[All characters in this ‘theatre’ of war are real; any resemblance to fictional ones is purely imaginary!]
At an emergency war-room located in Tel Aviv within a huge bomb-proof bunker are seated Joe Biden, Netanyahu, Macron, Sunak and Olaf Scholz for a round-table meeting.
Agenda: Complete annihilation of ‘human-animals’/ ‘cockroaches’ – expletives derogatorily used for Palestinians by the Israeli government. Putting up grim faces, the utterances of these five men are business-like.
Joe Biden: Quick Netanyahu, spell out your plans.
Netanyahu: We continue to air-bomb the civilians; have moved in our tanks for a ground offensive in the Gaza Strip. We understand it would take a long time to finish them off.
Joe Biden: It’s a slow process but in a long drawn-out war public opinion will turn against us.
Olaf Scholz: With due apologies to Netanyahu and without touching raw nerves, may I remind you that when Hitler faced a similar problem – about exterminating a community he opted for the Jews to be sent to gas-chambers – saves the bother of long-term killing on a daily basis. The Holocaust has taught us that this option should not be explored as a final solution for the Palestinians.
Sunak: I am a Person of Indian Origin. I remember my grand-father telling me in childhood about the Jallianwala Bagh massacre at Amritsar, India executed by the then British (India) rulers on 13 April 1919. As a matter of fact, the topography of the Gaza Strip suits Israel fine. The area is enclosed from all sides with one exit point at the Egyptian border which could be bombed to ensure no Palestinian escapes from there. May I remind this August gathering that Jallianwala Bagh had a similar topography with all gates sealed and no escape routes for the thousands upon thousands of pilgrims (Sikhs & Hindus) who had gathered there on the festive day of Baisakhi. There were also people protesting against the Rowlatt Act. So Brigadier General Dyer ordered his army to do a clean and fast job, which they did through machine-guns. Of course martial law was in force in Punjab. The objective was achieved. True the number of people who had gathered and got killed/injured was in thousands only. That Israel is modifying this template to ensure 2-3 million Palestinians get eliminated!
Joe Biden: One hears about bombing Palestinians to stone-age. I recall the phrase ‘bombing Pakistan to stone-age’ used by our Assistant Secretary of State in a telephonic conversation with the Pakistani leaders after 9/11 when the latter were not taking a clear stance – whether they were with us Americans or not.
Netanyahu: I’m against bombing Palestine to stone-age. I’d rather eliminate all the Palestinians but leave the land at Gaza Strip, West Bank reusable by us after the mission is accomplished so that we could re-settle our own people there. Bombing Palestine to stone-age – even if it eliminates all Palestinians – would leave the barren stone-aged land of no use to us. So, what’s the big deal?
Macron: (addressing Joe Biden) The American government has the experience of dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. I am against a similar exercise undertaken at Gaza Strip though some would argue that it would be a quick, clean and smart job eliminating all the – as the Israelis term – ‘human-animals’ and ‘cockroaches’ in one go.
Sunak: I have it on authority of nuclear scientists and evolutionary biologists that not even a nuclear bomb can eliminate cockroaches – which have an inherent survival instinct against nuclear radiation.
[Netanyahu does a quick Google search on his smart phone using words – Cockroaches, Survive, Nuclear Radiation.]
Netanyahu: (interrupting others) Sunak is right on the dot!
Joe Biden: If that be so, whose brilliant idea was it to dub the Palestinians as ‘cockroaches’ and the like? If what Sunak says is true, Israelis better stop using expletives like cockroaches for Palestinians. That way we’ll come out of this messy war with our heads held high and with a measure of dignity.
[All others nod their heads in agreement.]
Macron: That still leaves a minor irritant. What if we face a Nuremberg type of trial after the Palestinians are eliminated by the Israeli army? Let me remind you that all of us are going to face elections in our respective states within a year. God forbid if our parties lose the elections. Don’t forget that people are supreme. The opposition parties would get to our jugulars.
Olaf Scholz: Not to bother much. Post Nuremberg even the top most leaders were given a jail term of a couple of years; and that, too, was shortened subsequently at the behest of the Allies themselves who needed the services of these very Nazi-criminals to keep the restless masses – reeling under inflation after WWII – subdued in their own countries. So don’t fear any Nuremberg type of trials or their consequences. What is more, in post-Nazi Germany itself very many of those involved were allowed to escape to other countries. Recently, the Canadian government under Trudeau was actually honoring an Ex-Nazi right in the holy precincts of their Parliament! Don’t get me wrong; better not to kill all of Hamas leaders. Each one of us may actually need their services to stay in power in our own countries. That’s realpolitik, howsoever disgusting it sounds.
Joe Biden: (irritatingly) By the way, Sunak could you at least ensure that your BBC fellows stop calling Hamas as fighters and use the designated term ‘terrorists’. BBC has become a pain in the a_ _e for me.
Sunak: Trust me I have already put in a word, discreetly though, but it does not work.
Joe Biden: Why don’t you cut off the BBC’s funds; impose a sort of economic sanction or freeze their bank accounts.
Sunak: That would actually mean no news emanates from the U.K. – which is worse than having to hear reference to Hamas – the fighters 24×7. At least we are better off than the Russian government-controlled media which refers to Hamas as the liberation force. Hamas in Arabic actually means ‘zeal’. Hamas is also an Arabic acronym for “Harakat al-Muqawamah al-Islamiyya,” which means “The Islamic Resistance Movement.”
While we are at it, may I just remind you that while British official records till date refer to Bhagat Singh as a “terrorist”, the people of India and its government calls him a patriot, martyr, revolutionary and freedom fighter. All of us here could take a cue from history – unless we decide to rewrite world history as George Orwell had prophesied it to eventually happen.
Joe Biden: Netanyahu, do keep in mind as you strategise your moves – that the USA has imposed war in about dozen and a half countries since WWII and every time I confess our army had to finally retreat back to the barracks with punches all over our faces. The short statured Vietnamese, would throw boulders from tree-tops above on American soldiers stationed on the ground below and kill them.
We were lucky there was no internet in the 1960s so we could hide the atrocities committed by us on the civilians from the rest of the world for a long time. But, now any Palestinian – I mean Hamas – could click a picture with his/her smart phone in Gaza Strip, get it viral and the whole world knows about it. You are plain unlucky to be waging a war in the internet-era.
Of course we had our problems way back in the sixties with lone-wolf journalists – I mean those with social conscience; it is thus that the ‘My Lai’ massacre, Napalm bombing, ‘Agent Orange’ resorted to by us got public. We became wiser in later years though and started the concept of ‘embedded journalists.’ But even that’s not fool-proof.
Macron: Brother Netanyahu please bear with me; your Cabinet colleagues calling Palestinians as ‘human-animals’ – betray their utter stupidity. All human beings are animals, if you will social animals; so use of expletive ‘human-animals’ in relation to Palestinians bounces back on you and all of us present here, nay the whole humanity. Please listen to Joe Biden’s sagacious advice – don’t react in anger! Remember if you spit at the sun, the spit falls back on you.
At that very moment there was what sounded to be a shrill and long air-raid siren getting repeated again and again. Joe Biden was the first to duck under the table for cover – rather quick for his age – followed by the other four. Years of regular drills and exposure to SOPs instilled in the Heads of States had got their reflexes to be in perfect survival mode. A couple of minutes later an anxious Israeli security official rushed into the bunker as he could not see the images of these leaders on the CCTV screen in the adjoining part of the bunker.
Biden looks at the security official from his vantage position under the table.
Joe Biden: Is the raid over?
Sheepishly the security official bent down, cleared his throat and whispered into Netanyahu’s ear that the sound was actually the long drawn out cry of a Palestinian child who had been grievously injured in an Israeli bomb strike. Al Jazeera was airing the clip capturing the child’s cry repeatedly through its Arabic news service – which the Israeli intelligence officials sitting in the chamber adjoining the war room were tracking minute-to-minute as part of routine exercise to gaze into the mind of the Arab world.
The leaders stood up with a sigh of relief and Joe Biden announced the meeting to be over. All synchronously saluted each other with a ‘V’ sign, though one of them had faltered and even embraced a Nazi style salute – and worse shouted HAIL HITLER before rectifying the mistake.
[P.S. Sahni is a member of PIL Watch Group.
