Islam and its interpretations

September 29, 2014

 

Islam is often wrongly and wilfully portrayed as being somehow unique in having had a violent history. But what is unique about Islam is that while other religious movements, particularly Christianity, got over their early violent origins, it failed to move on and update its theological precepts

There has been no Islamic equivalent of  Enlightenment and Renaissance, and the Islamic mindset remains awkwardly out of step with historical progress and therefore with modern times.

What is Islam?

I know Islam’s critics will be dying to answer this question, but it is more important to hear it from Muslims themselves because, after all, it is their conflicting interpretations of Islam which are behind so much of the confusion and mayhem around the world. A religion of peace, yet a religion which is invoked to wreak such mindless violence. A religion which is said to accord dignity, respect and equality to women; yet a religion in which a woman’s testimony is only half as good as a man’s. A religion which exhorts its followers to gain knowledge even if it means “going to China”; yet some of whose most noisy campaigners despise knowledge and are prepared to kill little girls for attending school. And a religion which preaches tolerance and coexistence; yet which has become synonymous with hate and intolerance.

So, what is Islam really about?

Islamic theology

In his book, What Is History? , E.H. Carr urged people to read the historian before they read his or her history in order to get a sense of where that historian is coming from. Many Muslims will say that the same analogy applies to Islam: its interpretation depends on who is interpreting it. So, extremists will interpret it to suit their own agenda while moderate Muslims would offer a different interpretation. But the trouble with this explanation is that it is at odds with the claim that Islam is so perfect, that it is beyond debate or interpretation. Its teachings and edicts are meant to be immutable. Take it or leave it. This claim itself then takes a knock when we hear so many bewilderingly different interpretations that, let alone non-Muslims, even ordinary Muslims are left confused and frustrated. A healthy internal debate is one thing, but tawdry public disputes over the fundamentals of Islam — jihad , sharia, caliphate — is quite another.

What, then, is the problem?

To be fair, it is not entirely the fault of interpreters, and in this I include those who wilfully misinterpret it to promote their sectarian or extremist ideas. The potential for misinterpretation and misunderstanding lies in Islamic theology itself. The Koranic text is a minefield of ambiguity, allowing people to cherry-pick its equivocal and often contradictory verses to back their argument. Similarly, it is easy to manipulate Hadith (a compilation of Prophet Mohammad’s sayings and teachings), another major source of legitimacy for Islamic acts. This is because they are too numerous, were pronounced in vastly different situations, and compiled many years after his death with the result that their precise meaning was frequently lost in translation. Sometimes they were quoted outside the original context. They are routinely plucked out of context to support bizarre claims.

Then there is the problem of “inauthentic” Hadith — sayings attributed to the Prophet which he may or may not have uttered. Even many authentic Hadith have been found to be flawed because of misinterpretation or contextual errors.

On jihad

We have seen a great deal of quibbling over the meaning of jihad . Muslims insist that the “real” concept of jihad does not involve violence and bears no resemblance to Islamists’ interpretation of it. The “real” or “greater” jihad , they say, means a peaceful inner spiritual struggle. An armed struggle against an external enemy is regarded as “lesser” jihad and permitted only in specific circumstances — for example, in self-defence. Theoretically true. Yet, it is also true that around the dining table in Muslim households, the term jihad is invariably used in its violent sense and mentioned in the same breath as “kaafirs.” I grew up in an extremely liberal environment, but I don’t recall, in private conversations, jihad ever being referred to in its philosophical sense. In Indian Muslim discourse, the term normally used for personal struggles, whether social, economic or emotional, is “jaddo jehad” derived from Urdu.

Extremists can be accused of inventing circumstances that, in their opinion, would justify violent jihad , or of targeting the wrong “enemy,” and using appallingly brutal methods of executing their “ jihad. ” But they cannot be accused of inventing the notion of violent jihad itself. There is no denying the streak of violence which — according to distinguished British Pakistani Islamic scholar Ziauddin Sardar — is “inherent” in Islam. But that is not the point. All religions, especially those which set out to gain followers through proselytisation and to conquer empires, have violent histories. Campaigns to “Christianise” Pagan Europe in the Middle Ages were not always peaceful, and then, of course, there is the bloody history of Inquisition and the Crusades.

To a large extent, Islam is often wrongly and wilfully portrayed as being somehow unique in having had a violent history. But what is unique about Islam is that while other religious movements, particularly Christianity, got over their early violent origins, it failed to move on and update its theological precepts. There has been no Islamic equivalent of Enlightenment and Renaissance, and the Islamic mindset remains awkwardly out of step with historical progress, and therefore with modern times — a hiatus reinforced by attempts to assert an Islamic identity through beards and hijabs .

But to return to the question, “what is Islam?” ask any Muslim and they will solemnly enumerate all its nobler aspects: its emphasis on community and oneness which has made it the world’s fastest growing religion; its rejection of caste or class; the spirit of inquiry it fosters; its command not to bow to any temporal authority (thumbs down for authoritarianism and dictatorship); its stress on simple and spartan living; a unique system of zakat to prevent concentration of wealth in a few individual hands; a complete “no, no” to social and economic exploitation; and its egalitarianism. Prophet Mohammed personally oversaw huge reforms in the pre-Islamic slavery practices in Arabia and appointed a former Ethiopian slave, Bilal Ibn Ribah as the first Muezzin in Islam after helping him gain freedom.

Faces of Islam

Muslims will cite Koranic verses and Hadith to underline Islamic injunctions against violence; its command to treat women with respect and accord them equality; its message of tolerance, love, brotherhood, and its exhortation that we treat even our enemies with respect and try to win them over through love and persuasion rather than force. But this is one face of Islam. It also has another, less pleasant, face. For, the Islam preached by the Taliban and their fellow travellers is also Islam; and if you ask them, they will also cite Koranic verses and Hadith to back their claims. Their methods may be extreme but their philosophy does derive legitimately from the same Islamic theology that the good face of Islam does. Muslims must stop being in denial about it.

And this brings us back to what lies at the heart of the problem with Islam — namely the somewhat rough-and-ready nature of the fundamentals of Islamic sources, including the Koran, the central religious text of Islam comprising truths which, Muslims believe, were revealed to the Prophet by Allah from time to time until his death. The Koranic text, in the form of “ aayts ’’ (verses), is not thematically linked nor provides context with the result that an “ aayt ” which might have originated in a specific context is sometimes contradicted by another “ aayt ” on the subject but stated in a different context. This allows a free-for-all scramble for people to grab what might suit them in a given situation. Hence the confusion and the spectacle of extremists and their opponents both quoting the Koran in support of their positions. There is a similar confusion over Hadith, as explained earlier.

The way out is for an Islamic equivalent of the New Testament. Learned Islamic scholars need to put their heads together and present basic scriptures in a manner that the meaning and context of every “ aayt ” and every Hadith is made unambiguously clear, leaving no room for misinterpretation or misrepresentation. This annotated text should then be declared as the authorised version of Islamic beliefs. Otherwise, we will continue to struggle to understand what real Islam is while leaving the field open for fanatics to distort it at will.

(Hasan Suroor is the author of India’s Muslim Spring: Why Is Nobody Talking About It? E-mail: hasan.suroor@gmail.com )

 

http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-opinion/islam-and-its-interpretations/article6455633.ece

The lost moral of Islam’s divide

June 21, 2014

Updated: June 21, 2014 00:41 IST

 

With the exception of the Quran, there are no religious or historical references that the Sunnis and Shias agree on

 

Shajahan Madampat

The Sunni-Shia divide is increasingly engulfing Muslim societies in many parts of the world in spasms of internecine violence. The latest developments in Iraq with the Islamic State of Iraq and [Greater] Syria (ISIS) making rapid advances towards Baghdad are an ominous reflection of the deepening of sectarian animosities within contemporary Islam. The potential impact of the current turbulence will be felt far beyond West Asia and North Africa. The developments also indicate — especially in light of the marginalisation of the Muslim Brotherhood and other mainstream Islamist outfits in Egypt, Syria and to a limited extent in Tunisia — that political Islam or Islamism will now be championed with much more lethal effect by groups that profess allegiance to radical Salafism, such as the ISIS.

Islamism, defined broadly, is an ideological construct based on a political reading of Islam in both its history and textuality. It argues that the primary duty of a Muslim is to strive for the establishment of an Islamic state, without which Islam will remain a ‘house half-built.’ Salafism (or Wahhabism) is a theologically puritanical approach that argues for a literal reading of the scriptures, shunning all accretions in matters of faith and life. What is common between the two, however, is that they both operate on a binary notion of the world.

The coming together of Salafism and Islamism is nothing new as al-Qaeda perfectly represented the merger of the otherwise irreconcilable worldviews of the two radical streams. In fact, Osama bin Laden and Ayman Al-Zawahiri personified this coming together of radical Salafism and uncompromising Islamism. The former’s worldview can be traced to the atavistic theology of the 18th century Saudi theologian-activist Sheikh Mohamed bin Abdul Wahhab, while the latter inherited the nihilistic fanaticism of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood icon Syed Qutub. But it is with the outbreak of civil war in Syria that we saw the ‘coming out’ of this dangerous concoction from its hideouts in Afghanistan, Yemen and North Africa. The giant strides they are now making in Iraq are indicative of the changing contours of Islamism on the one hand and the new-found role that this brand of Islamism invented for itself against the portentous backdrop of the Sunni-Shia divide.

Origin of the divide

The origin of this divide — the principal fault line within Islam — goes back 14 centuries to the very beginning of Islam. Interestingly, there was nothing religious about it at the beginning as it was a purely political dispute over which an entire theological and jurisprudential edifice was superimposed later on in order to canonise and perpetuate it into a distinctive clerical order. At the core of the dispute was an impassioned argument over whether the principle of succession in the nascent Muslim state should be dynastic or meritorious. The majority of Muslims in the early years of the faith chose merit over dynasty and argued that the prophet’s temporal and spiritual successors should be selected on the basis of their competence, seniority, knowledge and experience. A minority disagreed and said the basis of succession should be familial rather than meritorious. They believed the temporal and spiritual leadership of Muslim society should remain confined to the descendants of the prophet forever.

They thought Ali — the younger cousin and son-in-law of the prophet — deserved the honour, as he was not only a staunch companion of the prophet but also his closest family member by virtue of birth and marriage. Shia is an abbreviation for Shia’t Ali, the party of Ali, and is built around the victimhood of the prophet’s family following his death. The Sunnis do not dispute the importance of Ali and do not disparage him in any way; they consider him one of the greatest companions of the prophet along with the others, including the three other caliphs who preceded Ali in the seat of power. In a way, the difference between Sunni and Shia approaches to Ali is comparable to the difference between Islamic and Christian approaches to Jesus Christ. While both the religions converge on the greatness of Jesus as a man of God, they diverge on questions of his divinity and deification. Just as no Muslim will ever disparage Jesus, no Sunni will ever speak ill of Ali. Like in the case of the two Semitic religions, it was the differences and not the commonalities that were given accent throughout history, resulting in an entrenched culture of de-sacralisation and demonisation of the other on both sides. The fact that the two sects chose to follow totally different references in their respective approaches to jurisprudence and theology widened the gulf further over the centuries. With the exception of the Quran, which in any case has been susceptible to multiple and often contradictory interpretations, there are no religious or historical references that the Sunnis and Shias agree on.

Point of agreement

What is most interesting in this context is that both the sects agree on the need for an Islamic political system on earth. While the Islamists on both sides argue for the primacy of an Islamic state, the others express minor disagreements on questions of prioritising an Islamic state over those of building an Islamic society. No known mainstream religious organisation among both the sects rejects the idea of an Islamic majoritarian state as a desired eventuality. There is total consensus among all that justice will flourish only in such a state where the Sharia would replace all other sources and methods of legislation. What about justice for those who belong to other faiths or no faiths is a minor detail glossed over by self-righteous rhetoric.

This brings us to one of the most exasperating paradoxes in Islamic history. While the only consensus that ever existed across the sects in Islam has been on the desirability of (an immediate or eventual) Islamic state governed according to the Sharia, the principal divide of all times in Muslim society happened because there was no clear concept of a state or political system in Islam. It goes without saying that the method of electing the ruler is the most basic part of any political system, the absence of clarity on which triggered the first and foremost split among the Muslims. The festering wounds of that split continue to bleed the community to this day.

The Quran and the Prophet’s rich traditions left the choice of political systems or the nature of the state to the wisdom of the people and their circumstances. The followers, however, persisted with their delusional search for a theocratic utopia, denuding a faith of its humane core in the process. The Quran stressed on persuasion in matters of faith while the Islamists saw coercion (with the state being its ultimate and most legitimate instrument) as the only method for preservation of the faith. Iran will do all it can to stop the ISIS warriors in their tracks. ISIS will be happy to eradicate the Islamic Republic of Iran. But both will marshal the same set of arguments for the establishment and perpetuation of an Islamic state as well as for the disempowerment of each other in their respective spheres of influence.

In Iraq, for instance, Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki and his cohorts will be perfectly happy to replicate the Iranian Vilayat-e-Faqih model of state in Iraq and disenfranchise the Sunni minority. The ISIS will be delighted to establish their model of Islamic state and disenfranchise the Shia majority. Both parties will advance the same arguments to justify and Islamise their brutalities. Creation of a hell here in the name of the hereafter is the fundamental objective of all varieties of Islamism, despite their invocation of justice and divine will in every other sentence they write or speak.

(Shajahan Madampat is a cultural critic and commentator.)

 

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/the-lost-moral-of-islams-divide/article6134190.ece

Independence will be in jeopardy if parties place creed above country, says Pranab

 

Remembering Dr BR Ambedkar President Pranab Mukherjee pays tribute to the architect of India’s Constitution in New Delhi on Thursday. PTI

New Delhi, September 4:  

Amid the rising chorus of ‘Hindu’ being the cultural identity of all Indians, President Pranab Mukherjee on Thursday quoted BR Ambedkar to underline that “it is wrong for the majority to deny the existence of minorities”.

Delivering the BR Ambedkar Memorial Lecture on “Vision of India in 21st Cenury, as Envisaged by Dr Ambedkar”, the President emphasised the nation’s cultural and religious diversity. The Constitution guarantees equal rights to all citizens and prohibits discrimination of all kinds in social relations, he pointed out.

The lecture was organised by the Ambedkar Foundation under the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment.

“Dr Ambedkar believed that protection of minorities and their religion was of paramount importance. Thus, the Constitution gives each person the freedom of faith, religion and worship and gives the minorities freedom to manage their religious affairs. Dr Ambedkar justified such protection on the following grounds: ‘It is wrong for the majority to deny the existence of minorities. It is equally wrong for the minorities to perpetuate themselves. A solution must be found which will serve a double purpose. It must recognise the existence of minorities to start with’,” the President said.

Significantly, the President said Ambedkar had warned that if parties place “creed above country”, India’s independence will be in jeopardy.

“Let me conclude recalling Dr Ambedkar’s words from his address to the Constituent Assembly on November 25, 1949 — “In addition to our old enemies in the form of castes and creeds, we are going to have many political parties with diverse and opposing political creeds. Will Indians place the country above their creed or will they place creed above country? I do not know. But this much is certain that if the parties place creed above country, our independence will be put in jeopardy a second time and probably be lost forever,” said the President.

Raging controversy
Mukherjee’s emphasis on this aspect of Ambedkar’s vision for India was made in the wake of a raging controversy over RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat’s statement, “If inhabitants of England are English, Germany are Germans and USA are Americans then why all inhabitants of Hindustan are not known as Hindus?” The statement was apparently endorsed by Minority Affairs Minister Najma Heptullah.

(This article was published on September 4, 2014)

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/news/politics/independence-will-be-in-jeopardy-if-parties-place-creed-above-country-says-pranab/article6380333.ece

Black economy now amounts to 75% of GDP

NEW DELHI, August 4, 2014

Updated: August 4, 2014 08:24 IST

India’s black economy could now be nearly three-quarters the size of its reported GDP

Driven substantially by the higher education sector, real estate deals and mining income, India’s black economy could now be nearly three-quarters the size of its reported Gross Domestic Product (GDP). These are among the findings of a confidential report commissioned by the government and accessed exclusively by The Hindu.

Since there were no “reliable” estimates of black money generated in India and held within and outside the country, the UPA government commissioned the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy (NIPFP) to estimate the black money in India and held overseas by Indians.

The Special Investigation Team on black money, constituted by the Narendra Modi government on May 27 in compliance with a Supreme Court directive, is studying the report.

Though the report was submitted to the Finance Ministry in December 2013, the UPA’s Finance Minister P. Chidambaram did not place it in Parliament. Nor has his successor Arun Jaitley done so.

The capitation fees collected by private colleges, on management quota seats in professional courses, last year was around Rs 5,953 crore, the report estimates.

 

‘Social spending programmes not reaching needy’

In 2009-10, 33% of PDS off-take of kerosene diverted for non-household use: report

The findings of a confidential report, commissioned by the government and accessed exclusively by The Hindu, have revealed that allocated expenditures of social spending programmes are not reaching intended users and confirm leakages due to corruption.

The capitation fees collected by private colleges, on management quota seats in professional courses, last year was around Rs 5,953 crore, the report estimates. Generation of black money in transfer of real estate properties is conservatively estimated at a staggering Rs 5,68,879 crore. If this could be plugged, India could almost double its Plan spending. Total Plan expenditure allocated by this year’s budget is Rs 5,75,000 crore.

For the decade 2001-2010, the average unaccounted income from minerals as a percentage of GDP is 10.32 per cent. This estimate excludes illegal mining and will be higher on accounting for that.

In 2009-10, almost 33 per cent of PDS off-take of kerosene or 3.87 billion litres was diverted for non-household uses. In 2011-12, Rs. 11,910 crore unaccounted incomes arose out of use of PDS kerosene as the adulterant for diesel.

The report finds that just 1.8 per cent of registered legal professionals file tax returns, including just 6.7 per cent of registered chartered accountants, 42.8 per cent of registered medical professionals and 35.2 per cent of nursing homes.

It includes a survey of 72 senior income tax officials on the sectors with high propensity to generate black money. The respondents considered the capital gains on real estate as the most important source followed by large-scale manufacturing, film industry, smuggling and under/over invoicing of foreign trade.

The study reports a discernible decline in percentage terms in the black economy post-1991 though in absolute terms it is still large. The foreign direct investment route is being used for taking black money out and bringing it back into India, the report finds. In 2011, unrecorded foreign assets worth $89,190 million were accumulated in India.

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/allocated-expenditures-of-social-spending-programmes-are-not-reaching-intended-users-report/article6278037.ece?ref=relatedNews

US back in Iraq again, bombs ISIS to 'prevent genocide'

 

Chidanand Rajghatta

Washington

But No Boots On Ground, Says Obama

US warplanes bombed Islamist fighters marching on Iraq’s Kurdish capital in the north on Friday after President Barack Obama said Washington must act to prevent “genocide”.

Militants of the Islamic State (formerly ISIS, Islamist State of Iraq and Syria), who have beheaded and crucified captives in their drive to eradicate unbelievers, have advanced to within a half hour’s drive of Irbil, capital of Iraq’s Kurdish region and a hub for US oil companies.

US airlines and other commercial carriers have been barred from flying over Iraq except in emergencies.

A Pentagon spokesman said two FA-18 fighter jets from an aircraft carrier in the Gulf dropped bombs on a mobile artillery piece used by the fighters to shell Kurdish forces defending Irbil.

Obama on Thursday authorized airstrikes against the Sunni extremists even as he pledged not to return US ground troops to the region.

Ahead of the strike, US aircraft dropped food and water to Yazidi minorities trapped on Mount Sinjar, driven out by the ISIS and facing annihilation. The actions constituted the deepest US engagement in Iraq since its troops withdrew in late 2011 after nearly a decade of war.

Obama, who campaigned on a platform of extricating US troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, suggested his hand was forced by the barbaric militants advancing on Irbil. “People are starving.

Children are dying of thirst.

Meanwhile, ISIS forces below have called for the systematic destruction of the entire Yazidi people,” he explained to Americans in a late-night address from the White House, saying when the US has the capabilities to help avert a massacre, it is the American thing to take action.

US airlines and other commercial carriers have been barred from flying over Iraq except in emergencies.The US President, who campaigned on a platform of extricating US troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, suggested his hand was forced by barbaric militants of the ISIS advancing on Irbil, a nerve centre of US operations in Iraq.

“People are starving. And children are dying of thirst.
Meanwhile, ISIS forces below have called for the systematic destruction of the entire Yazidi people,“ Obama explained in a late-night address from the White House, saying when the US has the unique capabilities to help avert a massacre, it is the American thing to take action.

“That's a hallmark of US leadership. That's who we are,“ the president told a nation that is largely sceptical of getting entangled in foreign crises again after two wars that have cost over a trillion dollars and thousands of casualties. US officials said Pentagon has been authorized to launch airstrikes against ISIS extremists if the military determines that Iraqi troops and Kurdish forces are unable to break the mountain siege and there is imminent danger of massacre of the trapped people.

Danger to nearly 1000 US personnel in Baghdad and Irbil, both under threat from rampaging ISIS forces, will also precipitate air strikes.

Obama's turnaround, which came after weeks of resisting military action, followed continuing ISIS advances in Iraq that a token infusion of about 700 US military personnel failed to stem.

 

US takes aim at Israeli antitank missiles in Indian arms market

 

Rajat Pandit,TNN | Aug 10, 2014, 03.31 AM IST

A Javelin portable antitank missile is launched during an army exercise at Range Control, High Range on September 4, 2009 in Townsville, Australia. (Getty Images file photo)

NEW DELHI: Israel, better watch out! The US is going all out to shoot down the Israeli 'Spike' antitank guided missile (ATGM) with its own "Javelin" missile in the lucrative Indian arms market. Given the huge size of the Indian ATGM project, upwards of $3 billion, Israel is sure to strike back.
But for now, the US seems to have gained the upper hand. After earlier being rebuffed by India for not agreeing to "full" transfer of technology (ToT), the US is now promising to not only "co-produce" the third-generation Javelin ATGMs, but also "co-develop" its fourth-generation version.
"This is an unprecedented offer that we have made only to India, and no one else," said visiting US defence secretary Chuck Hagel on Saturday, a day after hard-selling joint development and production of advanced weapon systems to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and defence minister Arun Jaitley.

There are already over a dozen such proposals from the US on the table, ranging from the Javelin, MH-60 Romeo multirole helicopters and "big data cybersecurity" to unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), mine-scattering systems and warship guns, which will now be taken forward by the revived bilateral Defence Trade and Technology Initiative (DTTI), as earlier reported by TOI.

US marines carry Javelin missiles close to the Iraqi border in Kuwait in the morning of March 18, 2003 after George W Bush, the-then US president, gave Saddam Hussein 48 hours to leave Iraq. (Getty Images photo)

"I will play an active role in expanding the DTTI because it's the centerpiece of our defence partnership ... As our interests align, so should our armed forces and defence systems. Bureaucratic red-tape must not bound the limits of our partnership," said Hagel.

But the US will have to contend with Israel, even though it has now displaced the latter as the second-biggest arms supplier to India after Russia. The Indian defence acquisitions council, in fact, had almost finalized the Israeli Spike ATGMs for clearance late last year, after a series of field trials, before the US muscled its way into the race once again.

A rocket from a shoulder fired Javelin missile explodes on a mock target during an army fire power demonstration at Range Control, High Range on September 4, 2009 in Townsville, Australia. (Getty Images photo)

The urgent need for third-generation shoulder-fired ATGMs, which are "fire and forget" missiles, for the 1.13-million strong Indian Army cannot be overstated. The force has a huge shortfall of 44,000 ATGMs of different types, half its authorized inventory at present. Both Pakistan and China, the latter with third-generation ATGMs, are far ahead in the capability to halt and destroy enemy armoured attacks.

The force is currently saddled with second-generation Milan (2km range) and Konkurs (4km) ATGMs, produced by Defence PSU Bharat Dynamics under licence from French and Russian companies. "Being wire-guided, they have to be directed to the target. They are not fire-and-forget missiles," said an officer.

Moreover, the indigenous third-generation Nag ATGMs, which are vehicle and helicopter-mounted with a 4-km strike range, are still not operational despite being in the making for over 20 years. The Army has already placed an initial order for 443 Nag missiles and 13 Namicas (Nag missile-tracked carriers).

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/US-takes-aim-at-Israeli-antitank-missiles-in-Indian-arms-market/articleshow/39972153.cms

Blue cloth over their conscience

August 2, 2014

Updated: August 2, 2014 01:44 IST

 

A Palestinian woman reacts while standing next to two injured men as they lay on the ground and wait for help following an Israeli strike in the Shijaiyah neighbourhood, eastern Gaza City, on Wednesday. Photo:AP

 

Despite abuses from the Israeli government, the U.S. political class is fully supportive of its acts in Gaza

On the night of Tuesday, July 29, three shells hit the Jabalia Elementary Girls School — a U.N. designated emergency shelter for 3,300 Palestinians. Those who had taken refuge there came because the Israelis had warned them to leave their homes. The U.N. had given the Israelis the coordinates of this school 17 times. Their warnings made no impact. The shells killed at least 16 people and wounded hundreds. The U.N. official in charge, Pierre Krähenbühl (of UNRWA), said in a powerful statement, “Children killed in their sleep; this is an affront to all of us, a source of universal shame. Today, the world stands disgraced.”

No ceasefire is on the horizon. The ‘humanitarian pause’ of August 1 broke down after two hours. The U.N. Security Council could not agree on the language for a resolution — its strongest instrument. A toothless “presidential statement” from the Council called not for an end to the conflict but for “an immediate and unconditional humanitarian ceasefire, allowing for the delivery of urgently needed assistance.” In other words, the U.N. Council members recognise that they have no authority to end the conflict. All they can do is to ask for “humanitarian pauses” so that the U.N. agencies can bring in emergency supplies to a desperate population.

Israel has destroyed Gaza’s only power plant, which impacts the already fragile sewage and water purification system as well as food storage. Electricity is mostly off, which means that the Palestinians are in danger of being cut off from the world. As it is, when Israel conducts its “operations” inside Gaza, it seals the area, preventing media from entrance. The aftermath of these operations has been devastating, whether in Gaza City’s neighbourhood of Shuja’iyya or the town of Khuz’a. Forty-four per cent of Gaza’s 140 square miles (360 square km) have been designated a “buffer zone” by the Israelis. Gaza’s Ministry of Health puts the figure for the dead at over 1,300 and the wounded at close to 8,000 — this number rises steadily.

The U.N. says that over 250,000 of the 1.8 million Palestinians in Gaza are now in their shelters. The U.N. is on its last legs as far as supplies go. “We have reached the tolerable limit that we can accommodate,” Mr. Krähenbühl told the Security Council on July 31. Gaza continues to be under siege by Israel, and the border crossing with Egypt — at Rafah — is effectively closed. The tunnels that the Israelis are destroying had been the arteries for the Palestinians to break the embargo. That is now closed to them.

Read: Pounding Gaza with impunity

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry travelled around the region trying to move a ceasefire agenda. The Palestinians are clear that any genuine ceasefire must include an end to the siege. Even Mr. Krähenbühl agreed, telling the Security Council on July 31, “The illegal blockade of Gaza must be lifted.”

This is unacceptable to Israel, which believes that the suffocation of Gaza is in its security interest. An official of the Eshkol Regional Council had told the International Crisis Group (ICG) in 2009, “Our forces should flatten Gaza into a parking lot, destroy them.” An end to the siege is the last thing that such a political view would allow. Members of the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s inner circle called Mr. Kerry’s plan a “strategic terrorist attack.” The ceasefire plan brokered with Qatar and Turkey, the Israeli officials said, would spur them to expand their operations against Gaza — to flatten Gaza.

Relations with U.S.

Israeli insults against the Obama administration have been legion. In 2010, the Israelis announced the building of new settlements in Occupied East Jerusalem on the day that U.S. Vice-President Joe Biden arrived in Israel with a peace proposal that included a moratorium on settlement building. He was humiliated. The next year, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu went before a joint session of the U.S. Congress to say that Israel would never make peace with Hamas. It was seen as a direct snub at U.S. President Barack Obama, who had suggested that a hard-line position against Hamas would not occasion a peace process.

Mr. Netanyahu’s attitude toward the U.S. was clear in his 2001 visit to Ofra, an illegal settlement in the West Bank. He talked to the settlers about the need to pummel the Palestinians. A settler asked him if he worried about the world reaction to such a policy. “Not at all,” he replied, “especially today with America. I know what America is. America is something that can easily be moved. 80 per cent of the Americans support us. We have that kind of support.”

Mr. Netanyahu is correct. Despite abuses from the Israeli government, the U.S. political class fully supports Israel. In the midst of this campaign on Gaza, with all evidence pointing to a violation of the rules against collective punishment, the U.S. Congress unanimously voted to give full support to the Israelis. It also charged the U.N. Human Rights Council with hypocrisy over its resolution that asked for an investigation of Israel’s conduct in the war. The U.S had cast the only ‘No’ vote in Geneva. Not only this, the U.S. Defense Department handed over its stockpiles of weapons that are stored in Israel.

The U.N. has no appetite to apply the principle of Responsibility to Protect. That form of humanitarianism is only useful when it suits western interests

A U.S. defence official said that Israel took possession of 120 mm mortar shells and 40mm grenades — both of which are being used in this bombardment. Seventy nine of the hundred U.S. Senators supported the U.S.-Israel Strategic Partnership Act, which would allow for more arms to be delivered to Israel. The act also encourages the U.S. to ensure that Israel continues to have a “qualitative military edge” over its neighbours. The U.S. political class, despite the abuses from Tel Aviv, seems eager to back Israel to the hilt — diplomatically, financially and militarily.

In 1937, for two hours, the German Condor Legion bombed the small Basque town of Guernica. The incendiary bombs killed hundreds of civilians. Colonel Wolfram von Richthofen, who commanded the squad, wrote that their firebombs “resulted in complete annihilation.”

Picasso turned his talent to bring this event to life, which resulted in his masterpiece, Guernica. Later, he would say, that the painting allowed him to express his “horror of the military caste” which takes the world into “an ocean of misery.”

A tapestry of the painting used to hang outside the U.N. Security Council. When U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell went to make his fraudulent case for a war against Iraq in 2003, a blue cloth was hung over Guernica. It could not interfere with the masters of war. Today, a blue cloth is hung over any statement that questions Israel’s right to annihilate Gaza.

International political action

Valerie Amos, U.N. head of the Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief department, asked, “Where is the humanity, the morality? It’s children, civilians dying.” Mr. Krähenbühl, in an equally emotional statement, noted, “We have moved beyond the realm of humanitarian action alone. We are in the realm of accountability. I call on the international community to take deliberate international political action to put an immediate end to the continuing carnage.” The apposite phrase here is ‘international political action.’ Mr. Krähenbühl meant the U.N. Security Council. From August 1, the president of the Council is the U.K.’s Ambassador, Sir Mark Lyall. In his statement to the Council on July 30, Sir Mark blamed “both sides” for the conflict, saying, “The people of Israel have the right to live without constant fear for their security, but the people of Gaza also have the right to live safely in peace.”

Read: Missed opportunity on Gaza

The argument of “both sides” erases the context of this bombardment — the occupation of the Palestinian lives and the scale of Israel’s offensive. There is no parity here. Sir Mark’s approach shows that the UNSC has no appetite to move a resolution based on the U.N. principle of Responsibility to Protect (R2P). That form of humanitarianism is only useful when it suits western interests. When it does not, the lives of civilians are of no concern. No wonder Mr. Netanyahu can so casually say, “We need to be prepared for a protracted campaign in Gaza.”

(Vijay Prashad is professor of international studies, Trinity College.)

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