PVisually, Indian and Israeli security forces influence each other, and cooperation between the two countries’ intelligence services was an open secret, even though New Delhi preferred to downplay its ties with Jerusalem.
Before 2014, and even before the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) tenure of 1998–2004, the effectiveness of cooperation between India and Israel did not require vociferous proclamations. The centrality of the Palestinian conflict in India’s West Asia policy has been questioned several times to produce nothing more than empty rhetoric and symbolic gestures to cover up the new realities.
Those who criticize India’s policy in Kashmir point out that there are at least three points on which Delhi and Jerusalem are bound together. First, the Indian Army Use Israeli military technology in the Valley, Second, it applies Israeli methods and philosophies in dealing with violent demonstrations, and third, both countries seek to establish a loyal population in the heart of an independence-seeking Muslim population (Hindus in Kashmir, Jews in the West Bank). Committed.
While some comparisons between the policies of India and Israel are controversial and suggest intellectual laziness, what is worth noting is the difference between the two countries’ stance on capital punishment for terrorists. India and Israel’s policies on the death penalty are almost incomprehensible to each other, although both view it as punishment for crimes against the state and not strictly for acts of terrorism.
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A Malik-Barghouti parallel?
Any comparison between Kashmiri and Palestinian leaders must be taken comprehensively, and comparisons between separatist leader Yasin Malik and Marwan Barghouti, a former leader of Fatah’s armed wing, the Tanzim, are too limited.
And yet, if we dare to compare the two, as some critics compared Malik to MK Gandhi (the leader also calls himself a Gandhian), many compared to From Barghouti to Nelson Mandela. Furthermore, both Malik and Barghouti were part of an armed struggle, left it and then returned to violent ways.
He has invested a great deal of energy on his domestic fronts to prove that he – not his adversary – is the authentic and uncompromising representative of the Kashmiri and Palestinian struggles, the true leader who has never been co-opted by the government was and could never be. bought. Currently in prison after being convicted of criminal conspiracy and murder, Malik and Barghouti now see the Kashmiri and Palestinian conflicts as pale shadows of their already diminished selves.
Israel views Barghouti not only as a terrorist, convicted of five counts of murder, but also as the mastermind of the Al-Aqsa Intifada, which saw 138 suicide attacks by 2004 and killed over a thousand Israelis, most of them civilians.
And yet, Israel has never sought the death penalty for Barghouti – and from time to time, Israeli judges have expressed regret for it. In practice, the only death sentence ever carried out by Israel was that of Holocaust architect Adolf Eichmann in 1962.
Several Israeli leaders have opposed the death penalty in the past. “I categorically oppose the death penalty for terrorists. It’s not helpful.” Said Nagav Argaman, former Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency or ISA) head of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee in the Israeli Parliament in 2018. Another former ISA chief, Yoram Cohen, also expressed public opposition for the death penalty and declared: “If we look at the big picture, the harm … outweighs its small benefit.”
An often cited argument is that since Palestinian terrorists wish to die as martyrs anyway, what deterrent could capital punishment possibly be?
The security services in Israel have always tried to pacify populist ministers and lawmakers who aggressively regarded the death penalty as a magical solution, or at least thought that laws that would allow courts to sentence terrorists to death would help. Will allow, improve their political fortunes. The ultra-right Benjamin Netanyahu government talked about a bill to introduce the death penalty in February 2023, and we’ve heard loud announcements on the issue, but to no avail – Israel to end capital punishment Not interested in legalizing.
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Meeting with Agha Ashraf Ali
I first heard Yasin Malik’s name in the summer of 2005. I was in Kashmir for a month – when there could not have been a better time for an Israeli to visit the Valley. Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza captured the international and Indian media; It was hoped that this would promote peace between Palestinians and Israelis. Kashmiris, anti-Zionists who oppose the state of Israel, were curious to know why Israel withdrew from Gaza without a peace deal with the Palestinians.
As luck would have it, my hotel was next door to the home of scholar and great educationist Aga Ashraf Ali Agha Shahid Ali’s fatherWorld famous Kashmiri poet. The news of my arrival reached his ears and he invited me to his house. I didn’t know anything about him till then, but Prof. Had the privilege of having long talks with Ali two or three times a week. The talks always boiled down to a possible solution to the political crisis in Kashmir. Malik’s name also always came up; He compared him to Gandhi.
In Israel, for a long time, and even now for some political circles, Barghouti remains a hated terrorist. But he is perhaps the only Palestinian leader who can compromise with Israel on core issues of the conflict without being considered a traitor by his own people.
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israeli vision
Many Israelis do not buy the romanticization of Barghouti as a freedom fighter whose release from prison could advance the peace process. The Second Intifada pushed Israel towards right-wing politics. And yet, it is possible that Israel’s view of the West Bank and Gaza, a very different view on Kashmir from India’s, is related to its doubts about the death penalty. There is no significant political force in Israel that promotes practically complete Mandatory Palestine annexation, and no significant political camp in Israel views Palestinians as future Israelis.
To the extent that there can be a consensus in a country with so many Jews—about an 80 percent majority informally—it can be said that most Israelis want the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza to enjoy self-rule to the maximum possible degree. Are. This must be consistent with Israel’s need for security, full Palestinian legitimacy for the Jewish state’s right to exist, and an agreed arrangement regarding settlers and holy sites.
Do the Palestinians deserve a state – in the full sense of the word, a demilitarized state – or must they settle for autonomy in internal affairs? Here, of course, there are substantial differences in Israeli society. But the vision of some kind of Palestinian entity separate from Israel still enjoys widespread support in Israel. It involves an understanding that yesterday’s enemies are tomorrow’s tolerable autonomous neighbors, and that executing those your neighbors see as freedom fighters does not contribute to a future vision of reconciliation.
Is it possible that the Indian willingness to use the death penalty – while not following every act of terrorism – is related to the perception that terrorists are traitors? That they are citizens of India with equal rights who have misused the nation’s benevolence? In Israel’s eyes, terrorists are the Other, and those who support them secretly or openly fall into the same category, and at one point or another, a deal must be made with them. Perhaps this could be the one count on which India and Israel are not tied together.
Lev Aran is a former coordinator of the Israel-India Parliamentary Friendship League and a freelance columnist and journalist based in Israel. Thoughts are personal.
(Edited by Hamra Like)