Modi’s Israel Visit: Memories Of A Journalist’s Visits To Jewish State

Modi’s Israel Visit: Memories Of A Journalist’s Visits To Jewish State

                                                                                    Saeed Naqvi

Dated: 07.07.2017

Israel has been in the news in the context of the Prime Minister’s visit and I may be forgiven for a touch of nostalgia. I was the first Indian journalist to visit Israel after an Australian fanatic had set fire to the pulpit of the Al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem in August 1969. The Arab World was ablaze.

Indian passports in those days were not valid for South Africa, Israel and Southern Rhodesia. Under a special dispensation you could obtain a separate passport for travel to countries with which India did not have diplomatic ties. Israelis were more practical: they pinned a piece of paper for entry and exit which could be pulled out when travelling to other countries.

The reception I received at Ben Gurion airport was the stuff of fairytales for a reporter in his 20s. Never will Jerusalem Municipality have a public relations officer more beautiful than Bathsheba Herman.

Something that had not touched the Israelis then was arrogance. They came across as clever, wise, modest people, working diligently on their Kibbutz, the typically Jewish cooperatives, where inequalities were not discernable. It was possible to contemplate Fa Giladi, the exquisite Kibbutz in the shadow of Mt. Hermon, as the dream location for research on the Palestinian issue.

The simplicity of the people helped tone down shades of Zionism instilled in us and which was the bane of the Palestinian people. Ambassadors like John Kenneth Galbraith held Pandit Nehru in their thrall with their intellect. But during the Indira Gandhi years, changes were creeping across the diplomatic corps. There were various ways to gauge how well informed an Ambassador was. A simple test could be this: was the ambassador a regular fixture at the New Year eve party hosted by Indira Gandhi’s leftist adviser, editor of Seminar, Romesh Thapar. By this and several other criteria the trophy belonged to Clovis Maksoud, Arab League’s first ambassador, articulate, even bombastic, with an unerring eye for New Delhi’s well groomed ladies. His role in sensitizing the New Delhi elite to the intricacies of the Palestinian case must never be underestimated.

Nehru as leader of the Non-Aligned and Afro-Asian bloc obviously had a large constituency among left liberals and Muslims. His charm offensive even on the Arabs worked such magic that Raees Amrohvi, an Urdu poet from Pakistan, was moved to write a quatrain:

“Jup raha hai aaj mala ek Hindu ki Arab

Barhman zaa de mein shaane dilbari aisi to ho!

Hikmat e Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru ki qasam

Mar mitey Islam jispar, kafiri aisi to ho!”

(What a spell this Brahmin has cast on the Arabs

Who now chant his name on their beads.

Look at the magic of this kafir (non-believer);

Believers of the Arab world lie at his feet)

Until 1990s, it was anti intellectual to cast positive light on the Israeli case. When Rajiv Gandhi became Prime Minister in 1984, he was advised by Muslim Congressmen in his vicinity (but totally out touch with the community) not to upgrade relations with Israel because that would adversely affect the party’s Muslim support.

When I argued against this line in the Indian Express, Rajiv had it expanded into an official note. Muslim leaders, such as they were, and the Mullah had shackled the community with issues like Shah Bano, Salman Rushdie, Babri Masjid, Muslim character of Aligarh Muslim University and now relations with Israel. What any backward community needed was employment, education, entrepreneurial help, I wrote.

After Rajiv was assassinated half way through the 1991 General Elections. P.V. Narasimha Rao upgraded relations with Israel in 1992. There was not a whimper from the community.

Initially, relations were more or less mechanically upgraded. Absence of any real content in the relationship invited Shimon Peres to quip in an interview with me:

“Indo-Israeli relations are like French perfume – to be smelt not drunk.”

The Israel Bathsheba Harman introduced me to soon after the 1967 war, had hardened by the 1993 Oslo accords. But even so one could salve one’s conscience with the thought that Oslo would atleast lead to a two-state solution.

An episode firmed up my appraisal of the Israeli-Palestinian two-state process.

It was a Shabath lunch, at a friend’s house in Herzilia. Among this very small group happened to a person at one end of the lawn, wreathed in cigarette smoke, a glass of red wine in one hand, rapidly replenished, obviously reveling in the company of three well groomed ladies who had formed an admiring circle around him. It was Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, lighting one Kent after another, like Belmondo in a Godard film.

He came accross at first a shy man but once he opened up, he was transparent and obviously trustworthy. His approach to Oslo was not at a variance from another loveable Israeli, Yossi Beilin, very much the author of the Oslo accords.

Obsession with survival and security had injected some iron in the Israeli soul, but the Jewish state became hard as nails after the 9/11 wars, Islamophobia, and Ariel Sharon, the Israeli Prime Minister who visited India on the first anniversary of 9/11, just when the war-on-terror rhetoric was being amplified here too.

Sensitive defence deals with Israel begun under Atal Behari Vajpayee were boosted by Manmohan Singh. The Palestinian issue, which was highest priority upto Indira Gandhi, dipped in saliency.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit, however, is fired by an atavistic Hindutva adoration for a small country on top of its mischievous Muslim neighbours. Ramallah has been bypassed, ofcourse. But it should not be lost on the insiders that during the September non aligned summit in Venezuela the Indian delegation received instructions from South Block, to drop the routine reference to the Palestinian issue altogether. It was a tradition from the earliest days of NAM.

No, Ramallah was not just bypassed; Palestine has been downgraded to the level of irrelevance.

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Corbyn And Sanders Most Popular Politicians In Britain And US

Corbyn And Sanders Most Popular Politicians In Britain And US

                                                                              Saeed Naqvi

The recent rise in the electability of Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn as Britain’s next Prime Minister, according to the latest opinion polls, has not made headline news. This is not surprising because Establishments everywhere, of which the media is a part, imagine that an idea can be made to vanish by playing it down.

The findings of the poll have been published even in conservative newspapers like The Telegraph in London. This virtually amounts to a taboo being lifted from the idea of Corbyn. Call it acquiescence, if you like.

Senior Labour leaders, indeed authors of New Labour, like Tony Blair and Lord Peter Mandelson must be close to a nervous breakdown. Or, they must be working very hard, as Mandelson has admitted in interviews, to “undermine Corbyn”.

The difficulty with mean-minded cribbing by Mandelson is that it generates sympathy among Corbyn’s growing tribe of supporters. Take this quote from a Labour member: “The idea that Jeremy Corbyn as Prime Minister implementing policies that actually benefit the people terrifies the Establishment. It is no surprise that Mandelson has found space in his busy schedule for spending time on Oligarch’s Yachts to attempt to undermine Jeremy.”

This being the tone of the exchange, Corbyn’s path to eventual success will be made ever more difficult by the Establishment of which Mandelson and the Deep State are parts.

There is, however, a tailwind of recent history particular to Britain, which may be helping Corbyn.

Accelerated globalization after the Soviet collapse, was a shot in the arm for capitalism. This, in its turn, generated arbitrary inequalities which erupted in such movements as “Occupy Wall Street”. The Republican Tea Party was the immediate counter punch.

The popular will adapts to changing climate. Establishments, obstinately resistant to change, begin to strategize: how to channelize or thwart the popular will.

In almost all western democracies the conflict is on: Establishments vs. the people. A Left wing Syriza brought 43 year old Alexis Tsipras to power as Prime Minister of Greece. Germany and the EU broke the movement’s will. Revert to austerity or we shall not pick up your debts.

In Spain, where the ghost of Franco still hovers over public life, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy of the Right Wing Peoples Party, supervised over such unspeakable corruption (another gift of globalization), that a new communist-inclined party Podemos, under the leadership of 39 year old Pablo Iglesias, burst upon the scene. The resulting stalemate between the Peoples Party, Socialist and Podemos led to a repeat election which yielded more or less the same configuration. The Establishment worked overtime. On the pain of being decimated, Socialists allowed themselves to be persuaded to abstain in a Parliamentary vote. This enabled the corrupt PP hold onto power. The idea is to weaken and eventually erase Podemos by sheer attrition and election fatigue.

In the process of warding off unfriendly political trends, the establishment learnt another lesson. The sprinkling of leaders breaking out of the two party suffocation were all anti austerity, leftists and in their 30s and 40s. Why could not the “right” respond with similar décor and aspirations?

That exactly is what has been attempted in Spain by launching Ciudadanos, (Citizens) a centrist party with an unusual rise on an anti corruption platform. I met people in Madrid and Barcelona who described the new party as “Podemos of the right”. In terms of youth, Ciudadanos is an improvement. Its leader, Albert Rivera, 35, is four years younger than Pablo Iglesias.

“They are stealing Podemos’ aesthetics” laments Madrid’s Communist Mayor who hung a giant placard outside her office: “Refugees Welcome”. She tweets “We are not going to criminalize the Muslim community” Carmena said. “The response to terror must be solidarity.” Her punchline was “co existence = safer cities”.

The aesthetics which define young leaders in Greece, Spain, Canada appear to have been grafted on France’s Emmanuel Macron too. He is their age and talks of influencing the EU to reduce the burden of austerity. The scale of his success has encouraged him to be openly ambidextrous.  He has invited Donald Trump to the National Day parade on July 14. This despite Trump having withdrawn from the Paris accord on climate change.

In brief, different kinds of gyrations define western democracies today. In this over all confused picture another reality remains largely unnoticed.

A Fox News poll published some months ago (mostly ignored) shows that Bernie Sanders has a +28 rating above all US politicians on both ends of the political spectrum.

The Guardian’s Trevor Timm wrote recently: “One would think with numbers like that, Democratic politicians would be falling all over themselves to be associated with Sanders, especially considering the party as a whole is more unpopular than the Republicans and even Donald Trump right now. Yet instead of embracing his message, the Establishment wing of the party continues to resist him at almost every turn, and they seem insistent that they don’t have to change their ways to gain back the support of huge swaths of the country.”

The moral of the story is this: a rattled Establishment is in many democracies rushing to thwart or redirect the popular will – and with mixed success.

Against this backdrop, there appears on the horizon a certain British exceptionalism. Jeremy Corbyn’s election as Labour leader despite Tony Blair, Mandelson, and the Parliamentary party, results of the Brexit referendum, the manner in which Theresa May was trounced in June 8 elections – all point to the Establishment in Britain unlike elsewhere, clearly contained by the people.

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Origin Of Saudi-Qatar Spat: What Lies In The Future

Origin Of Saudi-Qatar Spat: What Lies In The Future

                                                                       Saeed Naqvi

The western media, which was shy of mentioning the Muslim Brotherhood as a threat to the Saudi regime, has now started describing it as a threat to Riyadh quite as potent as Shia Islam. This change is a major fall-out from the Saudi-Qatari spat.

Qatar for quite some time has patronized the Muslim Brothers, a powerful grass roots force in Egypt and Turkey. It is sufficiently powerful to keep King Abdullah of Jordan on sixes and sevens. Also, one must not forget the Muslim Brotherhood uprising in Hama, north west Syria, in 1982, which Bashar al Assad’s father, Hafez al Assad quelled with such brute power that the death toll exceeded10,000. In 2011 when Tayyip Erdogan took a more benign interest in Syrian affairs his advice to Assad was straightforward: accommodate the MB in the establishment.

Unbridled MB power is anathema to both: Israel and Saudis. That is why Saudi’s placed $8 billion in Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s hand when he ousted the MB’s Mohamed Morsi. Today, Sisi’s job is on the line.

Israel has nightmares because it fears the MB weed in Egypt and elsewhere will link up with Hamas, another strong MB outfit. When the western media, protective of Israeli interests, list the “Shia axis” inimical to the Jewish state – Iran, Hezbollah, Syria – it mentions Hamas in the same breath without the essential qualification: Hamas is True Blue Sunni. The link up with Iran is political or ideological not religious.

Saudi anxieties are more profound. Remember, from January 1980, the Saudi began to play down the monarchy and focus more on the King’s role as the “keeper of the holy shrines at Mecca and Medina.” This show of humility followed two events, one after the other, which shook the house of Saud.

The Iranian revolution which brought the Ayatollahs to power in Tehran in 1979 coincided more or less with the siege of the Mecca mosque by Juhayman al-Otaybi and hundreds of his supporters, demanding the overthrow of the House of Saud and an end to the “anti Islamic” monarchy in Saudi Arabia.

Taking advantage of these eruptions, the oil bearing Eastern province of Saudi Arabia, the Shia dominated Qatif and al Hasa region rose in rebellion in 1979 against Riyadh’s anti Shia sectarian bias and arbitrary arrests. The uprising lasted a week. Over 100 died in police action.

This regional uprising magnified itself a 100 fold in Saudi eyes because of the emergence of the Ayatollahs in Iran. This also became the source of anxiety to Bahrain where 70 per cent of the population is Shia and locked in a tussle for more rights from the Sunni rulers – the House of Khalifas.

While pointing at the Shia menace, Saudis seldom express their worries about Qatif and Bahrain where they sent their troops to quell the Arab Spring. Those issues could possibly invite a Human Rights scrutiny. Focus on Iran, Hezbollah, Alawite power in Syria is much more beneficial because this axis invokes Israel’s deepest anxieties. The western media is so much more sympathetic for this reason. If the past is any guide, Thomas Friedman of the New York Times should be on his way to Riyadh for yet another exclusive interview with the new Crown Prince.

That Qatar has relations with Iran is disliked in Riyadh, ofcourse, but what causes much deeper anxieties is the material and moral support Qatar can provide to MB which represents all the tendencies that the Otaybi rebellion in 1979 represented.

Riyadh-Doha differences go back to the days when the aging Emir, was ousted by his son, Hamad bin Khalifa. The ousted Emir’s attempted counter coup failed but it had Saudi support.

Osama bin Laden’s war on the house of Saud had a declared reason: Saudis had accorded hospitality to the troops of the “infidel US”. Qatar took advantage of situation and hosted CENTCOM,

Then came another affront to Saudi pride: Al Jazeera TV. When the BBC shut down its Arabic service, trained TV hands became available in the market. At the time the BBC was also in search of funds for its World Service TV. BBC had been left behind by CNN which stole the limelight during Operation Desert Storm in 1992.

Saudi King Fahd’s cousin, Khalid bin Faisal al Saud’s Orbit Communications hired the BBC hands and launched a channel. But it lasted no more than 18 months because editorial freedom clashed with Saudi’s abiding restrictions on issues anchored to Sharia. Riyadh would not allow the new channel to telecast a documentary on public “beheadings”.

That is when Qatar moved into the breach and launched Al Jazeera, first in Arabic. As BBC retirees like Sir David Frost became available, Al Jazeera English made rapid recruitments.

At a time when Osama bin Laden was a news source, Al Jazeera became the channel for all bin Laden interviews and audio statements. Coverage by BBC, CNN, Fox News of all the 9/11 wars acquired a uniformity which strained credibility. Al Jazeera livened up proceedings by bringing into focus “the other” perspective as well. This was not “cricket” for the authors of the new world order. Scholars like the late Fouad Ajami, supportive of George W Bush’s invasion of Iran and Afghanistan, wrote academic papers on Al Jazeera’s perfidy. Allied aircraft even bombed the channel’s offices in Kabul and Baghdad. All of this boosted Al Jazeera viewership sky high.

The late Saudi King Abdullah, much the most supple ruler in recent decades, mended fences with Qatar. We have to be together, otherwise the “spring” will blow away the region’s monarchies, he argued.

Moreover, CNN, BBC propaganda was not being believed in the region during the Syrian and Libyan operations. Al Jazeera’s priceless credibility was commandeered. Qatar succumbed. Both the operations, Syria and Libya have been a disaster from every angle. Additionally they have taken a toll of Al Jazeera’s credibility.

The present spat however has the potential of restoring Al Jazeera’s credibility should deft editorial hands take up the anti establishment position which was Al Jazeera’s forte and which it surrendered under the personal pressure of the late Saudi king.

The larger game now must impinge on Qatar, Iran and Russian gas reserves, the energy of the future. To keep the cohesion of this triangle or to break it must be the preoccupation of regional combatants now and in the foreseeable future.

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