eli Katzir, an aide to Prime Minister Ehud Barak, the team conducted a feasibility study of India’s military security needs and offered suggestions for Israeli assistance. Three years later, Israel and India signed a military-arms pact that included a specific training mission. Israeli forces would train four new Special Forces battalions of the Indian Army; other battalions would learn the practice of “irregular warfare� and work with the Northern Command in Kashmir.

When the Hindu Right lost the election in 2004 to a Congress-led alliance, the pace of contacts lessened. With both Advani and Netanyahu in the shadows, the alliance lost its main champions. The Congress government recognized how toxic this alliance would be, unnecessarily inflaming an already difficult relationship with Pakistan. This was also recognized within Israel. Efraim Inbar, director of Israel’s Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, who is actively involved in the Indo-Israeli contacts, recognizes the political problem; “this kind of cooperation needs to be secret if it can be,� he told Newsweek. The military and arms deals between India and Israel continued, even if it was now treated as a sideshow. India remains a major importer of Israeli arms. What lingers in the shadows is the Israeli work in Kashmir. Little is officially revealed of it, even as leaks here and there hint at the extent of the contacts.

Technocrats of Terrorism.

Ami Pedazhur, a political scientist from the University of Austin-Texas, joins the chorus on the New York Times op-ed page with suggestions for the Indian government after Mumbai (“From Munich to Mumbai,� December 20). Rather than see anything new in the Mumbai attacks, Pedazhur conjoins it with an unbroken history that stretches back at least to the 1972 Munich attacks. What links Munich to Mumbai is neither the identity of those who kill nor those who are killed, but the means by which the killing occurs. Analysts of terrorism, like Pedazhur, are technocrats of counter-terrorist actions. They study how terrorists operate, and so what best security and military force can constrain them. The public policy that stems from this sort of technocratic view of terrorism has one end, to restrain the terrorist with more security checkpoints, more hot pursuit.

Why does the Indian government take advice from a government whose own security services have a dismal record of preventing terror attacks and whose own armed forces have failed to create stability on its borders? Israel’s weaponry works fine. But Israel’s counter-terror expertise is questionable. Pedazhur takes pride in Israel’s counterterrorism policy. What pride there can be in a regime that maintains its safety through a ruthless military strategy is questionable. The Israeli government, regardless of the party in charge, is conspicuous not only for its treatment of the Palestinians but also, significantly, for its failure to create a secure society for its own citizens. It is easy enough to make the Palestinians the author of the troubles, but this of course ignores the intransigence of Israel’s political leadership to produce a settlement. Because it cannot make a political peace, the Israeli authorities have perfected various technological means to minimize the consequences of its failures. This is what it wishes to export to India. For India, the imports signal the surrender of its leadership to the current imbroglio. Gated countries wallow in fear and hatred.

The costs of the Tel Aviv-New Delhi-Washington axis are too much to bear, at least for India. India cannot afford to mimic Israel’s failed neighborhood policy, nor can it follow the U. S. example that seeks to solve its problems by aerial bombardment. South Asia requires a regional solution to what is without doubt a regional problem, one with its roots in the Afghan jihad of the 1980s as much as the unresolved Kashmir question (with close to a million troops in the state of Jammu and Kashmir, the Indian government runs what is tantamount to an occupation – they provide the opposite of security for the residents of the state). When the Afghan civil wars came to a unjust quiet in the early 1990s, the various foreign fighters returned to their homelands, emboldened by their self-perception of their victorious struggle: they went to Chechnya, the Philippines, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and into the Kashmir struggle. Pakistan and India are equally victims of these veterans of the jihad, and both have a vested interest in their demobilization. But more than that, there is a danger that as the U. S. amps up its war in Afghanistan and treats Pakistan with contempt, the jihadis will take out their wrath with the same kind of ferocity as they demonstrated in Mumbai. Rather than risk a failed military strategy against the jihadis, it is time for a regional conference on human security, one that includes better cooperation between the states and a program for the lives of those who are driven to the compounds of hatred through their many, many grievances.

Vijay Prashad is the George and Martha Kellner Chair of South Asian History and Director of International Studies at Trinity College, Hartford, CT His new book is The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World, New York: The New Press, 2007. He can be reached at: vijay.prashad@trincoll.edu

292 · Divya said

But seriously, I challenge you to tell me what precisely you find kooky about Elst.

ok i just typed out a long response quoting from his articles. i just lost it thanks to an explorer problem. i will get back to you on this. i promise. there is no dearth of material. give me a week; i'll do it when i'm taking a break on my current project.

O wise one, what culture, ideas and civilization did Chengiz Khan/Attila leave behind? Alexander the Great, spread Greek ideas and civilization in the areas he conquered.

he.he.. that's the point. Alexander civilized the places where he conquered, later a lot of other Europeans civilized the rest (including British civilizing a vast area of the globe) , and now Bush is civilizing Afghans and Iraqis and Israelis civilizing the Palestinians.

don't know if this civilizing project will ever end. :-)

Indianization "is the final solution to the Muslim problem in India" (Decolonizing the Hindu Mind, 2001, Page 57).
Get the chills.

289 · Divya said

the muslim conquest of India lasted almost a thousand years with new and different dynasties taking part in the quest for power. I remember reading somewhere that in the course of this 1000-period they destroyed about 600,000 temples. Don't remember the source or the basis of this deduction but it sounds quite believable to me.

This is the perfect example of the gullibility and stupidity of the hindutva brigade. What was the population of north India during the medieval age that could have supported such a huge number of hindu temples? Where are the ruins? The outrageous hindutva lies sound believable to you because you are completely brainwashed and incapable of thinking rationally.

The reality is that the islamic invasions were far more disastrous for buddhists than for hindus. Wherever Islam went buddhism was completely wiped out: central asia, afghanistan, pakistan and north india. Hindus survived because unlike buddhists they were given dhimmi status. The Mughals even financed the construction of hindu temples Why do you think brahmins loved them so much if they were enemies of their religion? Why do you think the brahmin Peshwas sacrificed the Maratha army in Panipat in defense of Mughal rule? Why did the brahmin mutineers ally themselves with muslims in 1857 in a war to reinstall the mughals to power and kick out the british?

300 · Patanjali said

289 · Divya said

the muslim conquest of India lasted almost a thousand years with new and different dynasties taking part in the quest for power. I remember reading somewhere that in the course of this 1000-period they destroyed about 600,000 temples. Don't remember the source or the basis of this deduction but it sounds quite believable to me.

This is the perfect example of the gullibility and stupidity of the hindutva brigade. What was the population of north India during the medieval age that could have supported such a huge number of hindu temples? Where are the ruins? The outrageous hindutva lies sound believable to you because you are completely brainwashed and incapable of thinking rationally.

The reality is that the islamic invasions were far more disastrous for buddhists than for hindus. Wherever Islam went buddhism was completely wiped out: central asia, afghanistan, pakistan and north india. Hindus survived because unlike buddhists they were given dhimmi status. The Mughals even financed the construction of hindu temples Why do you think brahmins loved them so much if they were enemies of their religion? Why do you think the brahmin Peshwas sacrificed the Maratha army in Panipat in defense of Mughal rule? Why did the brahmin mutineers ally themselves with muslims in 1857 in a war to reinstall the mughals to power and kick out the british?

ally themselves with muslims in 1857

just in case you thought the forum discussion was veering away from the blog...we come back to

Sep(oy) Mutiny.

291 · Ponniyin Selvan said

I need to assume that similar temples existed in the North but were demolished by the idol destroying crowd and that assumption is proven right by various chroniclers of the time.

ponniyin, to mangle a favorite apocryhal quote attributed to my beloved ann coulter, "I don’t have enough ink in my pen to keep a running list of what you have to assume."

he.he..

how conveniently the "north" resembles the south, except when it doesn't, right? we are foreign when it suits your argument, domestic when it doesn't.

291 · Ponniyin Selvan said

It is not true that Hindu monumens do not stand on their own for thousands of years on their own.

yeah, that reminds me of my hindu bf......

to mangle a favorite apocryhal quote attributed to my beloved ann coulter, "I don’t have enough ink in my pen to keep a running list of what you have to assume."

he..he.. I also said, from Muslim chronicles they are proven facts, not just my assumptions. BTW, What do you think abut the Qutb complex in Delhi?. Do you think the Jain temples fell down because of earth quakes ?.. :-)

how conveniently the "north" resembles the south, except when it doesn't, right? we are foreign when it suits your argument, domestic when it doesn't.

Well, In the context of religion, there is a lot of commonality between north and the south. Whether one denies it or not the fact is that Hinduism is the one important factor that unites the diverse peoples of India.

304 · Ponniyin Sevan said

Do you think the Jain temples fell down because of earth quakes ?.. :-)

thank goodness ponniyin brought up brihadeeswarar and the jain temples to point out a big weakness in our commie progressive anti-hindu textbooks, which fail to mention how hindu rulers in the south killed buddhist and jain followers, and mutilated and destroyed their temples and structures during the 400-600 CE period (roughly). this seems to have been a regular feature of hinduism because such behavior has also been documented about the hindu rulers of cambodia several centuries later, roughly 1100 CE. Not to mention the internecine fights of Saivite rulers persecuting Vaishnavities, or Hindu Chola rulers sacking and pillaging the traditional Sinhalese capital of Anuradhapura. And I'm not even talking about how my blood boils whenever I see that leftist structure, the nagarjunasagar dam, which as recently as 1960 or thereabouts, flooded over one of the oldest buddhist settlements in india. why don't our textbooks teach all this?

death to twinkle twinkle!

304 · Ponniyin Sevan said

Well, In the context of religion, there is a lot of commonality between north and the south

oh yes, let's just say shit and not back it up. take the kind of religious practices sindhi hindus or punjabis follow. they have much more in common with sufi muslims and the sikhs than with the tamil hindus.
now let's insert a mandatory silly chuckle here he..he.

For me, the "tell" as to what the truth is is the "taboo" nature of certain topics and indeed sources to those who oppose the longstanding interpretation of Indian history with this "revisionist" nonsense. Look, for my side, at least as far as I'm concerned, nothing is verboten. For the other side, certain documents are to be read as saying "not X" when the contemporaries wrote "X." I mean, we have a written confession, and it's laughed off by the revisionists who "know" how to read it. How do they know that it means "not X"?--b/c they already knew the answer. How about contemporary European scholars then? Again, they can be dismissed--he's a "Belgian Catholic." (oh, my--they're going to sic Tintin and Hercule Poirot on us!). Inscriptions written in stone? Attack the author who tells us what they say. . . . but note no dispute over the facts.

You know, I think that the proponents of the "Big Lie" fall into two main camps--the first believes the lie b/c they only read a narrow range of sources and/or b/c it's congenial to them to believe it. The more sophisticated group doesn't believe the lie, but thinks, for reasons of political prudence, it's best to spread it to the former group. But I think that the latter group misunderstands the political landscape--far better to tell the truth, and deal with it, than to bottle it up only to have it come whooshing out in outraged form in the future. Latin Americans acknowledge the Spanish conquests (they don't have a "Big Lie" about the Spanish being tourists blown off course), but that doesn't mean that the indigenous types are going around killing and expelling the Spaniards.

Please reflect on this claymation.

yes, you're open-minded, rob. divya has kindly provided links upthread. let's read. according to him, no blame can be laid at the hand of hindu extremists; it's only the islamic religion that is problematic because of its political monotheism. he doesnt need to examine any situation for its specifics, it's just enough to find particulars of islamic extremism and denounce the secularists/marxists.

I strongly deny having ever been 'anti-Muslim', for I make it a point to frequently insist that not Muslims but Islam is the problem.

All the factors of the communal conflict, far from being the creation of Hindutva strategists, were in place from the day the first Islamic invader set foot in India

demographic siege:
Using Kafir women in the service of Muslim demography

western critiques of the caste system are unjustified; he makes his point by playing into hindu victimhood wrt africans and arabs:

Hindus could have guilt-tripped modern Westerners into leaving the injustices of Hindu society alone if they had been Africans or Muslims. More perceptive Westerners would not be inhibited versus these two either (Muslims traded black, white and Indian slaves; while Africans enslaved and sold off their own brethren to Arab and European slave-traders), but most of them, and especially politicians, don't dare to speak against those two groups. But Hindus are a different matter altogether.

what i like about elst: agnosticism on the aryan invasion theory and acknowledgement that research does not bear out any confirmation of any position.
and cynicism about the desi political establishment's stance wrt history:

I don't have the impression that the BJP's coming to power has made much of a difference. Earlier, you had schoolbooks denying historical facts that Tipu Sultan forcibly converted thousands of Hindus. Now, you may get textbooks denying that the Vedic Rishis ate beef. Apart from that, not much has changed. In the media, and academia, Hindutva is still in the opposition. True, under the market system, dissent is marginalised, ridiculed, suffocated financially, or rendered ineffective in other subtle ways, but I prefer all that to being murdered or imprisoned in a Gulag camp. And if you want to know whether Hindutva poses a threat to freedom comparable to Communism, I don't think so.

rob, not that I put much stock in this forensics of motivation, but why do you believe Bobby Jindal is religious only in name even as he writes extensive pieces of his coming to Jesus - or vice versa (Mountain, Mohammed; Mohammed, Mountain), pushes policies driven by religious ideology, and organizes voting blocs based on this philosophy, but are willing to believe that some Muslim leader centuries ago wasn't using the same ploy? Are Muslim rulers not smart enough to have figured out the ideas that Machiavelli codified? Why are Muslim conquests and assorted pillaging - de rigeur for those days - from centuries ago more chilling than what was the norm for every conqueror, even Hindu, of those times? I point out multiple examples of assorted omissions of Hindu depredations from Indian textbooks, does that lay the responsibility for any militant right-wing Jain or Buddhist movements that might arise at their doorstep too?

And if you believe Romila Thapar's musings on Ghazni and the lack of respect given to Koenraad Elst style rhetoric is the reason for the rise of the Sangh, rather than their emulation of the same tactics you would like to be discussed more - after all, despite several years of small-scale efforts, the BJP and Advani did rise to national prominence only after they mobilized to demolish a mosque, that is certainly, and I say this with due open-mindedness, an interesting reading.

As always, death to twinkle twinkle!

Oster is referring to the end of the 12th Century. Another quote from p. 222 "The mahaviharas [monasteries] were not spared when these invaders finally overran northern India and sacked its treasures at the end of the twelfth century." It is the straight-up denial of this sort of point that I am terming the Big Lie.

oh yes, let's just say shit and not back it up. take the kind of religious practices sindhi hindus or punjabis follow. they have much more in common with sufi muslims and the sikhs than with the tamil hindus.

The diversity and variations across regions are certainly large, however the commonalities are plentiful too if you care to look for them. Let's take two extremes...Punjabi Hindus and Tamil Hindus. Even there the two communities, while differening widely, would have significantly overlapping mythologies, and certain overlapping rituals and spiritual concepts. I'm talking even at an organic, folk level. People worshipped Shiv/Shakti in both regions. The Shiv Ling was common in both. Even the Guru Granth Sahib (which is not even a Punjabi Hindu document) makes reference to a lot of Hindu mythology that would have been familiar to people in Tamil Nadu as well. I think the basic act of puja and aarti would have been common to both. There were significant civilizational connections between farflung regions. All this was very organic and unselfconscious until recent times. This larger civilization MUST be seen as diverse and with regional flavors and NOT as one monolithic entity; but I do think there were some things there that cut across vast distances and disparate ethnicities in the sub-continent; part of a process that occured over centuries and millenia. Why do Sindhi Hindus and Tamil Hindus share (some) common first names? It's the general larger civilizational commonalities at work (very analagous to "European Civilization" as opposed to French or Greek cultures/civilizations).

312 · rob said

It is the straight-up denial of this sort of point that I am terming the Big Lie.

I don't see Oster denying it or being ostracised for his statements; rather his book and his scholarship are very well respected, so I am not sure what exactly is being suppressed and who is being kept down as a result of this lie.

That being said I do agree that "they have more in common with sufi muslims and the sikhs than with the tamil hindus".

As long as the Sufi Muslims is understood to mean DESI Sufi Muslims.

so I am not sure what exactly is being suppressed and who is being kept down as a result of this lie.

Apparently (1) Indian schoolchildren and (2) anyone who takes South Asian studies courses here in the US (particularly at a certain school in Hartford, CT). But, yes, the truth is out there! I'm glad you're on board contra the Big Lie.

316 · rob said

(particularly at a certain school in Hartford, CT).

Vijay Prashad has no relevance beyond a few academics, and the vast right wing conspiracy theorists who obsess with him. His name, work, and ideas are not even marginally popular among the average Indian or Indian American, and not even necessarily among influential businessmen or other elites. One doesn't need to buy into Prashad's theories to dislike the Sangh or Modi. As for Indian schoolchildren, I agree - they should definitely study more about what Hindu rulers did, rather than be subject to the big lie.

they should definitely study more about what Hindu rulers did, rather than be subject to the big lie.

Fine, nobody should be naive enough to think it was all peaches and cream pre-Muslim invasion(s). . . .

318 · rob said

Fine, nobody should be naive enough to think it was all peaches and cream pre-Muslim invasion(s). . . .

So, what was the big lie again? That Muslim invasions are not treated with more extreme prejudice than non Muslim conflicts given that it was by "foreigners"?

The Big Lie is that (1) they didn't happen and (2) they weren't horribly consequential for the Hindus.

320 · rob said

The Big Lie is that (1) they didn't happen and (2) they weren't horribly consequential for the Hindus.

(1) Not one person says that they didn't happen - even you agree that disputes are about motivations, not facts, and (2) things that were consequential for Hindu subsects were happening all the time pre-invasion, and those internecine conflicts aren't talked about either. Also, the notion that Hindus are a monolithic unchanged mass over several centuries is ridiculous - one only needs to look at the textual analysis of various Hindu epics to realize how they mutated over time to reflect the politics and conflicts of their time, surely those too were consequential and should be examined, rather than the descriptions of noble emperors, and antiseptic dynasties with borders, and trade relations, that gullible kids are fed in their textbooks.