Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Israeli lobby strikes at Gandhi!

Arun Gandhi, Mahatma's grandson, is at the receiving end of "Jewish" ire after his comments castigated Jews for their continuing exploitation of the holocaust. Here's what got the "Jewish" goat and what he wrote on The Washington Post's site: “Jews today not only want the Germans to feel guilty but the whole world must regret what happened to the Jews. The world did feel sorry for the episode but when an individual or a nation refuses to forgive and move on the regret turns into anger.”

Even before Arun Gandhi could cry "O Jerusalem!" Jewish lobby groups began gunning for him and his grandfather. The influential Jewish community has now even forced him to resign as the president of M.K. Gandhi Institute for Non-violence, an institution he founded in the US to propagate Mahatma's ideals. Gandhi apologised saying he "should not have implied that the policies of the Israeli government are reflective of the views of all Jewish people”. But, as we know well, there are no clear divisions between what is seen as anti-Semitism and what is legitimate criticism of Israeli state policy. John Mearsheimer's and Stephen Walt's controversial book, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, is just one instance. Tony Judt, who called for the creation of a binational Israeli state with equal rights for all Jews and Arabs living in Israel and the Palestinian territories, is another example. Judt was even prohibited from speaking at the Polish embassy after Jewish groups complained against his views.

I am yet to come across a convincing demarcation of what is legitimate criticism of Israeli policy and what is anti-Semitism. Any suggestions? Or, is Israel synonymous with world Jewry despite the fact that more Jews lived outside Israel than in the Jewish state till 2006?

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