It speaks volumes for the total political bankruptcy of this prosperous, enterprising, educated and powerful community spread across the globe in not being able to provide the necessary impetus for replacing this one man. This man – insanity personified – is presiding over the state of affairs supervising killings of thousands of Palestinian children; murdering women; bombing patients; pointedly assassinating journalists; eliminating medical personnel and supporting staff; blasting hospitals; demolishing schools. And now arresting doctors and the Head of Al-Shifa hospital on trumped up fictitious charges. These very doctors – who were providing medical relief and care to the needy under the most difficult conditions with risks to their own lives – deserve the highest civilian awards. The noble profession worldwide is proud of such doctors who have been true to the Hippocratic Oath.
I write this in distress. Till the other day the Jewish community was seen world over to have been at the receiving end of Holocaust during Nazi regime. The world had empathy for these victimised people. Netanyahu’s brutalities and atrocities have the potential to make a significant dent in this goodwill and a shift in the perception about this persecuted community. Silence and inaction constitute the very ingredients of criminality. Members of this community would get to be seen with suspicion worldwide henceforth. Israel became a Nation-State of the Jewish people in 2018. This law was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2021. The law further downgrades the status of Israel’s Palestinian minority (21% population). Any Jew anywhere in the world automatically becomes its citizen. Why can’t prosperous Jews from all over the world descend on Tel Aviv for some time, peacefully protest and pressurize the political establishment for changing the incumbent PM? Sensitive Jews could bombard the PM with emails suggesting that he step down immediately.
Netanyahu – to escape enquiry and a jail sentence for the total failure on the part of the political establishment and defence and security set-up for the 7th October fiasco – is embarking on a long-drawn one-sided war on the Palestinians. He hopes to escape incarceration by continuing with the Holocaust-II on the Palestinians.
I reside in New Delhi, India; am 73 of age; from Sikh faith deemed to be part of Hindus as per Indian constitution. I have seen around 50 years back Palestinian students studying in universities in our country and participating in protest marches organized by the left forces at Parliament Street. The Indian government all along has been a supporter of Palestinian people. India was one of the first countries outside the Arab world to recognize Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and permit them to open an office in 1974-75. When Yasser Arafat visited India in 1980 he was given a warm welcome. He addressed the then Indian PM, Indira Gandhi as his sister. His Keffiyeh depicting the outlines of the territory claimed by Palestine endeared Indians to the cause of Palestinian homeland.
True the present Indian government has shifted its stance. But even now if a referendum were to be held, the vast majority of 1400 million Indians would be in solidarity with Palestinians. The Indian Home Ministry has not proscribed Hamas as a terror group. How can it? The politics of India’s freedom fighters against the British colonial rulers – represented by Bhagat Singh, Chandra Shekhar Azad, Udham Singh and Subhas Chandra Bose is etched in the minds of every Indian.
At the U.N. level too barring a handful of countries (USA, UK, France, Germany) the vast majority stand by Palestinians.
And finally an appeal to Noam Chomsky. We know about your health-status and advanced age, but a word from you at this point of time could act as a healing touch to the Palestinians particularly so as Netanyahu has bombed hospitals, murdered medical staff, arrested doctors and stopped medical supplies. It is inconceivable that you have not commented, but could anyone close to you provide the links.
[P.S. Sahni is a qualified orthopaedic surgeon. He has worked extensively with the victims of Sikh Genocide in 1984; amongst victims of 1992 anti-Muslim violence; and at the India-Bangladesh border during the Bangladesh Liberation War resulting in 1971 Bangladesh Genocide of Bengali Hindus.
