Siddhartha Varadarjan & the 'Israel Model'.

An American citizen who co-owns and edits a Leftist Indian news-site writes-  

So deep does national sentiment in favour of the rights of the Palestinians run that regardless of which party is in power, the Indian government has so far remained formally committed to the cause of an independent, secure Palestine with East Jerusalem as its capital.

India recognized Israel in 1950, though it had declared independence in 1948. India recognized Palestinian independence in 1988, when it too declared independence. But, Palestinian independence- as India and the rest of the world acknowledges- remains a dead letter to this day.

Contrary to what Siddhartha claims, not one Indian in a million is deeply concerned or greatly exercised by this issue. The vast majority of Indians have always been utterly unconcerned with this matter. The truth of the matter is Indian national sentiment- as opposed to Pan Islamic sentiment, or Jhollawallah sentiment, remain utterly oblivious to the issue.

India has excellent relations with Israel too, but that has not come in the way of the country taking a stand against Israel’s violations of international law.

India has not taken any stand. It just goes with the flow in these matters. Why? It turns out that not even Muslims care about Palestine. 'Missile Man' Abdul Kalam was, I believe, the first senior figure to shower praise on Israel and describe it as a model to be emulated. This didn't stop him being elected President of the Republic.

Against this backdrop it is not hard to understand why the videotaped remarks of the Indian consul general in New York celebrating the so-called ‘Israel Model’ have proved so controversial.

The diplomat was saying the day will come when Kashmiri Pandits will be able to return to the Valley. After all, the Jews returned to Palestine- so the thing is feasible. However, it aint going to happen anytime soon coz the Muslims will slaughter any Hindu Kashmiri, or non Kashmiri Muslim, who can't shoot back.

Perhaps as a form of damage control, the Ministry of External Affairs quickly released an advance copy of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s statement marking the International Day for Solidarity with the Palestinians. Yet, the question remained – could it be that Modi’s letter of support for the Palestinians was just public posture and that what the senior Indian diplomat was caught saying on camera represented the real thinking of the Indian government? Or had the diplomat mis-spoken?

In context, the diplomat was simply saying 'sure, you have a right to return to the Valley- but not yet. The Muslims will kill you if you try. Still, don't give up hope. The Jews did return to Palestine after two millennia in exile'.

Modi doesn't care about Palestinians. He is merely reassuring his friends in the UAE and Saudi Arabia.

So far, the MEA has not clarified matters. The diplomat’s claim that his remarks have been taken “out of context” is not helpful since it was the context in which he was speaking which made his words so shocking. He was addressing a gathering of Kashmiri Pandits (KPs), lakhs of whom were driven from their homes in the Kashmir Valley following the onset of the armed insurgency in 1990. How could he or anyone imagine the Israel Model – which is based on the eviction of the Palestinian people from their homes and the annexation of their land – can offer a solution to the plight of the KPs?

The Israel Model was based on buying land from willing sellers under first the Ottomans and then the British. It was only after Arab countries declared war on the Jews and sought to exterminate them that any evictions occurred. But such evictions and ethnic cleansing also happened in the Indian sub-continent.

Can Hindu Pandits return to Kashmir- perhaps by buying property which has been grabbed from their ancestors? It is possible, at least theoretically. Kashmiri Muslims may see that it is in their own interest that their former neighbors- an accomplished bunch for the most part- return to live peacefully in the Valley while helping it to flourish economically and culturally.

The Israel Model is that of the Rule of Law and the suppression of terrorists. It is a good model. That is why Israel is flourishing and why it has good relations with Egypt, UAE etc. The only people it has bad relations with are those who tyrannize over their own people and who waste money on futile and foolish foreign wars.

Either way, it is evident that the diplomat in question, like many people in India and around the world, is a victim of ignorance and disinformation about what exactly the ‘Israel Model’ is.

Siddhartha knows a lot about disinformation because he produces nothing else. But he isn't really ignorant. He is merely lying.

So here, in 10 easy-to-understand facts, is a quick guide to this model.
1. Occupy the sovereign territory of others and turn them into refugees
The United Nations created Israel and Palestine on November 29, 1948 as two equal, sovereign states.

Nonsense! Google the thing and see for yourself. On Nov. 29, 1947 NOT 1948, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution calling for Palestine to be partitioned between Arabs and Jews, allowing for the formation of the Jewish state of Israel. ... The General Assembly voted, 33-13, in favor of partition, with 10 members, including Britain, abstaining.

The Palestinians did not accept the UN plan- for the excellent reason that, on the insistence of President Truman, it was completely pro-Jewish. The Brits didn't want to partition the territory and knew that a separate Arab State would be fiscally unviable.
The Palestinians, with more valor than foresight, commenced hostilities sealing their own doom. Israel, but not Palestine, declared independence in May 1948. The United Nations did not create Israel. It supported a partition plan which the Palestinians refused to accept. Israel unilaterally declared independence but was not admitted to the UN till May 1949 after it had thrashed the coalition of Arab armies which attempted to eradicate it. After the War, there was no Palestinian State. Egypt took Gaza and Jordan took the West Bank and half of Jerusalem.

It should be remembered that everyone agrees that the first wave of the Palestinan exodus was at the request of the Arab Armies and their own leadership. They believed the Jews would be exterminated. By contrast, a much larger number of people left Pakistan for India and vice versa despite assurances of safety from the Indian and Pakistani Heads of Government. Why? They had more foresight than valor.

The plain fact is Vardarajan is a liar. The UN has never recognized Palestine as a sovereign state for the simple reason that it isn't one. Till 1967, Palestinians were either under Egyptian or Jordanian or Israeli control. A separate Palestinian state was simply economically unviable.

On 29 November 2012, UN General Assembly resolution 67/19 passed, upgrading Palestine to a "non-member observer state- like the Vatican. This does not mean the Vatican is sovereign or equal to the Republic of Italy.

Today, Israel is in occupation of Palestine. It has annexed East Jerusalem. It has blockaded the Gaza strip and filled the West Bank with its own outposts of settlers, and refuses to abide by the terms of either UN resolutions or negotiated accords it has signed to end this illegal occupation of Palestinian land.

So what? Pakistan does the same thing in PoK. Turkey does the same thing in Northern Cyprus. Why the big boohoo?

As part of this occupation, Israel also steals the water resources of the Palestinians, and will not allow the refugees who were forcibly driven from their land to return home.

Does India allow Pakistani Mujahirs 'to return home'? Was the Indus Waters treaty not condemned by Fatimah Jinnah as Indian theft of Pakistani water resources? Why should Indians bother with what is happening to Palestinians when we are accused of the same thing that Israel is accused off?

2. Impose collective punishment on the occupied people
When the occupied people exercise their inalienable and legitimate right to resist, the Israel Model involves subjecting the entire civilian population of the Palestinian territories to collective punishment using such methods as a territorial blockade, mass arrests and detentions, travel restrictions that can turn even the shortest of journeys into a nightmare lasting hours, the demolition of homes, fiscal pressure,, the use of civilians and even children as human shields. 

Precisely the same thing could be said by Khalistanis or Balochi separatists. The difference between India and Israel is that we are more ruthless.

3. Illegally convert occupied territory into your own land
The third feature of the Israel Model is the conversion of Occupied Territory into Israeli land, first by building illegal settlements, then a massive wall (ostensibly to ‘protect’ the occupiers from the occupied but actually to grab more land), then roads to connect these illegal settlements. Israel has grabbed so much land already that the West Bank resembles a piece of Swiss cheese, full of holes. The Israeli academic, one of the world’s leading scholars of Telugu and Tamil, has been chronicling the hundreds of crimes, small and big, that are an integral part of the ‘Israel model’. Each story of the theft of land and water will break your heart.

Why would it break our heart? We laughed when we took Goa and Sikkim. Why should we have a double standard for Jews? They have never been our enemy.
What should break our heart is the land our Government seizes from poor peasants at a fraction of its market value.

4. Discriminate against your own citizens on the basis of religion or ethnicity

We do that. So do the Pakistanis and Bangladeshis and Nepalis and Sri Lankans. Why get exercised about what is happening far away?

The Israel Model involves not just robbing the Palestinians of their land but also turning a section of Israel’s own citizens – especially those who are Palestinian – into second-class citizens.  Reactionary politicians like Benjamin Netanyahu regularly speak of Arab Israelis and their representatives as if they are national enemies. Arabs are one-fifth of Israel’s population yet suffer from discrimination when it comes to the right to lease land, reunite their families, or the right to residency in Jerusalem.

So what? All the states in the region practice a similar discrimination.  Compared to many Syrians, Arab Israelis are in paradise.

5. Turn your courts into a rubber-stamp for the occupation
Fifth, the Israeli model requires that the judicial system, which is otherwise quite independent of the executive, serve as a rubber-stamp for the illegal occupation and for the violation of human rights by the Israeli security apparatus and military. 

At least they have an independent Judiciary. Some other states in the region are not so lucky.

Palestinians whose homes are taken over illegally have tried in vain to get the Israeli courts to intervene on the side of justice, yet judgment after judgment has confirmed what the Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem has said, that “those under occupation cannot seek justice in the occupier’s courts.” 

They should go to Syria where the Judges are more impartial.

6. Regularly attack your neighbours
The sixth element of the Israel Model is to regularly attack your neighbours – especially Lebanon – and breed violence and insecurity in the borderlands of all its neighbours. Israel has formally annexed the Golan Heights from Syria and for years had turned southern Lebanon into a hell-hole.

Lebanon, like Syria, turned itself into a hell-hole. Israel attacks after it is attacked. It does not initiate hostilities. It can trade land for peace- as it did with Egypt. But it has to have a sensible counter-party to deal with.

The reason Israel is so successful is because it is a knowledge economy. Its Army is the biggest tech incubator in the region. That is why States in the region are happy doing deals with it. Unlike a Saddam or an Erdogan, it won't suddenly unleash its military in the hope of loot or as a distraction from economic problems.

7. Violate international humanitarian law whenever you wage war
It is impossible to think of the Israel Model without its seventh element – the violation of international humanitarian law whenever the Israeli Defence Forces wage war.

It is impossible to think of the Palestinians without picturing crazy terrorists who destroy the life-chances of their own people.

Even if we leave aside aggression as a war crime by itself, the actual conduct of military operations by the IDF, especially in Gaza in 2014 and most recently in 2018, and in Southern Lebanon, has involved war crimes such as the disproportionate and indiscriminate use of force, and the killing and maiming of civilians. All of this has been well documented by international human rights agencies but also by the United Nations.

Yet they pale into insignificance compared to what NATO got up to in Iraq.

8. Label your critics ‘terrorists’, terror sympathisers’, ‘anti-semites’ and anti-nationals
An integral part of the Israel Model is also the demonisation of critics as terrorists or terror sympathisers. Reactionary Israeli politicians and officials are quick to label the critics of Israeli policies towards the Palestinians as ‘anti-semitic’ or, if they are Jews or Israelis, as unpatriotic and anti-national. 

Sadly, this tactic is effective because it is true.

9. Dishonour the memory of the Jewish victims of the Nazi Holocaust
The ninth element of the Israel model is the tendency of some politicians to dishonor the memory of the Jewish victims of the Nazi Holocaust by invoking their suffering to somehow justify what the Israeli state is doing to the Palestinian people. Using the suffering of one people to justify committing crimes against others is one of the most atrocious things a politician can do, and regrettably this has now become a tactic that is frequently resorted to.

By contrast, the most atrocious thing that Siddharta can do is to wipe his arse and then send the result to the printers.

It is right and proper to justify killing other people by mentioning the fact that they killed and caused suffering to one's own people. The Palestinian leader- Grand Mufti Hosseini, was a great pal of Hitler's. He supported the genocide. His supporters weren't able to kill many Jews in Palestine but they did succeed in provoking pogroms in Iraq.

Is Siddhartha really not aware of the fact that Palestinian leaders justify the suffering their terrorists inflict on others by adverting to their own suffering? Does he think Arafat was an 'atrocious' politician because he called the killer of Klinghoffer- a 69 year old crippled American on board the Achille Lauro- a 'martyr'?

10. Use war and the threat of terror for domestic political gains
The tenth element of the Israel model is one which has come into starker relief these days, given Benjamin Netanyahu’s failure to form a coalition government in the face of the challenge from Benny Gantz in the September 2019 election to the Knesset.
Israel’s attorney general managed to block Netanyahu’s plans to launch an intensive bombing campaign against Gaza just before those elections but as Israel prepares for a third election early next year, the Palestinian territory has emerged as a convenient punching bag.
Over 30 Palestinian civilians were killed in Israeli bombings in Gaza last month and the fear is that there will be more aggression as Netanyahu seeks to push a reluctant electorate into giving him a majority.

Siddhartha fails to mention that nutters in Gaza keep shooting off rockets at Israel. Then they get pounded. This is not a partisan political matter. It is 'tit for tat' retaliation.

Emulate at your own risk
So there, in a nutshell, is the Israel Model, in 10 atrocious parts.

Israel is very successful because it looks after its own and fucks up those who fuck with it. If Israel is atrocious, then Palestinians are even more so. The only difference is, unlike the Israelis, they are utterly unsuccessful.

I cannot think of a single redeeming feature of this model.

Siddhartha can't think at all. He just tells stupid lies like 'The UN created a sovereign state of Palestine'.

It is a curse for the people of Palestine, of course, but it is also a curse for the people of Israel, who are condemned by this model to live lives of perpetual insecurity, enmeshed in conflict and injustice.

Plenty of Indians would like to emigrate to Israel precisely because they would be more secure and experience less 'conflict and injustice'. Indeed, even wealthy Jews from countries like France and the UK have been moving to Israel in recent years.

Anyone who thinks Israel can serve as a guide for India is either ignorant, or mad.

So- Sidharth thinks President Kalam was ignorant or mad. The Indian people don't agree. They think Kalam was a great scientist and a great Head of State. By contrast, those who read Vardarajan's vomit think him a stupid, ignorant, liar who is incapable of framing a reasoned argument.