Once again the India’s foreign policy finds itself placed into a dilemma over Hamas attack upon Israel. And that pertains to choosing a side between the U.S.-led NATO powers assisted by several Western nations and the consolidating Russia-China-Iran-North Korea alliance accompanied by many of the Arab states in West Asia.

As evident, the sudden terror attack by Hamas on Israel and the Israeli counter-attack on Hamas have indeed created an unprecedented situation not only in and around Gaza but in the entire West Asian region by polarizing the aforesaid two power blocs.

And that may most probably spread all over the world to assume a global catastrophic dimension, given the vested interests of the most of the global and major powers like the U.S.-led NATO powers and other Western powers versus Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, Turkey and most of the Muslim states in the region including dreaded terrorist networks like Hezbollah, Islamic State, etc. We should also not forget Jaish-e-Mohammad and Tehreek-e-Insaf and many other such terror outfits from Pakistan.

As is obvious, how should India respond to such an unprecedented crisis? India had unilaterally supported the Palestinians against Israel for decades, dating from the late 1940s up to the late 1990s, when India for the first time formally established the bilateral relations with Israel.

Since then, New Delhi continues to diversify its relations with Tel Aviv and that includes bilateral cooperation as regards defense, security, terror, potable water from sea, climate, and other relevant areas.

On the one hand, India continues to enjoy its long-trusted friendship with Russia, it (New Delhi). Yet it can’t afford to ignore its newly forged bilateral relations with the U.S., on the other.

Hence the country has to invoke a nuanced stance so as not to utterly reject its hitherto long-practiced foreign policy towards the Middle East or West Asia.

Why may this happen in all probability?

One needs first to analyze and understand the prevailing international scenario marred by regional wars and consequent insecurity and instability throughout the world. It is largely during the recent past that the world has witnessed turmoil in the form of interventions, aggressions, the testing of bombs, missiles, and other new generations of lethal weapons including nuclear weapons. And that still continues with full might even today.

The role of China, North Korea, Iran and few clandestine operations by some of the rogue states like Lebanon and Libya in the Middle East, and Pakistan in South Asia, may be significant in this respect, though South Korea, Japan, Israel and the U.S. can’t be absolved either, due to being hectically engaged in the very same endeavors, albeit pursuing under compulsion to the aggressive actions of the aforesaid aggressive and interventionist states.

In this scenario, the Hamas action against Israel has obviously opened the Pandora’s box in the already super-charged Middle East region, hitherto a boiling cauldron involving almost all regional partner-states, fighting brutal fratricidal wars among themselves.

The Arab-Israel conflict is perhaps the worst persisting conflict in the world today.

The seeds of this conflict obviously lie in the Balfour Declaration of 1917 as the region had been under British mandate as part of the then-prevailing Mandate System evolved by the United Nations, and almost as the replica of the earlier ‘white man’s burden’ policy during the peak of colonialism.

Unfortunately the mandate administrators, mostly Anglo-European states, despite ostensibly owing allegiance to the principles of freedom, equity, equality, fraternity and democracy, failed to execute these noble principles on the ground level in reality and instead sowed distrust and played divide and rule tactics to divide the native community living therein for furthering their partisan interests to smoothly rule the unknown and different race or nationalities with maximum ease and comfort and also to loot the natural resources available there in plenty for boosting their economy and social and political strength.

And that evidently led to immediate arousal of deep resentment and bitter animosity among the colonized native populations against the foreign mandate rulers. That soon brought inter-community clashes between post-colonial rulers and ruled. The pro-ruler sections of the native population opposed the others, leading to brutal violence and killings of a large number of the common masses, thereby further instigating the mounting of tensions and a consequent enactment of gruesome acts of violence and terrorism in the entire regions.

Thus West Asia saw the onset of terrorism as a tool or weapon to serve the sectarian interests of the deprived sections of both the Muslim or Jews community and that goes on almost uninterrupted since then, despite three Arab-Israel Wars remaining undecided, and the Camp David Accords of 1978 for establishing peace and security for both of the warring nationalities being enacted.

With the passage of time, new terror groups have emerged for championing the cause of Palestinian homeland and among those, Hamas has already occupied the scene as a powerful organization after the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) of late Yasser Arafat, with perhaps largest following of the Palestinian community. Interestingly Hamas is believed to have been strengthened by the Israeli government itself as a counter-force to the PLO during its climax under late Arafat.

But being a terror organization, it can’t be considered as a genuine pressure group to pursue the socio-economic and political interests of the Palestinian Muslims in their true sense of the term. 

Hence the Hamas terror against Israel must be crushed to its end so that it never is able to resurface again in any likelihood.

However innocent residents in Gaza must be protected and for that Israel must follow the Laws of War and must not drop bombs or missiles on civilian populations. Instead of evacuating Gaza, the native population residing there should be immediately and fully protected by providing safer areas with electricity, water, routine life-sustaining commodities besides schools, colleges and hospitals, provided by the United Nations Security Council through its peacekeeping operations and such force to be urgently united and commanded for this end.

And for this end, all members of the U.N. Security Council, including permanent ones, must immediately unite to collectively pursue the much-needed humanitarian assistance at this crucial juncture for the war-torn residents of Gaza, while not forgetting that they are also the human beings in distress, who ought to be served with all dignity and compassion.

As regards India, it must activate its diplomacy to ensure a balanced approach that may ensure, on the one hand, a peaceful resolution of the otherwise intricate crisis to prevent any further escalation, and offer all kinds of humanitarian assistance to the suffering Gaza population not engaged in terrorism on the other.

Such a nuanced Indian stand will of course be appreciated by all global and major powers without getting involved into the ongoing imbroglio with Israel, which may otherwise face multi-pronged attacks from almost all of the Muslim states in the region, along with well-entrenched dreaded terror networks therein such as Hezbollah, Islamic State, al-Qaida and many more Islamic radical-militant groups from all across the world.

New Delhi can manage that balancing act, being the founding father of the Non-aligned Movement (NAM), and exercising enough influence in most of the states in the West Asian region as well as enjoying a peaceful, compassionate and accommodating friendly image with all nations in the world.

This is possible based on New Delhi’s ancient cultural distinguishing features and rich traditional heritage projecting the nation as the Vishwa Guru and reflecting ahimsa (non-violence), apramad (non-coceit), vishwa shanti (world peace), vasudhaiv kutumbaka (the whole world as a family) and many more concepts that continue to evolve.

Hence India must come forward in association with like-minded peace-loving nations like Australia, Japan, the U.K., and South Korea to resolve the long-sustaining complicated Arab-Israel conflict, which has already taken a toll of millions of Muslims and Jews. It may happen as nothing is beyond human endeavor.          

Sudhanshu Tripathi is a professor in the Department of Political Science at MDPG College, in Pratapagarh, Uttar Pradesh, in India.

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