It didn’t start on October 7th for me. I have heard stories of Israeli settler violence in occupied Palestine over the past three years. I know people in this city whose homes were bombed, whose family members were killed, who were arbitrarily arrested, and who were displaced. I attach human faces to Gaza, Ramallah, Nablus, Bethlehem and Jerusalem.
I will not pretend to write from a neutral and distant position today. Neutrality often helps the oppressor, not the oppressed. Over the past three years, Palestine has become as far and as close as India, in some ways. When I read the news from Gaza on my phone, I think as if something terrible is unfolding in my home.
Israel’s destruction of Gaza
The genocide committed by Israel in Gaza shook the world to its core. More than 15,000 people were killed in Gaza, including 10,000 women and children. Another 17,00,000 people are displaced. The numbers would have increased by the time you read this.
Hospitals, schools, universities, homes, refugee shelters and United Nations offices were bombed relentlessly. A senior UN human rights expert described Gaza as a case of genocide in his resignation letter. In addition to Gaza, Israeli forces bombed all the rules of international humanitarian law.
In the midst of this devastation, the Palestinian liberation cause has found renewed support around the world. Millions have taken to the streets of London, New York, Berlin, Paris, Cairo, Amman, Stockholm, Amsterdam, Seoul, Johannesburg, Wellington, Sydney, Islamabad, Dhaka, Sao Paulo, Bogota, Kuala Lumpur, Santiago and countless other cities. To demand an immediate ceasefire and a free Palestine.
New York Solidarity
Every nook and cranny of New York has witnessed protests on a daily basis over the past two months. New Yorkers of all colors, classes, nationalities, races, and religious backgrounds gathered in the streets. The heart of the American empire resonates every day with passionate slogans such as “Ceasefire Now” and “From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will Be Free.”
“This is our generation’s Vietnam” is the prevailing sentiment in the American student body.
Subway stations were sprayed with graffiti in support of Gaza. The sight of people wearing keffiyehs and Palestinian flags in solidarity has become a common sight. Poets, singers, writers, actors, filmmakers, musicians, painters and academics all lend their voices to this cause.
People wave Palestinian flags from their windows and bus drivers shout loudly in solidarity with the protesters marching in the streets. Halal carts, mostly run by Arab immigrants, see longer queues for orders of chicken and rice. Organizations run by volunteers from different walks of life such as Jewish Voices for Peace, Palestinian Youth Movement, In Our Lives, Response Coalition, Shut It Down and many others have worked hard to organize these activities.
American Jews participated in heroic acts of civil disobedience, leading to their arrest, in support of Palestine. Students at Columbia University, New York University, and the City University of New York, three of the city’s major schools, responded to the calls of their conscience by demanding that their universities’ leaders abandon Israel. Protest tours, teaching, banner dropping and cultural gatherings were organized on campus to break the uncomfortable silence. “This is our generation’s Vietnam” is the prevailing sentiment in the American student body.
The contradiction in freedom of expression
University administrations, under pressure from trustees and donors, responded with retaliation. Pro-Palestine student organizations were suspended from universities, students were disciplined, and employees were dismissed. Palestine has become the ultimate state of freedom of expression at elite American universities.
All the liberal facades of major research institutions have collapsed. Universities openly operate as academic wings of the US military-industrial complex. These gatherings in New York come at a time when the Joe Biden administration stands in support of the belligerent Israeli occupation. They supplied the weapons, money and diplomatic approval for Israel’s genocidal war.
Although the contradictions of the world’s oldest democracy have become public, the news from the world’s largest democracy has been disappointing and sad. The Indian government did not allow any large-scale street mobilization for Palestine. Protesters were arrested, cultural gatherings were cancelled, and dissenting voices were stifled. There is a certain fear that dominates the controversial Indian mind regarding the issue of Palestine.
India’s deafening silence
India, whose independence from the British Empire paved the way for the liberation of the entire colonial world, silently witnessed the genocide of an occupied and colonized people. India, the country that valiantly fought the mightiest colonial empires, has shown reservations in supporting the struggle of the Palestinian people against colonialism.
Once upon a time, newly independent India, still trying to find its feet, brought the apartheid agenda to the UN tables to speak out against the racist violence of the colonialists and became the first country in the world to impose sanctions on apartheid. South Africa. Now, 75-year-old India, destined to become a global superpower, has not found the moral courage to utter a single word against the Israeli apartheid regime, even as other countries in South America and Africa have severed diplomatic relations. With Israel.
The question of Palestine is the most pressing political and moral issue of our time.
Indian social media users have contributed significantly to the online misinformation campaign about Israel and Palestine, demonizing Palestinians as terrorists and sub-humans, who deserve to be exterminated from the face of the earth. The Indian mainstream media, corrupt for many years, has played the role of torchlight par excellence.
Comparing the situation between Palestine and Israel with the situation between India and Pakistan was the biggest intellectual error, when in fact it is the analogy between India and the British Empire before independence that is at play here. Israel is a settler colonial formation on Palestinian lands. Did we Indians recognize the right of the British colonial state to exist in India? If the answer is no, then what makes us ally with Israel today?
The rabid fear of Islam has blinded our moral vision. The deep state and strategic defense partnerships with Israel have silenced our courageous political voices. We are speaking measuredly and walking diplomatic tightropes on this issue. India’s abstention from voting in the UN General Assembly on the humanitarian ceasefire resolution speaks volumes about us as a country. Through our strategic support of Israel, we have ended up supporting some of the worst war crimes known to man. Our silence towards Palestine has extinguished all the values of our struggle for freedom as well. We have forgotten the role that independent, post-colonial India was to play on the world stage.
Instead of becoming the voice of the Global South, we have unfortunately relegated ourselves to the status of a strategic partner of America’s morally bankrupt war machine. The question of Palestine is the most pressing political and moral issue of our time. It is not just an issue for Palestinians and Israelis, but it is an issue to which we are all witnesses. It stands before us like a mirror asking us to look at ourselves and see what we will become.
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