Since the six-day war

THIS week marked the 40th anniversary of Israel’s swift and decisive victory against its Arab neighbours in the June 1967 war. The war was inevitable, given the fact that the earlier conflicts of 1948 and 1956 had failed to resolve fundamental differences between the two sides. Though the Arab leaders were left dazed by the scale of their ignominy, seething anger and unbending defiance on the streets gave hope that this massive failure of Arab political leadership could yet become the catalyst for reform.

Sadly, this was not to be. The result is that an unprecedented air of gloom and pessimism pervades the region today. For the Arab youth, there is not even the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. The Arab states cannot even cling to the hope, however forlorn, of earlier times that Moscow had represented for them. With the emergence of the US as the sole superpower, their room for manoeuvre has been further constricted.

With every major regional or international development, the Arab position has become weaker, while Israel has gained on all fronts — military, diplomatic and political. And, of course, the unflinching support, always available to it from the US, has made Israel stronger and frighteningly arrogant.

True, Egypt was able to regain the Sinai through President Anwer Sadat’s bold initiative and skilful diplomacy, enabling the Egyptians to concentrate on their economic development, but at great cost. By opting to pursue narrow nationalist interests, rather than the broader Arab agenda, Sadat lost the respect of his own people, and his country the influence that it had always enjoyed.

More importantly, by not insisting on clearly defined time frames for progress on other fronts, especially on the issue of Palestinian statehood and the return of Syrian territories, Egypt broke rank with fellow Arab states, damaging their ability to confront Israel.

The after-effects of this monumental defeat continue to haunt the region to this day. Arab nationalism was dealt a coup de grace, and the Arabs were left to ponder a fate bereft of hope. Even technically, the war, which lasted for only six days, is still going on. Within Gaza, the territory that Israel conquered in its blitzkrieg remains in a state of turmoil. The massive wall that Israel is building, in defiance of the International Court of Justice’s ruling, has cut across historic Palestinian villages and olive groves.

Not only are the Palestinians suffering from daily onslaughts that include all forms of individual and collective punishment, they are also fighting each other — with more intensity and passion than when confronting the Israelis. Currently, Fatah fighters and the Islamist recruits of Hamas are engaged in a fratricidal war that is causing greater damage than what the Israelis have been able to inflict.

Israel’s victory in the 1967 war was so complete that it left the Arabs in a state of stupor. On the other hand, it excited the imagination of Israel’s friends and admirers who saw in it a “small country’s grit and determination”. Even if this is true, has Israel been able to achieve its most important objective: ensuring peace within its borders and gaining recognition of its Arab neighbours? Instead, the 1967 victory turned Israel into a military occupier, as hated and despised as any foreign power, with the Palestinians reacting exactly as any occupied people would do.

Although Tel Aviv has shown no compunction in unleashing the full force of its military, security and intelligence forces on unarmed civilians, there has been no weakening of Palestinian resolve. Refusing to be cowed, they are adopting increasingly desperate measures to resist the Israelis who fail to appreciate that the right to resist occupation is recognised by international law. UN resolutions such as 2955 and 3034 have affirmed the “inalienable right” of all peoples to self-determination and the legitimacy of their struggle against foreign domination and subjugation, “by all available means”.The Israelis claim that the Palestinians have failed to respond with the required degree of flexibility to their “initiatives” or to appreciate the ground realities. Without getting into the merits of their claim, for nearly 20 years — 1967 to 1987 — there was little civil disturbance in the occupied territories, with the Palestinian leadership concentrating on political efforts in the belief that international opinion would convince Israel to recognise the futility of perpetuating the occupation, as well as on account of its realisation that the occupation was damaging the very character of the Jewish state.

It was only in 1987 that the first Intifada began followed by suicide bombings. Hundreds of Israelis, most of them innocent bystanders, have been killed in these attacks, but far larger numbers of Palestinians have perished in Israel’s punitive attacks.

Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben Gurion, fearing the consequences of endless occupation, had advocated a conditional withdrawal from the territories won in the 1967 war, but even he could not have foreseen the colossal damage caused to Israel. Before 1967, Israel was militarily insecure but demographically triumphant, because 85 per cent of the people living within its frontiers were Jewish.

With its occupation of neighbouring Arab lands in 1967, Israel became militarily unassailable but demographically insecure because most of the Palestinian refugees of 1948 were back within its fold. Moreover, if all of Israel and the occupied territories are taken as one, the Jewish population would constitute only a small majority — 5.5 million against 4.5 million Palestinians.

More worrying for Israel, since the Palestinians have a much higher birth rate, they are likely to become the majority by 2015. If Israel retains the occupied territories, it is stuck with the Palestinians living on it. If Israel wishes to be democratic, it will have to grant all these people the right to vote which will mean that it will cease to be a Jewish state. As Israeli sociologists are pointing out, “if Israel is truly democratic and grants all these people the vote it will no longer have a Jewish majority. If it remains Jewish by excluding these people, then it is no longer democratic.”

Israel remains militarily invincible and politically unassailable thanks to the carte blanche provided to it by the US. But the respect and admiration that Israel enjoyed in its early years has been lost. There is another aspect no less troubling to Israelis who value the life of all human beings, irrespective of their ethnic or religious origin. A brutal occupation may do wonders for the macho spirit of the occupiers, but slowly and surely, it corrodes their very soul.

Israel may draw satisfaction from the current strife among Palestinians, but the transformation of Gaza into a lawless, failed territory, which is likely to spawn desperate militants, should not be a matter of joy. By refusing to engage in a political dialogue with the popularly elected Hamas and insisting that its friends in the US and Europe ostracise it as well, Israel is making a grave mistake. Branding Hamas as Al Qaeda would be worse as it could become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

As journalist Jonathan Freedland warned recently: “what is currently a grievance-based national movement with an Islamist hue — its main cause shaking off occupation — could become more rigid, more ideological, beyond the reach of reason and negotiations. This is a lesson Israel has failed to learn these last 40 years. If you refuse to deal with a group because it is too extreme, you don’t get to deal with a more pliant, moderate alternative. On the contrary, you eventually confront a force that is even more extreme. It happened when Fatah was eclipsed by Hamas — and it could happen again.”

Former US officials have also begun to speak of the dangers of Gaza becoming a Hamas stronghold. Writing in the Washington Post, Dennis Ross, Bill Clinton’s policy planning chief, said that the US and Israel were being confronted with the spectre of Hamastan. According to him, this approach offered “inspiration to other Islamists throughout the Middle East” and provided “a new haven for Islamists of all stripes…it would spell the end of even the possibility of a two-state solution.”

But instead of counselling dialogue and negotiation with Hamas, he has urged Egypt to provide money and weapons to Fatah to counter Hamas and even to coordinate with “Israel to deter Hamas from seeking to impose itself.” It is this kind of warped thinking that encourages extremism in the occupied territories.

Those who believe that Israel’s final victory is inevitable and that the Palestinians are doomed to disappear as a nation need to read history. People who have offered sacrifices and suffered as grievously as the Palestinians, cannot be made to lose their identity. In fact, Israel’s success in subjugating the Palestinians would amount to a defeat for all those values that the human race has aspired to over the centuries. It would be a defeat for justice and the truth.

The 1967 war gave Israel huge areas of territory but at the cost of peace and the possibility of normalisation with the Palestinians or its Arab neighbours. In fact, at least two generations of Israeli youth have been deeply traumatised by having to perform occupation duties which means engaging in horrible human rights violations. More importantly, they have had to cope with two Intifadas and the perpetual terrorism threat.

Aaron David Miller, who served as Middle East adviser to six US secretaries of state, has pointed out that Israeli-Palestinian relations have undergone a fundamental transformation. “The confidence, trust and problem-solving spirit of the 1990s’ Oslo peace process has been replaced by unilateralism, fear, anger and a loss of faith in the power of negotiations. and altered by cruel realities on the ground.” Miller laments the loss of powerful leaders in the region, people such as Jordan’s King Hussein and Israel’s Yitzhak Rabin, who could have cut through peripheral matters to tackle the core issues. He is critical of the Bush administration for not attaching any kind of priority to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

For 40 years, both the Palestinians and the Israelis have continued to suffer grievously. If the Palestinian suffering has been horrendous, that of the Jewish people, too, has been deep and painful. Why should the two communities be doomed to remain locked up in this vicious cycle of suffering? Is it not incumbent on the international community, primarily the major powers, to get together and engage in serious and sincere efforts to promote a fair, balanced and equitable settlement that meets the aspirations of the Palestinians, while protecting the legitimate interests of the Jewish state?

Such a settlement should then be sanctified and enforced by the United Nations. This is what all world leaders who are genuinely desirous of promoting dialogue and conciliation among the adherents of the three Abrahamic faiths should be endeavouring to achieve.

The writer is a former ambassador.

Ominous caste clashes

THE Supreme Court of India did well to take notice of the mayhem in Rajasthan early this month. The centre and the states simply abdicated their obligation to govern.

Their instruments — the police and the bureaucracy — were blunted by inaction.Political parties did not do anything because of electoral considerations. And the Gujjars and the Meenas, the two tribal communities, did not feel ashamed to indulge in violence and vandalism to the detriment of the polity. This is how it happened.Scene I: The Gujjars, spread all over northern India, demand their recognition as a scheduled tribe to get reservations provided under the constitution. They send several petitions and memoranda to the BJP-run Rajasthan government which ignores them. One day, on May 29, thousands of them descend on highways in Rajasthan to agitate for their demand. They block the traffic, uproot railway lines, burn public buses and pelt stones on whatever comes in their way.

Hundreds of travellers and tons of goods are stranded indefinitely. When the state police — the army is at hand — fires at the Gujjars to open the roads, they retaliate with guns. Eleven people are killed, including three policemen. Chief Minister Vasundra Raje Scindia, the scion of a royal family, holds talks to consider the Gujjars’ demand for scheduled tribe status.

Scene II: In the meanwhile, the Meena community, which already enjoys scheduled tribe status in Rajasthan, takes to the streets to stop the Gujjars from getting the status lest its own share should lessen. (The Meena community has more than 100 officers in the Indian Administrative Service and the Indian Police Service, as compared to the Gujjars who have only one person in the IPS). Although living side by side for decades, the two communities fight hand-to-hand battles. Four people die on the spot.

Scene III: The Gujjars and the state government reach a settlement. A panel headed by a high court judge will look into the Gujjars’ demand. Their leader apologies for the havoc they have created. All is over in one week.

None of the three scenes should have been enacted in the first place, and never the violence. All this could have been averted if the chief minister had intervened earlier. The state government could have appointed a committee three months ago as it has done now to look into the Gujjars’ demand. But the chief minister, basking in the glory of being exhibited as goddess Durga, had no time for the Gujjars.

The Gujjar-Meena confrontation has, however, raised a larger question. A country which promised to establish a casteless society at the time of independence 60 years ago is faced with a piquant situation where a community agitates for caste status. Something terrible has happened in the last two decades or so because this very India abolished the caste column in application forms and official records.

Jawaharlal Nehru’s order was obeyed without demur. Yet, the reality on the ground is different. The centuries’ old stigma of caste enjoys religious sanction. Hindus are not willing to give up the practice of discrimination. They do not mind the window-dressing, a slogan like ‘casteless society’ or an application form without the caste column so long as they can see the scheduled caste (Dalit) members sweeping the floors, carrying the night soil and remaining on the periphery of society.

Reservations have improved the economic, if not social, plight of some. Yet, benefits have not trickled down to those at the bottom. The comparatively better off among them — the creamy layer as the Supreme Court describes them — corners most.

They are the vocal ones. They, like Steel Minister Ram Vilas Paswan, are in central and state cabinets to see their kin, the creamy layer, continue to dominate. When the central cabinet discussed, the other day, the Supreme Court’s suggestion to strike out the creamy layer from the list of scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and backward classes, Paswan and Lalu Prasad Yadav from the backward classes were the most vociferous in their opposition. Since caste influences the voting pattern, no political party dares to annoy the creamy layer which practically leads their community.

Caste is not going to go away from India for many, many years because the upper castes do not have a twinge of conscience to feel the treatment meted out to the lower castes. There is not even a hue and cry when the entry of non-Hindus in certain temples is practised. A temple in the south is publicly performing a “purification” ceremony because a Christian had gone inside. I have not seen a single word of criticism from the Hindutva forces, regretting that what the temple is doing is against the democratic right of the Indians.

To lessen the rigours of caste and to enable the lowest to get some benefit, the creamy layer has to be kept out. At least those who have enjoyed the benefits of reservation for one or, at the most, two generations should be barred from getting concessions. Both the Gujjars and the Meenas belong to the creamy layer. They should not be entitled to any concessions at all.

Whether reservations should have been introduced at all is too late in the day to debate. Dr B.R. Ambedkar, the Dalits’ Gandhi, was against reservations which he compared to crutches. That was 50 years ago. In 1990, another quota of reservations was introduced for the backward classes. The very basis of classification looks odd in the 21st century. It is time to change the criterion from caste to economic status. A Brahmin, a Christian or a Muslim should also be eligible for concessions if he is in straitened conditions.

A debate should also take place in the country as to when and where to draw the line. My suggestion is that reservation on the basis of caste should end within the next 25 years, lessening the quota every year by four per cent. Political parties will be hard to convince because they have vote politics in view. Yet, they have to face the fact that the increasing desperation among the have-nots, particularly the youth, may disturb things more and more as the days go by. What has happened in Rajasthan is the tip of the iceberg.

Diverse communities and different areas now want a bigger slice from the cake which is not big enough to go around. Ordinary people still do not think in terms of confrontation between castes. What they have seen in Rajasthan is not a neighbour versus neighbour story but actions on both sides brutalising people. The violence is neither spontaneous nor popular. The Gujjars and the Meenas know this. What they do not realise is that it is not a game of interests but of human beings, for whom we stand for and fight for.

The writer is a leading columnist based in New Delhi.

US Muslims’ views

ALMOST six years after the 9/11 attacks gave Muslim Americans a new and sometimes painful visibility, they haven't lost confidence in the American dream, according to a recent study. But they are markedly less trustful than their non-Islamic neighbours of the Bush administration's intentions.

First the good news from a telephone survey of 1,050 Muslims conducted this year by the Pew Research Centre: Muslims in America — 77 per cent of whom are US citizens — are "largely assimilated, happy with their lives and moderate with respect to many of the issues that have divided Muslims and Westerners around the world."

They reject Islamic extremism by larger margins than do European Muslims, and the study suggests why: Muslims here generally mirror the overall US population in income and education. In France, Germany, Britain and Spain, Muslims are significantly poorer than the general population.

Like any study, this one has its puzzles and paradoxes. Asked if it were possible for most people to "get ahead with hard work," 71 per cent of respondents answered yes, compared to 64 per cent of the public as a whole. That might seem to suggest scepticism about a prominent role for government in improving the fortunes of the poor.

Actually, 73 per cent of respondents in the survey said the federal government should do more to help the needy, compared to 63 per cent of the overall population. Yet even here, the differences are a matter of degree.

That's not the case, however, when it comes to the U.S.-led war on terror. Just 26 per cent of respondents said they agree that it is "a sincere effort to reduce terrorism," compared to 67 per cent of the general public in a 2004 poll. (Non-Muslim Americans were not interviewed in this year's survey.)

Younger Muslims, the poll found, are more radical in their views. While six per cent of those 30 or older believe that suicide bombings are "often" or "sometimes" justified, the figure for those under 30 is an ominous 15 per cent.

The generations were closer in their views when asked whether life for Muslim Americans has become harder since 9/11. That proposition was accepted by 58 per cent of respondents aged 18 to 29; the percentage for those aged 30 to 39 and 40 to 54 was 53 per cent.

That experience may offer an emotional explanation for one the most bizarre findings: Only 40 per cent of respondents agreed with the proposition that the 9/11 attacks were carried out by Arabs, and 28 per cent rejected that scenario.––Los Angeles Times