Aha! That's what Gandhi would think of jihad.
His grandson offers this advice to Palestinians:
Invoking an iconic moment in the Indian resistance, the 70-year-old writer and peace activist told a gathering of Palestinians in the West Bank city of Ramallah: "Imagine yourselves marching by the thousands behind your leaders to the checkpoints and the roadblocks demanding your free passage and the right to be treated as human beings."Sit at the roadblocks and sing your songs. March to the wall and dance your dances."
(cue piano)
Imagine all the people not blowing themselves up in buses and pizza parlours,
You may say I'm a dreamer...
Satyagraha (Non violence or more literally 'path of truth') can work if the goal is a just a reasonable independent palestine by the side of Israel. It cannot work if the goal is perhaps historical retribution (palestinian liberals) or destruction of Israel (palestinan moderates) or converting all non-muslims to muslims (palestinian extremists). For Arafat, jihad rather than satyagraha is necessary because his goals are different. If independent palestinian state was the only goal, Arafat would have taken what Clinton and Barak offered without blinking and with glee.
Gandhi's goal was independence and not destruction of Britain nor did he demand any historical retribution for colonial crimes from Britain. That is why satyagraha could work. Britain could leave India on a friendly note and even today India is a part of commonwealth.
The idea is wonderful, but there is not one child left in the West Bank or Gaza who -thanks to the systematic indoctrination- doesn't want to kill Jews (not Israelis but Jews). I'm sure that Gandhi’s grandson had all the best intentions in mind, but before they can go out and sing and dance, they have to learn to sing and dance (instead of teaching them to shoot, and make bombs maybe next year they can learn to sing in the Hamas summer camps), so one day the peaceful demonstrations can start.
About demanding the free passage through the checkpoints – I wonder if Gandhi’s grandson would let his family use public transport in Israel knowing that they just let all the Palestinians through the checkpoints that day into Israel without checking them at all.
Honestly I’m sure that he just wants to help, but it takes a bit more than a little singing.
And after all it is Brian Whitaker who appreciate jihad against Israel and not Ghandi –if what his grandson says is anything to go by. He shouldn't try to make his anti-Semitic views more acceptable by saying that so and so would have appreciated it. So next time he should just leave Ghandi –or anybody else out of it.
There's a point to be made here - if you expect to be treated like a human being, you have to BEHAVE like a human being. If you want to behave like an animal, expect to be hunted down and shot like an animal. It's all about CIVILIZED behavior, and that means solving your conflicts peacefully, not violently.
Too bad the Pali's don't share Gandhi's peaceful belief system.
Not that I have a problem with Gandhi's grandson advising the Palestinians to opt for non-violent means, but it seems to me there's some unintended irony here: there were some problems following the granting of independence to India that led to the partitioning off of some provinces that are now Pakistan and Bangla Desh, due to religious differences between the Indian Hindu majority and the Muslim minority. There was a major land swop involved, the displacement of countless people resulted and there's still no shortage of hostility between these two countries (and religious groups).
Suprising Hamas didn't wing him for it.
Gandhi's grandson apparently knows nothing of the Suras that call for perpetual jihad. Non-violence is not Islamic and never will be.
If the Palestinians really want a "separate state," they can take the offer that has been made. No, separate but equal won't cut it because they want to defeat and subdue their Jewish neighbors and make Islam master of all the area's residents. It's not a land problem as much as a religious problem.
Agreed, epg, that this is not about land. It is about religion, and this has long preceded the return of Eastern European based Jewry to the region. As most frequenters of this site doubtless realize, this issue dates back to the founding of Islam, when the resident Jewish population around Medina declined to abandon their form of monotheism for Mohamed's new and improved version.
And hell, what better way for Mohammed to establish his bona fides as a world class leader of a new religion than to claim to have been rejected, scorned, abused or whatever by Jews?!
This has been the justification for over a milenia of ethnic cleansing that resulted in the Muslim/Arab dominence over such a broad swath of North Africa and Asia Minor -- go to the impoverished and illiterates of any country or region with a message that states that if they follow your creed, they are divinely entitled to seize and dominate whomever and whatever they wish to seize and dominate.
I may not work, this Palestine thing needs a new angle. I figure if enough prominent people do show there face and public and preach there are better ways of protesting or combatting Israel, more and more Palestinians wilthink that way.
It just may work.... Its better than the choices they are making now isnt it?
Going to court was one way. At least they got it on record
What did they get on record, Andrew? Agreement from the International Court on a very skewed question about the Security Barrier, where the opinion was a foregone conclusion?
Michael Ignatief, a distinguished professor of peace studies in Harvard, speaking on the topic of terrorism in a series of lectures he gave in Scotland,noted one of the defining features of terrorist movements is the use of violence as a first recourse and that this was true of the PLO.
You also miss the entire point. This is not simply about land and restitution or justice for the people who were displaced by the establishment of the State of Israel, or who more often fled at the urging of their leadership. It's about a hate-on that has been borne for over a milenia that has been the justification for the persecution of Jews in the Middle East for over a milenia (the rationale for the persecution of Christians differs, but they too, are persecuted), which continues to go unquestioned by apologists for terrorism carried on, at times in the name of justice for the Palestinians and at others, in protecting the sanctity of the holy sites of Islam. The extent to which this "protection" is required, would, in other countries, bring on allegations of racism and apartheid practices, but for whatever reason is excused when it's practiced by Saudi Arabia, etc.
Even as recent as this year, the Iraqi Governing Council said it would not consider repatriating Iraqi Jews who were driven out of the country that had been their home for two milenia, in acts of supposed reprisals over the displacement of Palestinians (a phenomenon that repeated throughout the region, resulting in the exodus of over half a million Sephardic and Yemenite Jews, who primarily settled in Israel, and, therefore directly contributing to the issue!). Saddam actually housed Palestinians in the vacated Jewish homes!
Go home Mr Gandhi wherever home is.
Find some other cause. How about hapless
hindus or chakmas in Bangladesh or even Indonesian Chinese or perhaps Lebanese Christians ? Did you hear about Darfur ? What - that wouldnt impress the
bleeding heart Norwegians who hand Nobel peace prize ? OK, then how about taking the cause of AIDS epidemic - now thats fashionable these days.
Oh did you say - you will only take up pan -Islamic causes ?
Not every kennedy is as great as JFK, nor is every Gandhi going to be the Mahatma. Your grandfather had great success with the British. Thats 'the good'. Then his legacy also has 'the bad and the ugly' which cannot be found in movies but only in history books gathering dust.
So he thought that if he supports pan Islamic causes, muslims will join the freedom struggle with hindus ?
So, he mixed non cooperation movement with Khilafat movement. Muslims were angry that Kemal Ataturk abolished Caliphate with British help. So the muslims would not fight for their own country ( a dar ul harb) but rather for a faraway country Turkey which didnt ask for help - but was a dar ul islam ? Did Gandhi really want a muslim caliphate ?
So he fasted to release 50 crore rupees from India to Pakistan ? Pakistan used it to invade Kashmir.
If he could stop the riots in India, why could he not stop it in West Pakistan ?
His non violence didnt work with muslims or Pakistan. British had a sense of decency and morality. I have enormous respect for the Mahatma but his failures are as glaring as his success.
So Mr Arun Gandhi - you think the wall is apartheid ? Well, non muslims cannot practise their religion or vote or breathe in Islamic republics. Is that apartheid ? Asians cannot shop in the same mall as Kuwaiti sheikhs. Is that apartheid ? Can we hear about that ? By the way, you can shop in a Israeli mall with Israelis (unlike Kuwait) but be careful. If you break down the wall, palestinian bombers will be shopping there too. Go home Mr Gandhi. Give up on pan Islamic causes. Let people live. There are many problems on earth that can sell your books. And leave Gandhi (the real Gandhi) out of this.
(And Mr Brian Whitaker, just write your opinions
rather than speculate about Gandhi's opinions.
For all his greatness as well as shortcomings, Gandhi never supported any act of violence. Ever read about chowri-chowra ? For that reason alone, he would not support Jihad or terrorism.)
"I may not work, this Palestine thing needs a new angle. I figure if enough prominent people do show there face and public and preach there are better ways of protesting or combatting Israel, more and more Palestinians wilthink that way"
Posted by: Andrew at August 27, 2004 03:48 PM
Andrew what are you talking about combating Israel? All they had to do is accept one of the several peace deals to get their own state, and get on with their lives. It was the Palestinians who refused the UN partition and every other peace initiatives that followed since (just look it up, you'll find things that may surprise you). The problem with accepting any kind of peace deals (even the most generous ones - like the one made by Ehud Barak) is that Arafat doesn't want peace, he never wanted peace. He doesn't want Israel on the map full stop. And this is why they have a problem.
They don't need combating anybody; they just need to stop killing innocent people that all Israel is asking. Is it too much to ask? I don't think so.
Bravo, gloria! How superlatively SPOT-ON all of you are on this!
Lamentably, Pacifism definitely has its limits. A bit of idle speculation: how would Gandhi have fared if, instead of being up against the British Raj, he’d been facing Nazis or Communists? (Or any version of Islamo-fascism?) Would we ever’ve even come to HEAR of the Mahatma?
The counter-terrorist, defensive measures of the IDF, through the four, bitter years of the “el-Aqsa Intefada”, have been characterized, in detail, by proportionality and restraint, despite the harshest provocations from the “Palestinian” Arabs. How much would the “Palestinians” like to have swapped with, say, the East Timorese, beneath the brutal heel of Indonesia? - Why, how much the East Timorese would’ve LOVED to exchange their Indonesian occupiers for Israelis!
It’s fully plausible that Gandhian techniques might indeed advance “Palestinian” efforts - they’d indubitably constitute a MAJOR challenge for Israel to approach effectively. But this is NOT exclusively a question of Means - especially as the “Palestinians”’ Ends remain GENOCIDAL.
The point is that the REAL choice before the “Palestinians” isn’t between the methods of M. L. King or Fidel Castro, Gandhi or V. I. Lenin, Mandela or Mao, but finally whether to sincerely, constructively, accept a viable, Two State solution with Israel, or not.
As among every serious, previous, international peace-bid, the “Road-Map Plan” recognizes that, ultimately - as much as the Arabs disdain it and keenly seek to change things - UNSC Resolution 242/1967, under Chapter 6, is the ONE, BINDING AND LEGAL basis for the settlement of this problem. Will the Arabs, at length, comply with it and negotiate in good faith to draw the borders for “Palestine”, in the disputed territories of Gaza & Cisjordania, or will they persevere in their extensively self-deleterious endeavours to drive the Jews into the sea?
If the “Palestinians” do opt FOR a properly-delineated Partition - and Peace with Israel - and prosperity, openly and honestly, then of course there’ll no longer be the slightest necessity for any type of existential, political confrontation (like there is today) between them, either violent or non-violent - nor for any Separation-Barrier. These’d rapidly be replaced by competition - and co-operation - in other, multivarious, far more productive, spheres.
But if they don’t, if their dream abides of ridding the “Terra Sancta” (as the reptilian “President” of their terrorist PA/PLO-Hamas-Jihad Islami, Yasir Arafat, has taken to calling it) of the Jewish State and its citizens - as their “National Charter” explicitly CONTINUES to provide (thanks to the tragic gullibility of the Clinton White House) - then no amount of the Tactics of Gandhi will be able to mask the cardinal anomaly that the “Palestinians”’ prime objective is, nonetheless, RACIST MASS-MURDER, which, categorically, can NEVER be legitimate, whatever forms its Preliminaries may assume - not even applying “Satyagraha” itself as their lead-up.
A further idea for theorizing upon is whether the millions of Moslems on Earth, who’ve already been comprehensively indoctrinated into the mentality of the Jihad, inculcated into its atavistic “culture” and mythos, densely surrounded by an intrusive religious, social, intellectual, media, etc, environment, which robustly, publicly and privately, hourly reinforces it, could EVER, in a thousand years, satisfactorily alter their profoundly pre-conditioned modes and functionally assimilate in their minds - plus duly practice - Gandhi’s lofty notions of Non-Violence, Passive Resistance, Pacifism and Tolerance, Satyagraha. - Or are these sweet ideals (inter alia), alas, conclusively INCOMPATIBLE with their Islamist psyches?