Clarity on Israel-Middle East Conflict Through Professor-Disciple Dialogue

I wrote the following comment in response to a New York Times article:

Sinwar Is Dead. Will the Fighting Stop? The killing of Hamas’s leader may allow Israel to claim victory and agree to a cease-fire, and new Hamas leadership could be more open to compromise. But neither side is likely to immediately change course.

I wrote:

Yahya Sinwar was once a jailed offender released with 1000 others in exchange for only one Israeli soldier held in captivity. Out of jail, he rose quickly in the Hamas hierarchy and became its Chief. The revengeful drive in him, even after years of incarceration, was so strong against the Jews and Israel that he planned, master-minded and executed such a well-coordinated attack on Oct 7th, killing and maiming more than a thousand Israelis. It’s reported at one time in prison Israeli doctors had saved his life by performing a brain surgery on him. Normally, it’s believed that a person, behind the bars for a long sentence, develops some kind of remorse. More so, when he experiences his enemies being helpful in giving him a second life, he lets go of his anger gradually – not in the case of Palestinian extremists. This tells us something about cultural differences. In many parts of the world, history has been unfair to people – they have been uprooted, exiled or their family members killed. But their sense of anger and revenge hadn’t taken them this far. For instance, both Tibetan Buddhists and Palestinian Muslims fell victim to historic turmoil and violence. Both these people were uprooted and settled in different parts of the world. But, whereas the Dalai Lama emerged from the displaced Tibetans and became one of the world religious leaders for peace, Palestinians spread terrorism world-wide and gave a leader like Yasser Arafat. Like it or not, civilization or culture matters. [NYT, 17 Oct 2024]

From Seattle, WA (USA), Ram Ramkumar remarked on my comment: “..Culture is everything. The ‘culture’ these monsters internalize is drilled into them throughout their lives, from the childhood madrasah to the infamous Friday sermons.” Hemant Sharma from Ontario, Canada, shared the information that in Sinwar’s possession was found the passport of one of his aides who happened to be a UN agency (UNRWA) employee. The UN Secretary General’s office naturally came under criticism.

My Professor’s Observation

One of my former mentor-professors and colleagues at Mithila Univ Darbhanga (Bihar) was also kind enough to send me his elaborate remark. An enlightening dialogue followed.

He wrote:

..Cultural differences apart, there are big differences in their conditions and circumstances. Palestinians were en masse thrown out of their homeland whereas Tibetans still live in their land except a few of them who sought refuge elsewhere and were given asylum.India ,which is just next door to Tibet, is not ready to help it militarily. Vietnamese Buddhists fought a relentless war and ultimately succeeded.The level of political consciousness among the Tibetans is far less than what we found in Vietnam.The geo-political situation of Tibet affords little space for the rise of militancy. Only with moral support Tibet can never be on its feet to free itself from Chinese occupation.

My reply:

Sir, It seems like there’s a fundamental difference between how you and I look at history unfolding. It’s a welcome thing, however, because only then, as you taught us years ago, “out of an interaction between thesis and antithesis, emerges synthesis.” Your observation that Palestinians were “en masse thrown out” is simply not true. After the War, when the Jews were given a tiny territory by the Balfour Declaration or the United Nations which they could call their homeland, Jews, persecuted, plundered and humiliated from all over the world, came to inhabit Israel with all the capital and human resources they had.

When they moved in they encountered a natural resistance from local Palestinian Muslims whereas indigenous Jews welcomed them. It was somewhat similar to what happened following division of the Indian subcontinent in 1947: there was a large-scale migration of population. Migrating Muslims in Pakistan drove away Hindus from their houses and the Hindus took shelter in India. In India, the Muslims weren’t forcibly evicted from their dwellings; they were, in fact, persuaded by Gandhi and Nehru to stay on whereas, in the opinion of B.R.Ambedkar, the leaders should have demanded an orderly “transfer of population” of the Hindus and Muslims.

Coming back to Israel, as the Jews were settling in and dealing with internal resistance, they were militarily invaded by all surrounding Arab nations. The Arab Muslim nations’ declared goal was not to allow a Jewish state in their neighborhood. The determined Jews fought hard to secure their space. The Palestinians, in the process, got displaced in huge numbers. Many of them migrated to neighboring Muslim countries and spread out all over the world, but a large part of them stayed in refugee camps. Gaza strip is made up of mostly those internally displaced Palestinian Muslims.

There were hundreds of different ways adopted since then to resettle, compensate the Palestinians, but they wouldn’t reconcile to anything less than the elimination of the state of Israel.

My point was that culturally the Islamists among Palestinians have been more fanatically aggressive and prone to fraternal revengeful killings. The Islamists kill non-Islamists and when they don’t have non-Islamists in sight to target, they go on killings among themselves (Examples: Shia vs Sunni; Alawi vs Sunni, Ahmedia vs Sunnis, Ai-Fatah vs Hamas and so on).

Please don’t take my word for it. Islamists – not all Muslims – are a great threat even to Islamic countries. Kindly take a look at how the rulers of the Muslim majority or Islamic countries have kept the Islamists under control from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan or Tunisia to the UAE or Bahrain.

To conclude, culturally, the Tibetan Buddhists aren’t that aggressive and war prone. If they had wanted they could have conducted a lot of terrorist activities around the world. The American intelligence arm – the CIA – was willing to finance their mission. But they believed in peaceful protest and resistance. The Dalai Lama and not Yasser Arafat was their leader!

Professor:

It is natural that the local Muslims of Israel resisted the occupation by Jews .The very survival of Israel depends only on their military superiority.The ouster of the local population forever is a thorny issue. Israel knows that its survival depends on their elimination. The struggle between the two is a struggle for existence. Only the wearer knows where the shoe pinches. We can’t feel the pinch as acutely as the Palestinians do feel. In order to capture Israel and make it their homeland the Jews left no stone unturned resulting in the mass exodus of the Palestinians.

To have enduring peace in the area, there should be an effective non-aggression pact between the two after a legitimate adjudication of the dispute. The war must be checked otherwise its flames may engulf many more countries than those directly involved therein. The partition of India is a different thing. It was a fierce situation faced by both the Hindus and Muslims. Partition based on religion has its own dangerous fall-outs. Any solution needs a balanced approach to the problem. That is possible only after a dispassionate and objective assessment. Revenge always ends in revenge. It can never be a solution.

..The Buddhists of Tibet are not trained in modern warfare. The Buddhists of Vietnam fought heroically. It is not the cultural difference but the lack of political awareness and activism which mattered more in the case of Tibet.

My reply:

Sir, you rightly say that, “The struggle between the two is a struggle for existence.” When the Israelis withdrew from Gaza in Aug, 2005, they hoped they could live with the Palestinians as good neighbors, but that didn’t happen. Now they take Palestinians and their Islamism as existential threat. You must be aware that among the 56 Muslim majority or Islamic nations, the Arab countries included, there are only a few now who continue to back the Palestinian extremists and their cause. The Palestinians wouldn’t agree to any mediation or proposal of peace and coexistence.

The two-state solution was offered several times. But, that was not acceptable to the Palestinians who wanted nothing less than the dismantling of the Jewish state. The Islamist scriptures are full of contempt for the Jews. They openly and publicly equate the Jews with pigs and call all types of names. The Hamas Charter, taking cue from the Islamic faith scriptures, clearly says how the Palestinian Muslims wouldn’t rest until the last Jew had been stamped out of Israel.

These are not just fairy tales. The Islamist-extremist Palestinians are serious about this and in order to achieve this mission, they are prepared to use their population as weapons or human shields and let them die, while their leadership lived luxuriously abroad, e.g., in Qatar.

Now, with all the prospects of peace relegated to the background, Israel would make no compromise and go all out for elimination of the Palestinian enemies. Israel is now convinced that no deal would satisfy them and as long as they lived next door, they would launch attacks similar to what they did on Oct 7th. If the Palestinian leaders had a little bit of wisdom, they would have made peace with Israel a long time ago considering their superiority in every field including the military might. The Oslo agreement (1993) mediated by the US President Bill Clinton would have been a good start.

Professor:

Israel’s whole attempt is to force them to kneel down and accept its peace formula making them weak forever.

My reply:

Israel’s goal is to get the Palestinians — more so their Islamist sponsors like Hezbollah and organizations like Al-Fatah, Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad — to renounce the path of terrorism or violence and adopt the path of mutual respect and co-existence. The Israelis have the capacity and will — so far — to smash the head of their enemies who profess publicly and defiantly that they would eliminate the Jews’ race and their State “from the River to the Sea.” Most of the Arab nations and sponsors of the Palestinian Islamist terrorist leaders have fallen in line. Others will follow!

Professor:

Sorry, it is difficult for me to agree with you. Israel is not less to blame than the Palestinians. First they have been made homeless. Now Israel wants to remain in occupation of all the strategic regions lest they should raise their heads to get back what they have lost so far.

My reply:

Sir, it’s not so much a question of getting you to agree with my viewpoints. I have researched the Middle East since 1978-79 when I became an MPhil student at the School of Int’l Studies (JNU) after – as you know – finishing my Masters in Political Science from Delhi Univ. My interest in this area brought me to look closely and logically at the question why there’s so much tension between Muslims (particularly, Islamists) on the one hand and the rest on the other — all over the world. I gradually came to the conclusion that the conflict in Israel had deep roots in theological preachings of Islam. Their religious scriptures teach absolute hatred of the Jews along with other Qafirs (non-believers in the supremacy of the Islamic faith that include Christrians, Hindus, Buddhists and the rest). They wouldn’t countenance in their midst any enclave of non-Muslims they called, Dar-ul-harb (the house of war).

The Islamist leaders the world over prey on the plight of illiterate, poverty-stricken Muslims. They resist modern scientific education and medicine. To repeat, in the Islamic world, the majority of poor, hard-working Muslims are the victims at the hands of the fanatic, obscurantist Islamic Jihadi leaders. In Gaza and West Bank such Islamist terrorist organizations like Al-Fatah, Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad parties have held the public as captives for a long time.

On the question of the disconnect between the (Gazan) Muslims and Hamas, according to a survey by an Arab research network, the vast majority of Gazans were “frustrated with the armed group’s ineffective governance” as they endured extreme economic hardship. Most Gazans did not align themselves with Hamas’s ideology, either. “Unlike Hamas, whose goal is to destroy the Israeli state, the majority of survey respondents favored a two-state solution with an independent Palestine and Israel existing side by side.” [Foreign Affairs, 25 Oct 2023].

Here, in North America I have interviewed many Palestinians and interacted with several Jewish and non-Jewish Israelis. I believe my conclusions are based on verifiable facts and deep reflection. But, as you and I very well know from our research and teaching experience, these issues could always be subject to individual biases and preferences. More on this later.

With regards, Binoy

With the assassination of Hassan Nasarallah, the leader of Lebanon-based Hezbollah on 27 Sep 2024, the Israelis had since extended the conflict into the South and South-East part of Lebanon. The rocket and missile attacks from Hezbollah have forced around sixty thousand Israelis to evacuate northern Gaza, adjacent to South Lebanon. Israel’s objective is to re-populate with their citizens.

[Originally from Darbhanga, Bihar (India), Dr Binoy Shanker Prasad lives in Dundas, Ontario (Canada). He is a former UGC teacher fellow at JNU in India and a Fulbright Scholar in the USA. Author of scholarly works including a book, “Violence Against Minorities”, “Gandhi in the Age of Globalization” (a monograph) and a collection of poems”, Dr Prasad has taught at Ryerson University, Centennial College and McMaster University. He has also been the president of Hamilton based India-Canada Society (2006-08 and 2018-20)]