Hyderabad: October 8 marks one year of Israel’s war on Gaza and the genocide it is unleashing upon the common Palestinian people living in a 360 km square area, around half of the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) limits.
Official records say that 41,870 Palestinians were killed during the 365 days of continuous attacks from Israel on the piece of land surrounded mostly by Israel, where the majority of the victims were children (16,859 dead) and women (more than 6000 dead). Over 19 lakh (90 percent of the total population in Gaza) have been displaced so far in a year of Israel’s continued aggression. Over 19 lakh (90 percent of the total population in Gaza) have been displaced so far in a year of Israel’s continued aggression.
Indiscriminate bombings upon civilian neighbourhoods, schools, hospitals, and universities, have brought down Gaza, which was called the ‘Gaza Strip’ into mere rubbles. Israel’s attacks, in the name of eliminating the fighters of the resistance group Hamas, have become a genocide, a mass massacre of the Palestinian people in Gaza.
Siasat.com spoke to a senior political scientist and East Asian Politics expert, a retired professor at Delhi University, author and columnist Achin Vanaik, regarding the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people in the name of war over Gaza.
Professor Achin Vanaik was visiting Hyderabad to attend the memorial function of Balagopal, one of the stalwarts of human rights activism in Hyderabad. After delivering a speech “Israel’s Genocidal Project in Palestine”, the professor found time to have a conversation with Siasat.com.
Would Netanyahu and his aides want to stop the war?
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the people around him do not want to end the war, instead, they intend to extend the war on the people of Gaza as much as they can. The recent event of Israel’s invasion of Lebanon is a showing of that so that they can pitch their reasons for continuing this war, to their allies and potential allies with interest in the region. USA and Saudi Arabia, two major players are in conflicts with Iran, and its ‘proxies’ that have their presence in countries including Yemen, Syria and Lebanon.
Netanyahu and his close group of Israeli top leadership want the conflicts to continue and merge its war on Gaza with other conflicts in the region, to attain improved legitimacy for their aggression over the Palestinian people, said Professor Achin Vanaik.
On the Arab Street and the Palestinian people
While the past year has been filled with saddening accounts of atrocities against the Palestinian people, and the criminal indifference from leaders of many nations, becoming silently compliant in the biggest genocide of the 21st century, especially the wealthy and powerful Arab monarchs, the public opinion of the Arab Street, the people of the Arab nations ruled by the monarchs, stood beside the Palestinian people, and are continuously raising voice for them, said Professor Achin Vanaik.
In stark contrast with the rulers, the Arab people, and the rest of the Muslim world, supporters of human rights and democracy, and the Palestinian diaspora are standing by the cause of freedom for Palestine.
Middle Eastern nations silently enabling the genocide
Monarchs heading oil-rich nations in the Middle East, who oversee prosperous and stable governments in the Muslim world, are sitting on a powerful weapon that can stop Israel’s aggression over Palestinian people, that is petroleum. Professor Achin said that the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) can stop the war at their will. But these nations not doing so makes them complicit in the deaths and Suffering of the Palestinians in Gaza.
“Use of the oil weapon would be a powerful lever to help stop the war”, said Professor Achin, stressing the Arab monarchs’ role in the war. “None of the Arab countries that have signed in the Abraham Accords have withdrawn from or repudiated it.”, he added, regarding the Arab-Israeli normalisation agreement, brokered by the USA in 2020.
Qatar, the monarch nation acts as a bridge in various conflicts in the region.
Qatar is a nation which finds itself a little different from other Middle Eastern nations, it offers many organisations to operate their offices and work based out of there while assuring safety. One is to note that the Hamas chief Ismael Haniyeh lived safely in Qatar, but was assassinated reportedly by Israeli agents when he travelled outside the nation and reached Iran.
Qatar’s role in brokering dialogues enables them to ensure the safety of the parties they host in their country. While asked about Qatar’s role in Middle-Eastern politics, Professor Achin said, that Qatar is a country that does progressive involvement in the region.
But he also highlighted that while the country is involved in efforts on democratisation and human rights in other countries, the country finds itself ruled by a generational monarch for decades. Al Jazeera, the media organisation from the country that works extensively covers conflicts, attacks on democracy and human rights, including covering the war on Gaza on the ground, never questions the Qatari monarchs and the absence of democracy it belongs to.
The need for a Middle East dictatorship brought down by its people
In view of monarchs in the Middle East continuing their complacency in not doing what they can to stop the war in Gaza and thus bring relief to the suffering of the Palestinian people, Professor Achin commented that if a dictatorship in the Middle East is brought down by its people peacefully, and establish a stable democratic government, it would have knock-on effects and bring huge changes to what we see as diplomacy in the Middle-East and West Asian region.
If the situations among these regimes remain status quo, the conflicts are to be continued without an end to be seen in the future.
Recent regime change from dictatorship to democracy in Bangladesh
When asked about the regime change in India’s neighbouring nation, Bangladesh drawing a curtain to the 15-year-long rule of Sheikh Hasina-led Awami League Party, Professor Achin said that the recent change of Bangladesh from a long regime of Sheikh Hasina, is something very hopeful to the people of Bangladesh, at the same time, it has to be seen how the nation’s polity turns out in the long run.
He signified the role of students in the movement which ousted Sheikh Hasina. Even after her regime used an iron fist over the protesting mass of the people, it was the students and the common people, who have been facing the brunt of the regime who joined the movement, which the students gave the spark and the direction for.
The newly formed interim government in Bangladesh has a significant representation of the students from the movement, who are working for a more democratic country, it has to be seen if their voice would be outweighed by the traditional voices of power in the new government.
The condition of Civil Societies and democratic movements in India
India has been witnessing a government which promotes majoritarianism, and minority oppression, and slowly turning itself into an electoral autocracy, undermining the basic foundations of the country’s existence including secularism, plurality, federalism, and the whole idea of finding oneness in diversity as Indians.
The four pillars of democracy, including legislature, executive, judiciary, and the media and their principles have been under attack by the majoritarian populist movement notion, which has been promoted by the ruling party in the past 10 years.
In addition to these four pillars, another pillar, which has been essential in the country’s secular and democratic existence, the Civil Society in India has been facing serious threats to work towards being the watchdog from the people’s side. The 10 years of Narendra Modi-led NDA governments have systematically decimated the existence of multiple civil and human rights organisations, which, if left to work at their full capacity, would have exposed the government to the public, and would have led to mass movements against the regime.
When asked about the present condition of civil society in India, Professor Achin said, that the country needs a national movement, which would be led by an organisation, that includes and appeals to all gender, caste, class, language, and ethnicity, to come forward and demand for change in a peaceful way. Traditionally, it has been the left spectre of ideology which has been doing that in the country, but in the current scenario, it has weakened itself to be not capable of taking on the might of the current government.
Professor Achin also stressed that, even after the current regime and its ideology being powerful of this magnitude to rule over the country in a polarising and authoritarian fashion, it has not been fully successful in capturing the entire country, just because of India’s sheer size and diversity. The diverse being of India itself cannot be simply undone, even after the efforts by the current regime’s ideology doing everything it can to establish the notion for the nation that they want to impose upon.
