Bejamin Netanyahu

Israel: Netanyahu Delays Judicial Reforms – But Fault-Lines Threaten Future of Democracy

Mass protests against the government’s plans to weaken the judiciary have exposed the deep divisions in Israel’s civil society.

Despite Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to delay the planned judicial reforms that have so destabilised Israeli society, the country’s crisis of democracy is far from over.

Protests at Netanyahu’s plan, which have rocked Israel for weeks, redoubled in intensity last weekend after Netanyahu sacked his Likud colleague and defence minister, Yoav Gallant, for calling on him to freeze the reform.

Within hours Netanyahu announced that the plan would be delayed until May. But he ignored advice from the US president, Joe Biden, to “walk away” from the judicial overhaul, insisting he doesn’t make decisions based on pressure from abroad.

The government’s plans to weaken the powers of Israel’s supreme court have been savaged by opponents as a major attack on the checks and balances within Israel’s unwritten constitutional system – an attack in democracy itself.

This forced pause is a significant gain for the mass protest movement, which has seen not merely public demonstrations but also refusals by reservists to participate in training exercises and threatening not to turn up for service generally. In a country where army service is the norm, this has gone to the heart of Israeli identity.

Netanyahu has blamed everyone but himself for delaying the judicial reforms. Listening to him announce the pause, it wasn’t the provocative nature of the changes that his far-right government wanted to steam-roller through the Knesset (parliament) that was to blame for the protests. Rather it was what he called “a minority of extremists that are willing to tear our country to shreds … escorting us to civil war and calling for refusal of army service, which is a terrible crime”.

The speech was part seduction, part threat. He would consult on the constitutional reform, he would protect human rights, but he insisted that the elected government had a right to implement its programme.

Power plays

The speech had been delayed from the morning as the prime minister first needed to secure his coalition’s support. The ultra-Orthodox parties had already fallen behind Netanyahu, but it was his far-right flank that proved more difficult.

In the end, Bezelal Smotrich, the finance minister and leader of the Religious Zionist party caved in, realising that his resignation could end the coalition and with it the far-right’s first taste of power. National security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, the leader of the Jewish Power Party, held out for more: the creation of a national guard under his command, something many have described as a “private militia”.

Netanyahu will be hoping that freezing the judicial policy will demobilise the mass protests. His decision comes as Israel is about to enter a holiday period beginning with Passover (or Pesach) on April 5 and culminating in the 75th anniversary of Israel’s creation as a state on April 25.

The prime minister will hope this acts as a distraction. But it is unlikely that the groundswell of opposition will dissipate over the holidays.

Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, has called a meeting of the government and opposition leaders to negotiate a way forward. Yair Lapid, who is the leader of Israel’s main opposition party Yesh Atid, and Benny Gantz, a former defence minister and leader of the National Unity Part,y will also attend.

But it seems that the minister of justice, Yariv Levin – the architect of the constitutional changes – has not been invited. Nor has Netanyahu, who has been banned from intervening in judicial matters by the attorney-general, due to his ongoing criminal cases.

Long-term Netanyahu confidante, the strategic affairs minister Ron Dermer, will represent Likud. How talks with the key figures in the government missing will work is a moot point. Nor is it clear what kind of compromise could be agreed.

The government also hopes to mobilise its own supporters in favour of its constitutional changes. On Monday night, tens of thousands of right-wing and settler demonstrators turned out in Jerusalem and were addressed by Smotrich and Ben-Gvir. Netanyahu wants to see more of these.

On the surface the constitutional changes look very similar to action taken by populist governments in Hungary and Poland. But in Israel the conflict combines the populist politics that in many ways Netanyahu pioneered with a fundamental battle over two visions of Israel.

The broadly liberal democratic outlook of the protesters, the opposition parties – even some in Likud – clashes with those who want to see an Israel more in tune with their particular interpretations of Judaism.

Clash of cultures

The 1948 Israeli Declaration of Independence did not create a Jewish theocracy but a democratic civil state with rights for all irrespective of religion or ethnicity. The far right, and some in the religious Orthodox parties, are not comfortable with these values. So, the battle over the supreme court exposes deep fissures in Israeli society.

Netanyahu referred to a possible civil war in his speech on March 27 and many are concerned that changing the constitutional checks and balances disturbs the political and cultural consensus established from 1948.

Israel was created by the left. And international support for its establishment came from the Soviet bloc as well as broadly social democratic politicians in the west. But Israel’s founders, particularly the first prime minister David Ben Gurion, were keen to balance their socialist outlook with respect for the religious community.

That balance meant not drafting a constitution. Instead, Israel created a piecemeal approach to constitutional issues and in the process forged a strong legal system and an internationally respected judiciary. This is now imperilled by the proposed reforms.

The tensions in Israeli society that the judicial reform policy has unleashed are unlikely to diminish over the next month. Netanyahu presides over a country which is not only violently confronting its Palestinian neighbour – but is increasingly at war with itself.

John Strawson is Honorary Professor of Law and director of LLM programmes, University of East London.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

India’s Host of #SupportIsrael Posters Betray a Persecution Complex

From the Indian nationalist perspective, Israel is a tiny state – surrounded by hostile countries – but nonetheless a strong one, making it a good role model to emulate.

In all the media coverage surrounding the Israel-Palestine conflict – or rather Israel’s relentless attacks on Gaza – what stands out most starkly in India is the overwhelming support among regular folk for Israel and its brutalities against Palestinians. For a while, hashtags like #IndiaSupportsIsrael and #IndiaStandsWithIsrael were ubiquitous on social media, which momentarily reminded me of the #IndiaSupportsCAA hashtag from a year before.

“To save your nation and its people from Radical Islamic terrorism is the fundamental right of every nation,” actress Kangana Ranaut wrote on her Instagram story (after her Twitter handle was blocked) to her over 7.5 million followers. The text’s backdrop showed an image of snipers in hot pursuit beaming lasers on targets. “India stands with Israel. Those who think terrorism should be replied with dharna (protest) and kadi ninda (censure) must learn from Israel,” she said.

Other posters were more virulent. “Gaza should be destroyed,” said one Twitter user; while another put out a cartoon image of an Indian Muslim man wailing, “Pray for Palestine!” as he stood above the corpses of Hazaras, Hindus, Balochs and Uighurs in Pakistan and China respectively. Beneath a video that showed Israeli settlers dancing while the Al Aqsa Mosque burned,[1] somebody wrote, “Jai Sriram. India with Israel. Go ahead and kill jihadis”.

A cartoon of an Indian Muslim man saying, “Pray for Palestine!” over the corpses of Hazaras, Hindus, Balochs and Uighurs in Pakistan and China. Photo: Twitter

Even if the above posts are brushed aside as the errant outpourings of a hysterical few, that there is a clear and concerted call to rally behind Israel among many Indians is unmistakable.

To be fair, the seeds for the love for Israel have been simmering in the Hindutva groundswell for many years. In 2016, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat said, “Israel was attacked by the surrounding Islamic countries on five occasions, but the Israeli people repulsed their aggressions and extended their boundaries due to the strong resolve to save [their] motherland.” But it is only now, legitimised by the rightwing atmosphere in both India and Israel, that vague murmurings have broken through our top-soil and arrived on our computer screens in open rage.

Also read: In Run up to Election, Banners of Modi-Netanyahu Make an Appearance in Israel

One internet poster attempted to answer why we should support Israel in an ostensibly logical way by spelling out cherry-picked news stories:

“1) In 2008, Israel sent 40 paramedics and forces during the Mumbai attacks. 2) India and Israel have very close cultural ties. Thousands of Israeli tourists visit India every year. 3) Israel was one of the few nations that did not condemn India’s nuclear tests in 1998. 4) After the US gave Pakistan Harpoon missiles, Israel sold India the Barak 1 missile, which can intercept Harpoon missiles. This restored balance between India and Pakistan. 5) In 1971 Israel quietly helped India in the war against Pakistan, supplying arms and weapons.”

What this post missed out on the military front was that in 1999 Israel also helped India in the Kargil war, and in 2001 the IDF also provided humanitarian relief following the Bhuj earthquake. On the economic side, trade between the two countries grew from USD 200 million in 1992 to USD 4.13 billion in 2016. In 2019, concomitant to Netanyahu and Modi’s friendship, Israel’s exports to India rose by 9%.

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu walk during their visit to Gandhi Ashram in Ahmedabad, January 17, 2018. Photo: Reuters/Amit Dave/Files

But in none of the internet comments that I read was there even a hint of appreciation for the most basic history of the Levant. There was no mention, let alone an understanding of the over seven decades-long oppression of Palestinians by a largely occupying force. Nor was there any discussion about how the creation of the State of Israel was accompanied by the exodus of Palestinians from their ancestral homes. Needless to say, there is little knowledge among Indians about the current pulls and pressures of this most recent altercation in which one key factor is the forced eviction of Palestinians in Sheikh Jarrah, a part of East Jerusalem, in order to make way for Jewish settlements deemed illegal under international law.

Few know that after more than fifty years of occupation, Gaza is now an area with more than 5,000 inhabitants per square kilometers that observers widely describe as the world’s largest open-air prison. While Israel has been accused of committing war crimes in Gaza, Hamas, the Islamic Resistant Movement of the region, classified by many countries as a terrorist organisation, has fired rockets from its small blockaded strip of land towards the Jewish state.

So why in this conflict do so many Indian nationalists consistently side with Israel? Where does our Israel adulation stem from? The obvious answer of course is the common and constant perceived threat of “Islamic Terrorism”. But this is only as true as it is easy.

An examination of the underpinnings of both nation states’ nationhoods bares deeper roots of India’s admiration of Israel throwing light on curious connections and machinations that keep the edifice of our national psyche in place.

Also read: For Palestinians Under Israeli Occupation, Regard for India Runs Deep

A shared sense of persecution

Nationalists in both countries are beset by a sense of besiegement by antagonistic Muslim neighbours, within and without. Both nationalist Jews and Hindus, each who consider themselves the primogenitors of their land, harbour feelings of persecution. If Jews look back upon the Holocaust as their darkest and deathliest time which is never to be forgotten, many Hindus view the partition of the subcontinent, which is itself seen as the culmination of centuries of Muslim rule, as their personal rock-bottom.

Just as Jewish Israel is surrounded by Arab states, Hindu majority India is flanked by two Muslim states which, according to the Hindutva worldview, were carved out from a composite and sacred Indic whole. While it’s plain forgotten that it was the British who drew borders along religious lines in both places, for which India, Israel and Palestine continue to suffer enormously, and that prominent RSS leaders have themselves admired the Nazis who killed over six million Jews, as per the contemporary line of thinking it is the ever-present and persistent threat of ‘Islamic Terror’ that is paramount. It always overrides.

Given this mindset, it makes sense why in November 2019, the Indian Consul-General in New York, Sandeep Chakravorty, suggested to a gathering of Kashmiri Hindus that India should follow the Israeli model and build settlements in the Kashmir Valley to secure the return of Hindus.

A female demonstrator runs for cover during a protest where Palestinians demand the right to return to their homeland, at the Israel-Gaza border in the southern Gaza Strip. Photo: Reuters/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa

“It wasn’t a coincidence,” Somdeep Sen argued in his September 2020 article in Foreign Policy, “that the Indian Consul General in New York was speaking to a gathering of Kashmiri Hindus. The return of exiled Hindus to Kashmir has long been central to the Hindu nationalist political agenda. And for the Consul General, Israel serves as a model for the way exiled people might reclaim their homeland. So, referring to the controversial revocation of Article 370 and 35A of the Indian constitution, Chakravorty described the move as an attempt to protect Hindu culture in Kashmir—not unlike the way Jewish people maintained their cultural identity in their years of exile”.

However, from an Indian nationalist perspective, there is another angle, as well. Israel is a tiny state but nonetheless a strong one. It is surrounded by hostile countries but there is still the perception that nobody can really mess with it. Importantly, Israel has the support of many in the west and so its transgressions, whatever they may be, often get overlooked. It is thus a good role model to emulate.

But as many commentators have noted, our allegiance wasn’t always tilted this way. Many Indians before, as even today, were pro-Palestine. Writing in his Harijan weekly in November 1938, Mahatma Gandhi himself said: “Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense the England belongs to the English and France to the French”.

Also read: Indian Diplomat Wants ‘Israel Model’ in Kashmir, Sets Off Controversy

In fact, India voted alongside Arab states against the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine in 1947 arguing that it violated the principles of national self-determination in the UN charter which granted people the right to decide their own destiny.

A shared sense of the uniqueness of their sacred language

Tied to the point that nationalists in both countries believe that they have the original and rightful claim to their land is the shared feeling of a people inheriting an old and sacred language that brings them under one umbrella.

Hebrew, the liturgical tongue of the Jews, was revived and modernised towards the end of the 19th century and into the 20th century such that its use changed from the sacred language of Judaism to a spoken and written language used for daily life in Israel. This was done to foster ethno-nationalistic feelings certainly, but also out of necessity and practicality as a diversity of Jews had started arriving in Palestine and establishing themselves alongside the existing Jewish community in the region.

In the first Aliyah, or major wave of Zionist migration to Ottoman Palestine between 1881 and 1903, the Jews who came, estimated at 25-35000, were mostly from Eastern Europe and Yemen. In the second Aliyah, which took place between 1904 and 1914, a further approximately 35,000 migrants came mainly from the Russian Empire. It was imperative to have a lingua franca connecting these linguistically disparate but religiously united groups that would comprise the new state of Israel and Hebrew was ideal for the role.

Today Hebrew is Israel’s official language and over 5 million people speak it as their native tongue. Moreover, making Aliyah, ‘the act of going up—i.e. towards the Holy Land of Jerusalem’, one of the most basic tenets of Zionism, was enshrined into law on July 5, 1950. Section 1 of the Law of Return declares: “every Jew has the right to come to this country as an oleh [immigrant].”

Likewise, in India, the desire to revive Sanskrit has been expressed many times. But “the demand which has periodically surfaced over the past century for instituting Sanskrit as the national language”, writes Sumathi Ramaswamy in her article ‘Sanskrit for the Nation‘, “has been couched in exactly the opposite terms [to Europe where the modern vernacular spoken by the majority of citizens became the national language]….Sanskrit deserves this status in the view of its advocates precisely because it is nobody’s mother tongue.”A stance that is remarkably similar to the status of Hebrew among Jews in the late 19th century.

She references an 1879 essay entitled “Should we call ourselves Aryan?”, in which A. Mittra wrote: “Is it not a painful, a shameful necessity that compels me, at the present moment to advocate the cause of Aryan learning in a foreign language? Should not Sanskrit rather than English be the universal medium of communication in the Aryan land?’

Also read: Indians Who Oppose Colonialism Should Support the Palestinian Cause

Fascinatingly, there is even a 167-page Sanskrit book titled Bhuvamanita Bhagavadbhasa, published in 2004, about Eliezer Ben-Yehuda himself, the chief driver behind the resurrection of Hebrew from a moribund sacred language into a modern one.

About this book, Eric Gurevitch writes in his EPW article in July 2017, “[It] invites the reader at the outset to draw several comparisons: between Hebrew and Sanskrit, India and Israel, Hindus and Jews. As an account about the “revival” of one language, namely Hebrew, popularly conceived of as ancient, sacred, liturgical, and recently “revived,” told in another language, namely Sanskrit, which is popularly conceived of as ancient, sacred, liturgical, dead and needing to be “revived,” Bhuvamanita Bhagavadbhasa itself serves as an image of the world it describes. It thus links the community that it hopes will change how Sanskrit is used in India to a community from a different nationalist moment. “There are many similar parts in the path of revival of Hebrew and Sanskrit,” the author Vishwasa wrote. “These parts become evident with the careful reading of this little story.””

A shared sense of being the original sons of the soil

A natural corollary to the above feelings of sharedness with Israel among Hindutva nationalists brings me to arguably the most important one: the overarching sense that India is the natural homeland for Hindus in much the same way Israel is the historical home of the Jews. It is exactly this sentiment which found legal expression in the passing of the Citizen Amendment Act (CAA), 2019. Just as Israel’s Law of Return gave teeth to Israel’s Zionist basis so should Citizen Amendment Act (CAA) find its feet and force in India goes the Hindutva theory.

As Somdeep Sen argued in his September 2020 article on Foreign Policy, “It is no surprise then that StandWithUs, a pro-Israel advocacy organisation that publishes pamphlets in Hindi and the Israeli Consul General for South India Dana Kursh, reacted to India passing the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) by saying: “India as a sovereign nation has the right in enacting the CAA … India’s sovereignty is to be respected and she knows how to protect her people.” India, for its part, displayed the extent of its alliance with Israel when in June 2019 it voted against granting Palestinians consultative status in the U.N.’s Economic and Social Council. Responding to the vote—a historic shift in India’s usual, pro-Palestine voting record at the U.N.— Netanyahu tweeted, “Thank you @NarendraModi, thank you India, for your support and for standing with Israel at the UN.”

It is a painful irony that if on the one hand it has been contended that Hindu nationalists are transforming India into an Israel-style ethnostate, the CAA which excludes Muslims refugees from acquiring Indian citizenship is itself, as has been noted, deeply reminiscent of the Nuremberg Laws whereby the Nazis revoked Reich citizenship for Jews.

Also read: Gaza, Apartheid Israel and the Last Stand of Settler Colonialism

The other smaller irony is that for all our admiration of Israel, when Netanyahu thanked 25 countries who supported Israel in this latest round of attacks India was conspicuously absent. Still, perhaps it is a hark back to our history of solidarity with oppressed peoples, a Nehruvian idea, that led India to support the ‘just Palestine cause’ at the UN recently.

One internet poster reminded the others that India’s support for Palestine extends as far back as October 1937, before Indian independence, when the Indian National Congress passed a resolution declaring its support for the Palestinian national movement. But her lone voice was drowned out by the others.

Photo: Twitter

Yet amid the din of rabble-rousers crying hoarse for Israel to crush the terrorists, a cartoon image caught my eye. It showed a man dying in hospital. Too sick to move and only able to breath with the support of oxygen, he nevertheless held up a placard saying #IndiastandswithIsrael.

It is a poignant lesson of our times that hate somehow finds oxygen even when our lungs can’t.

Siddharth Kapila is a lawyer-turned-writer presently working on a travel memoir on Hindu pilgrimage sites.

Watch | Understanding the Israel-Palestine Conflict

Ambassador Talmiz Ahmad and ambassador Navtej Sarna outline the contours of the current conflict, its immediate antecedents and causes, as well as possible implications for peace and stability in the region.

In this episode, Dr Happymon Jacob interviews Ambassador Talmiz Ahmad (Retired Indian diplomat and author) and Ambassador Navtej Sarna (Retired Indian diplomat and India’s former ambassador to Israel and the US) about the conflict between Israel and Palestinians. In a thorough discussion, the ambassadors outline the contours of the current conflict, its immediate antecedents and causes, as well as possible implications for peace and stability in the region.

Ambassador Talmiz Ahmad addresses the impasse in Israeli domestic politics and the implications of the recent events for PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s political fortunes. Ambassador Sarna discusses the international reaction to the conflict and explains President Biden’s approach towards the conflict. He also discusses the nuances of India’s response to the crisis in the open discussion at the UNSC and highlights the minute shifts in India’s policy towards peace in the region. In addition, Hamas, as a political entity, is discussed along with the intricacies of Palestinian politics. Both offer meaningful insights into the peace process going forward, discussing the feasibility of a two-state solution and much more.

The Israel-Palestine Issue Demands a Post-National Solution

There is a need to think beyond the two-state solution imaginatively and ensure Jews, Muslims and Christians live together in a truly post-national sense.

Once again, the Israelis have begun a relentless attack on Gaza, much in the way they did in 2014 during what was called Operation Protective Edge, which led to more than 2,100 Palestinian deaths, 500 of whom were children. This time around, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has asserted quite predictably that Israel will continue with its campaign for “as long as necessary”. The immediate spark to the conflagration was the attempted eviction of Palestinian families from their homes in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood of East Jerusalem. The matter was up for hearing in the Israeli Supreme Court, but was deferred owing to the sensitivity of the situation. All this unfolded as the Muslim holy month of Ramadan was drawing to a close and the date of the creation of the state of Israel, which Palestinians mark as the Nakba, was fast approaching.

It is important to step back in history to understand this seemingly never-ending crisis as it reveals the character of the central actors, especially the almost hyper-statehood of Israel and the failed statehood of the Palestinians. The seeds of the tragedy of Palestine were sown in the waning years of the Ottoman Empire, of which it was a province. The foreseeable end of the Ottoman Empire was opportunity enough for the French and the British to arrive at the secret Sykes-Picot agreement of 1916 that carved up the areas of Lebanon and Syria for the French, with Palestine and Iraq going to the British. The British Mandate in Palestine formally began in 1922 and ended on May 14, 1948, with the declaration of Israeli statehood happening almost immediately.

In early November 1917, the year after the Sykes-Picot agreement, the British issued the famous Balfour Declaration, a letter written by British foreign secretary Arthur Balfour, committing the British government to the creation in Palestine of a “national home for the Jewish people”. For a document of such momentous historical consequences, the Balfour declaration was very short, just a few lines.

Also read: Gaza, Apartheid Israel and the Last Stand of Settler Colonialism

Significantly, along with this commitment to a national home for the Jewish people, it added “nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country”. Note the erasure of the Palestinians already inhabiting the land, as they are referred to and vaguely subsumed under “non-Jewish communities”. Further, it is merely their civil and religious rights that are referred to with no reference to their political rights.

A Palestinian man walks past the remains of a tower building which was destroyed by Israeli air strikes in Gaza City, May 13, 2021. Photo: Reuters/Suhaib Salem.

The British government’s sympathetic attitude towards the idea of a Jewish homeland resulted in an increase of immigration of Jews into Palestine over the decade of the 1920s and 1930s. There was nothing inherently wrong about this Jewish immigration. What changed in these two decades was the way the Jewish National Fund started to buy up large tracts of land to deprive and dispossess Palestinians of the land that they had been living and working on for generations. As a result of the role played by the Jewish National Fund, the movement of Jews into Palestine was quickly transformed from immigrant to settler, giving the incipient Israeli state the character of an aggressive settler-colonialism.

The realisation on the part of the Palestinians of the land being taken away from them resulted in the beginning of what can be called the first intifada of 1936. The word intifada means an uprising of a convulsive, almost desperate kind and there have been at least two further intifadas in Palestine that have arisen in December 1987 and September 2000.

There is speculation that the current crisis is likely to give rise to another intifada. The intifada of 1936 was followed the next year by the report of the Peel Commission in 1937, which recommended partition, but which was rejected by the Palestinians, and the British government ultimately found it unworkable. The intifada itself was brutally suppressed by the British, ending finally in 1939.

The partition plan that divided historic Ottoman Palestine between the Israelis and the Palestinians in 1947 was weighted against the Palestinians. It gave them 45% of the land, despite the Palestinian population presence being 65%. Israel was given a larger 55% of the land with a smaller Jewish population presence of 35%. By the year 1967 when the six-day war happened, Israel occupied 78% of the land, reducing Palestine to a mere 22% of the original historic Palestine. Even on this reduced 22% the Palestinians are hemmed and fenced in by Israeli military roads, check-posts and the ever-expanding Jewish settlements that are illegal and violate international law.

Thinking beyond the nation-state solution

The Israel-Palestine issue is a modern problem whose roots lie very much in the 20th century and which has only been further aggravated in the 21st century. This is not an ancient theological battle between Abrahamic faiths, all of which lay claim to Jerusalem as a holy city.

The dispute is a modern one involving nationalism, racism, settler-colonialism and ethnic cleansing. The problem very specifically lies in the nature of the Israeli state that refuses to accept clearly demarcated borders, resulting in turn in the ruling out of Palestinian statehood. A two-state solution, which has become something of a nostrum in frantic attempts at negotiated settlements, is essentially a non-starter if there is no clear agreement on where the borders of Israel end and where those of Palestine begin.

Obsessive Israeli references to Palestinian violence are nothing but a pretext to inflict disproportionate acts of violence on Palestinians. In his recent book Neither Settler, nor Native the Ugandan academic Mahmood Mamdani has suggested that the roots of the nation-state lie not in the central Europe of the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia, but in 1492 on the Iberian Peninsula where Jews, Christians and Muslims prospered and also inflicted suffering on each other.

Also read: Indians Who Oppose Colonialism Should Support the Palestinian Cause

The supplanting of Moorish rule in 1492 led to the expulsion of both Jewish and Muslim populations from the Iberian Peninsula, many of them fleeing to find some semblance of peace and flourishing in the millet system of the Ottoman Empire, the very same empire in whose decline was created the current Israel-Palestine dispute.

There is no reason why Jews, Muslims and Christians cannot learn the art of survival together in suffering in the 21st century. However, that would require for a start, thinking capaciously beyond the confines of the nation-state and thinking beyond the vicious ultra-nationalism on display in the current Israel-Palestine dispute, which leads people to overlook the suffering of others.

It would require a truly 21st century post-national solution, which also requires a resolute political will. Instead, what we have coming from the US and many European countries is the same inane, almost insane parroting of Israel’s “right to defend itself” in the face of Palestinian terrorism. Such unimaginative and craven responses are never going to lead to any kind of solution and will keep the region within the cycle of violence that has become a heartbreakingly familiar feature of this part of the world.

Amir Ali teaches at the Centre for Political Studies, JNU.