Showing posts with label Israel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Israel. Show all posts
Tuesday, 16 July 2024
Monday, 27 May 2024
Sunday, 28 April 2024
Thursday, 11 April 2024
Wednesday, 21 February 2024
Friday, 9 February 2024
Friday, 5 January 2024
Friday, 22 December 2023
Saturday, 16 December 2023
Wednesday, 1 November 2023
Tuesday, 14 March 2023
Are these rumbles of discontent coming together?
Jawed Naqvi in The Dawn
A PEOPLE’S movement is underway in Israel against its ultra right-wing government. Prime Minister Netanyahu is trying to subvert the judiciary’s neutrality, with a selfish aim to kill the criminal cases hanging over his head and that of his colleagues. In quite a few democracies, the judiciary is or has been under assault from the right wing for similar reasons. India is witnessing it in unsubtle ways. Pakistan too has seen political interference with the judiciary at least since the hanging of Bhutto. Then Nawaz Sharif and Gen Musharraf, vicious to each other, took turns to undermine the courts. Pakistan, however, has seen mass movements too that have thrown out military dictators and restored democracy even if intermittently. Where’s that old fire in the belly for India?
Describing the unprecedented attack on India’s democracy starkly at a Cambridge University talk is one thing. Few Indian politicians are capable of speaking with conviction without a teleprompter as Rahul Gandhi recently did before an enlightened audience, while also making plenty of sense. But just as he was holding forth — at a talk called ‘Learning to listen in the 21st century’ — two unrelated landmark events were unfolding in Turkiye and Israel. Was he listening to them too?
The events might send any struggling democratic opposition to the drawing board. In Turkiye, a last-minute collapse of the alliance of six disparate parties, preparing to challenge President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s re-election in May, holds a lesson for any less-than-solid political alliance about possible ambush on the eve of an assured victory. Equally instructive was the opposition’s ability to bury its differences promptly, something that eludes India. The Turkish groups have made compromises with each other so that their common goal to defeat Erdogan remains paramount. There are good chances they would succeed, but even if they don’t, it won’t be for want of giving their best to restore Turkiye’s secular democracy.
However, it was the coming out of Israel’s air force pilots to join the swarming protests against the Netanyahu government that is truly remarkable, and unprecedented. These pilots are usually adept at bombing vulnerable neighbourhoods, including Palestinian quarters. But their taking a stand in defence of democracy offers a lesson to every country with a strong military. There were rumblings in India once. Jaya Prakash Narayan, the mass leader opposed Indira Gandhi’s authoritarian patch and called for the army and the police to disobey her, an unusual quest but an utterly democratic call when democracy itself is being murdered. The RSS had supported the JP movement. The boot today is on the other foot. Does the Indian opposition have the conviction to follow in JP’s footsteps to take on Prime Minister Narendra Modi? Does it at all feel the dire need to make sacrifices and compromises to rescue and heal the wounded nation?
The Israeli government may or may not succeed in neutralising the supreme court, which it has set out to do. But the masses are out on the streets to act when their nation is in peril. And India cannot exist as a nation without democracy. Secular democracy enshrined in its constitution binds it into a whole.
Rahul Gandhi has evolved as a contender for any challenging job that could help save the Indian republic from its approaching destruction. But he should also have a chat with Prof Amartya Sen perhaps who was quoted recently as saying that Mamata Bannerjee would make a good prime minister. Others have their hats in the ring. Gandhi’s talk in the hallowed portals of Cambridge bonded nicely with his 4,000-kilometre walk recently, from the southern tip of India to what is effectively the garrison area of Jammu and Kashmir. No harm if the walk served as a learning curve for the Gandhi scion, but even better if it were a precursor for a mass upsurge as is happening elsewhere, and which has seen successful outcomes in many Latin American and African states.
Rahul Gandhi spoke about the surveillance, which opposition politicians and journalists among others have been illegally put under. His points about deep-seated corruption, that shows up graphically as crony capitalism, are all well taken. Few can match the feat of mass contact across the country that he displayed recently and his declamation at the world’s premier university. The point is that Cambridge University cannot change the oppressive government in India. Only the Indian opposition can. Rahul Gandhi has the credentials to weld mutually suspicious opposition parties into a force to usher in the needed change.
There’s no dearth of issues to unite the people and the parties. To cite one, call out the BJP-backed ruling alliances in north-eastern states where its supporters assert their right to eat beef. And place it along the two Muslim boys incinerated in a jeep near Delhi by alleged cow vigilantes. The criminality and the hypocrisy of it.
The fascist assault on India’s judiciary is an issue waiting to be taken up for nationwide mobilisation. The assault comes at a time when the new chief justice is one with a mind of his own. Judges have stopped accepting official briefs in sealed envelopes as had become the practice, dodging public scrutiny, say, in the controversial warplanes deal with France. The court has set up a probe into the Adani affair, something unthinkable until recently.
The timing of the vicious criticism of the judiciary is noteworthy. The law minister described the judges as unelected individuals, perhaps implying they were answerable to the elected parliament like any other bureaucrat. This is mischievous. The supreme court set new transparent principles in the appointment of election commissioners. It’s a rap on the knuckles of an unholy system. Could anyone call it a fair election in a secular democracy when people are nefariously polarised and the election commission looks the other way? The questions are best answered by opposition parties, preferably in unison.
A PEOPLE’S movement is underway in Israel against its ultra right-wing government. Prime Minister Netanyahu is trying to subvert the judiciary’s neutrality, with a selfish aim to kill the criminal cases hanging over his head and that of his colleagues. In quite a few democracies, the judiciary is or has been under assault from the right wing for similar reasons. India is witnessing it in unsubtle ways. Pakistan too has seen political interference with the judiciary at least since the hanging of Bhutto. Then Nawaz Sharif and Gen Musharraf, vicious to each other, took turns to undermine the courts. Pakistan, however, has seen mass movements too that have thrown out military dictators and restored democracy even if intermittently. Where’s that old fire in the belly for India?
Describing the unprecedented attack on India’s democracy starkly at a Cambridge University talk is one thing. Few Indian politicians are capable of speaking with conviction without a teleprompter as Rahul Gandhi recently did before an enlightened audience, while also making plenty of sense. But just as he was holding forth — at a talk called ‘Learning to listen in the 21st century’ — two unrelated landmark events were unfolding in Turkiye and Israel. Was he listening to them too?
The events might send any struggling democratic opposition to the drawing board. In Turkiye, a last-minute collapse of the alliance of six disparate parties, preparing to challenge President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s re-election in May, holds a lesson for any less-than-solid political alliance about possible ambush on the eve of an assured victory. Equally instructive was the opposition’s ability to bury its differences promptly, something that eludes India. The Turkish groups have made compromises with each other so that their common goal to defeat Erdogan remains paramount. There are good chances they would succeed, but even if they don’t, it won’t be for want of giving their best to restore Turkiye’s secular democracy.
However, it was the coming out of Israel’s air force pilots to join the swarming protests against the Netanyahu government that is truly remarkable, and unprecedented. These pilots are usually adept at bombing vulnerable neighbourhoods, including Palestinian quarters. But their taking a stand in defence of democracy offers a lesson to every country with a strong military. There were rumblings in India once. Jaya Prakash Narayan, the mass leader opposed Indira Gandhi’s authoritarian patch and called for the army and the police to disobey her, an unusual quest but an utterly democratic call when democracy itself is being murdered. The RSS had supported the JP movement. The boot today is on the other foot. Does the Indian opposition have the conviction to follow in JP’s footsteps to take on Prime Minister Narendra Modi? Does it at all feel the dire need to make sacrifices and compromises to rescue and heal the wounded nation?
The Israeli government may or may not succeed in neutralising the supreme court, which it has set out to do. But the masses are out on the streets to act when their nation is in peril. And India cannot exist as a nation without democracy. Secular democracy enshrined in its constitution binds it into a whole.
Rahul Gandhi has evolved as a contender for any challenging job that could help save the Indian republic from its approaching destruction. But he should also have a chat with Prof Amartya Sen perhaps who was quoted recently as saying that Mamata Bannerjee would make a good prime minister. Others have their hats in the ring. Gandhi’s talk in the hallowed portals of Cambridge bonded nicely with his 4,000-kilometre walk recently, from the southern tip of India to what is effectively the garrison area of Jammu and Kashmir. No harm if the walk served as a learning curve for the Gandhi scion, but even better if it were a precursor for a mass upsurge as is happening elsewhere, and which has seen successful outcomes in many Latin American and African states.
Rahul Gandhi spoke about the surveillance, which opposition politicians and journalists among others have been illegally put under. His points about deep-seated corruption, that shows up graphically as crony capitalism, are all well taken. Few can match the feat of mass contact across the country that he displayed recently and his declamation at the world’s premier university. The point is that Cambridge University cannot change the oppressive government in India. Only the Indian opposition can. Rahul Gandhi has the credentials to weld mutually suspicious opposition parties into a force to usher in the needed change.
There’s no dearth of issues to unite the people and the parties. To cite one, call out the BJP-backed ruling alliances in north-eastern states where its supporters assert their right to eat beef. And place it along the two Muslim boys incinerated in a jeep near Delhi by alleged cow vigilantes. The criminality and the hypocrisy of it.
The fascist assault on India’s judiciary is an issue waiting to be taken up for nationwide mobilisation. The assault comes at a time when the new chief justice is one with a mind of his own. Judges have stopped accepting official briefs in sealed envelopes as had become the practice, dodging public scrutiny, say, in the controversial warplanes deal with France. The court has set up a probe into the Adani affair, something unthinkable until recently.
The timing of the vicious criticism of the judiciary is noteworthy. The law minister described the judges as unelected individuals, perhaps implying they were answerable to the elected parliament like any other bureaucrat. This is mischievous. The supreme court set new transparent principles in the appointment of election commissioners. It’s a rap on the knuckles of an unholy system. Could anyone call it a fair election in a secular democracy when people are nefariously polarised and the election commission looks the other way? The questions are best answered by opposition parties, preferably in unison.
Saturday, 3 December 2022
Saturday, 2 July 2022
Brain Power - Israel's Secret Weapon
Pervez Hoodbhoy in The Dawn
IS it some international conspiracy — or perhaps a secret weapon — that allows Israel to lord over the Middle East? How did a country of nine million — between one-half and one-third of Karachi’s population — manage to subdue 400m Arabs? A country built on stolen land and the ruins of destroyed Palestinian villages is visibly chuckling away as every Arab government, egged on by the khadim-i-haramain sharifain, lines up to recognise it. Economically fragile Pakistan is being lured into following suit.
Conspiracy theorists have long imagined Israel as America’s overgrown watchdog, beefed up and armed to protect American interests in the Middle East. But only a fool can believe that today. Every American president, senator and congressman shamefacedly admits it’s the Israeli tail that wags the American dog. Academics who chide Israel’s annexation policies are labelled anti-Semitic, moving targets without a future. The Israeli-US nexus is there for all to see but, contrary to what is usually thought, it exists for benefiting Israel not America.
It was not always this way. European Jews fleeing Hitler were far less welcome than Muslims are in today’s America. That Jewish refugees posed a serious threat to national security was argued by government officials in the State Department to the FBI as well as president Franklin Roosevelt himself. One of my scientific heroes, Richard Feynman, was rejected in 1935 by Columbia University for being Jewish. Fortunately, MIT accepted him.
What changed outsiders into insiders was a secret weapon. That weapon was brain power. Regarded as the primary natural resource by Jews inside and outside Israel it is an obsession for parents who, spoon by spoon, zealously ladle knowledge into their children. The state too knows its responsibility: Israel has more museums and libraries per capita than any other country. Children born to Ashkenazi parents are assumed as prime state assets who will start a business, discover some important scientific truth, invent some gadget, create a work of art, or write a book.
In secular Israel, a student’s verbal, mathematical, and scientific aptitude sets his chances of success. By the 10th grade of the secular bagut system, smarter students will be learning calculus and differential equations together with probability, trigonometry and theorem proving. Looking at some past exam papers available on the internet, I wondered how Pakistani university professors with PhDs would fare in Israeli level-5 school exams. Would our national scientific heroes manage a pass? Unsurprisingly, by the time they reach university, Israeli students have bettered their American counterparts academically.
There is a definite historical context to seeking this excellence. For thousands of years, European anti-Semitism made it impossible for Jews to own land or farms, forcing them to seek livelihoods in trading, finance, medicine, science and mathematics. To compete, parents actively tutored their children in these skills. In the 1880s, Zionism’s founders placed their faith solidly in education born out of secular Renaissance and Enlightenment thought.
But if this is the story of secular Israel, there is also a different Israel with a different story. Ultra-orthodox Haredi Jews were once a tiny minority in Israel’s mostly secular society. But their high birth rate has made them grow to about 10 per cent of the population. Recognisable by their distinctive dress and manners, the Haredim are literally those who “tremble before God”.
For Haredis, secularism and secular education are anathema. Like Pakistan, Israel too has a single national curriculum with a hefty chunk earmarked for nation-building (read, indoctrination). In the Israeli context, the ideological part seeks to justify dispossession of the Palestinian population. Expectedly, the ‘Jewish madressah’ system accepts this part but rejects the secular part ie that designed to create the modern mind.
The difference in achievement levels between regular and Haredi schools is widening. While all schools teach Hebrew (the holy language), secular schools stress mastery over English while ‘madressahs’ emphasise Hebrew. According to a Jerusalem Post article, Haredi schools (as well as Arab-Israeli schools) are poor performers with learning outcomes beneath nine of the 10 Muslim countries that participated in the most recent PISA exam. A report says 50pc of Israel’s students are getting a ‘third-world education’.
The drop in overall standards is causing smarter Israelis to lose sleep. They fear that, as happened in Beirut, over time a less fertile, more educated elite sector of society will be overrun by a more fertile, less-educated religious population. When that happens, Israel will lose its historical advantage. Ironically, Jewish identity created Israel but Jewish orthodoxy is spearheading Israel’s decline.
There is only one Muslim country that Israel truly fears — Iran. Although its oil resources are modest, its human resources are considerable.
The revolution of 1979 diminished the quality of Iranian education and caused many of Iran’s best professors to flee. But unlike Afghanistan’s mullahs, the mullahs of Iran were smart enough to keep education going. Although coexistence is uncomfortable, science and religion are mostly allowed to go their own separate ways. Therefore, in spite of suffocating embargos, Iran continues to achieve in nuclear, space, heavy engineering, biotechnology, and the theoretical sciences. Israel trembles.
Spurred by their bitter animosity towards Iran, Arab countries have apparently understood the need of the times and are slowly turning around. Starting this year, religious ideology has been de-emphasised and new subjects are being introduced in Saudi schools. These include digital skills, English for elementary grades, social studies, self-defence and critical thinking. Of course, a change of curriculum means little unless accompanied by a change of outlook. Still, it does look like a beginning.
Israel has shown the effectiveness of its secret weapon; it has also exposed the vulnerability of opponents who don’t have it. There are lessons here for Pakistan and a strong reason to wrest control away from Jamaat-i-Islami ideologues that, from the time of Ziaul Haq onward, have throttled and suffocated our education. The heights were reached under Imran Khan’s Single National Curriculum which yoked ordinary schools to madressahs. But even with Khan’s departure, ideological poisons continue to circulate in the national bloodstream. Until flushed away, Pakistan’s intellectual and material decline will accelerate.
IS it some international conspiracy — or perhaps a secret weapon — that allows Israel to lord over the Middle East? How did a country of nine million — between one-half and one-third of Karachi’s population — manage to subdue 400m Arabs? A country built on stolen land and the ruins of destroyed Palestinian villages is visibly chuckling away as every Arab government, egged on by the khadim-i-haramain sharifain, lines up to recognise it. Economically fragile Pakistan is being lured into following suit.
Conspiracy theorists have long imagined Israel as America’s overgrown watchdog, beefed up and armed to protect American interests in the Middle East. But only a fool can believe that today. Every American president, senator and congressman shamefacedly admits it’s the Israeli tail that wags the American dog. Academics who chide Israel’s annexation policies are labelled anti-Semitic, moving targets without a future. The Israeli-US nexus is there for all to see but, contrary to what is usually thought, it exists for benefiting Israel not America.
It was not always this way. European Jews fleeing Hitler were far less welcome than Muslims are in today’s America. That Jewish refugees posed a serious threat to national security was argued by government officials in the State Department to the FBI as well as president Franklin Roosevelt himself. One of my scientific heroes, Richard Feynman, was rejected in 1935 by Columbia University for being Jewish. Fortunately, MIT accepted him.
What changed outsiders into insiders was a secret weapon. That weapon was brain power. Regarded as the primary natural resource by Jews inside and outside Israel it is an obsession for parents who, spoon by spoon, zealously ladle knowledge into their children. The state too knows its responsibility: Israel has more museums and libraries per capita than any other country. Children born to Ashkenazi parents are assumed as prime state assets who will start a business, discover some important scientific truth, invent some gadget, create a work of art, or write a book.
In secular Israel, a student’s verbal, mathematical, and scientific aptitude sets his chances of success. By the 10th grade of the secular bagut system, smarter students will be learning calculus and differential equations together with probability, trigonometry and theorem proving. Looking at some past exam papers available on the internet, I wondered how Pakistani university professors with PhDs would fare in Israeli level-5 school exams. Would our national scientific heroes manage a pass? Unsurprisingly, by the time they reach university, Israeli students have bettered their American counterparts academically.
There is a definite historical context to seeking this excellence. For thousands of years, European anti-Semitism made it impossible for Jews to own land or farms, forcing them to seek livelihoods in trading, finance, medicine, science and mathematics. To compete, parents actively tutored their children in these skills. In the 1880s, Zionism’s founders placed their faith solidly in education born out of secular Renaissance and Enlightenment thought.
But if this is the story of secular Israel, there is also a different Israel with a different story. Ultra-orthodox Haredi Jews were once a tiny minority in Israel’s mostly secular society. But their high birth rate has made them grow to about 10 per cent of the population. Recognisable by their distinctive dress and manners, the Haredim are literally those who “tremble before God”.
For Haredis, secularism and secular education are anathema. Like Pakistan, Israel too has a single national curriculum with a hefty chunk earmarked for nation-building (read, indoctrination). In the Israeli context, the ideological part seeks to justify dispossession of the Palestinian population. Expectedly, the ‘Jewish madressah’ system accepts this part but rejects the secular part ie that designed to create the modern mind.
The difference in achievement levels between regular and Haredi schools is widening. While all schools teach Hebrew (the holy language), secular schools stress mastery over English while ‘madressahs’ emphasise Hebrew. According to a Jerusalem Post article, Haredi schools (as well as Arab-Israeli schools) are poor performers with learning outcomes beneath nine of the 10 Muslim countries that participated in the most recent PISA exam. A report says 50pc of Israel’s students are getting a ‘third-world education’.
The drop in overall standards is causing smarter Israelis to lose sleep. They fear that, as happened in Beirut, over time a less fertile, more educated elite sector of society will be overrun by a more fertile, less-educated religious population. When that happens, Israel will lose its historical advantage. Ironically, Jewish identity created Israel but Jewish orthodoxy is spearheading Israel’s decline.
There is only one Muslim country that Israel truly fears — Iran. Although its oil resources are modest, its human resources are considerable.
The revolution of 1979 diminished the quality of Iranian education and caused many of Iran’s best professors to flee. But unlike Afghanistan’s mullahs, the mullahs of Iran were smart enough to keep education going. Although coexistence is uncomfortable, science and religion are mostly allowed to go their own separate ways. Therefore, in spite of suffocating embargos, Iran continues to achieve in nuclear, space, heavy engineering, biotechnology, and the theoretical sciences. Israel trembles.
Spurred by their bitter animosity towards Iran, Arab countries have apparently understood the need of the times and are slowly turning around. Starting this year, religious ideology has been de-emphasised and new subjects are being introduced in Saudi schools. These include digital skills, English for elementary grades, social studies, self-defence and critical thinking. Of course, a change of curriculum means little unless accompanied by a change of outlook. Still, it does look like a beginning.
Israel has shown the effectiveness of its secret weapon; it has also exposed the vulnerability of opponents who don’t have it. There are lessons here for Pakistan and a strong reason to wrest control away from Jamaat-i-Islami ideologues that, from the time of Ziaul Haq onward, have throttled and suffocated our education. The heights were reached under Imran Khan’s Single National Curriculum which yoked ordinary schools to madressahs. But even with Khan’s departure, ideological poisons continue to circulate in the national bloodstream. Until flushed away, Pakistan’s intellectual and material decline will accelerate.
Friday, 7 January 2022
Wednesday, 18 August 2021
Tuesday, 20 July 2021
Monday, 7 June 2021
Israel - A PSYCHOTIC BREAK FROM REALITY?
Nadeem F. Paracha in The Dawn
Illustration by Abro
The New York Times, in its May 28, 2021 issue, published a collage of photographs of 67 children under the age of 18 who had been killed in the recent Israeli air attacks on Gaza and by Hamas on Tel Aviv. Two of the children had been killed in Israel by shrapnel from rockets fired by Hamas. It is only natural for any normal human being to ask, how can one kill children?
Similar collages appear every year on social media of the over 140 students who were mercilessly gunned down in 2014 at the Army Public School in Peshawar. The killings were carried out by the militant organisation the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). Most Pakistanis could not comprehend how even a militant group could massacre school children. But there were also those who questioned why the children were targeted.
The ‘why’ in this context is apparently understood at an individual level when certain individuals sexually assault children and often kill them. Psychologists are of the view that such individuals — paedophiles — are mostly men who have either suffered sexual abuse as children themselves, or are overwhelmed by certain psychological disorders that lead to developing questionable sexual urges.
In the 1982 anthology Behaviour Modification and Therapy, W.L. Marshall writes that paedophilia co-occurs with low self-esteem, depression and other personality disorders. These can be because of the individual’s own experiences as a sexually abused child or, according to the 2008 issue of the Journal of Psychiatric Research, paedophiles may have different brain structures which cause personality disorders and social failings, leading them to develop deviant sexual behaviours.
But why do some paedophiles end up murdering their young victims? This may be to eliminate the possibility of their victims naming them after the assault, or the young victims die because their bodies are still not developed to accommodate even the most basic sexual acts. According to a 1992 study by the Behavioural Science Unit of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the US, some paedophiles can also develop sadism as a disorder, which eventually compels them to derive pleasure by inflicting pain and killing their young victims.
Why did Israel kill so many children in its bombardment of Gaza? Could it be that it has something in common with apocalyptic terror groups, for whom killing children is simply collateral damage in a divinely ordained cosmic battle?
Now the question is, are modern-day governments, militaries and terrorist groups that knowingly massacre children, also driven by the same sadistic impulses? Do they extract pleasure from slaughtering children? It is possible that military massacres that include the death of a large number of children are acts of frustration and blind rage by soldiers made to fight wars that are being lost.
The March 1968 ‘My Lai massacre’, carried out by US soldiers in Vietnam, is a case in point. Over 500 people, including children, were killed in that incident. Even women who were carrying babies in their arms, were shot dead. Just a month earlier, communist insurgents had attacked South Vietnamese cities held by US forces. The insurgents were driven out, but they were able to kill a large number of US soldiers. Also, the war in Vietnam had become unpopular in the US. Soldiers were dismayed by stories about returning US marines being insulted, ridiculed and rejected at home for fighting an unjust and immoral war.
Indeed, desperate armies have been known to kill the most vulnerable members of the enemy, such as children, in an attempt to psychologically compensate for their inability to fight effectively against their adult opponents. But what about the Israeli armed forces? What frustrations are they facing? They have successfully neutralised anti-Israel militancy. And the Palestinians and their supporters are no match against Israel’s war machine. So why did Israeli forces knowingly kill so many Palestinian children in Gaza?
A May 21, 2021 report published on the Al-Jazeera website quotes a Palestinian lawyer, Youssef al-Zayed, as saying that Israeli forces were ‘intentionally targeting minors to terrorise an entire generation from speaking out.’ Ever since 1987, Palestinian children have been in the forefront of protests against armed Israeli forces. The children are often armed with nothing more than stones.
What Israel is doing against its Arab population, and in the Palestinian Territories that are still largely under its control, can be called ‘democide.’ Coined by the American political scientist Rudolph Rummel, the word democide means acts of genocide by a government/ state against a segment of its own population. Such acts constitute the systematic elimination of people belonging to minority religious or ethnic communities. According to Rummel, this is done because the persecuted communities are perceived as being ‘future threats’ by the dominant community.
So, do terrorist outfits such as TTP, Islamic State and Boko Haram, for example, who are known to also target children, do so because they see children as future threats?
In a 2018 essay for the Journal of Strategic Studies, the forensic psychologist Karl Umbrasas writes that terror outfits who kill indiscriminately can be categorised as ‘apocalyptic groups.’ According to Umbrasas, such groups operate like ‘apocalyptic cults’ and are not restrained by the socio-political and moral restraints that compel non-apocalyptic militant outfits to only focus on attacking armed, non-civilian targets. Umbrasas writes that apocalyptic terror groups justify acts of indiscriminate destruction through their often distorted and violent interpretations of sacred texts.
Such groups are thus completely unrepentant about targeting even children. To them the children, too, are part of the problem that they are going to resolve through a ‘cosmic war.’ The idea of a cosmic war constitutes an imagined battle between metaphysical forces — good and evil — that is behind many cases of religion-related violence.
Interestingly, this was also how the Afghan civil war of the 1980s between Islamist groups and Soviet troops was framed by the US, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. The cosmic bit evaporated for the three states after the departure of Soviet troops, but the idea of the cosmic conflict remained in the minds of various terror groups in the region.
The moral codes of apocalyptic terror groups transcend those of the modern world. So, for example, on May 9 this year, when a terrorist group targeted a girls’ school in Afghanistan, killing 80, it is likely it saw girl students as part of the evil side in the divinely ordained cosmic war that the group imagines itself to be fighting.
This indeed is the result of a psychotic break from reality. But it is a reality that apocalyptic terror outfits do not accept. To them, this reality is a social construct. There is no value of the physical human body in such misshaped metaphysical ideas. Therefore, even if a cosmic war requires the killing of children, it is just the destruction of bodies, no matter what their size.
Illustration by AbroThe New York Times, in its May 28, 2021 issue, published a collage of photographs of 67 children under the age of 18 who had been killed in the recent Israeli air attacks on Gaza and by Hamas on Tel Aviv. Two of the children had been killed in Israel by shrapnel from rockets fired by Hamas. It is only natural for any normal human being to ask, how can one kill children?
Similar collages appear every year on social media of the over 140 students who were mercilessly gunned down in 2014 at the Army Public School in Peshawar. The killings were carried out by the militant organisation the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). Most Pakistanis could not comprehend how even a militant group could massacre school children. But there were also those who questioned why the children were targeted.
The ‘why’ in this context is apparently understood at an individual level when certain individuals sexually assault children and often kill them. Psychologists are of the view that such individuals — paedophiles — are mostly men who have either suffered sexual abuse as children themselves, or are overwhelmed by certain psychological disorders that lead to developing questionable sexual urges.
In the 1982 anthology Behaviour Modification and Therapy, W.L. Marshall writes that paedophilia co-occurs with low self-esteem, depression and other personality disorders. These can be because of the individual’s own experiences as a sexually abused child or, according to the 2008 issue of the Journal of Psychiatric Research, paedophiles may have different brain structures which cause personality disorders and social failings, leading them to develop deviant sexual behaviours.
But why do some paedophiles end up murdering their young victims? This may be to eliminate the possibility of their victims naming them after the assault, or the young victims die because their bodies are still not developed to accommodate even the most basic sexual acts. According to a 1992 study by the Behavioural Science Unit of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the US, some paedophiles can also develop sadism as a disorder, which eventually compels them to derive pleasure by inflicting pain and killing their young victims.
Why did Israel kill so many children in its bombardment of Gaza? Could it be that it has something in common with apocalyptic terror groups, for whom killing children is simply collateral damage in a divinely ordained cosmic battle?
Now the question is, are modern-day governments, militaries and terrorist groups that knowingly massacre children, also driven by the same sadistic impulses? Do they extract pleasure from slaughtering children? It is possible that military massacres that include the death of a large number of children are acts of frustration and blind rage by soldiers made to fight wars that are being lost.
The March 1968 ‘My Lai massacre’, carried out by US soldiers in Vietnam, is a case in point. Over 500 people, including children, were killed in that incident. Even women who were carrying babies in their arms, were shot dead. Just a month earlier, communist insurgents had attacked South Vietnamese cities held by US forces. The insurgents were driven out, but they were able to kill a large number of US soldiers. Also, the war in Vietnam had become unpopular in the US. Soldiers were dismayed by stories about returning US marines being insulted, ridiculed and rejected at home for fighting an unjust and immoral war.
Indeed, desperate armies have been known to kill the most vulnerable members of the enemy, such as children, in an attempt to psychologically compensate for their inability to fight effectively against their adult opponents. But what about the Israeli armed forces? What frustrations are they facing? They have successfully neutralised anti-Israel militancy. And the Palestinians and their supporters are no match against Israel’s war machine. So why did Israeli forces knowingly kill so many Palestinian children in Gaza?
A May 21, 2021 report published on the Al-Jazeera website quotes a Palestinian lawyer, Youssef al-Zayed, as saying that Israeli forces were ‘intentionally targeting minors to terrorise an entire generation from speaking out.’ Ever since 1987, Palestinian children have been in the forefront of protests against armed Israeli forces. The children are often armed with nothing more than stones.
What Israel is doing against its Arab population, and in the Palestinian Territories that are still largely under its control, can be called ‘democide.’ Coined by the American political scientist Rudolph Rummel, the word democide means acts of genocide by a government/ state against a segment of its own population. Such acts constitute the systematic elimination of people belonging to minority religious or ethnic communities. According to Rummel, this is done because the persecuted communities are perceived as being ‘future threats’ by the dominant community.
So, do terrorist outfits such as TTP, Islamic State and Boko Haram, for example, who are known to also target children, do so because they see children as future threats?
In a 2018 essay for the Journal of Strategic Studies, the forensic psychologist Karl Umbrasas writes that terror outfits who kill indiscriminately can be categorised as ‘apocalyptic groups.’ According to Umbrasas, such groups operate like ‘apocalyptic cults’ and are not restrained by the socio-political and moral restraints that compel non-apocalyptic militant outfits to only focus on attacking armed, non-civilian targets. Umbrasas writes that apocalyptic terror groups justify acts of indiscriminate destruction through their often distorted and violent interpretations of sacred texts.
Such groups are thus completely unrepentant about targeting even children. To them the children, too, are part of the problem that they are going to resolve through a ‘cosmic war.’ The idea of a cosmic war constitutes an imagined battle between metaphysical forces — good and evil — that is behind many cases of religion-related violence.
Interestingly, this was also how the Afghan civil war of the 1980s between Islamist groups and Soviet troops was framed by the US, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. The cosmic bit evaporated for the three states after the departure of Soviet troops, but the idea of the cosmic conflict remained in the minds of various terror groups in the region.
The moral codes of apocalyptic terror groups transcend those of the modern world. So, for example, on May 9 this year, when a terrorist group targeted a girls’ school in Afghanistan, killing 80, it is likely it saw girl students as part of the evil side in the divinely ordained cosmic war that the group imagines itself to be fighting.
This indeed is the result of a psychotic break from reality. But it is a reality that apocalyptic terror outfits do not accept. To them, this reality is a social construct. There is no value of the physical human body in such misshaped metaphysical ideas. Therefore, even if a cosmic war requires the killing of children, it is just the destruction of bodies, no matter what their size.
Saturday, 29 May 2021
Sunday, 23 May 2021
Hard Choices in Palestine
Nadeem Paracha in The Dawn
In the anthology Negotiating in Times of Conflict, Anat Kurz describes the Israel-Palestine dispute as ‘a three-way conflict.’
There is, of course, the more well-known two-way tussle between the Israeli state and the government body in West Bank and Gaza. These Palestinian-majority regions came under the control of a partially self-governing body in 1994, after an agreement was signed in Oslo between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), the largest Palestinian political entity. The reason Kurz explains the tussle as a three-way conflict is because of the presence of another influential Palestinian party, Hamas.
Hamas, which has had a problematic relationship with the PLO, appeared in 1987 as an ‘Islamist’ variant of the Palestinian nationalist movement. The PLO, ever since its inception in 1964, is of course an umbrella organisation comprising various secular Palestinian nationalist outfits. The PLO’s largest component party was always Fatah, headed by the late Yasser Arafat. Initially, the PLO was highly militant in its outlook and was involved in armed attacks against Israel. Many of its component factions were supported by the former Soviet Union and radical Arab nationalist regimes in Egypt, Iraq, Syria and Libya.
However, from the mid-1970s onwards, when most Arab countries began a process of repairing ties with Saudi Arabia and the US, Fatah decided to work towards building itself as a ‘legitimate’ face of Palestinian nationalism, recognised by the UN. In 1987, a spontaneous uprising erupted against Israel’s occupation armies in various Palestinian-majority regions. The uprising, called the intifada (rebellion), caught the PLO by surprise.
The uprising did not have a core group navigating it. It was mostly driven by young stone-throwing Palestinians, confronting heavily armed Israeli occupiers. Yet, the intifada had enough nuisance value to get the Israelis to talk with their main nemesis, Fatah, in Oslo. A deal was signed that handed over West Bank and Gaza to a partially autonomous government of Palestinians. During the 1996 elections here, the electorate handed the PLO a landslide victory and the mandate to rule West Bank and Gaza.
Hamas was the Palestinian wing of the Muslim Brotherhood — a pan-Islamist movement headquartered in Egypt — but one with a history of deriving clandestine support from Israel when the Brotherhood was being repressed by the Arab nationalist regimes in Egypt in the 1960s, and in Syria in the early 1980s.
According to Andrew Higgins, in the January 24, 2009 issue of the Wall Street Journal, Israel propped up Hamas to use it as a ‘counterweight’ against the PLO. The roots of this manoeuvre can be found in the late 1970s, when the Israeli state began to patronise an Islamist outfit called the Mujama al-Islamiya, which described itself as a charity organisation.
According to Higgins, the Egyptians had sidelined and banned the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist outfits in the Palestinian regions that were under Egyptian control till the 1967 Arab-Israel War. But once these regions fell in the hands of Israeli forces, the Israelis allowed the Islamist groups to operate, as long as they were anti-PLO.
With Israeli support, the Mujama and other such groups began to undermine the PLO’s influence. They organised charity programmes, establishing small clinics, schools and mosques and, in return, were able to recruit a large number of disillusioned Palestinians. Hamas treaded the same path until 1994, when the PLO agreed to recognise Israel as a country and, in exchange of which, Israel handed over the West Bank and Gaza to the Palestinians.
However, thus began campaigns of suicide bombings, assassinations and rocket attacks against Israel by Hamas, drawing vicious Israeli reprisals. The PLO had swept the 1996 elections, but Hamas won the 2006 elections. It received 44.45 percent of the total votes to the PLO’s 41.43 percent.
Fatah’s Muhammad Abbas had replaced Yasser Arafat as president of Palestine after Arafat’s demise in 2004. Tensions between the Fatah-led PLO and Hamas had been simmering since the 1990s. The PLO had agreed to end its policy of armed resistance and, as a result, the PLO’s presence and government were recognised by the international community. The PLO now favoured a settlement through negotiations and by providing jobs, education and security to the Palestinians.
The activities of Hamas in this context are focused more on the most impoverished areas of Palestine, especially in Gaza. Here, Hamas provides charity services and gains new recruits. It also amasses weapons that include rockets made in secret workshops by the locals. Hamas does not recognise Israel as a legitimate state. Its militant actions are often criticised by President Abbas who accuses Hamas of dragging Palestinians into a war that can be settled through negotiations.
In June 2007, fighting broke out between PLO and Hamas militants in Gaza. The fighting was intense. Over 600 people lost their lives. The conflict saw the ouster of the PLO from Gaza. This means there are now two governments in control of the Palestine territories. Fatah/PLO governs the West Bank region whereas Hamas is in control of Gaza.
Things became even more complex with the 2009 election of the populist Benjamin Netanyahu as Israel’s Prime Minister. Netanyahu toed a hard line and refused to stop Jewish people from settling in occupied Palestinian territory. Such settlements are against international mandates and opinion.
Interestingly, Netanyahu’s popularity in Israel has been decreasing. His conservative Likud Party has had to form shaky coalition governments. There have been four indecisive elections in Israel between 2019 and 2021. Netanyahu has also faced two criminal investigations against him.
The Israeli military’s recent attacks in Gaza that have killed hundreds of Palestinians were in retaliation to rockets fired towards Israel by Hamas from Gaza. But the tipping point was Netanyahu’s refusal to stop Israeli settlers from taking over Palestinian properties, and a brazen raid by Israeli soldiers against Palestinians worshipping inside the historic Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem.
It is likely that Netanyahu believes his hardline approach will reconfigure his dwindling electoral fortunes in Israel as he presents himself as a saviour of the Jewish homeland. To Hamas, Israeli violence and the outfit’s rocket attacks against Israel ‘prove’ that Palestine can only be liberated through an armed struggle.
Once again, crushed between the two is a more rational space that Fatah wants to explore. This is also the space that former US President Barack Obama favoured. But the current US president, Joe Biden, is busy sorting out differences of opinion on the dispute within his own multicultural government.
Some of his cabinet members are asking him to take the Obama route. But unlike Obama, till the writing of this piece, the Biden administration seems reluctant.
In the anthology Negotiating in Times of Conflict, Anat Kurz describes the Israel-Palestine dispute as ‘a three-way conflict.’
There is, of course, the more well-known two-way tussle between the Israeli state and the government body in West Bank and Gaza. These Palestinian-majority regions came under the control of a partially self-governing body in 1994, after an agreement was signed in Oslo between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), the largest Palestinian political entity. The reason Kurz explains the tussle as a three-way conflict is because of the presence of another influential Palestinian party, Hamas.
Hamas, which has had a problematic relationship with the PLO, appeared in 1987 as an ‘Islamist’ variant of the Palestinian nationalist movement. The PLO, ever since its inception in 1964, is of course an umbrella organisation comprising various secular Palestinian nationalist outfits. The PLO’s largest component party was always Fatah, headed by the late Yasser Arafat. Initially, the PLO was highly militant in its outlook and was involved in armed attacks against Israel. Many of its component factions were supported by the former Soviet Union and radical Arab nationalist regimes in Egypt, Iraq, Syria and Libya.
However, from the mid-1970s onwards, when most Arab countries began a process of repairing ties with Saudi Arabia and the US, Fatah decided to work towards building itself as a ‘legitimate’ face of Palestinian nationalism, recognised by the UN. In 1987, a spontaneous uprising erupted against Israel’s occupation armies in various Palestinian-majority regions. The uprising, called the intifada (rebellion), caught the PLO by surprise.
The uprising did not have a core group navigating it. It was mostly driven by young stone-throwing Palestinians, confronting heavily armed Israeli occupiers. Yet, the intifada had enough nuisance value to get the Israelis to talk with their main nemesis, Fatah, in Oslo. A deal was signed that handed over West Bank and Gaza to a partially autonomous government of Palestinians. During the 1996 elections here, the electorate handed the PLO a landslide victory and the mandate to rule West Bank and Gaza.
Hamas was the Palestinian wing of the Muslim Brotherhood — a pan-Islamist movement headquartered in Egypt — but one with a history of deriving clandestine support from Israel when the Brotherhood was being repressed by the Arab nationalist regimes in Egypt in the 1960s, and in Syria in the early 1980s.
According to Andrew Higgins, in the January 24, 2009 issue of the Wall Street Journal, Israel propped up Hamas to use it as a ‘counterweight’ against the PLO. The roots of this manoeuvre can be found in the late 1970s, when the Israeli state began to patronise an Islamist outfit called the Mujama al-Islamiya, which described itself as a charity organisation.
According to Higgins, the Egyptians had sidelined and banned the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist outfits in the Palestinian regions that were under Egyptian control till the 1967 Arab-Israel War. But once these regions fell in the hands of Israeli forces, the Israelis allowed the Islamist groups to operate, as long as they were anti-PLO.
With Israeli support, the Mujama and other such groups began to undermine the PLO’s influence. They organised charity programmes, establishing small clinics, schools and mosques and, in return, were able to recruit a large number of disillusioned Palestinians. Hamas treaded the same path until 1994, when the PLO agreed to recognise Israel as a country and, in exchange of which, Israel handed over the West Bank and Gaza to the Palestinians.
However, thus began campaigns of suicide bombings, assassinations and rocket attacks against Israel by Hamas, drawing vicious Israeli reprisals. The PLO had swept the 1996 elections, but Hamas won the 2006 elections. It received 44.45 percent of the total votes to the PLO’s 41.43 percent.
Fatah’s Muhammad Abbas had replaced Yasser Arafat as president of Palestine after Arafat’s demise in 2004. Tensions between the Fatah-led PLO and Hamas had been simmering since the 1990s. The PLO had agreed to end its policy of armed resistance and, as a result, the PLO’s presence and government were recognised by the international community. The PLO now favoured a settlement through negotiations and by providing jobs, education and security to the Palestinians.
The activities of Hamas in this context are focused more on the most impoverished areas of Palestine, especially in Gaza. Here, Hamas provides charity services and gains new recruits. It also amasses weapons that include rockets made in secret workshops by the locals. Hamas does not recognise Israel as a legitimate state. Its militant actions are often criticised by President Abbas who accuses Hamas of dragging Palestinians into a war that can be settled through negotiations.
In June 2007, fighting broke out between PLO and Hamas militants in Gaza. The fighting was intense. Over 600 people lost their lives. The conflict saw the ouster of the PLO from Gaza. This means there are now two governments in control of the Palestine territories. Fatah/PLO governs the West Bank region whereas Hamas is in control of Gaza.
Things became even more complex with the 2009 election of the populist Benjamin Netanyahu as Israel’s Prime Minister. Netanyahu toed a hard line and refused to stop Jewish people from settling in occupied Palestinian territory. Such settlements are against international mandates and opinion.
Interestingly, Netanyahu’s popularity in Israel has been decreasing. His conservative Likud Party has had to form shaky coalition governments. There have been four indecisive elections in Israel between 2019 and 2021. Netanyahu has also faced two criminal investigations against him.
The Israeli military’s recent attacks in Gaza that have killed hundreds of Palestinians were in retaliation to rockets fired towards Israel by Hamas from Gaza. But the tipping point was Netanyahu’s refusal to stop Israeli settlers from taking over Palestinian properties, and a brazen raid by Israeli soldiers against Palestinians worshipping inside the historic Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem.
It is likely that Netanyahu believes his hardline approach will reconfigure his dwindling electoral fortunes in Israel as he presents himself as a saviour of the Jewish homeland. To Hamas, Israeli violence and the outfit’s rocket attacks against Israel ‘prove’ that Palestine can only be liberated through an armed struggle.
Once again, crushed between the two is a more rational space that Fatah wants to explore. This is also the space that former US President Barack Obama favoured. But the current US president, Joe Biden, is busy sorting out differences of opinion on the dispute within his own multicultural government.
Some of his cabinet members are asking him to take the Obama route. But unlike Obama, till the writing of this piece, the Biden administration seems reluctant.
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