I read with much interest the article penned by Sonia Gandhi, leader of one of India’s oldest political parties.
Sonia Gandhi also has the distinction of forgiving the LTTE terrorists who assassinated her husband Rajiv Gandhi in a brutal bomb blast in Sriperumbudur in Tamil Nadu. The bomb blast killed 14 innocent civilians too.
Rajiv Gandhi was killed at a poll rally on May 21, 1991, in a suicide bombing hatched by the banned terror outfit LTTE. When Nalini Sriharan, one of the convicts who was pregnant at the time of the assassination, moved court urging Indian authorities to reduce her sentence, Sonia Gandhi who was still establishing herself politically as the party’s chief, decided to pardon Nalini and even filed a clemency petition in 1999 which eventually led to the reduction of Nalini’s sentence in 2000. Sonia Gandhi was allegedly moved by the tragedy that had befallen her family and did not want any other child to face similar hardships.
The right to forgive or not to forgive her husband’s killers lay with Sonia Gandhi. But Rajiv Gandhi alone was not killed in the terror attack, 14 other innocent Indians lost their lives too. Their families had an equal right to demand clemency or death for the killers, just as Sonia Gandhi had a right to forgive. In a similar manner, the people of Israel have a right to choose their method of retribution after the dastardly attack of October 7th, 2023 by Hamas.
Sonia Gandhi in the headline of her article twisted the truth about the Israel-Hamas war. She titled it ‘A war where humanity is on trial now’. And that’s where the whitewashing of the terror attack on Israel and the failure to recognize Hamas as a terror organization begins.
Israel was not at war with Hamas. Neither was Israel at war with Palestine. Israel and Palestine have been in conflict for centuries. Israel went to war with Hamas after the terror organization unleashed Operation Al-Aqsa Flood which was a brutal terror attack on innocent civilians on October 7th, 2023. These civilians were children (some babies), elderly citizens, and vulnerable women and men. Hamas did not warn Israel. Hamas did not follow the rules of engagement in a war. Hamas, an Islamic terrorist organization resorted to an act of terrorism to settle its territorial conflict with Israel.
No, Sonia Gandhi, it is not a war where humanity is on trial, it is a war to save humanity. Humanity is not on trial because Hamas and the Palestinians who support Hamas are not humans. Having been to Palestine and having spent months studying the Israel-Palestine conflict, it is clear that Hamas is not working in the interest of the people of Palestine but working in the interests of its own leaders, who over the years accumulated massive wealth and now reside out of Gaza in sprawling luxury residences in Qatar. Hamas needs the people of Palestine as human shields and as cover sheep for their wolfy intent.
There is no doubt that Hamas has the support of the Palestinian population in Gaza. It has a strong political presence in Gaza. Our recent history has shown us that terrorists can also manage to sit in governments and run Islamic nations – Afghanistan a case in point and the Taliban being a designated terrorist organization that the world has to now accept as the ruling-government of a country
Palestinian support of Hamas is a support of terrorism. In the war against terrorism, a terrorist supporter is as culpable as the terrorist. There was jubilation in Gaza and West Bank and other Arab nations when Hamas attacked Israel. Videos of Israeli women being brutalized, their elderly citizens being murdered and Israel in pain gladdened the hearts of many who are blinded by Islamic radicalism and see Israel and the Jews as a threat to their existence in the Arab world.
I want to ask you a few simple questions, Sonia Gandhi. How does one gauge humanity? If not from the behavior of a human to another human. Did anyone in Palestine whether in Gaza or the West Bank condemn the attack of Hamas on Israel? Did anyone in the neighboring nations such as Lebanon, Iran, Jordan, or Syria condemn the attack of Hamas on innocent Israeli civilians? The answer is a loud no. In fact, there was rejoicing in Gaza, the West Bank, and Iran. Humanity demands that humanity be shown when a human is under a brutal terror attack. No one mourned for the innocent civilians of Israel.
I find your stand in the article Sonia Gandhi similar to the stand taken by the Vatican and its Pontiff Pope Francis, and even China. While there is condemnation for the act of Hamas, there is no clear stand on calling out Hamas as a terror organization, only pontification of the evils of terrorism. Hamas is a terror organization. It baffles me that the Vatican, China, and you do not have the courage to call Hamas a terror organization but get lost in linguistic ambiguities.
Hamas had no real intention to go to war with Israel because if it wanted to go to war with Israel it would have not retreated back to Gaza with hostages after its infiltration in the south of Israel. The real intention of Hamas was to fall back into Gaza, knowing fully well that Israel would retaliate and come at them with all guns blazing and with a vengeance. Hamas wants the Arab world to go to war with Israel and the US. Hamas wants to derail the peace talks between Israel and the Arab nations brought about on account of the Abraham Accords. Hamas along with other Islamic nations driven by a radical Islam ideology wants a global uprising of Islamists to start against Western imperialism. Islamists with a radical mindset want radical Islam control over the US, Europe, and India.
Hamas knew Israel would attack Gaza like a wounded tiger and innocent Palestinians would be the collateral damage. Israel would go into Gaza to get back its people. It would not sit to negotiate or pontificate about peaceful options, simply because you cannot talk peace to a terror organization and after the Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, it is clear that Hamas wanted to inflict terror and pain on the people of Israel. The Israeli government is trying to save humanity from such terrorists. Today, it is Hamas in Israel, tomorrow it could be another radical Islamist terror organization attacking India. Our nation was a victim of a brutal terror attack on 26/11. The lone surviving terrorist under your government at the Centre was fattened at a cost of reportedly Rs 50 crore when that money could have been well spent to ease the burdens of those who lost their lives in the terror attack or on improved security measures to prevent further terror attacks.
In your article you mention Sonia Gandhi, I quote, “The Israeli government is making a grievous error in equating the actions of Hamas with the Palestinian people. In its determination to destroy Hamas, it has unleashed indiscriminate death and destruction against the ordinary people in Gaza.” I agree that there will be innocent who will die and that is exactly what Hamas, Iran, Qatar, and China want and it is the sole reason that Hamas retreated back to Gaza. At most times when you treat cancer in a body, other parts of the body have to bear the pain of the treatment. Israel is treating the cancer of terrorism – Hamas.
Hamas has not only unleashed terror on Israel, but it has over the years unleashed terror on the people in Gaza and other Palestinian organizations. Let me be brutally honest, Hamas is no friend of the Palestinians. Hamas has used the plight of the people of Palestine to gain popularity and notoriety in the Arab region and in radical Islamist groups around the world. One of the source of income for Hamas has been extorting of protection money from Palestinians living in Gaza.
Peace can only be reached by dialogue is something I profoundly believe in. But peace is also possible only between humans, not diabolical beasts. Hamas, driven by the idealogy of Islamic radicalism is a diabolical beast. The Vatican, China, the United Nations, and even you Sonia Gandhi are impressing upon Israel to stop its war on Hamas but sadly and strangely no one is asking Hamas or its leaders to surrender and face an international court for their brutal acts of terrorism on the innocent Israeli civilians. And that’s the hypocrisy behind all the pontification Sonia Gandhi, nobody wants to exorcise the devil in the room because everyone wants to have the devil do their bidding when the time comes. Let me be even clearer, I am talking about the devil of Islamic radicalism.
