The Pioneer (India) | Wednesday, August 02, 2006 | Kanchan Gupta
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1676278/posts
On Monday, July 31, a travesty of sorts was committed when the Lok Sabha unanimously adopted a resolution whose contents amount to a scathing indictment of Israel for "the large-scale and indiscriminate bombing of Lebanon... which has resulted in the killing and suffering of large numbers of innocent civilians, including women and children, and widespread damage to civilian infrastructure."
The resolution "conveys the deepest condolences, sympathy and support of the people of India to the people of Lebanon at this difficult time. The people of India are ready to make their contribution in providing humanitarian relief to the victims of this tragic conflict." It calls "for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire so that further destruction of Lebanon is prevented."
It's nice to see such noble thoughts emerge from the din and noise that marks parliamentary proceedings, drowning out the best speeches made with the best of intentions. But nobility of thought as reflected in the resolution does not in any manner distract from the fact that the document glosses over the truth and provides official approval to what is at best factional opinion that finds favour with terror-appeasers.
The resolution does not mention, even in passing, that the flashpoint which triggered the current crisis in West Asia was Hizbullah's cross-border raid into Israel, the slaying of four Israeli soldiers and the kidnapping of two others. It does not apportion blame where it rightly belongs - the continuous assaults by Hizbullah terrorists who have been shelling northern Israel without any let, scoring devastating hits in Haifa and other towns. It ignores the fact that Lebanon is in violation of UN Security Council Resolutions 1559 and 1680 which call for the disarming of all militias, including Hizbullah. It sidesteps the utter and shameful failure of the United Nations International Force in Lebanon to maintain peace, leave alone restrain Hizbullah, the 'Party of God' wedded to anti-Semitism.
The immediate backdrop of the Lok Sabha resolution is Sunday's Israeli bombing of a southern Lebanese village and Shia - read Hizbullah - stronghold, Qana, killing 56 civilians, 37 of them children. Neither television footage nor newspaper photographs of the dead and the injured presented a pretty picture on Monday morning. But there's nothing pretty about war, more so when there is heart-wrenching collateral damage; just like there's nothing pretty about terrorist strikes when innocent men, women and children are blown to smithereens, as they were in Mumbai on July 11.
The grisly sight of the bombed building in Qana with rescuers pulling out dead children from the rubble, however, tells only part of the story. The other part, which should have found space in the Lok Sabha resolution, is how Hizbullah uses human shields to protect foot soldiers of jihad.
Ever since Israel launched its retaliatory strikes - now being described as "disproportionate" by terror-appeasers at home and abroad - it has been taking the rather unusual precaution of dropping leaflets asking civilians to move out of the conflict zone. Similar leaflets had been dropped in Qana, too, but people either chose to voluntarily stay back or were prevented from leaving by Hizbullah squads. Since it is unlikely that those who died or were wounded in the attack on Qana were there of their own free volition after being warned by the Israelis of an impending air raid, we must presume that the Hizbullah prevented them from fleeing the village.
For, as the Lok Sabha resolution and lib-left response across the world to what is now being described as 'Qana massacre', show it serves Hizbullah's purpose if civilian casualties continue to mount: Israel will be held guilty of "indiscriminate bombing" and the "killing and suffering of large numbers of innocent civilians" even as a stunning silence will be maintained about terrorists who have no compunction about letting innocent people die.
In its haste to condemn the Israelis for fighting a just war for their very existence, the Lok Sabha has chosen to ignore, as have those who are appalled by the sight of blood when it is spilled by victims of terrorism but look the other way when terrorists lay to waste human life, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's touching apology. "I am sorry from the bottom of my heart for all deaths of children or women in Qana.... We did not search them out ... they were not our enemies, and we did not look for them."
Mr Olmert need not have offered his regret, but that he did so sets him and Israel apart from those who seek to destroy the Jewish state. It underscores the point that the war against terrorism is essentially a war between civilisations and cultures. Tragically, while electing to speak on behalf of the people of India, our parliamentarians chose to back the wrong side in this conflict.
We have chosen to back those who think nothing of using women and children as cannon fodder, of hiding behind civilians to protect themselves from those seeking to avenge atrocities committed by them. We have, through the resolution, endorsed the criminal act of Hamas and Hizbullah digging themselves into trenches while collateral damage mounts.
"The Israelis might have nuclear bombs but we have the children bomb," Sheikh Yusuf-al Qaradawi, the much-feted theologian of terror, once famously declared, adding, "these human bombs must continue until liberation." Which, according to jihad's lexicon, means the extermination of Israel from the map of the world.
Of course, it is inconsequential what the Lok Sabha has to say about Israel's desperate strikes against Hizbullah bases in southern Lebanon. Only those with an exaggerated sense of self-importance would presume that Tel Aviv will be awed into suspending its counter-attack and allowing Hizbullah to step up its shelling of northern Israel.
That, however, does not minimise the political message which has been sent out by the Lok Sabha: India, it would seem, lacks the courage and the commitment without which the war against terrorism cannot be taken to its logical conclusion. A nation that is still mourning the senseless slaughter of 200 commuters in Mumbai, has been portrayed as too weak-kneed to stand up and confront the peddlers of terror.
It is easy to be swept away by grisly television footage of Qana and syrupy stories of human suffering that make out as if nothing is happening in Haifa and other northern Israel's towns and villages where people continue to be killed and maimed by Hizbullah rockets. But it takes a certain amount of intellectual honesty and moral courage to accept that there is little that sets apart Hizbullah from Lashkar-e-Tayyeba or Jaish-e-Mohammed. Sadly, we, as a nation, have been shown as lacking in both.
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