EDITORIAL: MORE COUNTRIES OPPOSE THE INTENSIFYING GENOCIDE IN GAZA BUT THE INDIAN GOVT IS SHAMEFULLY SILENT WHILE ZIONISTS AND HINDUTVA SUPPORTERS TARGET MAMDANI IN NEW YORK
Vinod Mubayi
The destruction of Palestinian life in Gaza has reached such a level that denial of its extent or brutality or evasion of its proper name has become well-nigh impossible – even inside Israel. One of the consciences of Israeli journalism, Gideon Levy, wrote the following in the July 30 edition of the Israeli newspaper Haaretz:
“The time has come. It is no longer possible to beat around the bush and avoid giving an answer. We can no longer hide, evade, mumble, mollify and obscure. Nor can we hang on to legal sophistry about the “question of intent” or to wait for the ruling of the International Court of Justice in The Hague, which may only be handed down once it’s too late. It’s already too late. That is why the time has come to call the horror by its name – and its full name is genocide, the extermination of a people. There is no other way to describe it. In front of our horrified eyes, Israel is committing genocide in the Gaza Strip. It did not begin now; it began in 1948. Now, however, sufficient evidence has accumulated to call the monstrous child in the Gaza Strip by its full name. This is a moment of despair, but it is also liberating. We no longer need to avoid the truth. On Monday, in the basement of a hotel in East Jerusalem, two important Israeli human rights groups announced that the die was cast. B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights stated that they had reached the conclusion that Israel was committing genocide.”
For many months, the hordes of Israeli apologists in the western media first described Israeli actions in Gaza as “self-defense” and when that description began to wear thin, they switched to “collateral damage” to hide the crucial issue of intent; as if hurling 2000-pound bombs supplied by the US on flimsy tents packed with the elderly, women, and small children constituted self-defense or anything other than mass murder of Palestinian civilians. As Levy indicated in his article, it is not just the magnitude of the death and destruction it is the systematic way in which it is being carried out with the destruction of hospitals, water and power facilities, the erasure of educational institutions and entire neighborhoods and cities, and now mass starvation that proves intent. Levy concludes that Israel clearly intends to bring about the destruction of Palestinian society in the Gaza Strip, to turn it into an unlivable place. It intends to ethnically cleanse it, whether by genocide or population transfer – preferably both.
However, in the midst of this ongoing genocide, it seems that some line has been crossed in the last several days. Whether it is the images of starving Palestinians collapsing and dying on the streets of hunger as Israel continues to block trucks carrying food or whether it is the scenes of Israeli tanks and IDF soldiers firing on unarmed emaciated civilians trying to pick up sacks of flour that caused a sense of intense revulsion, it seems that media outlets, politicians and some western countries that had provided unconditional support to every Israeli horror have now begun to recoil from their earlier stance. France announced that it would recognize a Palestinian state during the UN sessions in September and a few days ago U.K. and Canada made a similar statement, albeit with some conditionalities regarding the removal of Hamas.
However, European or Canadian recognition of a Palestinian state at a time when the Palestinian population is being subjected to a genocide could become a hollow gesture: as Gideon Levy points out it “lets Israel off the hook. Without sanctions to stop the slaughter in Gaza, it’s not diplomacy – it’s complicity.” Without meaningful penalties to restrain Israel’s murderous actions, which are only possible with US support, Israel can and will simply ignore the declarations by the European powers.
Some changes, however, can now be noted in Israel’s image among populations worldwide and now in the US itself, that has been Israel’s single most zealous political supporter, financier, and arms supplier for many decades. These changes are exemplified by the large drop in Israel’s favorability index in global opinion polls and also among Democratic Party voters in the US where less than half now have a favorable view of Israel. In New York, an unprecedented four out of five Democrats say that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. More significantly, Israeli support is also dropping among segments of the US political class who have long been in thrall to the right-wing AIPAC (American Israel Political Action Committee) group that doles out large sums (more accurately described as bribes) of money to US politicians from both Republican and Democratic parties and destroys anyone who opposes Israel by funding opponents as it did to Representatives Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush last year. But, in a sign that this hold is now slipping somewhat, a few days ago 27 Democratic Party senators out of a total 47 in the US Senate voted to block some arms sales to Israel. Trump, meanwhile, who falsely posed as a protagonist of peace during the presidential campaign last year and even picked up some support from deluded Arabs and Muslims in the state of Michigan, continues his bonhomie with the war criminal Netanyahu and paint delusional portraits of the Gaza Riviera. However, even Trump’s base is beginning to teeter as Trump was reported to have recently warned a Jewish donor that “my people are starting to hate Israel.”
India was an early supporter of the Palestinian cause many decades ago under the Congress Party before the current right-wing BJP Hindutva government of Modi gained power a little over a decade ago. Since Modi was elected to power in 2014, political, economic and defense links between Israel and India have burgeoned. One of India’s top crony capitalists, Adani, won a contract last year to operate Haifa port and Adani’s companies have a defense collaboration with Elbit of Israel to produce drones and other military equipment for Israel’s military. Modi is reputed to have a warm personal rapport with Netanyahu and they are very likely ideological buddies as Zionism and Hindutva have a considerable philosophical overlap. As right-wing ethnonationalists with a quasi-fascist bent, Zionists and Hindutva supporters glorify their own religio-ethnic identity and have a considerable antipathy to the main Muslim religious minority in their midst.
Thus, Modi and the representatives of the Indian government have remained silent on the genocide in Gaza while making a few formulaic remarks on a two-state solution in UN forums that derive from commitments made by previous Indian governments. More significantly, a pro-Palestine demonstration in New Delhi by academics and human rights activists was viciously attacked by Hindutva goons while the police stood by and instead told the demo organizers that they had no permit to assemble. A similar demo in favor of Palestinian rights in Mumbai that was attempted by the CPM (Communist Party Marxist) was denied a police permit and when they went to court by the Bombay High Court where the judges made some fatuous remarks that the protestors should undertake “patriotic” actions instead of demonstrating.
Curiously, Zionists and Hindutva supporters have found a common cause in opposing the candidacy of Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic Party nominee for Mayor of New York. Mamdani is the son of Prof. Mahmood Mamdani, a noted academic at Columbia University, who is of Gujarati Muslim origin born in Uganda. His mother is the well-known filmmaker Mira Nair, who is of Punjabi Hindu origin. Zohran himself was born in Uganda but moved to the U.S. along with his parents at a young age.
It is revealing but hardly unexpected that Zionists and the Hindutva crowd would gang up to oppose Zohran because it shows clearly what Zionists and Hindutva supporters are – ethnonationalist fascists with a fanatical hatred of Muslims. But the extreme opposition of the Zionists and Hindutva’s supporters needs to be explained beyond their hatred of Mamdani’s Muslim faith. From his early student days, Mamdani has been a steadfast supporter of Palestinian rights and a vocal critic of Israel’s denial of those rights; the genocide being currently perpetrated in Gaza has naturally intensified Mamdani’s criticism of the Israeli government. New York City is a town that has the largest Jewish population in the world apart from Tel Aviv and its support for Israel has until now been regarded as automatic. But this could now be changing within the Jewish community in New York.
In a news conference during the primary campaign, Mamdani reminded the audience that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu had been designated as a war criminal by the International Criminal Court (ICC) and that if he (Mamdani) was elected Mayor he would order Netanyahu’s arrest in compliance with ICC’s instructions if and when the Israeli leader visited New York. As regards Hindutva, at a town hall meeting for candidates ahead of the Democratic Party mayoral primary, Mamdani, asked if he would meet with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi as New York Mayor said he would not, and labelled Modi a “war criminal” for his role in the Gujarat anti-Muslim pogrom of 2002 where well over a thousand Gujarati Muslims were brutally massacred when Modi was Gujarat Chief Minister. (It is useful to recall that Modi was denied a US visa for almost a decade on the grounds of severe violations of religious freedom for his role in the pogrom and the ban was lifted only when Modi became Prime Minister). This remark appears to have served as a red rag to the Hindutva right-wing who began a systematic assault on Mamdani, both in the US and in India. In the US, this has taken the form of personal attacks on Mamdani’s faith and politics by groups like the Hindu American Foundation and support for his possible opponents in the forthcoming elections while in India he was smeared as a “jihadi” on pro-BJP news channels.
Mamdani’s major opposition is expected to come from New York’s business community that is strongly opposed to Mamdani’s democratic socialist agenda of a rent freeze, free buses, free childcare, and non-profit city owned markets to provide groceries at an affordable price to lower-income residents, along with a tax on millionaires to help pay for some of these programs. Whether Zionists, the Hindutva crowd, or the New York capitalist class will be able to derail Mamdani will be known in November.
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