India and Israel: a friendship deepened by prejudice

[pmukherjee]

AB
My friend, let me give you my perspective on the issue. Improvement of Indo Israeli relations does not hinge upon 'increasing Hindu nationalism' as this ignoramus puts it.
1. The collapse of the Soviet Union followed by the imposition of sanctions post 1998, affected India's defence preparedness a lot. In these difficult times, Israel helped us with top of the line technologies and weapon platforms which no one else gave us. Israeli technologies are superior to Russian ones in several niche areas and while there were delays and price escalations where Russia was concerned, the Israelis delivered promptly and on time.
2. The second reason is that Israel has never had an anti India policy, never criticised us on Kashmir and were ready to help us whenever we needed help. Yes India has always been sympathetic to the Palestinian cause. But does that mean that we have to shun Israel? Isarel knows that we have a pro Palestinian policy and a long term commitment for supporting an independent Palestinian state but Israel does not hold this against us. That is how international politics works. It is not a sum zero game. India is also close to Russia, does that stop the US from selling stuff to us? India has been maintaining close relations with both Iran and Saudi Arabia. Our commitment to Palestine does not imply that we can not be friends with Israel, especially since Israel has no objections to this arrangement.

90% of what the author has written is pure bunkum. How many Indians have even heard of Sarvarkar? Most of those who have heard of him are not sufficiently impressed by him to be swayed by his uttering or writings. Hindu nationalism has always existed in India, there has been no precipitous rise there. Only the media has been reporting more consistently about it. Part of the increased awareness can be laid on the doors of rival political parties who try to encash on the communal and exclusive image of the Hindu nationalist parties to garner Muslim votes. Had Hindu nationalism been such a strong force in India so as to influence our foreign policy vis-a-vis Israel, don't you think that the BJP would have been in power now instead of sitting in the opposition for nearly a decade. If the next general elections bring about a BJP government, it will be more because of the mistakes of the present govt than any positive action by the BJP. BTW, even when it was in power, BJP did not rescind on our commitments to Palestine. This is a moral and ethical stand, not a stand designed to placate our Muslim population. Yes, we do have a few people who are more pro Israeli than the Israelis themselves, just as we have people who are more pro Arabic than the Arabs and those who are more pro American than the Americans. Let me tell you, these guys don't matter a damn. These people are are vastly outnumbered by those who think that friendship with Israel does not automatically imply voting against Palestine or breaking our links with Iran or Saudi Arabia. India does not want to be cornered into a narrow US - Israel - UK corner, we wish to have broader relations with every one on a one to one basis. India did not support Palestine as a quid pro quo for Arab support on the Kashmir issue. We supported Palestine because we felt that both Israel and a Palestinian state have a right to co-exist side by side.

Our relations with Israel are growing because they are mutually beneficial to both. Israel has proven to be a good and trustworthy friend who has no problems of giving us cutting edge high tech which even the US does not. They also do not mind our friendship with the Arab world and Iran. India as a Hindu majority nation has no historical baggage of antisemitism. All the rest in the article is meaningless trash.

 

[drunken-monke]

As usual the so called Indians never miss a chance to eff it up. They have been choosing the wrong side for a thousand + years. Its like a cuel joke of destiny.

We are not so called Indians, WE ARE THE INDIANS. Well my countrymen have every right to thwart any unjustified allegeations put over them. The problem with thread starter is that he considers himself Muslim first and so does for rest all people from Palestine, Iran, Iraq, Indonesia, Afganistan, Turkey, Libya and so on... Thread starter have accused India, Israel and America of Muslim haters... Hating Pakistan is not hating Muslims. For us Pakistan is only a nation (us include our muslim brothers from India as well). I have been following this thread since 1 year. What I have seen throughout this year is the anti India (or rather I say anti Hindu for pakistani perspective) sentiments. Though we consider it as anti India rather than anti Hindu.

Islamist terrorist is the term coined few years back when OBL started Al-Quaida. Why becoz all the members were muslims and they launched their attack on nations who had majority of population belonging to religions other than Muslims. Many nations supported this act of terrorism and these organizations(I am not mentioning who did). When USA, Israel, India retaliated on these terror groups, people like our respectable thread starter saught this opportunity to call it attack on Islam. They proclaimed that these nations are anti-Muslims and muslim haters. I have seen many posts on this very forum which praised the Mumbai attacks of 2008. Or sometimes they get even enough mad to call these attacks as consipiracies.

Then these so called jehadis tried to bite or even I say bited their own masters..

I have a question to all, whether protecting the people of a nation from these lunatics and arranging meeting of these scumbags with that of death angel is crime?? Why India Israel and US should not have right to end the life of these organizations who in the name of holy war kill their citizens?? And doing all this is a Muslim hatred?? If yes then whats the Islamist terrorist and their supporters have?? Love for ppls of other religions??

In our nation, atleast majority (may be 99.99%) muslims are not like this and they live peacefully and continue to contribute to country's progress.. By the way isn't India has second highest muslim population compared to any other country on this very planet earth.. How naive to blame India being a muslim hating country...

 

[pmukherjee]

We are not so called Indians, WE ARE THE INDIANS. Well my countryment have every right to thwart any unjustified allegeations put over them. The problem with thread starter is that he considers himself Muslim first and so does for rest all people from Palestine, Iran, Iraq, Indonesia, Afganistan, Turkey, Libya and so on... Thread starter have accused India, Israel and America of Muslim haters... Hating Pakistan is not hating Muslims. For us Pakistan is only a nation (and us include our muslim brothers from India as well). I have been following this thread since 1 year. What I have seen throughtout this year is the anti India or rather I say anti Hindu for pakistani perspective. Though we consider it as anti India rather than anti Hindu.

Islamist terrorist is the term coined few years back when OBL started Al-Quaida. Why becoz all the members were muslims and they launched their attack on nations who had majority of population belonging to religions other than Muslims. Many nations supported this act of terrorism and these organizations(I am not mentioning who did). When USA, Israel, India retaliated on these terror groups, people like our respectable thread starter saught this opportunity to call it attack on Islam. They proclaimed that these nations are anti-Muslims and muslim haters. I have seen many posts on this very forum which praised the Mumbai attacks of 2008. Or sometimes they get even enogh mad to call these attacks as consipiracies.

Then these so called jehadis tried to bite or even I say bited their own masters..

I have a question to all, whether protecting the people of a nation from these lunatics and arranging meeting of these scumbags with that of death angel is crime?? Why India Israel and US should not have right to end the life of these organizations who in the name of holy war kill their citizens?? And doing all this is a Muslim hatred?? If yes then whats the Islamist terrorist and theor supporters have?? Love for ppls of other religions??

In our nation, atleast majority may be 99.99% muslims are not like this and they live peacefully and countnu to contribute to countries progress.. By the way isn't India has second highest muslim populated country on this very planet earth.. How naive to blame India being a muslim hatred...

Why feed a troll bro?

 

[drunken-monke]

Why feed a troll bro?

Just trying to convert a troll into sensible poster..

 

[Zabaniyah]

Just trying to convert a troll into sensible poster..

I don't know about fallstuff.

But trying to convert a troll into a sensible poster is like hitting a tank with a sandwich. It's just futile.

Better to enjoy the sandwich.

 

[shuntmaster]

When all the Muslim countries deny the existence of Israel and many Arab countries openly advocate the destruction of Israel, its OK with the muslim people. When Israel defends its right to survive & exist, it is not acceptable to the muslim world. Anyone who defends the Israels right to exist is labelled as Anti-Islam, but they cannot be labelled as anti-semetic Nazis.
For Muslims its perfectly normal for advocating Ghazwa-e-hind and dreaming of flying the Islamic flag over red-fort in Delhi. But if Indians talk about Islamic terrorism and defend our right to survive, its considered anti-Islam.
Why do Muslims always follow double standards. Its perfectly OK for Muslims to massacre other Muslims, but if some non-Muslims defend their right to survive and kill any Muslims, its considered anti-Islam genocide. Since 9/11 and start of WOT, 10 times more muslims have been killed in the hands of other Muslims than by non-Muslims, but its always the Muslims killed by non-Muslims which grabs the headlines in Muslim media.

 

[Mech]

A popular joke amongst Israelis traveling in India goes like this:
An Indian asks an Israeli backpacker, "So how many Israelis are there?" The backpacker answers "Around 7 million." The Indian then asks, "And how many in Israel?"

Around 50,000 Israelis visit India each year - mostly backpackers, a large proportion of whom are on a gap year between the end of their army service and the beginning of the rest of their lives. They comprise only a minuscule proportion of the total number of foreign visitors to India each year, but Israelis are the only ones who have a tendency to travel in packs, and to cluster in certain places. In Delhi they stay at the Hare Rama, one of the grottiest guesthouses in Pahar Ganj, a seedy area near the train station. In Goa there is Tel Aviv Beach, and during the summer Israelis stay in spots around Himachal Pradesh (HP), most notably in a little village called Bhagsu Nag, near Dharamsala.

The presence of Hebrew-speaking backpackers is so overwhelming in these places that they have come to resemble little Israeli colonies in India. Some speak of an Israeli invasion, and one Israeli woman wrote her doctoral dissertation on the phenomenon. The locals who run the restaurants and guesthouses often speak a bizarre version of idiomatic Hebrew that is notable for its hilarious syntax. Hebrew signs for various services - from internet cafes to rickshaws - are posted everywhere, and the restaurants serve falafel in pita, hummus, shakshouka and jachnun. Mostly, everyone gets along well - but there are always some louts who have to spoil it for everyone else, and there have been several reports in the Israeli press of young people behaving badly in India. Sometimes they cause offense without meaning to, because they are ignorant of local customs - like a couple that was fined for kissing in public - but I often saw people who were just inexcusably rude. (Yes, yes - there were plenty of rude tourists from other countries too). The popular weekly satire show Eretz Nehederet (A Wonderful Country) did a hilarious skit about the Ugly Israeli in India that you can view here.

So "shanti" has been integrated into the Hebrew vernacular, we have popular Indian eateries in Tel Aviv, plus thousands of India veterans wandering around the country, satire skits, doctoral dissertations and now...the documentary film.

Ladies and gentlemen, I bring you Hummus Curry.

The film was shot last year in Bhagsu Nag, where I spent a couple of months in 2000. Back then there were a lot of Israelis, but their presence was nothing compared to what it has become, as seen in the film.

The clip below shows Shoresh, a local businessman who runs a guesthouse and falafel stand (Falafel Mazal), posting signs for his super blowout dinner to celebrate the Jewish New Year. Will he win the popularity contest with the local Chabad missionaries emissaries? (oh yes, they are here too). There are more clips here; the woman named Shirley in this clip teaches yoga at Chandra Yoga, in Tel Aviv.

On the Face :: Hummus Curry: the movie

 

[Mech]

If you got to Goa in India, you might get to experience more than you anticipated. Goa is fast becoming known as the venue of choice for Israelis finishing their mandatory stint in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). IDF national service is a responsibility that young Israelis take seriously. It is also a stressful role. On completion of service, young Israeli men and women need somewhere for some serious R&R and Goa seems to fit the bill.

Goa is exotic, laid back and the scene of one or two quality party venues. Just what a young person wants to bring them back to earth. However, having an influx of recently ex-IDF service personnel also makes Goa a target, and security has to be taken seriously. This requirement has seen the Israeli Consulate in a post-Mumbai attack world, taking a tour of Goa to ensure that those partying young Israelis are kept safe and sound. It is a small, and very interconnected, world out there.

The Goa Police said Saturday that it was “natural” for officers from Israel’s Mumbai consulate to inspect the North Goa coast as it was frequented by Israeli tourists.

“They will obviously want to see the security arrangement here after what happened in Mumbai,” Superintendent of Police Atmaram Deshpande told reporters, referring to last year’s terror attack on Mumbai that left 170 people dead.

“Mumbai is only 500 km away. And a lot of tourists from Israel visit Goa,” he added.

Goa receives several thousands of tourists from Israel, mostly ex-soldiers who travel the Himachal Pradesh-Goa tourist circuit after a mandatory stint in the Israeli armed forces.

“They come to Goa during our season, at a time when it is off season in places like Manali in Himachal Pradesh,” Deshpande said.

He said the police did not know the exact number of Israeli tourists visiting the state each year.

There are two Jewish prayer houses in Anjuna and Morjim, both beach villages in north Goa, which have now been kept under discreet observation by the state police.

“We are taking every precaution and have made substantial arrangements for the safety of every tourist coming to the state,” the official said.

http://mydailyclarity.com/2009/11/going-to-goa-you-may-be-surpised-at-whom-you-see-there/

 

[KS]

I like the Israelis for one thing above everything else - their inability to take shyt from others and repaying everything with interest when it comes to the lives of their countrymen.

No wonder they have survived in an desert of hostility as an oasis of prosperity.

 

[AMRITSAR]

---------- Post added at 02:02 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:59 PM ----------

Why to hate India Israel Frienship go ahead with the trade relation.

 

[Mech]

---------- Post added at 02:02 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:59 PM ----------

Why to hate India Israel Frienship go ahead with the trade relation.

wow...an SBI branch in Israel?! haha awesome!

 

[AMRITSAR]

wow...an SBI branch in Israel?! haha awesome!

it is also awesome for me because in April 2012 i am going to work on this Branch ha ha ha.I chosen this country although i have option to work in Osaka Japan

 

[GURU DUTT]

For some time I have felt that there are some in each of the above countries that hate pakistan and or muslims. Whilst on another thread about Israel and India I came accross an article that I would like to share with members on the forum exposes this unholy alliance and the reasons for it. Predominatly its about the Indian Israeli nexus but as we all are aware by Obamas outburst about netanyahhoo the other day he is in daily contact with Israeli leaders no doubt as Israel seems to dictate American foreign policy. So there is more I would say to america and india than just contain china but a racist hitler like philosophy that binds some in each of these three countries:

India and Israel: a friendship deepened by prejudice

An alliance against Islamic extremism must not become an excuse for far-right parties to fan anti-Muslim sentiment

Kapil Komireddi
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 25 October 2011 11.25 BST
Article history

Hindu extremists' struggle to seize the Babri mosque in northern India looks to Israel's appropriation of Palestinian land as a template.

In 1974, the New York Times journalist Bernard Weinraub described India as "the loneliest post in the world" for Israeli diplomats. Having voted against the creation of Israel at the UN in 1947, India held back from establishing full diplomatic relations with Tel Aviv until 1992. For decades, Israel's presence in India was limited to an immigration office in Mumbai. In between, India voted with the majority to pass UN resolution 3379, condemning Zionism as a form of racism, became one of the first non-Arab states to recognise Palestine's declaration of independence in 1988, and was generally among the more vocal non-Arab voices against Israel.
Today, India is Israel's closest eastern ally and its largest arms market. Annual non-military bilateral trade alone exceeds $4.5bn. Since 2001, the diasporas of the two countries have emerged as energetic allies against a shared enemy: Islamic extremism. A survey by the Israeli foreign ministry in 2009 found India to be the most pro-Israel country in the world, well above the US. Once a bastion of pro-Palestinian sentiment, India recently appeared at the bottom in a worldwide poll of countries sympathetic to Palestinian statehood. Throw a stone in Panaji and it is likely to land on an Israeli backpacking through India after his post-mandatory service.

What precipitated this dramatic shift? Israel had all along been a quiet ally of New Delhi, volunteering clandestine support as India sought to repel attacks by China (in 1962) and Pakistan (in 1965). Israeli officials knew also that India, which had no history of anti-semitism, had arrived at its Israel policy through a combination of post-colonial hauteur, realpolitik – particularly its desire to placate Arab opinion in its contest against Islamic Pakistan – and an ethical commitment to the Palestinian cause. Partly for these reasons, India's anti-Israel actions rarely provoked any anxiety in Tel Aviv.

There are three principal reasons behind the shift in India's attitude. The first is the belated realisation that no amount of deference to Arab sentiment could alter Muslim opinion in the Middle East in India's favour: when it came to Kashmir, Shia and Sunni united in supporting Pakistan's position. The second owes itself to the collapse of the old world order: the death of the Soviet Union meant that India had to seek out new allies. The third factor that contributed to the deepening of Indo-Israeli ties is less well-known: the rise of Hindu nationalism in India.

To votaries of Hindu nationalism, Israel is something of a lodestar: a nation to be revered for its ability to defeat, and survive among, hostile Muslims. As the liberal Israeli newspaper Haaretz put it, "Relations between Israel and India tend to grow stronger when … India experiences a rightward shift in anti-Muslim public opinion or in leadership".

This explains why Hindu opinion is inflamed even by the most anodyne Indian expression of solidarity with Palestine. At the UN general assembly last month India's prime minister, Manmohan Singh, offered some somniferous words of support for Palestine's membership effort: "India is steadfast in its support for the Palestinian people's struggle for a sovereign, independent, viable and united state of Palestine with East Jerusalem as its capital, living within secure and recognisable borders side by side and at peace with Israel".

No one in Israel seemed to have noticed. None of the major newspapers editorialised it. There wasn't even a specific news item in the Israeli press singling out India. Trade did not suffer. The markets registered no shifts. But this did not deter some Indians from rising to take offence on Israel's behalf. To Sadanand Dhume, a US based commentator who published a hysterical philippic in the Wall Street Journal castigating India for not "throwing its weight behind Israel", Singh's speech was nothing short of a "foreign policy mishap". According to Dhume, who has since been ordained "the go-to guy for all matters India" by an excited colleague of his: "Both India and Israel represent ancient civilisations whose land carries a special spiritual significance for most of its people."

This desire to define citizenship and belonging in the procrustean terms of ancient culture over all other considerations is where Hindutva and Zionism converge. As Koenrad Elst, one of the most influential producers of pro-Hindutva pabulum, has said of the movement's founder, "Veer Savarkar was the Hindu counterpart of a Zionist: he defined the Hindus as a nation attached to a motherland, rather than as a religious community". "True, there is an obvious difference between the situation of the Jews, who had to migrate to their motherland … and the Hindus who merely had to remove the non-Hindu … regime from their territory." This prescription for ethnic cleansing came to life in 1992, when Hindu nationalists brought down the Babri mosque in the northern Indian city of Ayodhya. Their ongoing struggle to seize the Babri land, which belonged to Muslims for over five centuries, looks to Israel's appropriation of Palestinian territory as a useful template.

In 2009, Mumbai's anti-terror squad arrested, among others, an officer in the Indian army, Prasad Purohit, for masterminding a terrorist attack on Pakistani citizens and plotting to overthrow the secular Indian state. In his confession, Purohit admitted to making plans to approach Israel for help. It says something about the state of Israel when the most virulently anti-Muslim terrorists in India reflexively look to it as a potential source of support.

This is tragic – because, in the minds of the formidable men who willed them into existence, India and Israel were alike. Theodor Herzl's conception of Israel was remarkably similar to Mahatma Gandhi's idea of India. Both men refined their ideas gradually. In Der Judenstaat, Herzl presented Israel as a "rampart of Europe against Asia, an outpost of civilisation as opposed to barbarism". Several years later, he offered a more coherent version, a blueprint for a modern pluralistic state, operating under the aegis of Jews, but self-consciously inclusive: visionary Jews and welcoming Arabs people his extraordinary novel Altneuland, one of the founding texts of Zionism. Herzl resolved the conflicts of conscience by transmitting some of the most powerful arguments for Israel's establishment through an Arab character, Reshid Bey. "It was a great blessing," Reshid explains to a sceptical visitor. "Nothing could have been more wretched than an Arab village at the end of the 19th century … [The Arabs] are better off than at any time in the past." But Herzl was alert to the victim's capacity to victimise. In Dr Geyer, we are shown a chilling vision of majoritarian zealotry: a fanatical rabbi, he wants all Arabs expelled from the New Society. Redemption comes in the form of David Littwak, the son of a peasant who believes in a land for all, Arab and Jew, and whose opposition to and victory over Geyer is cast as the highest affirmation of Zionism. Unlike Herzl, Gandhi scorned modern technology for most of his life. In his early life, Gandhi's politics were conspicuously exclusionary. But the India he imagined even after alighting on his Satyagraha campaign relied on a network of Indian David Littwaks to survive. It was a dream that crashed during his own lifetime, with the partition of India.

Today, some of the most powerful politicians in Israel are those who violate Herzl's ideas. Avigdor Lieberman, a Russian immigrant foreign minister of Israel, has openly echoed Geyer's thoughts, calling for the expulsion of Israeli Arabs. In Gandhi's home state, Narendra Modi, a rabidly anti-Muslim politician implicated in the anti-Muslim pogrom of 2002, continues to secure handsome mandates from the largely Hindu electorate.
India's support for Palestine is one of the last remaining precepts from time of Pandit Nehru, India's first prime minister who is loathed by Hindu chauvinists for refusing to turn India into a "Hindu Pakistan". As per the Hindu nationalist narrative, the Congress party's support for Palestine – if such a thing actually exists in any meaningful sense – is a bribe to Indian Muslims. In reality, Indian Muslims have made noticeable efforts to build bridges with Israel. But if anyone can be accused of holding foreign policy hostage to religious bigotry, it is the Hindu nationalist BJP. During its disastrous term in power, from 1997 to 2004, ministers in the government dismissed pro-Palestinians as "more Palestinian than Palestinians themselves". Its foreign minister, Jaswant Singh, suggested that a common civilisational outlook bound India and Israel – implying that Indian Muslims who shared the faith of the Arab majority were somehow alien to India's "civilisation".

India and Israel have much to offer each other and Israel's security must figure as a non-negotiable precondition in New Delhi's support for Palestine. But Hindu nationalists are not concerned with the security of Israel: it is the abandonment of Palestinians they seek.

The seeds of Israel's redemption are embedded in Zionism, which is concerned with housing people, not displacing them. Israel must merely embrace it. It will still be a paternalistic form of "pluralism", but it will be inclusive. On the other hand, Hindutva's very purpose is the disenfranchisement and abolition of religious minorities. So Israelis must wonder what has become of them, their nation, that their most fervid admirers in the most pro-Israeli country in the world happen to be fascists. Until Israel and India undertake an honest reappraisal of their friendship, those who care about the ideas of Herzl and Gandhi must acknowledge this much: theirs is an alliance deepened by prejudice.


I would go further and state The Likud Party in Israel and the BNP in India are fascist, racist parties which promotes the fascist and racist notion of the nation state. There's no denying the fact, conceptually, Hinduvata, Revisionist Zionism and Hitler's National Socialism are on the very, very same conceptual level.

Respected Sir ,

With all Deu Respects to You & Islam i dont want to hurt sentiments here i just have a simple question about the bolded part ,
sir you say that the land in Ayodhya belonged to Muslims for 500 years now kindly answer my question ...Suppose theres a man who has a house & is not able to defend it from decoits & decoits make that house theres and the poor man has to flee but after some time when the son's of the poor man(after living a life of hardships & disgust) become strong & snatch back there house from the decoits are they not entitelled to get back there land...kindly answer without prejudice , Thanks Again .

 

[newdelhinsa]

India should provide deep naval port for Israel submarines to refuel so that they can maintain second strike capability in case of massive land attack on them.

 

[shuntmaster]

The problem that the muslim world has with Israel has very little to do with the Palestinian issue. The Palestinian issue is only an excuse. The problem the Arabs have with Israel it the alien and modern ideas like democracy, equality, liberty, women's empowerment, technical and educational progress etc. that the jews bring to the very heart of the Arab lands. This is basically a clash of ideas. The modern western ideals Vs. the medieval desert culture. Israel is literally a tiny oasis in the Arabic desert.