When I learnt about the attack on Israel by Hamas and other militant groups on 7th October 2023, I was deeply shocked and saddened beyond words.
Indubitably it was an act of terrorism for which there is no universally accepted definition as A’s terrorists can be freedom fighters for B.
Let us accept the definition given by Benjamin Netanyahu in his book How the West Can Win in 1986 when he was 37. His definition states that terrorism is the deliberate and systematic murder, maiming, and menacing of the innocent to inspire for political purposes.
Indubitably, what Netanyahu has been doing in Gaza in retaliation to the attack on 7th October is also terrorism, or more precisely, state terrorism, about which most pundits in India and elsewhere have chosen to be silent. The prevailing approach is that the state is not subject to morality. These pundits forget that the power of the state is exercised through human beings and no human being is above morality.
We do not have reasonably good statistics about the grim toll in Gaza. The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) has killed till now, according to Gaza health authorities, 66,225, and injured 56,897.
Israeli military intercepts the flotilla and arrests the activists on board
These figures are not correct as they omit the tens of thousands of human beings under the rubble after the IDF bombs building after building.
Navi Pillai, former High Commissioner for Human Rights, who recently led an investigation as an independent expert for the U.N. has pointed out that average life expectancy in Gaza has fallen from 75.5 years to 40.5 years in one year.
The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) have made it a point of attacking the first responders who rush in after a bombing. The IDF announces from time to time that the Palestinians should move from area A to area B through route C. Then the IDF bombs those who have chosen that route. Such cruelty was not part of the Holocaust that Hitler carried out.
Netanyahu has out-Hitlered Hitler by denying water, food, medicine, power, and other essentials to the 2.3 million human beings in Gaza. Two days after October 7th, the then defense minister Yoav Gallant ordered ‘a complete siege’ of Gaza. “No electricity, no food, no water, no gas-it’s all closed.”
As of 2nd October 2025 one million people in Gaza are accessing less than the emergency minimum of 6 liters of drinking water a day. Without enough clean water, water-borne diseases such as acute watery diarrhea, particularly dangerous for children, have been spreading.
Gallant, perhaps inspired by Hitler who termed the Jews untermenschen (subhumans), referred to the Palestinians as ‘human animals.
Gallant is not alone in refusing to recognize the Palestinians as human. Menahem Begin called them “two-footed beasts”. Yitzhak Shamir called them “grasshoppers”, and for Aryeh King, deputy mayor of Jerusalem they are “ants.” The first two were prime ministers.
In short, Hitler in his grave might be pleased to see that his philosophy of hatred and associated practices continue in the 21st century.
But for the horrible Holocaust perpetrated by Hitler who sought a ‘final solution’ the state of Israel might not have been borne. In this context, let us recall that the UN G A resolution 181 of 29th November 1947 provided for two states (one for Jews and another for Arabs, and Jerusalem as a separate entity.)
It is important to recall how the Zionists succeeded in aborting the birth of a state of Palestine. They had a two-pronged plan. First, they carried out a plan to kill as many Palestinians as possible so that the rest would flee for safety. This is called the Nakba (the catastrophe) by the Palestinians.
Second, Golda Maier secretly met King Abdullah of Transjordan and it was agreed that Jordan will take over Jerusalem unopposed by Israel.
The Egyptian forces sent by King Farouk were badly led and were short of arms because of corruption. Further, Egypt too wanted to take over Gaza.
In short, the Arab forces that fought Israel in 1948 were not serious and the Arab governments of the day failed to lend sincere support to the Palestinian cause.
Count Folke Bernadotte, the U N mediator for Palestine, was murdered on 17th September 1948 in Jerusalem. He had succeeded in arranging a ceasefire. He was murdered by the terrorist group Lehi led by Yitzhak Shamir, a future prime minister. Bernadotte was seen as an obstacle in the way of getting rid of the Palestinians. His idea of a separate Jerusalem was anathema to the Zionists.
Prime Minister Ben Gurion saw to it that Shamir was not brought to justice for the crime.
In short, Israel has had till now two terrorist leaders who rose to hold the office of prime minister. It is the Zionists who demonstrated that terrorism delivers political gains in the region. Hamas was taking a leaf from the book of Zionists.
In this context we might recall the murder in broad daylight of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin on 4th November 1995. He was leaving a rally in support of the Oslo Accords which had earned him a Nobel Peace Prize.
The Oslo Accords led to the creation of the Palestinian National Authority with Yasser Arafat as President in 1994. The Accords provided for a state of Palestine to be established in 1999.
Netanyahu, vehemently opposed to the Oslo Accords, encouraged the assassination of Rabin. Netanyahu as Leader of Opposition led a rally in July 1995 where a coffin with Rabin’s name on it was carried. It is to be noted that no action was taken against Netanyahu or the current finance minister Bezalel Yoel Smotrich who too publicly encouraged the assassination.
Israel has denied it has been carrying on a genocide. Let us look at the 1948 Convention on the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide.
Article I
The Contracting Parties confirm that genocide, whether committed in time of peace or in time of war, is a crime under international law which they undertake to prevent and to punish.
Article II
In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
We should all compliment South Africa for taking Israel to the International Court of Justice as early as early as December 2023.Since the ICJ takes too long to decide whether genocide has been committed, South Africa asked for provisional emergency orders that were issued in January 2024.
Israel has brazenly ignored the ICJ thanks to the protection it can claim from Washington.
We may note en passant that the Global South did not lend much support to South Africa.
We need to examine the relationship between the U.S. and Israel, the biggest recipient of American aid. One might think that Washington would have some say in Israel’s policy in the region. On the contrary Israel practically dictates to Washington what its policy in the region should be.
However, it has not always been the case of the tail wagging the dog. In 1956 in the context of the Suez crisis, President Eisenhower threatened to impose sanctions on Israel unless it withdrew from Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula and Gaza. Israel ate the humble pie.
In August 1982 when Israel was bombing Beirut, President Raegen over the phone asked Prime Minister Begin to stop “the Holocaust”. Begin was stunned as he had lost his family in the Holocaust. Raegen persisted and Begin summoned a cabinet meeting and the bombing stopped 20 minutes after the phone call.
Why is it that Presidents Biden and Trump have not exerted their authority to stop the genocide? The short answer is that they are morally bankrupt.
As I write a flotilla of 40 boats carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza that started from Barcelona a month ago has been intercepted by the Israeli navy. Protests are being staged across the globe, but not in India. Why? There is nobody from India on any of the 40 boats. Why? Is the constantly invoked Vasudeva Kudumbakam (the whole world is one family) a mechanically repeated formula?
In this context we all admire Sreereshmi Udayakumar from Kochi who arranged for a 3000-litre water truck for 250 families in Gaza. May her tribe increase!
The much bruited about Trump’s peace plan is an oxymoron. It is an ultimatum to Hamas to cease to exist. It is shocking that the 8 Muslim countries (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Egypt, Jordan, Pakistan, Indonesia, and Turkey) who endorsed the plan at a meeting in the White House failed to see through the game.
Trump is in a hurry to get the Nobel Peace Prize that he has claimed ad nauseum and that too so loudly. The announcement is due on 10th October.
The poet Robert Burns wrote:
The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry
Awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to Trump will be oxymoronic. The prize should be awarded to the journalists murdered by Israel in Gaza, the U N staff murdered by Israel, the NGOs such as Doctors Without Borders, World Kitchen Centre, and so on. If Trump wants to usher in a ceasefire all that he has to do is to give Netanyahu an ultimatum adding that the supply of arms will stop if…
As already pointed out, Trump is morally bankrupt.
The latest is that Hamas has agreed to release the Israeli hostages at one go. Hamas wants the IDF to vacate Gaza in full. Netanyahu, who expected Hamas to reject the Trump plan, is scrambling.
Ambassador K.P.FABIAN retired from the Indian Foreign Service. The views expressed here are the writer’s own.