The Israel-Palestine conflict has exposed western government’s brazen double standards, from curtailing demonstrations to harsh intrusive measures that include banning Palestinian flags and chants for freedom in Arabic. For obvious reasons, Germany goes a step further, to the extent of banning traditional attire as a potential ‘threat to school peace.’ Berlin education authorities argue, “Any declarative behaviour or expression of opinion could be understood as support or approval of attacks against Israel or support for the terrorist organisations that carry them out, such as the Palestinian Hamas movement or the Lebanese Hezbollah group.” Others are in the correctness race as well.
While the traditional Palestinian keffiyeh has been banned in Berlin schools, Republican presidential hopefuls in the US are jostling to outdo each other in suggesting the harshest measures against American students protesting the daily slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza. Deportation is currently the mildest punishment under consideration. French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin wrote, “pro-Palestinian demonstrations must be prohibited because they are likely to generate disturbances to the public order.” Not to be left behind, his British counterpart, the acerbic Suella Braverman, contends that waving a Palestinian flag could be interpreted as supporting terrorism. Hungary and Austria have also banned pro-Palestine demonstrations.
Western silence in the face of ever increasing civilian casualties in Gaza has come in for some acerbic comments, even from the most traditional allies. There is now a clear geographical and ethnic divide appearing in this supposedly greatly integrated world. White western governments are visibly and volubly on the side of largely white casualties—in Ukraine and Israel—while barely uttering a passing concern for the Asiatic Palestinians. Sometimes there is not even that, when it comes to humanitarian aid and sustenance.
This disdain has now extended into campus life as well, and an intrusive poke at student activism. In a first of its kind, students of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies Palestine Society have been suspended for demonstrating in support of Palestinians in Gaza. They were gathered for a rally on the main steps of the college, and the sounding of a fire alarm was used as a pretext to take action against some of them. Then there was the case of the law students who had job offers revoked because of letters written in support of Palestinians. There is a corrosion by correctness, felled by a networked world, which wasn’t always the case, as eye-witnessed.
Also read: UN organisations plead for unimpeded aid to be allowed into Gaza
When it was safe to protest
The cavalcade carrying the ‘terrorist’ came down Parliament Street, slowing just enough to turn smoothly left and take him to his designated meeting point. We stood by on Parliament Street, raising our voices in protest at the presence of the ‘terrorist’, less than a dozen of us. A mixed lot of nationalities, all united by the fervour of campus student political activism. On an earlier occasion, I had participated in a signature campaign against the brutal death of playwright and director Safdar Hashmi. But this sunny London day was different because we were protesting Margaret Thatcher hosting her Israeli counterpart Yitzhak Shamir at 10 Downing Street.
Accompanied by bemused policemen on duty, students of the School of Oriental And African Studies, University of London, were picketing the diplomatic visit metres away from the entrance of 10 Downing Street. Shamir, the Prime Minister of Israel, was once a designated terrorist by British Mandate authorities, as was his predecessor Menachem Begin. Both led different underground groups that actively participated in the murder of British officials and Palestinian civilians. Begin led the Irgun Zvai Leumi, a right-wing underground movement, and Shamir headed Lohamei Herut Israel or Lehi, a Zionist militant group also called the Stern Gang after its founder Avraham Stern. Lehi was a far more totalitarian group.
Shamir the terrorist was on the wanted list of British authorities, and was exiled to Eritrea upon capture. The policeman who identified and arrested him was subsequently killed by members of the Stern Gang. That, nevertheless, did not prove to be an obstacle when it came to Margaret Thatcher inviting Shamir into 10 Downing Street on that May 1989 day. As students of SOAS, we voiced our opposition to the double standards as practised by the western countries, and when Shamir departed following his meeting, so did we— even thanking the police on duty, with no harm done to national security.
All par for the course of student political activism, in the era of Margaret ‘Iron Lady’ Thatcher, but certainly not in 2023, under the reign of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and his acrid Home Secretary Suella Braverman. Thatcher was clearly made of stronger stuff than Sunak. Braverman has written to police chiefs about the threats posed by the waving Palestinian flags and chants in Arabic that call for freedom of occupied Palestine. Thatcher’s government had no problems with Palestinian flags waved metres from 10 Downing Street. Those weren’t easy days in any sense of the word.
The first Intifada was then raging in Gaza and the West Bank, giving the earliest indications about the birth of a new player in the Palestinian liberation matrix, Hamas. The origins of Hamas are rooted in a series of events and occurrences in the clandestine world that Israel has lived in since the birth of the Jewish state. The tales lend themselves to a landscape vividly alive to conspiracies and concoctions. None of which, of course, take anything away from the brutality of Hamas’ attack. And also doesn’t take away from the scale of Israel’s retributory actions, continuing into the third week.
Proportion and commensurate response now frequently feature in talking points. They are now even making it into spaces of the darkest humour. The most pro-Israel government in India has done right by sending humanitarian aid to Gaza. Any humanitarian intervention must be encouraged and New Delhi has been correct in its unilateral gesture. India has the maritime resources to undertake relief efforts, and it also has the expertise and experience. India’s Navy has rescued thousands of stranded Indians and others from war zones, including the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war. Now, with greater resources, India should lead Asian humanitarian efforts in 2023.
Manvendra Singh is a Congress leader, Editor-in-Chief of Defence & Security Alert and Chairman, Soldier Welfare Advisory Committee, Rajasthan. He tweets @ManvendraJasol. Views are personal.
(Edited by Prashant)