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HINDU PRO-ZIONISM AND PHILO-SEMITISM Jai Banu Quraiza January 2004 This work is dedicated to Hindu revolutionary, social reformer, rationalist, intellectual, political ideologue, and freedom fighter for Indian independence, Vinayak (Veer) D. Savarkar (1883-1966), an uncompromising supporter of the Zionist project It must be emphasised therefore that speaking historically, the whole of Palestine has been, from at least two thousand years before the birth of the Moslem Prophet, the National Home of the Jewish People. Veer Savarkar, 1947 CONTENTS Introduction...................................................................................................................7 Veer Savarkar..............................................................................................................11 Sita Ram Goel..............................................................................................................13 Ram Swarup ................................................................................................................18 Koenraad Elst..............................................................................................................24 David Frawley .............................................................................................................45 François Gautier .........................................................................................................50 Navaratna S Rajaram .................................................................................................56 Jay Dubashi.................................................................................................................58 Arun Shourie...............................................................................................................60 Suhas Majumdar.........................................................................................................62 Abhas Chatterjee .........................................................................................................65 Arvind Ghosh ..............................................................................................................66 Anwar Shaikh..............................................................................................................70 Anant Kakba Priolkar.................................................................................................82 Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) .......................................................................84 Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ....................................................................................87 Sri Rama Varma IV, Maharaja of Cochin, 1948-9 ...................................................90 King Bhaskara Ravi Varman I’s grant of autonomy of to the Jews of Kerela, c.1000AD .....................................................................................................................91 Positive Comments from Non-Hindus on the Lack of Anti-Semitism among Hindus, and the Growing Jewish-Hindu Co-Operation in combating Hate ..........................92 Joan G Roland................................................................................................................... 92 Reuben Raymond.............................................................................................................. 92 Ezekiel Issac Malekar ....................................................................................................... 92 Bentzion Ben Yosef Yakof ................................................................................................ 93 Nathan Katz, Ellen S Goldberg........................................................................................ 93 Nathan Katz....................................................................................................................... 93 Norman Cahoum............................................................................................................... 94 Joshua Brandt ................................................................................................................... 94 Doreen Bell-Doton............................................................................................................. 94 Elijah E. Jhirad ................................................................................................................. 95 Daniel J. Elazar ................................................................................................................. 95 Benedicta Pereira .............................................................................................................. 95 Shalva Weil ........................................................................................................................ 96 Sabrina Kerbel .................................................................................................................. 96 Ann Schaffer...................................................................................................................... 96 Shulamit Bahat,................................................................................................................. 96 Paul Goldenberg................................................................................................................ 97 Jeffrey Colman .................................................................................................................. 97 Steve Israel......................................................................................................................... 97 Stacey Menchel.................................................................................................................. 97 Stephen Brown .................................................................................................................. 97 Jason F Isaacson................................................................................................................ 98 Prime Minister of Israel, Ariel Sharon ........................................................................... 98 Shimon Peres ..................................................................................................................... 98 Abraham H. Foxman ........................................................................................................ 98 Michael Kleiner ................................................................................................................. 99 Aaron Krell........................................................................................................................ 99 Mark Schickman ............................................................................................................... 99 Voices of Disharmony: The Lowest Common Denominator linking Anti-Semitism and anti-Hinduism ....................................................................................................100 The Holy Inquisition of the Roman Catholic Church in Portuguese India ............... 100 Karl Marx ........................................................................................................................ 101 Adolf Hitler...................................................................................................................... 104 Theodore Bilbo ................................................................................................................ 105 George Lincoln Rockwell ............................................................................................... 106 David Duke ...................................................................................................................... 106 Arthur Kemp ................................................................................................................... 110 Raja Harish Swamy ........................................................................................................ 111 Prakash Karat ................................................................................................................. 112 Vijay Prashad .................................................................................................................. 113 Ashraf Abbas ................................................................................................................... 113 Praful Bidwai................................................................................................................... 114 Jayati Ghosh .................................................................................................................... 114 Nur Muhammad.............................................................................................................. 115 Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan ............................................................................................... 115 Ghani Jaffar..................................................................................................................... 117 TT Poulose ....................................................................................................................... 117 Asim Khan ....................................................................................................................... 117 Mohondas Karamchand (Mahatma) Gandhi ............................................................... 118 Jawaharlal Pandit Nehru ............................................................................................... 123 Conclusion.................................................................................................................125 Bibliography ..............................................................................................................126 Books ................................................................................................................................ 126 Articles in Books.............................................................................................................. 127 Online Books.................................................................................................................... 127 Website Articles............................................................................................................... 129 Introduction There has not, to my knowledge at least, been any systematic understanding of Judaism or Zionism, from a Hindu perspective. Indeed the scrutiny of other creeds was itself something quite recent, dating from the 19th century great neo-Vedic reformer, Swami Dayananada. The analysis of other religions, particularly Christianity and Islam, is of quite recent duration, from the last decades of the 20th century, and that of Marxism only seriously looked at from the 1950s. The main reason in all this is that Judaism was never a threat to Hindus, unlike more aggressive ideologies which have not had their venomous fangs against Vedic civilisation blunted yet. For this reason the studies undertaken by Hindu scholars from India, even when it analyses the books of the Bible, the concept of monotheism, and the idea of having prophets, has far less relevance to Judaism. Some of the western scholars featured here, due to wider knowledge have been able to make the distinction stand out more. So perhaps until that is done, this work is one of the few which tries to analyse this perspective, even if a deeper study is not possible at this stage. Because Jews never enacted holy wars, never coveted material possessions, never sought mass conversion, never attempted to conquer territory, and never committed other atrocities on Hindus, the existence of this small minority on the sacred soil of Bharata bothered nobody. In the debates of Shankacharya with the Buddhists, the attempt of some Bhakti saints to synthesise Hinduism and Islam in the face of naked terror from the fanatic Sufi preachers and their imperialist backers, and with Dayananda’s lambasting of both missionaries and the corrupt superstitious practices of his own Hindu brethren, we find no examination of Judaism as a belief system in its own right. That in itself should make any Hindu who fully appreciates his Vedic heritage to understand that this creed was different from others that claimed to be monotheistic, as well as harbingers of a golden age. It should also make Jews ask why there was no conflict between what on the surface at least, appears to be polar opposites in religious belief and cultural norms. This work has been produced to give long overdue recognition to the scholars who, using the basis of millennia old Vedic culture, have shown humanity the way out the darkness of ethnocentric and ideologically motivated hate. As one peruses their names, one could call them humanist, or even in its most elasticised use, Hindu. Yet not all are Indian. Indeed the most radical of them are from European heritage, and skilfully combine both Hindu and western ideas to allow in a breath of much needed fresh air to replace the worn out swear words and denigrating name tags associated with the thinking that clouds both hate rhetoric and political correctness. In the present climate it is not only permissible to slander Hindus with impunity, any attempt to examine facts objectively and actually find something positive in this most ancient of cultures invited the wrath of the academic and political establishment in both India and western countries. It is no longer safe or permissible for anyone to defend political manifestations of Hinduism, if those individuals truly value their careers, and increasingly, their lives. The pseudo-intellectual stormtroopers who drive the anti-Hindu hate machine, including respected academics at universities in India, Europe and America, refuse to even enter into debate over their ideas. This seemingly unstoppable venom can only be compared to anti-Semitism. Unfortunately the parallels do not stop there, because now the contemporary sweet-talking, silver-tongued and seemingly respectable nature of today’s “designer Nazis” have a ready made template onto which they can push their ideas. Therefore, in the present intellectual climate, it is not permissible to state the obvious when examining the false and unsubstantiated allegations that India is in the throes of what is variously described as Hindu nationalism, Hindu fundamentalism, Hindu right-wing forces, Hindu Fascism, and Hindu Nazism. Hate ideologies such as Nazism do not arise out of nowhere, and one would therefore, expect to see evidence of its Indian equivalent from an indigenous Hindu source. By taking a simple cosmetic examination of pure historical facts, one finds that anti-Semitism, the common element which seems to be one of the few adhesive substances that gels neo-Nazi, ultra-ethnocentric, and ultra-nationalist movements together, is completely lacking in Hindu culture. It is not lacking among the various forces that would love to see Hindu culture, civilisation and religion consigned to the forgotten past, as has happened to ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome, Celts, Maya, Aztecs, Incas, and even to a large extent China. Those very same forces look at Jewish culture, especially its modern political manifestation of Zionism, with the same, rather extreme form of disapproval. So let me state the obvious here, which western anti-Hindu, and increasingly anti-Zionist (meaning anti-Semitic), academics do not wish to state. The obvious fact I am referring to its that it was India, that is Bharata, land of ancient Vedic civilisation unbroken after millennia, which was the only country in the Jewish Diaspora where Jews lived completely unmolested by the host community, in this case the Hindus, going back at least 2000 years. Even their eventual exodus from the ancient land of Bharata (India), was not caused by fear of persecution, but the desire to rebuild what was once the ancient Jewish homeland. Unlike the Hindus, who have an interrupted civilisation for 10,000 years based upon the soil of India, the Jews, also heirs to an ancient culture, were condemned to preserve theirs without a central location, and instead dispersed among the nations of the world, until such time as they could return to their Punyabhoomi (Sacred Soil) in 1948. Modern anti-Semites are trying very hard to shed the tag of hate which clings to them like a limpet. In their desperation to hide this label of “anti-Semitic”, and claiming they have nothing against Jews per se, they have employed some ingenious devices to ensure the mud sticks elsewhere. They are now using various labels, especially anti-Zionism, to hide their true thoughts. The refrain used to be that they were not against Jews as such, just Zionism as it was an exclusivist, ethnocentric, indeed racist doctrine. Playing by the rules of cultural relativism, if Jews could be proud of being Jewish, then why could not “reformed” Nazis be proud of being white (or indeed any other colour, to explode the myth that racial supremacy is the preserve of one race or ethnic group). In a perverse take on anti-colonialism, Zionism is held to be racist and imperialist, and neo-Nazism merely racial separatism. The fact that Jews in Israel actually compose a variety of ethnic groups and shades in skin pigmentation, as well as the fact that many non-Jewish citizens (Arabs, Druze, Greeks, Christians, Muslims, Bahai) are actually quite happy living in the Zionist entity seems to have escaped our genetically high IQ hatemongers. In a last ditch attempt to salvage their dying theology, they have come up with the concept of “Jewish supremacism”. The argument, and it is a pretty old one, is that if Jews were persecuted in all European nations, surely they must have done something to deserve all this? It certainly looks like the best form of defence is attack in this instance, because the demagogues have now found that their feelings on Jews are paralleled in the Islamic world, where Nazi classics, long disowned by respectable people in Europe and America, are lapped up with vigour by the dysfunctional elites that reign over the masses in the countries south of the Mediterranean and east of the Bosporus. Again the obvious has been overlooked. If Jewish supremacy was to blame for anti-Semitism, then why did it not rear its very ugly head in India? The Bene Israel and Cochin Jews, were very ancient communities found in Maharashtra and Kerela part of the western coast of India, respectively. Why was there never any animosity between them and the host Hindu community, among whom the Jews were but a microscopic drop in the vast Hindu ocean that was India? Judaism, the original monotheistic and, in its Old Testament period, an iconoclastic creed, and Hinduism, the indefinable amorphous mass as it is described so often, which had no dogma , and was the idol worshipping belief system par excellence: the children of Israel and those of Bharata face to face. But there was never any conflict. Indeed conditions were so tolerant in India, that Jews from the Middle East (Baghdadi) and Spain and Portugal (Sephardi) came to India, with the former eventually forming a substantial population in Mumbai and Calcutta. The only times Jews have known insecurity was when the Moplahs or Moors (Muslims of Indo-Arab descent) attacked them, and when they faced persecution by the Portuguese. In more recent times, there has been the anti-Zionist campaign forced on the Hindu masses by Islamic organisations and Marxist parties such as the Congress and Communists, who dominated India’s political hegemony for the 50 years after independence. Yet these manifestations of hatred were not of the soil of India, and utterly alien to Hindu ethos. In examining such issues, we must try, despite the difficulties involved, to be as objective and unemotional as possible, and look at the facts. So just what are those facts? It is said that social science is not scientific because it has no empirical evidence. There is no laboratory to evaluate the ideas put forth. But in this remarkable scenario, we can actually look at as near to a social science lab as one can get, by reviewing the society in which Indian Jews lived. Let us take the perilous step in going so far as to take the premise that Jewish supremacism does exist, and actually has existed since the time of the ancient Israelites, without so much as a break or spiritual-cum-ethnocentric change, right up to the contemporary period. In doing so, a totally unexpected picture emerges, far removed from the nightmarish fantasies painted by anti-Semitic forces which envelop themselves in the verbiage of cultural relativism. If Jewish supremacism did exist it would surely have found fertile ground in India, where pagans, polytheists, idol worshippers, engraved images of the deity, and many other counterparts to Baal abounded? Yet what happened was the complete opposite. Unlike certain other creeds, religious or materialist, Jews never denigrated the beliefs of their Hindu neighbours, never desecrated Hindu shrines, never spread their ideas through forcible or forced conversion, and never subverted the political apparatus and Dharma (that which sustains life) which was in place for thousands of years. If Hindus acted as a tolerant host community, the Jews were always the model non-Hindu minority in India. This lack of animosity by Jews to Hindus for 2000 years, shows that the neo-anti-Semitic label of “Jewish supremacism” is yet another sick mythical construct. One must examine why Hindus never stooped so low as to persecute a visible minority in their midst, or formulate a theological foundation on which to do so, and in the process it may be necessary to examine why others succumbed to a pathological hate so ingrained in certain parts of European, American and Middle Eastern cultural norms, that it has yet to be fully exorcised. It is also important for politically aware Jews to neutralise the anti-Hindu poison that has brainwashed many leading figures in the media, academia and in government. It does not take a great deal of effort to see how anti-Hinduism is driven by the same sick dogma as antiSemitism. If ever there was a civilisation which never even had a tinge of Judeophobia, then surely its cultural elements should be preserved and enhanced? Yet in actual practice, Hindus are routinely portrayed as Nazis, much as Israeli Jews and Zionists now are. Perversion of Hindu scriptures, the Vedas, by Victorian era academics more intent to pour scorn on the Hindu religion and bolster the belief in white racial supremacy, has led to the idea of an Aryan invasion of India: that white skinned Indo-European speaking invaders enslaved the darker inhabitants, and thus founded the caste system, the core of Hindu culture. Such a colonialist idea would normally be dealt with contemptuously now if it referred to any other people or civilisation, yet this myth remains, and any attempt to tamper with it brings accusations of having Nazi sympathy. Ironic, considering that this is perhaps the only time bona fide anti-racists can be accused of being Nazis – unless of course they happen to be Zionists. Do any of the academics ever try and sit down calmly, and figure out that if the Hindus were Nazis, then why did they not ever bother with attacking the community which has always found itself to be National Socialist enemy number one? The Aryan racial myth is the second flimsy pillar of Nazi ideology, in all its forms. It too must be demolished in the same methodical manner. If it is not then the gates are wide open for Zionism, Judaism and Jews as a whole to be cast in the same mould by dishonest intellectual practices, which have more to do with ideological dogma than serious academic research and dissemination of knowledge in what is now the global village. This short study has compiled the work of various academics and others who are little known in the mainstream, despite their important, and in many ways essential, research. I have also added on the testimonies of non-Hindu personalities who attest to the unparalleled treatment that Jews received in India, as well as commentators whose bigoted and narrow views often condemn Jews and Hindus (sometimes others) in the same breath. If this shows that the idea of Jewish supremacism is a myth, that the concept of Zionism equalling Nazism and racism is a myth, that the very idea of Hindu Fascism is a myth, and that anything political which has its roots in Hindu or Jewish cultures is somehow racist, Fascist, Nazi, regressive and ethnically supremacist, then the efforts will have been rewarded. Bar Kochba and Shivaji no longer have to wield swords to achieve the spiritual and political liberation of ancient cultures, when they are faced with the false utopian hopes of creeds which can best be described as aggressive upstarts. The use of modern media, creating the new ideological foundation with which to defend democratic values is both more effective and the way forward out of the darkness. While this may appear unnecessarily harsh with its sometimes unapologetic verbal aggression, it is both a long overdue and painful process that one has to be prepared to suffer in order to be enlightened out of the present state of ignorance, known in Sanskrit terminology as Kala Yuga. 3 January 2004 Jai Banu Quraiza Veer Savarkar The modern seer of Hindu identity, and indeed the one who in fact coined the term “Hindutva”, which to both its supporters and detractors conjures up the image of modern Hindu identity, Vinayak Dimodar Savarkar (1883 – 1966) was the only political leader in India who explicitly recognised that the Jews had the right to their own state. This was as far back as 1908.1 In his Hindutva, the political treatise of 1923, for which he is best known, he wrote these words: …..if the Zionists’ dreams were realised, if Palestine became a Jewish State, it would gladden us almost as much as our Jewish friends.2 In 1948, Israel was founded, and Savarkar expressed his sentiments thus: I am glad to note that the overwhelming majority of the leading nations in the world have recognised the claim of the Jewish people to establish an independent Jewish State in Palestine and should have promised armed assistance to see it realised. After centuries of sufferings, sacrifices and struggle the Jews will soon recover their national Home in 3 Palestine which has undoubtedly been their Fatherland. When the Zionist dreams were in fact realised, Savarkar saw their project as an example that an independent India could learn from, as in this statement from 1952: Even a tiny state like Israel has sensibly started developing fish field and sand fruits and because of that they are able to meet the needs of the countless immigrants who would have otherwise half-starved. The Jews are a brave and intelligent people. And although their State looks like a child before our great state of Bharat we must emulate its example.4 In 1956, he castigated the Congress Party government of Jawaharlal Nehru for not recognising the Jewish state, simply because it went against his Marxist, anti-western, antiHindu, pro-Khilafist, and pseudo-non-alignment principles, as well as being yet another futile attempt in his appeasing of Pakistan and the Arab nations: But bear in mind if tomorrow there breaks out a war between Pakistan and Bharat almost all Muslims will be arrayed on the side of Pakistan in opposition to us and their enemy Israel will be our only friend. Therefore I say that Bharat should give unequivocal recognition to Israel. If we desire to safeguard the independence of Bharat we should be militarily strong.5 Yet this is the political leader, who just because he stood for principles of political ideology based upon Vedic roots, known as Hindutva, he was castigated as being Communalist, and later Fascist and Nazi, even ironically as anti-Semitic, mere convenient labels by detractors, used not with any academic accuracy, just swear words for defamation. Indeed India’s postindependence Marxist ruling aristocracy, was busy creating the same anti-Jewish feeling that their dead prophet Karl Marx had engineered in Das Kapital, and their living guru Stalin was busy stoking up in the USSR and Soviet occupied Eastern Europe. Savarkar in December 1947: Judging from the Indian press in general our public seems to be misinformed by a sinister pro-Muslim propaganda regarding this Palestine issue. It must be emphasised therefore 1 2 Dhananjay Keer, Veer Savarkar, 1988 (originally 1950, 1966), Popular Prakashan, Mumbai, p.467 Veer Savarkar, Hindutva, 1923, p.112 3 Koenraad Elst, The Saffron Swastika, Voice of India, New Delhi, 2001, p.381 4 Keer, op. cit., p.444 5 Ibid., p.499 that speaking historically, the whole of Palestine has been, from at least two thousand years before the birth of the Moslem Prophet, the National Home of the Jewish People. . . The Fatherland or the Holyland of the Arabian Muslims lies in Arabia and not in Palestine. In justice, therefore, the whole of Palestine ought to have been restored to the Jews. But taking into account the conflict of self-interest of the powerful nations in the UNO, their support to the resuscitation of the Jewish State in a part if Palestine at any rate, wherein they still happen to be in a majority and which includes some of their prominent Holy Places constitute an event of historical justice and importance. Savarkar was incensed at Pandit “Comrade” Nehru’s intransigence, and the resultant utterly pathetic anti-Semitic behaviour was castigated by him, especially the actions of his own sister, Shrimati Vijayalakshmi, the Indian ambassador to the United Nations: It is consequently to be regretted that the delegation which represented our Hindusthani Government in the UNO should have voted against the creation of the Jewish State. The speeches of Shrimati Vijayalakshmi in particular were justly ridiculed when she claimed melodramatically that the Indian Government refused to stab the unity and integrity of the Palestine State in the back of by carving out a separate Jewish State, forgetting for the while that the very Indian Government had stabbed the unity and integrity of their own 6 nation only the other day. Cynics will claim that Savarkar was being merely opportunist. However this ignores the fact that in 1908, 1923, and even up to 1947 when Savarkar made pro-Zionist statements, there was no political entity known as Israel. So one needs to look deeper. It was the ideological similarity of Hindutva and Zionism, so much hated by Leftists of today,7 which was the deciding factor: In a way, the atheist Veer Savarkar was the Hindu counterpart of a Zionist: he defined the Hindus as a Nation attached to a Motherland, rather than as a religious community. True, there is an obvious difference between the situation of the Jews, who had yet to migrate to their Motherland (“Next year in Jerusalem”), and the Hindus who merely had to remove the non-Hindu (British, then Nehruvain and, in Pakistan, Islamic) regime from their 8 territory. The Hindus are already in Delhi, and merely have to change it into Indraprastha. 6 7 Elst, Saffron Swastika, pp.381-2 Vijay Prashad, Imperialism, Israel & India, Hindutva-Zionism: An Alliance of the New Epoch, 2002, http://www.between-lines.org/archives/2002/feb/Vijay_Prashad.htm 8 Koenraad Elst, Decolonizing the Hindu Mind, Voice of India, New Delhi, 2001, p.472 Sita Ram Goel Sita Ram Goel (1921 – 2003) has yet to be given the respect due as the most important intellectual Hindu giant of the twentieth century. His influence on the new millennium of Hindu resurgence cannot be underestimated, and unlike many so-called Hindu “academics” he was not averse to straddling the line which divides religion and politics, the temporal and spiritual realms of existence. This has indeed been a welcome breath of fresh air from stale odours emitted by the ostrich-like behaviour of Hindu leaders and organisations in general. Although he has not explicitly examined Jewish history, Israel and Zionism in great detail, his ideas are certainly worth reproducing. Some of his writings may appear to be overtly critical of Judaism. However, this would be a childish and overly simplistic conclusion to draw, because it does not understand the very difficult subject which is being discussed. That subject encompasses the problems Hindus have to face from well-funded Christian and Islamic missionary activity, the violent and fraudulent means used to achieve their ends, and the historical factual reality of those creeds, not only in India, but globally. Being largely unfamiliar with Jewish history, Goel may have made certain sweeping judgements, but then he is no worse than any other Hindu scholar, and arguably better because at least he tackles the subject, however peripheral it might be to his main focus. Then again, since Jews in India did not engage in forcible conversion, aggressive and fraudulent proselytisation of Hindus, desecration of Hindu shrines, and attempts to establish their own state on Indian soil, this unfamiliarity with Jewish history, spirituality, and culture is not so much a sign of hostility, but proof that there is no animus against Jews by what anti-Zionist Marxists themselves call the “Hindu Right” in both political and intellectual circles. Indeed when discussing the infectious use of Leftist language, Goel recognises that antiSemitism is an integral part of the character of any Hindu who needs to prove his credentials as a secularist, progressive and Leftist. To do otherwise would leave on pen to being labelled as “Rightist”, “Hindu fundamentalist”, “Hindu communalist”, and, perhaps worst of all, and ironically, “Fascist”: The word secular is defined in the dictionaries as "the belief that the state, morals, education, etc. should be independent of religion." But in India it means only one thing -eschewing everything Hindu and espousing everything Islamic. Every one who wants to qualifying as secular should subscribe to the following articles of faith : 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. the Muslims in India after independence have become a poor and persecuted minority; they are being deprived of their fair share in the fruits of development; their religion and culture are not getting legitimate expression in public life and media; they are not being given employment in public and private sectors in proportion to their population; and the preponderance of Hindus in the security forces puts in grave peril the lives, honour and properties of Muslims. Every Hindu politician or pen-pusher who aspires to pass the test has to 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. proclaim that Islam stands for equality and human brotherhood; celebrate the prophet's birthday with fanfare and throw an iftar dinner at the end of Ramzan; attend Urs of sufis and Urdu mushairas; support the claim of Urdu to be the second state language in all states where Muslims are in a minority; admire whatever passes for Islamic art and architecture; relish Muslim cooking and appreciate Muslim dress and demeanour; 7. abuse Israel and applaud Arab countries.9 So hatred of Israel and support for Palestinian terrorism is an important criterion in judging whether a Hindu should be regarded as a “Nazi”. Perhaps the most astute observation Goel made, and one which mainstream academia, infected with the Marxist bacillus, continues to ignore. In most countries hatred of Jews would lead to allegation of Nazism. In India, hatred of Israel, and by logical argument Jews in general, is essential to stop being labelled a such! However one may disagree for Goel’s use of intemperate language, even at his most critical, he does not actually take a swipe at Judaism, far less Zionism or Israel: ……my first premise is that Sanatana Dharma which is known as Hinduism at present, is not only a religion but also a whole civilization which has flourished in this country for ages untold, and which is struggling to come into its own again after a prolonged encounter with several sorts of predatory imperialism. On the other hand, I do not regard Islam and Christianity as religions at all. They are, for me, ideologies of imperialism like Nazism and Communism, legitimizing aggression by one set of people against another in the name of a god which gangsters masquerading as prophets have invented after their own image.10 But obviously no mention here of Judaism, or indeed Zaruthustrianism, simply because they are non-Hindu by virtue of the fact that they are not Indian. Jews and Parsees lived harmoniously with the Hindu host community for centuries. Goel’s analysis and conclusions are not harsh on them because they were non-Indian or even prophetic. It was because they could not stomach the existence of Sanatana Dharma: On the other hand, the Parsis came to India almost at the same time as the Muslims. They have remained a distinct minority with their own characteristic culture. It has never occurred to any historian, or sociologist, or politician to talk of the assimilation of Parsis in the native Hindu population, or of the synthesis of Parsi culture with Hindu culture. Till the other day, we had a Jewish minority which had kept its racial and cultural identity intact for almost two thousand years without creating any social, political, or cultural problem for the Hindus. The Syrian Christians in South India were another religious and cultural minority which was carved out of the native population by early Christian missionaries, and which never threatened or felt threatened by the local people till the militant missionaries who started coming with the dawn of Western imperialism, began instigating them for 11 mischief. So it is not surprising that when his focus moves beyond India, he finds great sympathy with the victims with the victims of anti-Semitism. Goel makes an interesting analysis on the trial of Jesus by Pontius Pilate and subsequent crucifixion s: It is, however, not the historicity of the so-called Jewish trial but the theology to which it gave birth which invites greater attention. It is because of this spurious story that all through nearly two thousand years of Christian history, Jews have been accused of deicide and subjected in practically all Christian countries to cruel pogroms which culminated in the Nazi Holocaust. The gospel writers can, therefore, be held guilty of committing one of the greatest crimes in history. John (8:44) goes to the extent of labelling 12 the Jews as sons of the Devil. 9 Sita Ram Goel, Perversion of Indian Political Parlance, Voice of India, New Delhi, http://www.bharatvani.org/books/pipp/ch2.htm 10 Sita Ram Goel, How I Became a Hindu, 1992, Voice of India, New Delhi, http://www.bharatvani.org/books/hibh/ch9.htm 11 Sita Ram Goel, The Story of Islamic Imperialism in India, Voice of India, New Delhi, 1992 http://www.bharatvani.org/books/siii/ch11.htm 12 Sita Ram Goel, Jesus Christ: An Artifice for Aggression, Voice of India, New Delhi, 1994, p.16 In a book that would make modern Christian evangelists and churches feel at least uncomfortable if not utterly outraged and demand a banning (something which Goel was not exactly a stranger to during his lifetime), he goes even further by finding Nazism as the fulfilment of two thousand years of pure Christian Judeophobia: Apart from the various other features in which Adolf Hitler reincarnated Jesus Christ, the Holocaust in which millions of Jews were slaughtered in various ways was directly inspired by the Jesus of the gospels. The Jews had been denounced by him as snakes, as a brood of vipers, as sons of the Devil, as killers of prophets, as an adulterous nation and as permanent enemies of his church simply because they refused to acclaim him as the Messiah. The Christian theology that followed, stamped them with a permanent guilt – they were killers of Christ. The Jews had been reduced to non-citizens, and subjected to repeated pogroms all over Christianised Europe and throughout the centuries. Muhammad had also done the same after he failed to persuade the Jews to accept his claim of prophethood. He had massacred the Jews of Medina and his Muslims had followed the precedent wherever Islam prevailed. No one, however, had worked out the message of the gospels systematically, and blueprinted the final solution before Hitler arrived on the scene. Human emotions other than religious fanaticism had intervened frequently in favour of the Jews. In short, no one before Hitler had grasped completely the verdict passed on the Jews by the Jesus of the gospels. Small wonder that serious 13 thinkers in the West came to look at the gospels as the First Nazi Manifesto. The anti-Semitism in Nazism did not come out of thin air but had a long gestation period. That same poison not only has the ability to destroy others, but is doing so at present to anyone who does not acknowledge the exclusivist theology under review: Did the writers of the gospels – all of them Jews – realise what they were letting loose when they transferred from the Romans to the Jews the guilt of killing Jesus? Is Christianity today prepared to purge the gospels of those poisonous phrases which make them the first Nazi Manifesto vis-à-vis the Jews? And will Christianity go further and revise 14 its attitude towards other non-Christians as well? Any modern attempts to whitewash this or explain via complex mental gymnastics make no difference: An attempt is on to make people forget what Christianity did to the Jews for many centuries and prepared the theology of the Nazi Holocaust. Even now the Pope hopes 15 “Judaism can find its fulfilment in Christianity.” In the present political climate in India, such views are regarded as “extremist” simply because they use a Hindu intellectual analysis. Because the global media relies upon the Marxist dominated English-speaking elite of that country for its source of news information, it also has swallowed the same poison, while ironically championing the downfall of Communism in Eastern Europe, Russia and Central Asia. Yet such ideas would not be out of place in the democratic, liberal and free-thinking post-Christian west. But even here free discussion is being infected with unhealthy limitations. Multiculturalism was meant to show respect in globalising society, where people interacted, migrated and were open to new ideas as never before. It was supposed to exorcise the demons of colonialism, imperialism, racism, and oppression. It is true that this has brought benefits. Even white supremacists in white majority western nations of Europe and North America are largely careful to admit that they merely want to benefit from the same cultural relativism that darker skinned minority groups have at their disposal. Anti-Semitism is no longer mainstream, and any danger of it being so does not actually come from the ranks of the racial group that would have made up the rank and file of the Hitler Youth. Here we face yet another irony. Hindus have not exactly benefited from multiculturalism, globalisation or cultural relativism, but instead have become 13 14 Ibid., p.70 Sita Ram Goel, History of Hindu-Christian Encounters, Voice of India, New Delhi, 1996, pp.456-7 15 Ibid., p.502 categorised with the worst excesses of colonialism, racism and genocide. In this disgusting concoction the victims have been labelled as the aggressors, while the actual aggressors, who up to this day have not renounced any of their exclusivist, totalitarian and venomous ideas, have benefited from misplaced colonial guilt complex. In the present environment it is therefore not permissible to say anything objective and critical of certain “non-western” or “pre-colonial” cultures. That is true of European and North American scholars, and especially of Jewish writers such as Bat Ye’or who are not allowed even the decency of examining why her people continue to face the prospect of yet another mass genocide. In this context, for someone like Sita Ram Goel to even attempt to do anything approaching Bat Yeor on behalf of the Hindus, is regarded as unthinkable, and it is why mainstream academics in the West and Israel, let alone India, dismiss him in their ignorance. But Goel had spoken up and defended Jewish victims of the anti-Semitism which did not have its roots in Christian Europe: No records of pre-Islamic culture have survived except a bit of poetry, which by itself is a telling evidence of the havoc wrought by Islam on a society whose only fault was that it did not take seriously the prophethood of Muhammad. Even so, something of the pre-Islamic Arab society and culture shines through the lies told about them by the biographers of Muhammad. It was a tribal society no doubt. But the tribes had a long tradition of largehearted religious liberalism which made the worshippers of many Gods and Goddesses live peacefully side by side. The Jews and the Christians also enjoyed full religious freedom in this environment of tolerance and understanding. It was this liberalism and 16 tolerance which permitted the prophet of Islam to preach and practise all that he did. Goel, like Bat Yeor, is one of the few writers to actually take on the multicultural naivety which poisons the rational thinking of the chattering classes: The Jews and the Christians were given the status of zimmîs by the Prophet himself. But what has happened to them in the lands of their birth? The Jews have been finally driven out from all Islamic countries after having suffered persecutions and humiliations in silence over the centuries. The Christian minority has met the same fate.17 Certainly not for the politically correct squeamish in Israel, Western Europe or the USA, and definitely not for the Marxist elite of Indian journalism and academia, are the logical conclusions that can be drawn form this. In one book, he explains at length the atrocities committed on the Jews of Arabia as the very dawn of Islam: “Revelations” against the Jews: The Prophet had migrated to Medina because that city had a large population of Jews whom he expected to confirm his prophethood. Most of what he had been “revealing” so far, was derived from the Jewish scripture. But he discovered very soon that the Jews had nothing but contempt for him and his creed. They made fun of him so that he was in danger of getting discredited even in the eyes of his own Muslims, not to speak of the Arab Pagans whom he was striving to convert. He became increasingly hostile to the Jews and thought of denouncing them as renegades who had fallen from the path blazed by Abraham. Allah obliged him by “revealing” a large number of verses (2.1-100; 3.111-12, 118-20) which mouthed the Prophet’s new message to the Muslims and pronounced Abraham as the first Muslim. So far Muslims had prayed facing the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem. Allah changed the qiblah from Jerusalem to Ka‘ba at Mecca (2.142-45, 149-50). Muslims were now commanded to fight the Jews, subjugate them (9.29) and harass them in every way. Expulsion of BanU Qaynuqa‘ Jews from Medina: Success in the Battle of Badr encouraged the Prophet to implement a scheme which he had had in his mind ever since he turned against the Jews. He wanted to massacre the Jews of Medina and seize the rich properties they possessed in various forms in their three settlements around the city. But the Jews had allies among the Arab tribes of Medina, some of whom had converted to 16 Sita Ram Goel, The Story of Islamic Imperialism in India, Voice of India, New Delhi, 1992, http://www.bharatvani.org/books/siii/ch12.htm 17 Ibid., http://www.bharatvani.org/books/siii/ch11.htm Islam while others had remained Pagans. So the Prophet decided to test the alliance by besieging one of the Jewish tribes - Banu Qaynuqa‘. The Arab allies incited the Jews not to yield, but did not make any effort to raise the siege. The Jewish tribe was starved into surrender. The Prophet tried to do what he had in his mind. But at this point the Arab allies intervened, and saved the Jews from slaughter and rapine. The Prophet had to rest content with expelling the Banu Qaynuqa‘ from Medina. He had also to allow them to take away whatever movable properties they could. It was certainly a setback for him. But Allah was quick to approve the “compromise” in a new “revelation” (3.12-13, 19-20). Massacre and plunder of Banu Qurayza Jews of Medina: Of the three settlements of Jews in Medina, the Prophet had already dealt with two - Banu Qaynuqa‘ and Banu NazIr. He was in search of an excuse for dealing with the third settlement, that of the Banu Qurayza. His opportunity came soon after he was finished with the Battle of the Trench in which a Mececan and allied army besieging Medina had been repelled. The Prophet and his flock were in a mood of triumph. Allah sent the angel Gabriel to them immediately, asking them not to lay down arms without finishing the Banu Qurayza who were reported to have had some negotiations with the foes from Mecca. So Banu Qurayza were besieged, and starved into surrender. Now the Prophet asked them as to the treatment they deserved. They named as arbitrator, Sa‘d b. Mu‘Az, leader of an Arab tribe of Medina which was allied to the Jews at one time but had converted to Islam in the meanwhile. Sa‘d at this time was in a terrible temper because he had been mortally wounded in the Battle of the Trench. According the judgment he pronounced, all adult males of Banu Qurayza were to be put to death, their women and children sold into slavery, and their properties plundered. The Prophet issued orders accordingly. The market place in Medina was drenched in the blood of 900 Jews who were slaughtered non-stop during the night by the Prophet’s stalwarts, particularly ‘Ali and Zubayr; their women and children were sent to Egypt to be sold as slaves in exchange for horses and arms. The properties which the Prophet and his Ummah divided among themselves were quite rich. In addition, the Prophet acquired a beautiful Jewish girl, Rehana, who agreed to become his concubine instead of converting to Islam and becoming one of his wives. Allah blessed the dreadful 18 enterprise in “revelations” (33.13-14, 26-27) which descended without delay. In all this, Goel references and quotes authentic Islamic scholarly sources in the Quran and Hadith. With the present irrational moves to a peace settlement in Israel that simply will not materialise, it is obviously not just Hindus who can benefit from the intellectual legacy bequeathed to humanity by him. Despite having had little knowledge of Jewish history, religion, of Zionism and Israel, there can be no doubt that Sita Ram Goel viewed Jews as fellow victims of aggressive, intolerant and totalitarian creeds. 18 Sita Ram Goel, The Calcutta Quran Petition, Voice of India, New Delhi, 1999, http://www.bharatvani.org/books/tcqp/chi2.htm Ram Swarup Ram Swarup (1920–1998) is another of the unrecognised champions of Hindu and contemporary humanist thought. Having been a former Communist himself, Swarup was instrumental in rescuing Sita Ram Goel from his Marxist leanings in 1948. Both these individuals braved the hostile intellectual climate of Nehru’s India to bring out a string of works exposing the true evil nature of Communism. This I turn led to a return to India’s Vedic roots in what has really been almost a lone voice in calling for the revival of Hindu Dharma, the Voice of India publishing house in New Delhi. It is no exaggeration therefore to say that Swarup and Goel took Hindu thought in new directions particularly in political analysis and the objective scrutiny of the aggressive missionary forces that were determined to wipe the millennia old Hindu civilisation off the map. As with Goel, the reader may find Swarup’s work overly critical of Judaism. But again we must remind ourselves that his focus was on missionary and imperialist motives which Hindus felt when faced with Christianity, Islam and Marxism. Judaism was of interest in understanding the motives behind ideological supremacy and narrow exclusivism disseminated by such doctrines. So although he There was no full examination of Judaism, much less Zionism, as that was not deemed necessary, just as there was no need to scrutinise Zarathustrianism, and various animistic beliefs, although it has to be admitted that Swarup did see an affinity with the pre-Christian beliefs of Europe, Ameircas, and Africa. There is no doubt that had he put his mind to it, Swarup could have come up with very interesting ideas in analysing Judaism, paving the way for mutually beneficial dialogue. In a book where he examines the idea of prophets, monotheism and the concept of “Chosen People” in language that may not feel comfortable to orthodox Jewish opinion, and would certainly offend the unflinching followers of Christianity, Islam and Marxism, he nevertheless shows sympathy with the Zionist project: It is only now after a lapse of nineteen centuries, that the Jewish people are again able to reconstruct a national home for themselves in Palestine against great odds.19 In understanding Christianity, though Swarup does not explicitly use the term “antiSemitism”, he nevertheless finds its western origins in the New Testament, where the Jews reject Jesus as the Messiah: But when this role failed, Jesus presented himself in another garb. When the Jews rejected him, he rejected the Jews. He told them that they had the Devil for their father (Jn. 8.44). he told them that as they were repudiating him, God, his Father, was repudiating them. He told them the parable of the householder who planted a vineyard: how when the tenants disobeyed and rebelled against the master’s servants and even his son, they were turned out and the vineyard was let to others (Mt. 21.33-41). He declared that God was terminating his old covenant with the Jews, and entering into a new on with those who believed in His Son. He asked the disciples to “let the children come”, his name for the Gentiles. Christians replaced Jews as God’s chosen people; the latter were now redundant in God’s scheme but they were to be tolerated by the Church until all mankind 20 had been converted to Christianity and the Jewish testimony was no longer needed. He decries the vicious anti-Semitism brought about by the wandering bands of pious medieval Christians in Europe: Whole multitudes of men and women occasionally came out in the street, walking in procession, sometimes in thousands, moving form village to village, whipping themselves and indulging in what they called the “baptism of blood”……These throngs of men moved 19 20 Ram Swarup, Hindu View of Christianity and Islam, Voice of India, New Delhi, 1995, p.60 Ibid., p.62 from place to place scourging themselves, celebrating and imitating the suffering of Christ, not forgetting to give a call for the killing of Jews as a task most meritorious and most 21 pleasing to God. Ram Swarup argues the case for the Jews persecuted by Islam also: Pagan Arabs were a tolerant people. In fact, many Christians and Jews had found shelter with them; they were fleeing away from the intolerance of their fellow religious men in the neighbouring countries. But as soon as the Pagan Arabs became Muslim, it was a different thing. Jess and Christians were turned out of the land of Arabia. Pagan Arabia accepted Jews and Christians but rejected their God for itself; Muslim Arabia embraced 22 their God but rejected His people. It is unfortunate the multiculturalism and misplaced colonial guilt of western scholars, beginning form the early twentieth century, have deliberately ignored the above: In fact, in most biographies except the hagiographical ones in which miracles abound, there is a remarkable agreement on facts, though the biographers differ in the way they look at those facts. For example, take the case of the Jewish tribe of Banu Quraiza whose people were massacred by the Prophet when they surrendered to him. The earliest Muslim biographers of impeccable orthodoxy celebrate the event with undisguised glee. The fashion to appear better than one is, a Christian innovation, was not in the early Muslim style. The Christian writers of the last century like Sprenger, Muir, Gustav Wel, Osborn, finding in the event an opportunity of attacking a rival creed, treated it with moral horror. But by the time Dr. David Samuel Margoliouth was writing at the beginning of this century, the moral horror was considerably subdued; so he simply narrates the event as a matter of fact. He also observes that we must try “in estimating this matter, to think of bloodshed as the Arabs thought of it: as an act which involves no stigma on the shedder.” This was bad history and unfair to the pre-Muslim Arabs, but it agreed with the new intellectual fashion. Ever since Margoliouth’s times, things have moved still further in the same direction. Maxime Rodinson, a distinguished French Arabist, writing his Mohammed in the sixties of this century finds that Muhammad had his compulsions and “from a purely political point of view, moreover, the massacre was an extremely wise move”: and again 23 that “the chosen solution was undeniably the best.” Therefore anyone concerned how anti-Semitism might again gain mainstream respectability in Western countries would do well to seriously examine Swarup’s analysis of utterly dishonest scholarship that now prevails, and justifies Jew-hatred if somehow the perpetrator and antagonistic party is outside the now largely outdated construct of the white supremacist, colonialist, and fundamentalist Christian “guilty” party. One of his books remains banned in its Hindi version in India to this day. This is despite the fact that it was merely a reproduction of authentic Hadiths available. The fact that the English copy is nevertheless in circulation allows any serious scholar to examine that accepted Islamic jurisdiction on various subjects for themselves. In this regard, Sawrup has uncovered more of the foundations of Muslim anti-Semitism which most mainstream western and Israeli scholars would rather not talk about. This included the sexual abduction of Safiiyya: Muhammad’s wars and raids not only fed his coffers, they also swelled his harem. SafIyya, a beautiful girl of seventeen years, was the wife of the chief of a Jewish clan inhabiting Khaibar. Muhammad’s custom was to make surprise attacks. Khaibar was invaded in the same fashion. Anas narrates: “We encountered the people at sunrise when they had come out with their axes, spades and strings driving their cattle along. They shouted in surprise: Muhammad has come along with his force! The Messenger of Allah said: Khaibar shall face destruction” (4438). There is even a Quranic verse relating to Muhammad’s sudden sweep on the valley and the fate of its people: “But when it 21 22 Ibid., pp.76-7 Ibid., p.39 23 Ibid., p.18 descends [nazala] into the open space, before them evil will be the morning for those who were warned” (QurAn 37:177). In any case, many people were butchered, and many others were taken prisoners. “We took Khaibar by force, and there were gathered the prisoners of war,” according to Anas. SafIyya, the daughter of Huyayy b. Akhtab, the chief of the Quraiza and al-NazIr, was one of them. Her husband, KinAna, was put to a cruel death (3325). Anas continues: “She first fell to the lot of Dihya in the spoils of war.” (Incidentally, Dihya was strikingly handsome. Muhammad used to see Gabriel in his form.) But Anas adds that people “praised her in the presence of Allah’s Messenger and said: ‘We have not seen the like of her among the captives of war’ ” (3329). Muhammad took her away from Dihya, Gabriel or no Gabriel, and even took her to his bed the same night her husband was killed, in violation of his own command, which enjoined the believers to wait until the 24 beginning of the next menstrual cycle in their captive women. And of Rihana and Juwairiya: SafIyya was no exception. Many other women, among them RIhAna and JuwairIya, were taken in and treated as part of the war booty. RIhAna was a Jewish girl of the BanU Quraizah. After her husband was beheaded in cold blood along with eight hundred other male members of her tribe in the genocide at Medina, Muhammad kept her as his concubine. We shall touch upon this massacre again in our discussion of jihAd. JuwairIya, another of these unfortunate girls, was the daughter of the chief of the Banu’l Mustaliq. She was captured in the fifth or sixth year of the Hijra along with two hundred other women. “The Messenger of Allah made a raid upon BanU Mustaliq while they were unaware and their cattle were having a drink at the water. He killed those who fought and imprisoned others. On that very day, he captured JuwairIya bint al-Haris” (4292). In the division of the booty, she fell to the lot of Sabit ibn Qays. He set her ransom price at nine ounces of gold, beyond the power of her relatives to pay. ’Aisha’s reaction when she saw this beautiful girl being led into the presence of Muhammad is recounted in these words: “As soon as I saw her at the door of my room, I detested her, for I knew that he [Muhammad] would see her as I saw her.” And indeed, when Muhammad saw JuwairIya he paid her ransom and took her for his wife. JuwairIya was at that time about twenty, and she became the seventh wife of the Prophet. The whole story is given by Ibn Ishaq, the Prophet’s biographer. There was another girl, named Zainab, again Jewish, who had seen her father, husband, and uncle killed. She poisoned the roasted lamb she was ordered to prepare for Muhammad. Suspecting something wrong, Muhammad spat out the very first morsel. He was saved, and she was immediately put to death, according to some authorities 25 (TabaqAt, vol. II, pp. 252-255). Mainstream scholars would get even more annoyed at Swarup’s faithful reproduction of the vicious anti-Semitism recorded by the Hadith compilers themselves, describing the primeval ethnic cleansing of Jews in Arabia: “I will expel the Jews and Christians from the Arabian Peninsula and will not leave any but Muslims,” Muhammad declared to ’Umar (4366). AbU Huraira reports: “We were sitting in the mosque when the Messenger of Allah came and said: Let us go to the Jews. We went out. . . . The Messenger of Allah called out to them: O ye assembly of Jews, accept Islam and you will be safe.” When the answer was unsatisfactory, he told them: “You should know that the earth belongs to Allah and His Apostle, and I wish that I should expel you from this land” (4363). 24 Ram Swarup, Understanding Islam Through Hadis, Voice of India, New Delhi, http://www.bharatvani.org/books/uith/ch6.htm 25 Ibid. Muhammad’s expulsion plan began with the Jews of Medina and was implemented with great cruelty. He played on their hopes and fears and took them one by one. He first “expelled Banu NazIr, and allowed Quraiza to stay on, and granted favour to them until they too fought against him. Then he killed their men, and distributed their women, children and properties among the Muslims. . . . The Messenger of Allah turned out all the Jews of Medina, Banu QainuqA, and the Jews of Banu Harisa and every other Jew who 26 was in Medina,” we are told by ’Abdullah, the son of ’Umar (4364). The fate of one Jewish tribe in particular would shatter their pre-colonialist paradise myth: The fate of the Banu Quraiza was rather gruesome. Muhammad said that Allah had commanded him to destroy the Quraiza. According to ’Aisha, the Prophet had hardly laid down his arms after returning from the Battle of the Ditch when Gabriel appeared and told him: “You have laid down arms. By God, we haven’t laid down ours. So march against them.” “Where?” Muhammad asked. Then Gabriel “pointed to the Banu Quraiza. So the Messenger of Allah fought against them . . . they surrendered . . . those of them who can fight [were] killed, their women and children taken prisoners and their properties distributed among Muslims” (4370). A Quranic verse put Allah’s seal on the fate of this tribe of the People of the Book: “God did take them down from their strongholds, and cast terror into their hearts; [so that] some ye slew, and some ye made prisoners. And He made you heirs of their lands, their houses, and their goods” (QurAn 33:26-27). Commanded by Allah through Gabriel, Muhammad approached the fort of the Quraiza, where they had gathered for shelter. He told them: “O ye brothers of monkeys and swine, we have arrived, Allah has disgraced you and brought His vengeance upon you.” The Apostle “besieged them for twenty-five nights until they were sore pressed and God cast terror into their hearts.” They surrendered unconditionally and were taken captive. Traditions and the pious biographies of the Prophet tell gleefully and in detail about the fate of the prisoners. We give the story as summarized by W. Muir in his Life of Mahomet, vol. III, pp. 276-279: The men and women were penned up for the night in separate yards. . . . [they] spent the night in prayer, repeating passages from their scriptures, and exhorting one another in constancy. During the night graves or trenches . . . were dug in the market-place. . . . when these were ready in the morning, Mahomet, himself a spectator of the tragedy, gave command that the captives should be brought forth in companies of five and six at a time. Each company was made to sit down by the brink of the trench destined for its grave, and there beheaded. Party after party they were thus led out, and butchered in cold blood, till the whole were slain. . . . For Zoheir, an aged Jew, who had saved some of his allies of the Bani Aus . . . Sabit intervened and procured a pardon. . . . “But what hath become of all our chiefs-of Kab, of Huwey, of Ozzal, the son of Samuel?” asked the old man. . . . He received to each inquiry the same reply;-they had all been slain already-”Then of what use is life to me any longer? Leave me not to that bloodthirsty man who has killed that are dear to me in cold blood-But slay me also, I entreat thee. Here take my sword, it is sharp; strike high and hard.” Sabit refused, and gave him over to another, who under Allah’s orders beheaded the aged man. Having sated his revenge, and drenched the market-place with the blood of eight hundred victims, and having given command for the earth to be smoothed over their remains, Mahomet returned from the horrid spectacle to solace himself with the charms of Rihana, whose husband and all whose male relatives had just perished in the massacre. He invited her to be his wife, but she declined, and chose to remain (as, indeed, having refused marriage, she had no alternative) his slave or concubine. She also declined the summons to conversion and continued in the Jewish faith. The booty was divided into four classes-land, chattels, cattle, and slaves; and Muhammad took a fifth of each. There were (besides little children, who were counted with their mothers) a thousand captives; from his share of these, “Mahomet made certain presents to his friends, of female slaves and servants; and then sent the rest of the women and children to be sold among the Bedouin tribes of Najd, in exchange for 26 Ibid., http://www.bharatvani.org/books/uith/ch9.htm horses and arms; for he kept steadily in view the advantage of raising around him a body of efficient horses.” The whole story in all its gruesomeness is narrated by Ibn Ishaq, TabarI, and Mirkhond, Muhammad’s biographers. TabarI quotes WaqidI, an earlier biographer, to the effect that Muhammad himself had “deep trenches dug up, took his seat there, and AlI and 5 Zubair did the killing in his presence.” Ibn HishAm, another biographer, provides some material omitted in the other accounts. One of his stories shows how Muhammad utilized local conflicts to his own advantage. The two most important non-Jewish tribes of Medina were the Aus and the Banu Khazraj. The Quraiza were allied to the Aus, and therefore were not well liked by the Banu Khazraj. Thus, when Muhammad ordered the Jews beheaded, the “Khazraj began to cut off their heads with great satisfaction. The Apostle saw that the faces of Khazraj showed pleasure, but there was no such indication on the part of the Aus, and he suspected that that was because of the alliance that had existed between them and Banu Quraiza. When there were only twelve of them left he gave them over to Aus, assigning one Jew to every two of Aus, saying, ‘Let soand-so strike him and so-and-so finish him off.’ ” Those who follow the Prophet must become new men with a new conscience and new loyalties. They must be hardened in the difficult school of Islam. They must become participants in its blood-rites. They must become parties to an act which is effective in the measure that it is compromising. A man who still has some integrity is un-safely independent. In any case the followers should not be allowed to feel superior and to refrain from an act simply because they regard it as iniquitous or cruel. They must learn to have a conscience equal to their prescribed part and acts and to be worthy of their new role. Besides the aged Zoheir, Ibn Ishaq and Mirkhond mention another case touching in its bravery. Huyayy b. Akhatab, a Jewish leader, was known affectionately among his people as “the grandee of the town,” “the friend of the destitute and the poor,” and “the prince of the desert and the sown.” He too was brought before Muhammad, with his hands bound to his neck with a rope. Muhammad exultantly told him: “O enemy of Allah, at last the Most High and Glorious has given thee into my power, and has made me thy judge.” Huyayy replied: “I do not blame myself for having borne enmity to thee . . . but God the most High has given thee victory, and there is no remedy. . . . He who forsakes God will be forsaken . . . God’s command is right. A book and a decree, and massacre have been written against the Sons of Israel.” Then he sat down, and at a signal from Muhammad, his head was struck off. He had come in a shirt so torn and tattered that it was not worth taking as a spoil. In fact, before dying, he told ’AlI, his executioner: “I beseech thee not to take off my robe from my body.” There is a similar tale about a woman who was beheaded in the same fashion. ’Aisha says of her, “I shall never forget my wonder at her good spirits and loud laughter when all the time she knew that she would be killed.” Muhammad’s court poets duly celebrated his victory. Hassan sang: Quraiza met their misfortune And in humiliation found no helper. A calamity worse than that which fell Banu al-Nazir befell them The day that God’s Apostle came to them like a brilliant moon, With fresh horses bearing horsemen like hawks, We left them with the blood upon them like a pool They having accomplished nothing. 27 They lay prostrate with vultures circling round them. With a powerful mind and deep insight, it would have been very interesting to see what conclusions Ram Swarup would have come to had he examined Jewish religion more fully than simply sticking to the old Testament of the Bible. Nevertheless it is obvious that he was opposed to anti-Semitism, showing more sympathy with its victims and understanding of its sources than many so-called politically correct scholars of his day. Not stopping at mere 27 Ibid. regurgitation of facts, he looked to the foundations of intolerance, pseudo-spiritual aggression and the metaphysical division of humanity into artificial compartments. Once recognised, His work will prove to be one of the best antidote yet formulated to combat hate ideologies. Let us end with a fitting warning which Swarup wrote for Hindus, but which will also apply to Israel and, by logical extension, Europe and America: Muslim politics in turn is grounded in Muslim theology. Islam believes in one God (their God) but two humanities: the believers and the infidels. Islam teaches, at least according to its most pious and learned men, Jihad or holy war against the infidels. It is not that the infidels have done any harm to Islam or Muslims but it is simply because holy war against the infidels “is established as a divine ordinance, by the word of God, who has said in the Koran, ‘Slay the Infidel’,” according to Hidayah, an old and important work widely esteemed in the Muslim world. Similarly, it is not a question of self-defence against any aggression or any unprovoked war but it is simply because the infidels by being infidels incur “the destruction of the sword,” although “they be not the first aggressors,” to put it again in the language of the Hidayah, which derives it “from various passages in the sacred writings which are generally received to this effect.” It reveals not only what the Islamic sacred writings say but, what is still more important, what the Muslim pious men and scholars believe these writings do. There has been a wide consensus among them about the message of these writings. To this theology of holy war belong two related concepts: dar al-harb and dar al-islam. According to this theology, dar al-harb is a country of the infidels, a country not ruled by Muslims; Muslims have to wage a war against it and convert it into dar al-islam, a country governed by Muslims. Again, it is not a question of majorities and minorities but of believers and unbelievers. A country of a majority of infidels but ruled by a small minority of Muslims, as India once was, is dar al-islam and is perfectly legitimate and conforms more truly to the divine injunction and is superior in Allah’s eyes to a country ruled by its own people but who are infidels. Similarly, it is not a question of “equal rights” for all citizens irrespective of their religions. Such concepts are un-Islamic. Under Islam, nonMuslims, if they are allowed to exist at all, are non-citizens or zimmis; only Muslims are full citizens. It also means that, theoretically, the believers are at war with the infidels all the time, though, in practice, a war may not be possible at a particular time. The actual shape of the war will depend on many external factors, not the least of them being the stage of preparedness of the believers for the venture. But they must continue exerting and planning and looking for opportunities. This is the essence of Jihad. It has been widely 28 discussed in Islamic books on religious laws. 28 Swarup, Introduction, 1991, from Gurbachan Singh Talib, Muslim League Attack on Hindus and Sikhs in the Punjab 1947, Voice of India, New Delhi, 1991 (originally 1950), http://www.bharatvani.org/books/mla/intro.htm Koenraad Elst With Belgian scholar Dr. Koenraad Elst we are on much surer ground. This is why this section is so long, as there are really interesting, indeed groundbreaking, ideas that need to be looked at. This explains why this chapter is the largest of all the sections in the present work. Born in 1958 into the Flemish Catholic community, and attending a Catholic university, he came into contact with Hindu ideas via the New Age movement, and Chinese and Iranian studies. Without a doubt Elst is the most important disciple of Sita Ram Goel in the West, and his wider knowledge has allowed him to take Hindu ideas into a broader direction, specifically with studies to political ideas of Fascism, Communism, National Socialism, and anti-Semitism. Being born in a European country which had itself been under wartime Nazi occupation, and into a church which did not fully disown hatred of the Jews until the 1960s, he has been better placed to put a Hindu, or in his own terms “secular humanist”, perspective on Jewish culture, Judaism, Zionism, and Israel than similar writers. In fact he has noticed the lack of knowledge on Jewish matters as one of the main gaps in contemporary Hinduism. Again because aggressive Christian missionaries have used the Bible as a means to discredit Hindu Dharma, Koenraad Elsts’s views might in places appear to be unnecessarily harsh on aspects of Judaism, particularly the prophets, conquests by the ancient Israelites, and the Old Testament in general. Again we need to remind ourselves that this has been necessary to counter the exclusivist claims of aggressive Christian and Islamic missionaries, who simply refuse to enter into honest and level playing field dialogue with Hindus, and so it has been necessary for scholars such as Elst, himself brought up in the Christian tradition of Roman Catholicism, to examine the self-righteous claims of proselytising creeds. With Judaism, he recognises that any exclusivism has long been left behind: The Talmud is of course the chief Jewish scripture, a comment on the Tenakh (Old Testament), and forms a decisive reorientation of the Jewish religion: a pluralistic interpretation of the Biblical texts, recognizing that each interpretation (including the literal one) is always a limited human attempt to understand the unlimited profundity of God's word, and allowing for different levels of understanding (literal, hermeneutical, allegorical, mystical). In the Talmud, Judaism transcends in substantial measure its exclusivistic origins (which would unfortunately be re-actualized by Christianity and Islam), and develops the typical emphasis on intellectual investigation which will make the Jewish 29 community such a cradle of powerful minds. Although it is tempting to blame modern day Jews for the events in the ancient Middle East, and is in fact done by many contemporary anti-Semites, Elst keeps the Biblical events in their perspective, and rules out that the vicious anti-Semitism which saw its apex in the Holocaust was in fact caused by the Jews themselves (as is argued seriously on the political fringes by figures such as David Duke in America): The occurrence of genocide in Jewish Scripture has of course been pointed out by people who want to justify their anti-Jewish feelings or policies. The latest example is the Croatian president, Franjo Tudjman who has been trying to explain to the world why the Croatian government during World War 2 had killed so many Jews. According to newspaper reports, he has written a book in Croatian in 1989, titled Wastelands: Historical Truth, in which he refers to the Biblical narrative and comments that for the Jews, "genocidal violence is a natural phenomenon... It is not only allowed, but even recommended". This may win him some sympathy among supporters of the Palestinian cause, but it is quite misplaced: the anti-Jewish violence of the last centuries and especially of the Nazis and their Croatian allies had nothing to do with the gruesome way in which Moses and Joshua 29 Koenraad Elst, Negationism in Indian History, Voice of India, New Delhi, 1992, http://www.bharatvani.org/books/negaind/ch1.htm conquered the Promised Land. The contents and orientation of the Jewish religion have fundamentally changed since the days of Moses, and the Jews have practised live and let live for many centuries, during which they contributed immensely to the economic and 30 intellectual life of their host countries. Unlike the accepted norms in Islam, and in some cases even Christianity, Jewish political manifestations have not called for a revival of the atrocities as described in the Old Testament: It would be unfair to hold the present-day Jewish community guilty of an effective commitment to this ideology of God- ordained self-righteousness at any cost, including genocide. Even if there is an amount of self-righteousness in the Israelis' attitude in the occupied territories, it is nothing but gross rhetoric to say that Israeli occupation is the new Nazism, as was claimed in a UN resolution, now repealed). Even the crassest fundamentalists are not calling for a Joshua-style terror campaign: the Jews regard Joshua as part of their history, not to be disowned, but not to be repeated in the modern 31 world either. It is sad that when examining the Middle East conflict, the mainstream western media has ignored some fundamental facts, just as it has with India. The most basic of all is the bias it should show, because being fully unbiased is a human aspiration rather than a reality, to those countries which are democratic and recognise basic human rights: Today, Israel is the most democratic, humane and tolerant society in West Asia. If it claims defensible borders and sufficient territory, this is a legitimate secular claim, especially if one considers the most likely alternative, viz. the incorporation into the Islamic world with its retrograde, financial and dictatorial regimes which threaten to destroy Israel. The Arab world, itself the result of ruthless conquest, and which continues to expand at the expense of internal minorities like the Kurds, Assyrians (Aramaic-speaking Christians) and Berbers, is in no position to criticize Israel's desire for safe territory for its dense 32 population. In another book, he examined this further: However, it is equally a historical fact that people have outgrown the fanaticism present in the earlier layers of their tradition. When you read how Moses and Joshua exterminated the tribes that stood in the way of the chosen people, all at Yahweh's explicit command, you would expect the Jews, the followers of Moses, to be ruthless persecutors of nonJews. But in fact, for the last fourteen centuries, the Jews have not persecuted anyone. Even today, now that they have a state, they are the ones who have guaranteed freedom of worship as well as free access to the sacred places of Judaism, Christianity and Islam (as well as Baha'ism) for the respective believers, in contrast to the earlier Islamic regime. If there is tension with the non-Jews of the area, it is not due to any persecution in the name of Yahweh of Moses. Even the Biblical justification for the Israeli hold over Palestine, is only put forward by a minority of religious fundamentalists: for most Israelis and for their secular government, it is merely a matter if living in a sustainable state with defensible borders, which is a legitimate secular concern.33 Elst has examined the views of his protégé on monotheistic exclusivism in the first books of the Bible, and neutralised any idea that they could be used to justify anti-Semitism: In his chapter on the doctrine of iconoclasm, Sita Ram Goel traces this doctrine to its Old Testament sources, and lists all the instances of verbal and physical violence against idolatry. This story might make defenders of Islam say: "See whatever you say about Islam, Judaism and Christianity aren't any better." That is true if you consider an earlier 30 31 Ibid. ibid. 32 Ibid. 33 Koenraad Elst, Ayodhya and After, Voice of India, New Delhi, http://www.bharatvani.org/books/ayodhya/ch13.htm stage of the Jewish and Christian religions. But it is a hopeful sign that these two religions have come a long way since the arch-fanatic Moses. The Jews have not had a state for many centuries, and they have developed a social outlook of live and let live. They never had a doctrine of world conquest anyway, and had limited their ambition to the Promised Land. In present- day Israel, the Jewish authorities respect and protect the religious rights and pilgrimage places of Christians, Muslims and Bahais. Judaism is one religion that has 34 actually grown, matured over the centuries. In this sense it has come to accept the broader universalistic outlook, such as is found in Hindu Dharma and “secular humanism”: Judaism has developed a pluralist culture of debate and interpretation, embodied in the Talmud, which makes it temperamentally averse to the fanaticism characteristic of the 35 world- conquering religions. Koenraad Elst explains his reasons for being both a critic of the Bible yet simultaneously supporting Zionism: As a known sympathizer of the state of Israel, and as a known sceptic of the pious excuses for Biblical genocide, I am asked rather frequently whether a critic of the Bible should not automatically be a critic if not an enemy of the state of Israel, the modern materialization of the Biblical “Promised Land” doctrine. Well, no, that doesn’t follow. To be sure, I don’t know where I would have stood on this issue a hundred years ago; maybe I would have thought of the Palestinians first and concluded that Jews should get their own state in some hitherto uninhabited region, somewhere on the pampa of Argentina. But now that the state of Israel is a long-accomplished fact, I definitely think it should be left in peace, and the Palestinians should be given citizenship in the Arab countries where they reside When you see how a wrecked and dramatically shrunken Germany absorbed 15 million refugees in the late 1940s, I don’t see why a much larger, ever expanding, more thinly populated, and in many parts far richer Arab and Muslim world could not absorb far 36 fewer fellow Arabs and Muslims. Equating Jewish with Islamic fundamentalism, assuming something called Jewish fundamentalism even exists, and that the line between Islam and Islamic fundamentalism is real, is inaccurate and misleading; Though there is no dearth of cranky Jewish fundamentalists, I don’t see them preparing any repeat performance. Joshua is just history. When you quote verses full of hatred an violence from the Quran, it is likewise typically countered that “the Quran is already an old book”, which need not dictate present –day Muslim behaviour, but there are crucial differences. Firstly, every injunction in the Quran is deemed valid till the end of time; in that respect, its Jewish counterpart is not the Bible as a whole, but the 613 commandments that make up the Laws of Moses. The Biblical narrative of the conquest the conquest of Canaan is sacred history, deemed to have happened in the past, but not 37 necessarily a model for future behaviour. One cannot even equate political conduct between Israel and its neighbours as being similar: …modern history shows that Jewish conduct in the wars with the Arab-speaking peoples is reasonably restrained by universal norms while Arab conduct is more self-righteous. Thus, the massacre of Palestinians at Deir Yassin (1948), so often mentioned in antiIsraeli writing, led to the dissolution of the culpable Jewish terrorist groups Stern and Irgun and the arrest of their leaders by the Israeli government itself, even though they were ace fighters direly needed by a country besieged and at war. They were also excommunicated by the Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem and roundly condemned by most Jewish media inside and outside Israel. Numerous acts of terror had been committed in the preceding decades by Muslim militants against whole groups of Jews in Hebron, Safed and other places, all this moreover in peacetime (unlike Deir Yassin), yet never had Muslim authorities 34 35 Elst, Negationism., http://www.bharatvani.org/books/negaind/ch3.htm Ibid. 36 Elst, Saffron Swastika, pp.333-4 37 Ibid., pp.340-61 punished the culprits, nor had Muslim public opinion condemned them. Rather, like Pakistani terrorists in Kashmir today, they were applauded as heroes, and they had the 38 blessings of Chief Mufti Amin el-Husseini. When it came down to it, Hindus based their attitude towards Jews in their midst on something very tangible and simple: …not the Bible but reality determined Hindu attitudes vis-à-vis the Jews. And since the Jews who settled on the Malabar coast never did Hindu society any harm, Hindus never bothered to find out if anything might be wrong with the Jewish religion. A religion that apparently allowed its followers to live and let live was good enough by Hindu standards. Whether it contained the ultimate truth was a question no one asked as long as it satisfied the human criterion of allowing others, Hindus in this case, to seek Truth in their own way. Even though Hindus practised a religion which in many ways was the diametric opposite of Judaism, they had no problem tolerating Jewish communities in their midst, nor did 39 modern Hindu nationalists hesitate to support the Zionist project. Analysing Ram Swarup, Elst shows that he was attacking the excesses of prophetic monotheism, and not the Jews, who were often its very victims, especially when it got taken to new lengths by the newer ideologies that arose in the Middle East:40 And so, among the “Semitic” religions, it is not Judaism but Christianity and Islam which pose a problem. Ram Swarup and most Hindus of his school of thought have always scrupulously made the distinction between a doctrine and the people trapped into believing it and acting it out. In the case of the Israelites, making this distinction did no require any special effort on the part of Hindus, because on the background of India’s actual history, the thought had simply never occurred to them that the Jews could 41 constitute a problem. To those zealous missionaries that want to wipe out all traces of Hindu culture, by blaming anything remotely Vedic as Fascist, fundamentalist, Nazi and anti-Christian, they are guilty of the most incredible irony: The single largest factor of anti-Semitism, dwarfing all others combined, is Christianity. For Christians, the Jews are not just a different religion, a separate community, a permanent non-participant in festivals deemed “idolatrous”, they were a persistent question mark behind the Christian core doctrine. If God had concluded a New Covenant, why should some people stay with the Old Covenant? If the Messiah had already come, why would a whole nation continue to live in expectation of the Messiah’s coming? The Church claimed to be “the true Israel”, which had inherited the mantle of the Chosen People; but you cannot inherit until the testator is dead. The very existence of Jews permanently undermined the legitimacy of Christianity. There was also the accusation and “guilt” of deicide which had been caused by the killing of Christ. This was hammered home through the New Testament: John’s Gospel is the most mystical of the four, so that even the most spiritual-minded Christians who sought inspiration here, got Jew-hatred on their plate along with the musings about the Word that was with God and the Word that was God. Instead of finding hatred in other religions, Christian fundamentalists had better sort out their own faults and foundations of hate. Anti-Semitism is deeply wound with the whole teachings of the New Testament: I don’t see how Christians can live with this, unless they reaffirm their traditional – how shall I put it? – disapproval of the Jews. If they don’t want the stigma of being Jew-haters, 38 39 Ibid., pp.334-5 Ibid., pp.335-6 40 Ibid., pp.337-9 41 Ibid., p.339 they cannot avoid having to say: Jesus was wrong, John was wrong, Peter was wrong, Paul was wrong, - Christianity is wrong. It is not for me to make the choice in their place, merely to point out that the choice is very stark: either you are an anti-Jewish Christian, or you are no Christian at all. Jews suffered as the Roman Empire and Europe Christianised. There was a direct link between Christian anti-Judaism to fully-fledged biological anti-Semitism. This first made its appearance in Spain during the period after the Reconquista, and into the Inquisition of the Catholic church: When the number of Jews forcibly or even voluntarily converted to Catholic Christianity became very high (some hundreds of thousands), with many acquiring advanced positions in lay society as well as in the Church, many Catholics started to suspect that these scalled Marranos had remained Jewish at heart and were now trying to subvert State and Church from within. Against these “Jews by blood” though “Christians by (professed) faith”, Spanish authorities enacted a policy known as limpieza de sangue, “purity of blood”. From this came the idea that a Jew could never outgrow Jewish origins no matter now many times baptism took place. The secularised racist ideas of the 19th and 20th centuries provided this direct link to National Socialism: If it seems that by then, the religious definition of the Jew had been totally replaced with a secular racial one, we should note that religion remained a crucial criterion even in the Nazi definition of the Jewish race. For the Nazis, the question whether someone had Jewish blood, was determined by the number of his grandparents registered with a synagogue, i.e. a religious criterion. This brings the Catholic limpieza de sangre doctrine, which added a bit of racism to its religious exclusivism, really quite close to the Nazi form 42 of anti-Semitism, which retained a religious element in its racialist doctrine. On cannot escape the fact that it is the established church which has been responsible for this undying hatred, not some amorphous animistic idol worship: It was Christianity which had launched anti-Semitism in Germany and kept it alive for centuries. The ancient Germanic religion never knew any anti-Semitism, and while one may speculate about what hostility against the Jews might hypothetically have developed if Germany had never converted to Christianity, the historical fact remains that German anti-Semitism was a gift of the Gospel. One could argue for a contrast between the Pagan Germanic love of nature and the Jewish propensity to gravitate towards city life (likewise Teutonic heroics vs. Jewish haggling, Viking adventurousness vs. Jewish bookishness, etc.), but there are no Germanic Pagan scriptures to explicate any awareness of such a contrast. Even if there had been, it would still have been mild stuff compared with the Christian position which imputes to the Jews not just come dislikeable character traits, but the killing of God Incarnate, the most diabolical act conceivable, no less. The conquest of the Roman Empire in Europe, which had by then become Christian, by the Pagan Germanic tribes of “barbarians” actually brought relief to the persecuted, downtrodden and much diminished Jewish population: Wodan, Donar, Freia and the other Germanic gods came as liberators to the German Jews. To be sure, as the Germanic people got Christianized, oppression of the Jews resumed, but now in a fragmented post-imperial world where one feudal state could provide relief if times were getting harder I another, giving the migration-prone Jews enough occasion to survive and make a decent living. This way, the blow struck by the Germanic polytheists at the Christian Roman Empire ensured the survival and relative prosperity of the Jews in Europe. The Nazis inherited this purely Christian Judeophobia, which thus had nothing to do with the cosmetic revival of paganism: 42 Ibid., pp.339-54 It is therefore libellous on the part of the Pope and other Christian spokesmen (e.g. the Catholic bishops of France in another statement on the Holocaust in 197) to blame Nazi anti-Semitism on “neo-Paganism”. Consider how the Church destroyed the native Pagan religion, and imported the obsession with the Jews as a God-murdering diabolical nation; and now that this same anti-Semitic obsession ahs become disreputable, it tries to shift the responsibility to the very religion it has destroyed, or to its modern attempted revival. When confronted with its troubled record in the Americas, the Church nowadays claims to have mended its ways, to be in favour of dialogue and mutual respect, and to repent of its past sins; yet, in full view of the world, it repeats its ancient onslaught on Europe’s native religion with an extremely grave blood libel, shifting its won guilt vis-à-vis the Jews to a 43 third party which is in no position to defend itself. Like his mentor, Elst is unafraid to take on fanaticism at its roots, wherever it may lurk, and that means moving beyond the confines of European Christian civilisation. That means refocusing attention when looking for the causes of hatred: If a revival of anti-Semitism in the West is to be feared, the real danger will probably come not come from neo-Nazis (who have committed desecrations of graveyards and the like, so far only on an amateurish level), but from the fast-growing Muslim presence in the West. In February 1994, Belgium saw its worst anti-Semitic riots since World War 2: Muslims attacked a building thinking it was a Jewish school, shouting “Death to the Jews”. Seeing they are mistaken, they move on to a Jewish museum and a synagogue; the police has to close the street. Stones were pelted at mainly Jewish visitors to the avantpremiere of Schindler’s List, introduced by Simon Wiesenthal. Likewise in November 1994 in Gorges-la-Gonesse near Paris, a synagogue and adjacent community centre were damaged; Arabic and pro-FIS slogans were left on the wall. In both cases, the press gave 44 minimum coverage. With his European upbringing and access to wider information, he can get more at the roots of anti-Semitism: The Islamic statements about the unbelievers, in the original Hadis as well as (in fact, even more strongly) in modern apologetics, serve a similar purpose as the anti- Semitic Nazi film The dirty Jew Suss, or the forged Protocols of the Elders of Zion. They serve to justify the annihilation of a religion and the subjection of a nation (Mohammed conceived 45 of his community as a nation). This is something which again few Israeli, European and American scholars would even dare mention. As for Indian so-called intellectuals with their critical faculties so eaten away by the CJD of Marxism, it would almost be a complete waste of time to make them even see sense. But the Belgian disciple of Goel is unapologetic and even mocks those who completely ignore historical (backed by recent archaeological evidence) of Hindus to their sacred site of Ayodhya in northern India by using the example of another disputed shrine rather closer to home: The Dome on the Rock and the Al Aqsa mosque have also been built on a sacred place stolen from others: the Jewish Temple Mount. True, under Byzantine rule the Jews could not rebuild their Temple, but still the site remained most sacred to them. Nonetheless (or rather, precisely for the reason), Mohammed's successors took it from them, in order to affirm Mohammed's claim to being the final fulfilment of the Abrahamic prophetic tradition. Similarly the cathedral of Damascus, of Cordova (both cathedrals had themselves replaced Pagan temples) and of many other places were taken from the Christians, as would also happen 8 centuries later to the Aya Sophia of Constantinople. The take-over of these Jewish and Christian places of worship should moreover be seen against the background of the relative tolerance which these two communities still enjoyed under Islamic rule: if this tolerance could not prevent the take-over of important places of worship, how much less chance did an Pagan temple have. 43 44 Ibid., pp.871-5 Ibid., p.357 45 Elst, Negationism., http://www.bharatvani.org/books/negaind/ch3.htm In parenthesis, we should draw attention to the flimsy rationalizations which Islam has produced to justify the occupation of the most sacred places of other religions. In the Ayodhya conflict, the Muslim side has often said that the Hindus must first produce proof that Rama was indeed born on the spot which Hindus claim as his birthsite. If historical proof is the prerequisite before a sacred site can be recognized and accorded respect, then Muslims will have to give up both the Kaaba and the Temple Mount. Of the Kaaba, which Mohammed took from the Arab Pagans, they claim that it was build by Adam and rebuilt by Abraham (facts suppressed in the Old Testament by a Jewish conspiracy to distort God's word), and later stolen by the Pagans. Of the Temple Mount, which they took from the Jews in order to affirm Mohammed's status as the seal of the lineage of Jewish prophets, they claim that it was Mohammed's landing- site in his night journey through heaven on a winged horse. These ridiculous claims can hardly be considered as historically proven.46 This is one area which should have attracted the best types of political and social analysis. Yet it has been left to a still obscure and unrecognised Belgian independent thinker to come up with the obvious: In the Ayodhya debate, the comparison with the Jerusalem Temple Mount controversy has been made only sparingly. And when it was made, it was mostly turned upside down. It was assumed that in both cases, a mosque is threatened with a takeover by nonMuslims, and that is the relevant similarity. Stefan de Girval has put it this way : "(The Jews) want to rebuild the temple of Jerusalem, which was destroyed by the Romans in the first century AD. But they face the same problem and dilemma that the Hindus are facing at the Ram Janmabhoomi site." The non-Muslim communities involved in these two temple- mosque-controversies do indeed have things in common. They both have voluntarily and unilaterally set up a secular state. Their creations, upon departure of the British, were both at the same time partitions into a secular and an Islamic state. In both cases, the partition was immediately followed by an invasion from the Muslim neighbour (here there is a remarkable difference: Israel gained territory in the ensuing war, while India lost Azad Kashmir). They both live with a Muslim minority, which does encounter problems but is still treated far better than minorities in the surrounding Muslim countries. On the other hand, after their creation both Israel and India have had to receive many refugees, Jewish and Hindu respectively, who had to flee intense persecution in Muslim countries. Both communities have been persistently targeted by the same MuslimCommunist combine : Israel by the Arab-Soviet alliance, Hindus society by the Leftist and pro-Muslim Nehruvians and by the China-Pakistan alliance. But all that does not make for a strict parallel in the two controversies. The differences include the following. In Jewish theology, there is a belief that only the Messiah, when he comes, should rebuild the Temple. No such belief is involved in the Ayodhya controversy. In Jerusalem, the disputed area is a sacred place to both religions involved; in Ayodhya, the Muslims have never attached any religious importance to the site of the Babri Masjid, which was built only to humiliate the Hindus. In Jerusalem, the Muslims built their mosques in all innocence on a wasteland, where the Romans had destroyed the Jewish Second Temple centuries before; whereas in Ayodhya they most probably destroyed the temple themselves before building a mosque over it. But the most important difference is this. In Jerusalem, a sacred place of a religious community is being used for regular worship by that community, to the exclusion of members of the other community, but it is being claimed by fanatics of this other community; in Ayodhya, exactly the same situation obtains. However, in Jerusalem the tenant community is Muslim, in Ayodhya it is non-Muslim. In Jerusalem, the fanatics who want to grab the other community's sacred place are non-Muslim, the Faithful of the Temple Mount, in Ayodhya they are Muslim, the BMAC and BMMCC. This important factual contrast is compounded by a political difference. In Israel, a truly secular government is proud of Israel's policy since the liberation of Jerusalem in 1967, which has guaranteed freedom of worship to Jews, Christians and Muslims in their respective sacred places, in contrast to the ban on Christian and Jewish access to the sacred places under the previous Islamic regime. This secular government has given the Jewish fanatics no chance to challenge the status-quo, and is not ready to make any concession to them, or to force a compromise with them on the tenant Muslim community. 46 Ibid. In India, by contrast, some governments have been succeeding each other, that have not been all that secularly impartial in religious controversies, in spite of their comprising vehemently secularist parties. These governments have amply lent their ears to the fanatics who challenge the functional status-quo and intend to snatch the sacred place from the tenant community. For clarity's sake, it may be repeated that the tenant community is, since 1949, the Hindu community. And the Hindus want to keep the functional status-quo, viz. the Ram temple remains a Ram temple, even while its architecture may be changed from a mosque-like domed structure to a traditional Mandir structure. But instead of unflinchingly upholding their right to their sacred place, the government pressurizes them to give in to the BMAC and BMMCC demands, or at least to accept a mid-way compromise. So, the Temple Mount is not a Jewish Ayodhya rather a Muslim Ayodhya. We should of course not take the comparison too far, for that would only lead into distortions. Yet, it so happened that there is one more analogy. In both places the autumn of 1990 has witnessed a bloodbath among the tenant community, inflicted by police bullets. In Jerusalem, police killed around twenty people when, according to the official report, they were throwing stones at Jews praying at the Wailing Wall (the only leftover of the Second Temple). In Ayodhya, police killed sixteen, or one hundred and sixty- eight, or five hundred, or who knows, people who were unarmed and singing Ram Dhun. And this similarity is again compounded by a stark difference : the Jerusalem shooting triggered as much as a UN resolution against the Israeli government, but the Ayodhya shooting 47 triggered absolutely nothing as far as the Human Rights professionals are concerned. In all the writings on the Middle East conflict, few would go to the root of the matter as much as this scholar, and exonerate Zionism of its unwarranted guilt: Mohammed abandoned his fad of imitating Jewish tradition, including the choice of Jerusalem as the direction of prayer, when the Jews proved unimpressed with his claims of prophethood. Therefore he stole Abraham, the presumed founder of the monotheistic tradition which he had adopted, form the Jews, and declared that Arabs were Abraham’s true heirs through Ishmael. The logic of this mythical construction forced him to claim that the Arab national sanctuary at Mecca had been built by Abraham. The fact that it had been in use as a temple of Hubal and other Arab gods and goddesses since time immemorial, was explained away by the (again totally unhistorical speculation) that the idolaters had at one time usurped the temple which originally belonged to Abraham and his religion. In reality, no pre-Islamic Arab text or inscription mentions Abraham, his religion, or his son Ishmael. Conversely, the Bible, the only authentic source on Abraham, never makes him go anywhere near Mecca, not does it make him build the Kaaba. These two inconvenient facts are explained away by means of a conspiracy theory: the Jews censored their own Scripture and destroyed the existing references to the future prophet Mohammed, and the Pagan Arabs must have done likewise with their inscriptions and oral tradition. The truth of the matter is that Mohammed stole the Kaaba from its rightful owners, who had never practised any Abrahamic or Islamic worship there. Yet, because the Islamic use of the Kaaba is now a long-standing ritual convention, it is respecting as such without any 48 question. In tackling anti-Semitism, Elst has exploded the politically correct myths, such as Zionism being a form of racism: One of the ideological guidelines of anti-colonialism was: "Of the (ex-)colonized, nothing but good must be said." Therefore, mentioning the colonialism and mass slavery practised by the Muslims had become undesirable. Add to this general taboo the warning that Islam criticism effectively implies support to Israel, described by Maxime Rodinson as a "colonial settler-state". If one acknowledges that Islam has always oppressed the Jews, one accepts that Israel was a necessary refuge for the Jews fleeing not only the European but also the Islamic variety of anti-Judaisms. Let us not forget that decolonization was followed immediately by renewed discrimination of and attacks on the Jewish and 47 48 Elst, Ayodhya and After, http://www.bharatvani.org/books/ayodhya/ch2.htm Koenraad Elst, The Ayodhya Demolition: An Evaluation, in The Ayodhya Reference, Voice of India, New Delhi, 1995, pp.129-30 Christian minorities, and that those Jews who could get out have promptly fled to Israel (or France, in the case of Algeria). It is no coincidence that these Sephardic Jews are mostly 49 supporters of the hard- liners in Israel. He tackled Rodinson’s obscene desire to justify the massacre and ethnic cleansing of Jews from Arabia: When one cannot conceal, deny or minimize the facts, one can still claim that on closer analysis, they are not as bad as they seem. One can call right what is obviously wrong. This can go very far, e.g. in his biography of Mohammed, Maxime Rodinson declared unashamedly that the extermination of the Medinese Jews by Mohammed was doubtlessly the best solution.50 Taking apart the supposed “golden age” which Jews benefited form under Islam, the ugly reality is exposed: Muslim apologists often declare that the treatment of the Jews in Islamic Spain compared favourably with the reconquered Christian Spain. Well, we know that they were subject to a number of disabilities, limits on their choice of profession, and humiliating regulations (e.g. North African Jews were forced to take names of food as surname). We know from the famous Jewish philosopher Maimonides that thousands of Jews in his time were had been forcibly converted to Islam. We know that Mohammed himself expelled two Jewish clans form Medina and led an all-out pogrom against the third clan, killing hundreds. We know of the current Arab-Israeli conflict, of the terror in which the Jews live under Khomeini, and of the Islamic terrorists throwing bombs at Jewish school-children in European cities. It is true that some Muslim rulers accommodated (not respected or treated as equals) Jews in the interest of the considerations. The only countries where the 51 Jews were always both respected and left in peace, were India and China. Yet few scholars even attempt to mention the last element in their eagerness to expose Hindu Fascism, Hindu fundamentalism, Saffron Nazism, and Hindu Nationalism, all of which are somehow modern incarnations of the Hitler idea. The fact that Jews found respect, peace and no venom against them by that majority Hindu community, but flourished for 2000 years, makes India unique in the Jewish experience, but by no means unique in the Hindu experience: Many foreign groups of people persecuted for their religion came to seek refuge in India. The Parsis have thrived. The heterodox Syrian Christians have lived in peace until the Portuguese came to enlist them in their effort to Christianize India. The Jews have expressed their gratitude when they left for Israel because India was the only country where their memories were not of persecution but of friendly co-existence. Even the Moplah Muslims were accepted without any questions asked. All these groups were not merely tolerated, but received land and material support for building places of worship.52 Echoing Martin Luther King’s famous utterance, Elst tackles that fallacy of trying to be antiZionist yet claiming all the while to have nothing against Jews: And don't try to be clever by making a distinction between Jews and Zionists. In Europe quite a few bomb attacks are committed by anti-Zionist Muslims against Jews, including doctors, schoolchildren and citizens who have no plans of settling in Zion. The Islamic terrorists are not making that distinction, and neither are the Islamic governments who plan to destroy the state of Israel. If Israel will be destroyed, it will be with a chemical or nuclear holocaust killing millions of Jews. And then the Congressmen who have continued Nehru's policy of total support for the anti-Israeli cause, will say :Wir haben das nicht gewusst. 49 50 Elst, Negationism., http://www.bharatvani.org/books/negaind/ch2.htm Ibid. 51 Koenraad Elst, Ram Janmabhoomi vs. Babri Masjid, Voice of India, New Delhi, 1990, pp.79-80 52 Elst, Negationism., http://www.bharatvani.org/books/negaind/ch2.htm In fact. Nehru himself fluently went from anti-Zionist to anti-Jewish. This is what he wrote: "In practice the Hindu is certainly not tolerant and is more narrow-minded than almost any person in any other country except the Jew". (in practice, Nehru was certainly not tolerant and he was more narrow-minded than almost any other person in any other country 53 except Hitler). Ignoring the Leftist contribution and activity with regard to anti-Jewish thought is another taboo area of interest: Our leftist press corps has done its utmost to minimize attention for these ominous developments,54 and otherwise shift the blame away from Communism, to the influence of th “the ideology of Russian nationalism and 19 century Slavophilic movement”. In reality, the Russian Communists are remaining true to their party’s tradition. In 1907 already, Stalin sneered that the Jews in the Communist movement were cowards and narrowminded people. As Soviet leader, he purged tens of thousands of Jewish Bolsheviks, had his exiled Jewish rival Leon Trotsky murdered, thwarted a specifically Jewish front during World War 2, endeavoured to diminish the Jewish presence in the cultural sector, and had thousands of Jews deported to Siberia or Birobijan, the enclave of Soviet Manchuria earmarked for the Jews as an alternative to Palestine. He had even delivered large numbers of German-Jewish (along with German Communist) refugees to the Nazis under a secret clause to the Hitler-Stalin Pact of 1939. Stalin’s last persecution, mercifully aborted by his death, was again directed against the Jews, or to use the Soviet codeterms, the “Trotskyite traitors” and “rootless cosmopolitans”: in a most classical case of 55 anti-Semitic paranoia, he suspected Jewish doctors of trying to poison him. Linked to Communist crimes and Marxist apologetics, is the thorny issue of disproportionate Jewish involvement with the Bolsheviks: Anti-Jewish publications and websites invariably contain lists of Jewish commissars in the Bolshevik leadership, usually giving the original Yiddish name after the better-known nom de guerre, e.g. “Lev Kamanev (Rosenfeld)”, “Bela Kun (Kohen)”, “Leon Trotsky (Bronstein)”, “Zinoviev (Apfelbaum)” or more recently leftist anthropologist “Ashley Montagu (Israel Ehrenberg)”, or former KBG chief and Russian Prime Minister “Yevgeni Primakov (Finkelstein)”. Like Hitler, they systematically overlook the fact the crucial fact that it was imperial Germany which had brought Lenin to Russia and encouraged his coup d’état simply to get rid of its eastern enemy in World War I. Among Lenin’s financiers, the Jewish motive was mixed with the Germna motive, e.g. Israel Helphand alias Aleksandr Helphan alias Parvus financed the Revolution largely with funds provided by the governments in Vienna and Berlin. And Lenin himself was, of course, a Russian aristocrat, neither Jewish or working-class. However, even if there was over representation of Jews in the Communist Party, Koenraad Elst then poses yet another thorny question: But this Jewish role in the establishment of the Bolshevik regime has to be qualified: how “Jewish” were militant atheists who aimed at destroying the Jewish along with Christian religion. They were actually militant fanatics against all religion, especially the one they were born into: Paul Johnson calls them “non-Jewish Jews”, militant haters of all religion. Along with churches, synagogues were systematically destroyed or turned into stables or warehouses. In August 1919, all Jewish religious communities were formally dissolved and expropriated. Until the relaxation under Mikhail Gorbachov, people were imprisoned for offences like possessing a ritual bath-tub or teaching Hebrew. Religious Jews were as much targeted as Christians, but because of their ethnic connection to the Jewish-born 53 54 Elst, Ayodhya and After, http://www.bharatvani.org/books/ayodhya/ch14.htm Anti-Semitism openly displayed by the Russian Communist Party in the former USSR including leader Gunadi Zyuganov in the 1996 election in Russia 55 Elst, Saffron Swastika, pp.359-60 Bolsheviks, they were held guilty by White Russians and by foreign observers including the young Hitler. As Jacob Mazeh, the chief rabbi of Moscow, told Trotsky: “The Trotskys make the revolution, but the Bronsteins pay the bills”. When the rabbi seconded the anguished requests by Jews to Trotsky to stop the closing of their synagogues and schools, Trotsky coldly refused and said that eh no longer considered himself a Jew. In Paul Johnson’s account Trotsky “averted his face from specifically Jewish sufferings, however appalling” (such as large pogroms by both Communist and anti-Communist forces), and was a typical case of the “non-Jewish Jews” who “hated their Jewishness” and for whom “ to fight for the revolution was the most morally acceptable means to escape from it”, i.e. from their Jewishness. In a sinister parallel to the ideology of the Roman Catholic Inquisition, and secularised antiSemitism such as National Socialism, Communism began to persecute Jews on account of their ethnic origins, not on any commitment they might have had to Judaism itself: Apart from Judaic religion, Jewish secular-nationalism was equally persecuted on the Soviet Union. In the immediate post-War circumstances, Stalin chose to support the creation of Israel, expecting it to be an ally and a socialist state with a planned economy. For the rest, the Bolsheviks including Trotsky had always persecuted the Zionists as well as the non-Zionist Jewish-identitarian socialists of the Bund Jüdischer Arbeiter (Jewish Labour Union)… It is therefore absurd to draw the conclusion that somehow Bolshevism and Communism were Jewish: The answer to the thesis of the Soviet regime as a Jewish creation, is that the Jews concerned clearly did not act as representatives of Jewish ethnic interests. Why else, after all, would the Bolshevik regime have allowed the subsequent “russification” of the Soviet Union? The first generation of Bolsheviks groomed a new leadership largely drawn from the Russian underclass, where anti-Semitic feelings were much more intense than among the Czarist ruling class…….Under Stalin, this new class ousted most of the Jews, especially during the great purges of the late 1930s, or sidelined them (a planned purge in 1953 was aborted by Stalin’s death). Moreover, while purging the Party of Jews, Stalin cynically posted Jews in conspicuous and unpopular jobs. Indeed every strike against the Jews was accompanied by some such promotions, e.g. most of the Gulag camps ended up being commanded by Jews. This way, Stalin offered Nazi propaganda minister Goebbels all the evidence required to “prove” that Soviet repression was a tyranny of Jews torturing Gentiles. In 1940, Stalin also returned hundreds of Jewish refugees from Germany to Hitler’s custody. Reading Koenraad Elst, one can see why India’s Communists are s keen to vilify Israel, call Zionism Nazism, ignore repression in Islamic countries, and are inflamed by Ariel Sharon’s recent visit to India. The same forces were at work with even deadlier effect when Communists actually captured power in Europe, but this was emulated by their admirers wherever Marxist parties sprung up like noxious weeds: The dejudaization of the Soviet leadership later resulted in a pro-Arab and anti-Zionist foreign policy from the 1950s till the 1980s. Thus, unlike the German Federal Republic (GFR), the Soviet-occupied German “Democratic” Republic (GDR) refused to make financial amends for German crimes to Jewish organisations or the state of Israel. The GDR started offering training to Palestinian terrorists, and its friends and agents in the GFR waged anti-Zionist campaigns frequently shading over into anti-Semitism. In many countries, Communist parties loyal to Moscow supported the Palestinian struggle, based until recently on the explicit denial to Israel of the very right to exist. Then the final nail in the coffin of anti-Semitism linking Jews to Marxism, Bolshevism and Communism: If the Jews had really installed an ethnic dictatorship in 1917, as Hitler believed, it is unlikely that they would have allowed this demotion of their own community and this betrayal of Jewish interests. Both heavy Jewish involvement in the Bolshevik Revolution and in dominating the violent post-1945 imposition of Communism on Eastern Europe can in fact be explained without the need for anti-Semitic myths: In the case of the post-War repression in Poland and other new Soviet satellite states, Nazi atrocities against the Jews sufficiently explain why Jews gravitated towards the Red Army. In the case of the October Revolution, Jewish resentment against the anti-Jewish policies of the Czarist regime provides much of the explanation, along with the fact that many of the cities were largely Jewish (Slavs living in the countryside) so that the incipient industrialization attracted a large proportion of Jews to become the new proletariat, the main recruiting-ground of the Communist movement. And just which ethnic groups have been responsible for the inhumanity of Communism: That there is no necessary relation between Jews and Communism can be seen from a great many facts. The most sensational crimes were committed by non-Jews like Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot. In India, with hardly a Jew in sight, communists have been very active in armed struggle and in manipulations on the cultural and intellectual front (precisely the kind which American anti-Semites usually attribute to Jews). Indeed politically active Jews have on the whole turned against Communism: Conversely, in Western anti-Communist publications, Jews were or are quite present, in fact “over-represented” as compared with their percentage of the population. Consider e.g. Isaiah Berlin, who fled Bolshevism as a child; the ex-Communist renegade Arthur Koestler, the French intellectuals Raymond Aron, Annie Kriegel, Christian Jelen or André Glucksman; or the American New Left renegade David Horowitz. Jewish leftist are more attracted to a “human rights” variety of Left-liberalism, anti-Communist as well as antifascist, e.g. Daniel Cohn-Bendit or Bernard-Henri Lévy. The Zionist movement had spared Stalin because of his fight against the Nazis and his initial support to the state of Israel, but from the 1950s onwards, the Zionist movement as a whole tuned against Communism. In the US, where the historical connection between Jews and the Communist movement was particularly strong, Jewish neo-conservatives like Norman Podhoretz played a crucial role in Ronald Reagan’s final offensive to bring the Soviet 56 Union to its knees. This brings us neatly on to the interesting subject of Revisionism, more accurately negationism of the Holocaust of Jews during the last world war. This is another fresh area which contemporary Hindu scholarship, with the exception of Elst, has yet to analyse. Negationism is an area where Marxists have made active, yet largely ignored contributions, in covering up the facts of Nazi genocide: The more immediate reason for leftist negationism is the current leftist support to the Palestinian cause. The sacralization of the Holocaust as the foundation myth of the Israeli state goes hand in hand with attempts to strengthen the struggle against Israeli policies by denying the Holocaust. Even quite apart from negationism, the extreme Left has been the first to break the taboo on estimating the Jewish death toll in the Holocaust at less than 6 million. After glasnost, the authorities in Poland have declared that according to their firsthand information, the death toll in Auschwitz was only 1.5 million, less than 1 million of them Jews. The earlier official version had been 4 million, while Jewish organizations had assumed it was some 2 million. At any rate, if the Polish authorities have given correct figures, and the Auschwitz number is decreased, then the total Holocaust death toll must also be decreased to less than 6 million. The most reliable sources now agree on around 5.3 million as the total count of Jewish victims of Nazism. But somehow no one dares to amend the established number of 6 million, for fear of being branded a negationist. It was 56 Ibid., pp.84-91 in the Belgian Marxist-Leninist (and strongly pro-Palestinian) weekly Solidair that I read for the first time that "5.1 million Jews" had been killed by the Nazis. But here we are not dealing with small corrections in the figures, but with a fundamental denial of the Holocaust itself. Unlike most Marxists, the ones under consideration have taken their support to the Palestinian cause as far as denying what they consider the cornerstone of the "greater Israel" ideology, viz. the holocaust memory. The deeper reason for leftist negationism is that the extreme hostility between Nazism and Jews regardless of their class, is in conflict with Marxist theory. Of course, rivalry and even war between capitalists (Jewish vs. German capitalists, German vs. French-British colonial capitalists, etc.) does fit the theory. But the Nazi plan to destroy all the Jews is a different matter, outside the grip of Marxist theory. Marxists define Fascism as merely an extreme phase of capitalism, just like imperialism and colonialism were necessary phases of capitalism. Already in 1953, some Trotskyites had made the analysis that the Holocaust was a extremely useful propaganda instrument for Anglo-American capitalism to differentiate itself from its fascist twin- brother. Thanks to the Holocaust, the capitalists could impress upon the minds that there was a radical difference between Fascism, which had committed the Holocaust, and democracy, which had fought Fascism and stopped the Holocaust. This covers up the reality that Fascist and democratic capitalism are merely two faces of the same monster. The people's struggle should be directed against the Fascist phase of capitalism (which amounts to collaboration with the non-Fascist phase of capitalism), but should be against capitalism as such, without getting confused by intracapitalist family struggles between Anglo-American and Axis capitalists. In a sense, the fact of the holocaust escaped Marxist theory as understood by the La Vieille Taupe group. So that was too bad for the fact: it had to be denied. As Alain Finkielkraut has commented, the Holocaust was "an event too many", and the dogmatic Marxists chose "for doctrinal faithfulness and against the complexity of the facts". Interestingly, these leftist negationists integrated the more conventional Marxist explanation for anti-Judaism, viz. the scapegoat theory. They accept that until 1945 the Jews were a scapegoat held up by the capitalists in order to channel the proletariat's discontent away from its proper target, capitalism (in accordance with this view, Franz Neumann had predicted in 1942 in his analysis of Nazism that the extermination of the Jews was excluded because of their political importance as scapegoat). But in and since 1945, it is the fascists who have been turned into a kind of scapegoat: they are blackened and covered with contempt in order to channel discontent away from its proper target, viz. capitalism as the culprit for everything, towards this one particular form of capitalism, which was already neutralized and no longer useful anyway. The Holocaust is merely a dummy created by capitalism to distract socialist combativity and to instil in the supporters of Anglo- American capitalism a sense of moral superiority. This leftist denial of the Holocaust fact is apparently an aberration from what was originally a justifiable (within Marxist theory) critique of the use of the Holocaust fact as an alibi for Anglo-American capitalism. A cornerstone of the leftist-negationist argument is the testimony immediately after the war, and the books written later by Paul Rassinier, a socialist who had survived the Nazi camps, though handicapped. This embittered man had depicted the Holocaust as nothing but a propagandistic concoction. As an authentic leftist and victim of Nazism, he was the perfect witness for the negationist position. Those who can keep the proper over-all perspective, will be able to make the unpleasant but inescapable judgement that Paul Rassinier had projected his own experience in Buchenwald (where no Jews were gassed) as a general description of the events in the Nazi camps. I do not want to judge too harshly on a man who went through such suffering, but the armchair historians who selectively highlighted his version because it was useful to them, are a different matter. Lifting a few convenient but untypical testimonies out of the enormous corpus of evidence is a well known method of distorting the picture. For the rest, the leftist-negationist argument is a pitiable list of contradictions and bad reasoning. For instance, one of their stalwarts, Vincent Monteil, writes that "a large-scale genocide is impossible without gas chambers, and therefore no genocide has taken place": even if we allow for his presupposition that the gas chambers have already been exposed as a myth, it is quite stupid to assume that in the absence of gas chambers, those who intend to commit genocide could not find alternative tools (which would declare most historical cases of genocide impossible). Leftist negationism regarding the Nazi holocaust is of course only a footnote in the much more general negationism practised by most leftists, hard and soft, regarding the crimes of Communist regimes. So many fellow-travellers visited the Soviet Union, closed their eyes for inconvenient facts, wilfully believed only what their official guide told them, and propagated a rosy picture of Stalin's brave achievements. Many social-democrat leaders from the West regularly went to Moscow for consultations, and started friendship associations with Communist countries, to spread a more unprejudiced picture of their regimes. Even today, some of them declare that they don't regret this stab in the back of those countries' oppressed populations When in 1989 the Soviet authorities finally admitted Stalin's guilt in the Katyn massacre, I have not heard any of the Soviet supporters outside the Soviet bloc apologizing for propagating the Katyn lie until recently. Of course he does not ignore the main culprit which of course has a vested interest in Jewhatred: A wholly different matter from re-interpretation of known historical facts, is the denial of these facts. In Europe we have the negationism of a handful of historians and extremeright groups concerning the Nazi extermination campaign against the Gypsies and the Jews, which took place between 1941 and 1945. Their claim is that this Nazi extermination campaign is in fact a concoction. The widespread belief that the Holocaust did take place, would merely be the work of a conspiracy. There is, according to the negationists, no dearth of motives for floating the concoction of the Holocaust. The two most important ones concern the Communists and the Jews. In order to legitimate their own horrible regime, the Communists had to print Fascism (a term often used when Nazism is meant) in the most terrible colours. It is true that they always throw the swearword Fascist at everyone: from Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn to the Dalai Lama, every decent human being who stands in the way of Communism gets branded as a Fascist. Now, according to the Negationists, the Communists had to invent gruesome crimes for Fascism, and to make the sting of the swearword Fascist sharper. A case in point, they argue, is the massacre of Polish officers at Katyn: blamed on the Nazis by the Soviets (an allegation adopted by the other Allies, so that as late as 1989 the British Foreign Office still denied that evidence for Soviet responsibility existed), but in fact committed by the Soviets themselves. If the Communists could falsely accuse the Nazis about Katyn, why not about Auzchwitz? But more than the Communists, it was the Jews who, according to the negationists, had every reason to invent the Holocaust myth. Look at its effects: the immediate outcome of the successful spreading of the Holocaust myth was that in 1948 the United Nations could not deny the Jews their new state Israel, and that this new state could at once claim huge reparation payments from Germany. Today the Holocaust memory is the justification of Israel's political claims to safe, defensible borders - which effectively means the annexation of the occupied territories. The last two decades, Western support for Israel has become less unconditional, and to reclaim this support the Holocaust memory has been made more insistent, with the orchestrated flood of books and films about the Holocaust. So, according to the negationists, the victims were in fact the aggressors. With fake photographs and false testimonies by tutored eyewitnesses the Jews framed the Nazis on a huge and horrible crime of genocide which had never been committed. After all, the declaration of war by France and Britain against Germany in 1939 had been arranged by the Jewish conspiracy which controlled finance (and therefore politics) in those countries. And the Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann had immediately declared that in this war all the Jews would be on England's side. So, the war itself had been forced on Germany by the Jews, and the Holocaust myth was the next element in this Jewish conspiracy aimed at sucking Germany's blood and resources. That is very briefly the negationists' position on why this Holocaust story was made so popular. The negationist position is not widely believed, in fact it is widely detested as the motivated history-distortion which it really is. In France and Germany, publishing negationist writings is punishable by law (in Germany, denial of the massacre of Germans in ex-German territories in 1945 was equally made punishable). Negationism can boast of only a few academics in its ranks, most academics will have no truck with it, and some have published thorough and precise refutations of negationism. Most of the negationist publications are pamphlets of a pitiable intellectual calibre. Yet, a few academic-looking institutes for "revision of the history of World War II" have been set up, notably the Institute for Historical Review in California. And at least a few negationist academics and writers are clever polemists and have managed to create a semblance of respectability for negationism in some circles. The methods of the negationists are intellectually quite objectionable, they do all the things which are in the "don't" column of methodological vademecums. For instance, they commit unbelievable feats of "quoting out of context". I realize that it is often a cheap excuse in polemical forums to allege quoting out of context: it is done when you cannot escape the conclusions which your opponent has drawn from your own side's statements. By invoking (without specifying) the all-redeeming context, you can claim that the analyzed statement really meant something else than your opponent had assumed in making his analysis. Nevertheless, the false allegation can only work because the genuine product, quoting out of context, does exist. The negationists shamelessly change the meaning of sentences by plucking them from their contexts. Whenever one of their opponents, in the middle of a systematic refutation of negationism, dares to concede that "there are contradictions in the testimony of ex-prisoner X", or that "no records are extant from concentration camp Y", they quote this one line and go on to conclude that this opponent "has had to revise his earlier belief in the Holocaust under the impact of new findings". For example, they eagerly quote the German historian Martin Broszat's statement that there were no gas chambers designed for large-scale killing in the German Reich. Yes, that is what he said, and he was probably right: no matter how gruesome otherwise, the camps inside Germany, like Buchenwald and Bergen-Belsen, did not contain such gas chambers. For, Broszat continues but the negationists omit, "the mass destruction of Jews by gassing was mostly done in the occupied territories". Negationist pamphlets are often very unashamed to announce from the beginning that they are not meant to do history, but merely want to take an unprejudiced look at the allegations of Nazi genocide. Some of their more pretentious publications have a lot of academic-looking references and quotations (referring mostly to other negationist authorities and to the pamphlet liteature), as well as out-of-context quotes from original Auschwitz testimonies and research, in which witnesses a charge are turned into witness a decharge. Negationist publications also contain a lot of plain lies, apparently counting on the public's lack of time and means to check sources. In every document they know how to select a line in their own favour. If a judge convicts them because of their negationism, they clamour that it is outside the judiciary's competence to judge historical methods and theories (apart from seeing it as proof of the omnipresent Jewish conspiracy); but when a judge refrains from passing judgement on their methods and theories, they explain it as a vindication of negationism. When the leading French negationist professor Faurisson was convicted several times on charges of slander and incitement to racial hatred, but not because of his history distortion, he claimed that henceforth nobody had the right to denounce his method, and that "it is now permitted to declare that the gas chambers have not existed". Their easiest technique of deception consists in simply keeping all the evidence for the Holocaust out of the view of the readers, or in denying its existence. The numerous testimonies by camp survivors and Nazi officials (of whom some to appease their conscience, had already leaked the truth to the outside world during the war) are simply not mentioned at all, except if seemingly gross contradictions or mistakes can be shown in them, so as to create the impression that the Holocaust myth is based on the rantings of a few paranoid misfits. They challenge the established historical certainty of the Holocaust not with precise questions and challenges to competent historians, but with stunts and bluff aimed at the broader public. Thus, in 1979 the Institute for Historical Review promised $ 50,000 to whomever could prove that people had been gassed in the Nazi camps. The small print said that candidates for the prize must have seen someone being gassed, must submit an autopsy report of a victim gassed with Zyklon-B gas. After one year, it announced triumphantly that the prize could not be awarded as no one had come forward with the proof. Actually, the items demanded by the Institute are available, but most selfrespecting historians have decided to boycott the negationists completely, as even a public trial of strength would only give them publicity (apart from the fact that most relevant original documents were in pre-glasnost Soviet and Polish hands). In my opinion, it is better to face the negationist challenge head-on, and to confront them with the evidence they defiantly ask for. The chief argument of the negationists is that the evidence given for the Holocaust is flawed. There are indeed some flaws in the available evidence for the Holocaust. To start with, there is comparatively little of it. It most camps the Nazis had thoroughly destroyed all the evidence by the time the Soviet and Anglo-American forces moved in. Moreover, the evidence available is in coded language, because the Holocaust was conducted as a secret operation: hardly anywhere in the Nazi documents is it written explicity that people have been gassed. Nevertheless, the remaining evidence is still overwhelming: testimonies by camp guards and Nazi officials, given during trial or as a voluntary act; testimonies by transport workers, chemical engineers and people otherwise connected with the material realization of the Holocaust; diaries by prisoners, survivors in all kinds of forums after the liberation. The code to the secret language of Nazi documents has been revealed by Nazi officials. The other flaw in the available evidence, and which is always the negationists' crowning argument, is the contradictions and inaccuracies of the camp survivors' testimonies. For instance, people have claimed that fellow prisoners had been gassed in camps in which no gas chambers ever existed. Or, the authentic diaries of some prisoners give a very different picture from the version which they gave in interviews after the war. Of course, if one does not select merely the flawed pieces of testimony, but keeps an eye on the general body of evidence, such inaccuracies, contradictions and in some cases even lies, are only what one can except when people testify to what they have experienced of a real event. These things can be explained with our general knowledge of human psychology: e.g., there is a kind of envy among people who have suffered when they find that people who have gone through more spectacular suffering get all the attention, and so they make their own story a bit more interesting. Even after an ordinary traffic accident, people's versions differ, yet there is no doubt about some basics, such as the actual occurrence of the accident. Digging up inaccuracies in a few testimonies in order to deny the entire body of evidence is the safest way of lying: you pronounce correct judgements about some of the parts, and merely by acting as if these few parts constitute the whole, you implicitly tell a huge lie about the whole. Finally, the negationist position is sought to be given some credibility by discrediting the forum where the Holocaust was officially put on record: the Nuremberg trial. Jurists now knowledge that the Nuremberg trial violated some rules of justice, esp. by thwarting the rights of the defence, and by judging on the basis of retro-active laws created ad hoc. When German officers who had committed crimes against humanity in obedience to orders, justified these with the universally valid rule of military discipline Befehl ist Befehl (an order is an order), it was ruled that military orders should not be obeyed when they violate certain human principles (in emulation of this ruling, German courts have recently convicted East German soldiers who had obeyed the order to shoot people who tried to cross the Berlin wall; the mixed feelings over this judgement have brought the dissatisfaction with the Nuremberg trial back to mind). Worst of all, the Nuremberg trial was a cynical farce to the extent that some of the parties sitting in judgement were just as guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity, starting with the Soviet Union. And yet, it is obvious that all these flaws in the judicial treatment of the Holocaust and of those responsible for it, do not make any difference to the question whether the Holocaust actually took place. The negationists will always try to pick on their opponents' presentation of the facts, to pull the attention away from the facts themselves. In their attempts to convince public opinion, the negationists currently benefit from a few circumstances. Firstly, there is a feeling that the Holocaust is over- exploited. In certain Jewish circles an excessive cultivation of the Holocaust memory seems to have taken place. Therefore the Holocaust memory is seen by some as an instrument of Jewish self-aggrandizement, and as the bedrock of Israeli self-righteousness. This perception is especially strong in proPalestinian circles. Similarly, there is an impression of self-righteousness in high-profile anti-Nazi spokesmen. Some statements by the French Nazi hunter Serge Klarsfeld have created irritation, e.g. that the leftist lawyer Jacques Verges was "a shame for his profession" by accepting the offer to defend the war criminal Klaus Barbie (while defence of criminals by lawyers is the former's right and the latter's job). Klarsfeld's action in Germany in 1992 against restrictions on the massive immigration of Romanian Gypsies was equally considered misplaced and self-righteous: any country has a right to its own immigration policy, and Germany had a much more generous refugee policy than any other country (it accepted 2 lakh refugees from Yugoslavia, France less than 1,000). This type of self-righteousness is perceived as a consequence of the Holocaust credit, and so, many people would like the Holocaust talk to stop for a while. That does not amount to an endorsement of negationism, but the negationists take heart from any change of public mood that weakens the indignation over the Holocaust. In this connection, there is also a perception that the Jewish-controlled press reduces the death toll of Nazism to the Jewish victims, omitting the Gypsies and the many millions of Polish, Ukrainian and Russian victims in work- camps and battlefields; and also omitting the victims of Allied war crimes (apart from Stalinism, these comprise the bombings of Dresden, Hiroshima etc., and the several hundreds of thousands of German soldiers starved in Allied camps even after the end of the war, plus the crimes committed by real and fake resistance groups after the war). This way, in those circles where anti-Judaism in mild or strident form had been common, the old irritation with the Jews finds itself confirmed when the Holocaust memory is raked up once too often. The sacralization of the Holocaust paradoxically feeds negationism. Again it is not the Jews who have exploited the memory of the Holocaust but the selfrighteous, and incidentally anti-Semitic, Left: Considering what the Jewish people has gone through, I still find it unacceptable to say that Jews exploit the Holocaust memory. It is not of the Jews but of the leftists that one can say stay are exploiting the Holocaust memory. After the fall of Soviet Communism, the trend to fill the media with reminders of the Holocaust, coupled with warnings that we should not let it happen again, has reached an unprecedented intensity. Never before have we seen so many documentaries of the Holocaust on TV. Worse, leftist journalists now routinely show film material of trains to Auschwitz while talking about present-day rightist parties that have emphatically distanced themselves from the rightism of the 1930s: a Goebbelsian use of the Holocaust. The reason is obvious: after the loss of face which Gorbachov and Yeltsin have inflicted on them, they need an anti-Fascist fever as a new legitimation and as a distraction of the public's attention. The trial of the Communist Party in Moscow occasioned one revelation after another, e.g. about the Soviet financial support to front organizations in the West (such as the peace movement), but reporting has been scant. From our press coverage, you would get the impression that economic inefficiency was Communism's only crime. So many survivors of the Gulag camps can finally speak out, but instead we get to see Auschwitz survivors. The collaborators with Stalinism in our press will go to any length to keep attention away from their own sins, and they have no scruples in using even the Holocaust victims as a cover. The public indignation with this shameless manipulation of the Holocaust memory by leftists is entirely justified. Fortunately (and unlike the opposition to the so-called Jewish Holocaust exploitation), this has not led to any signs of willingness to go to the other extreme, viz. to tolerate negationism. Still, the Holocaust negationists enjoy these transparent acts of desperation by the Gulag concealers. It may be still taboo to lay any blame on the holocaust and anti-Semitism in general at the feet of what is variously known as the Left. However, Koenraad Elst was in many ways ahead of his time in 1992 when he took Islamic negationism of the Shoah head on: One party which could have an interest in Holocaust negationism, is the Palestinian people. I do not know of an official negationism in the Palestinian Liberation Organization, but in conversation with Palestinians abroad I have heard negationist positions more than once. Even if Palestinians do not want to deny the Holocaust, at lest they argue that this topic should take a back seat for a while, because now it is being kept alive artificially in order to underpin Israel's claim on the Palestinian homeland. In the Arab world at large, there has occasionally been official support for negationism. In 1976, the Saudi representative at the U.N. denied in a speech that the Holocaust had occured. Hussein Sumaida, the young Iraqi spy who recently defected, has written in his memoirs how in school he had never learned of the persecution of the Jews by the Nazis, but all the more about the Jewish conspiracy and about the great realizations of Hitler's Third Reich. I would not make too much of the great admiration which Fascism had evoked among the Muslims, as among many Third World populations. It is true the Baath Party in Syria and Iraq was modelled on Mussolini's Fascist Party. Sir Mohammed Iqbal has written a eulogy for Mussolini. The Yugoslavian Muslims collaborated with the fascist regime in Croatia, and their grand-mufti exhorted them to serve in the Fascist Ustasha militia. Muslim nations (Tatars, Kalmuks, Balkars, Chechens, Ingoosh) in the Soviet Union fought alongside the Nazi invader. The grand-mufti of Jerusalem made a pact with Hitler, if only because he too had wanted to get rid of the Jews once and for all. But let us assume that all that happened because they didn't realize the ultimate consequences of Nazism, or because colonized people had no reason to believe the anti-Fascist war propaganda put out by the colonial powers, themselves veterans of many a massacre. Even then, there is a lot of post-war writing in the Islamic world which restates the Nazi propaganda against the Jews, and for that, there is no longer an excuse. In the first 1989 issue of Islamic Order, a quarterly published in Karachi, there is an article by Ausaf Saied Vasfi, titled Beware Arafat Beware. It is published "courtesy Radiance, Delhi", which means at least two English-language Islamic papers have published it; and it is by no means the only article of its kind which is currently being fed to the Muslim public. The article states that the sources of Zionism are chiefly these two: the Talmud and the Protocols of the Sages of Zion. Here we enter the realm of dangerous myth, just as existed in the volkisch nationalism of Central and Eastern Europe and fed into Nazism: But the startling thing about Mr. Vasfi's article is that he presents the Protocols of the Sages of Zion as a source of Jewish inspiration, apparently ignoring the well-known fact that it was nothing but a forgery made by the Czar's secret police in order to underpin the theory of a Jewish conspiracy to control the world. In all seriousness, he tries to prove the Jewish world conspiracy with quotes from the Protocols, like this one: "And the weapons in our hands are limitless: ambitions, burning greediness, merciless vengeance, hatred and malice... It is from us that the all- engulfing terror proceeds... By these acts all states are in torture... We will not give them peace until they openly acknowledge our international Super-Government and with submissiveness." Mr. Vasfi lists the occasions when Jews have been banished from countries, and comments with a rhetorical question: "The question is: why?" And then he recounts the story of the successive confrontations between Mohammed and the Jews of Medina, which proves the Jews' propensity to mischief. And they have remained mischievous: the Kemalist revolution in Turkey which brought down the khilafat "was planned and executed by the International Jewry", and "the entire Bolshevik Revolution in Russia was engineered by the Jews". It should be made clear that such sweeping allegations are nothing but the well-known stock-in-trade of anti-Judaism. The idea that revived anti-Semitism will more likely come from Muslim communities in the West as opposed to any neo-Nazi fringe group is enhanced by the behaviour of Islamic governments and organisations: In late 1992, Western negationist groups had announced a negationist conference, due to take place in Sweden. The Swedish government prohibited the initiative. Among the participants: the Lebanese Hezbollah and the Palestinian Hamas, two Iranian-backed Islamic organizations. Saudi Arabia is the chief sponsor of negationist activity in the West. The American negationist author William Grimstad has been exposed as being on the Saudi secret service's payroll. In 1981, his books, including Antizion and The Six Million Reconsidered, were sent, along with other negationist literature, to one thousand British political and business leaders, by the Rabita, the Islamic World Council, from Pakistan. The Iranian embassies are also distribution centres of negationist and anti-Jewish material. Yet again the Left seeks to make common cause despite its cosmetic hatred of all forms of hate: In her otherwise meritorious book "The Holocaust Denial" , the British leftist authoress Gill Seidel concludes a list of Islamic-sponsored negationist initiatives with the remark that "of course there is nothing intrinsically anti-Semitic to Islam as a religion". That is evidently the Marxist perception propagated by Maxime Rodinson, but it is historically inaccurate. Mohammed had all the Jews in his domain banished, enslaved or killed. After that, the Jews outside Arabia were allowed to survive under a number of humiliating conditions. They were kept down and exploited, and there were frequent progroms, as described by Bat Ye'or in her book "The Dhimmi". They were the target of Islamic hatred simply because they rejected Islam, but also for a more specific reason: they had deleted from 57 their revealed Scripture all references to Mohammed, the future and final prophet. This same Left is keen to ignore the complete lack of anti-Semitism among the Hindu majority of India: The Jewish presence on the Malabar coast is variously claimed o date back to the early Christian age, possibly to Jewish emigration after the defeat of their rebellion in AD 70, or th to the Babylonian exile in the 6 century BC. In the Hindu environment they never suffered persecution, unlike in Muslim and Christian countries. Also, they have retained the fullness of their traditions, unlike in China where they were admittedly never persecuted but where they disappeared by dissolving into the ambient society. Here we see one of the bright sides of the caste system: it allowed for the preservation of communities with their distinctive traditions. It is true that persecutions happened, but these were by the presence of Moplah Muslims, and then more so by the Portuguese Catholics. On this the Hindus can claim complete innocence, a largely unique position for any host community vis-à-vis the Jews. The now diminished population of Indian Jews in India itself, has been due to other factors: After the creation of the state of Israel, most Indian Jews moved to their Promised Land. The last remaining synagogue ha golden crowns and other precious gifts from the Hindu Rajas of Cochin and Travancore on display. Israeli representatives have repeatedly expressed their appreciation that India is the only country from which Jews have moved to Israel not out of fear but purely out of enthusiasm for the Zionist project. How have the remaining Jews in India behaved in the Hindu-dominated state? Not surprisingly, the handful of Indian Jews who have joined the Indian political debate have typically been nationalists sharing the patriotic outlook of the Hindus. Thus Maurice Cohen, a Jew from Mumbai, was an officer on Jammu and Kashmir during the war if 57 Elst, Negationism, http://www.bharatvani.org/books/negaind/ch1.htm 1947-48, defending Indian sovereignty against Pakistani invaders, and wrote a book about 58 his experiences there. If the BJP is truly India’s version of a Nazi political formation, then it is surely attracting some very bizarre members into its ranks: India’s most famous Jew must be General Jack F.R. Jacob. He struck decisive blows against the Pakistani Army during the Bangladesh war. Like so many retired Army men who had enough of seeing the country’s security betrayed by “Pakistani agents” like V.P. Singh, he decided to strengthen the nationalist forces and joined the BJP in 1998. With far fewer Jews to choose from, the BJP has more Jews in its ranks than the Nazi Party ever did. This contrasts with the “secularist” anti-Zionism of the Parties such as Congress and Communists who always oppose Hindu “Fascism”. They never have reconciled to the existence of the state of Israel: By contrast , the Hindu nationalist movement has always tried to befriend the Jews and supported Zionism and the state of Israel.59 Koenraad Elst has tried to go into the reasons for this: Hindutva ideologues never tire of referring to the good treatment of the Jews as evidence of the truth in their slogan “Hindu India, secular India”. The absence of anti-Judaism in Hindu history was the logical result of a general policy of pluralism and tolerance, of which Paris and Syrian Christians have benefited as well. The practical basis of this pluralism was the much-maligned caste system, which allowed communities to preserve their separate identities. The main point for the present discussion is that Hinduism has no doctrinal basis for anti-Judaism: whereas Christianity had condemned the Jews as “the murderers of Christ”, and whereas Islam had accused them of tampering with God’s revelation (esp. by censoring out parts supposedly referring to the future and final prophet Muhammad), Hinduism could treat Judaism as just another sect or caste. The BJP was almost alone among India’s political parties in advocating full diplomatic relations with Israel, while the “secularists” were keen to be the lap dogs of terrorists belonging to Yasser Arafat and Hamas.60 Koenraad Elst makes a mockery of those who try and somehow equate Hindutva, the political manifestation of Hinduism, with Nazism, and especially anti-Jewish hate: Given the extant record of Hindu society and of the modern Hindu movement vis-à-vis the Jewish people, a Hindu leader committed to anti-Semitism would first of all have to say: “We Hindus, my ancestors of several millennia, my mentors in the RSS and BJP, we have all been terribly wrong. We never should have tolerated the Jews in this country.” We should not concede the existence of even one atom of Hindu Nazism until such a statement is produced from authentic records.61 Despite the superficial differences, there are actually some interesting parallels: One can define Judaism as a religion, a belief system, which one can join or abandon by conversion. Effectively, conversions do occur, and in the Hellenistic and Roman periods, there was an active Jewish proselytization movement. Yet, in today’s reality Jews don’t inquire about beliefs when they want to decide whether someone is a Jew, except negatively: as long as a born Jew has not embraced the beliefs of another religion and actually joined that religion, he remains a Jew. 58 59 Elst, Saffron Swastika, pp.365-7 Ibid., pp.365-71 60 Ibid., pp.371-2 61 Ibid., p.373 That is why modern Hindu reformers such as Savarkar found so much in common with Zionism: The parallel between Judaism and Hinduism can be extended further, in spite of their seemingly radical religious differences, the former being the fountainhead of iconoclastic monotheism and the latter being the ultimate in idolatrous polytheism. But importantly, Judaism is not a creedal but a communal religion, and this it has in common with Hinduism. Communal religions, while making membership even almost impossible at the best of times, have historically been the most tolerant, especially in that they do not seek aggressively to convert others: The defensive concern about proselytiszation is common to Hindus and Jews, precisely because they feel disinclined to counter it with proselytization pf their own. The exception is the Hindu reform movements, and they specifically target only those whose ancestors left the Hindu fold, not those who never had any link with Hinduism. In the USA, there is a lot of co-operation between Hindu newcomers and the already well-organized Jews. Geopolitically, they are objective allies against Islam. But there may be one area where Hindus could actually be ahead of Jews in the academic arena: One important difference in this regard is that Hindu intellectuals increasingly believe in direct ideological confrontation with Islam, i.e. disseminating critiques of Islamic doctrine, which Jews consider contrary to their own short-term interests. Israel needs to keep the Muslim world at divided and any attacks on Islam as such can only strengthen Muslim unity and hostility. Hindus, by contrast, are involved in a battle for souls more than for territory, and they need to give Indian Muslims reasons for abandoning Islam in favour of Hinduism, and Hindus considering conversion (chiefly Scheduled Castes), reasons for not choosing Islam but rather a Bharatiya religion such as Buddhism. An ideological offensive against Islam comparable to the offensive against Christianity by atheists and other modernists in eighteenth to twentieth century Europe is therefore unlikely to be started in Israel (though that country would greatly benefit in the long run), but may well start in 62 India. Koenraad Elst himself found the reluctance among American Jews to face simple facts: I was told so at the American-Israeli Political Affairs Committee in Washington DC, the fabled “Jewish lobby”, April 1993. They would not, for instance, disseminate or encourage the work of the Jewish-Egyptian historian Bat Ye’or about the oppression of Christians and Jews in Muslim countries.63 The work of this Belgian scholar has largely been neglected in the West and in Israel, not to mention India. It is high time that his centrality in reviving humanistic values against what are vaguely termed the ideologies of hate, terrorism, and totalitarianism, is recognised. Elst is not only the major vehicle for diffusing the contemporary Hindu political and spiritual theories of Ram Swarup and Sita Ram Goel to a western audience, but has added important originality of his own. Even if the necessary “revival” does not begin in Israel, Israeli society and the Jewish Diaspora ignore a very important figure as the world stands at the crossroads between a brighter future of progress which many hoped would characterise the new millennium, or a return to the Dark Ages. The pen is truly mightier than the sword, but only if it reaches its target, and until now that target has preferred to bury its head ostrich-like in the sands of the Middle Eastern desert. 62 63 Elst, Decolonizing the Hindu Mind, pp.471-4 Ibid., p.473n David Frawley Dr David Frawley is also known by his Sanskrit name of Vamadeva Shastri, which he took having undergone shuddi, a formal conversion to Hinduism. Born into an American family of German-Irish stock, Frawley was raised originally as a Roman Catholic. One of the few westerners accepted as a Vedacharya, he is a practitioner of yoga, ayurveda medicine, has written many books on Hindu politics, spirituality, history and social issues, and runs the American Institute of Vedic Studies in New Mexico. As with Koenraad Elst, his knowledge as a westerner has allowed him to take Hindu ideas into new directions. Being raised in a Christian tradition it is natural that Frawley would have some knowledge on Judaism. Again while this area, still less that of Zionism, is far form his main focus, there are important contributions he has made to a Hindu understanding of Jewish issues. In 1995 he actually made a trip to Israel: I visited Israel in February of 1995 as part of an international Yoga conference where I was teaching. The trip helped me better understand Western religions. I found Israel to be a fascinating country with a deep and ancient spirit that reflected the formlessness and austerity of the surrounding desert. In some ways it reminded me of South India. Strangely perhaps, given my Catholic background, the religion that most interested me while in Israel was Judaism, which I felt most acutely while visiting the Wailing Wall. I had long admired the Jewish people for their intellectual achievements and viewed their religion in a different light than Christianity or Islam. Unlike its offshoots, the Jewish religion never set itself up as the one true faith that needed to conquer the world. It accepted that different peoples had other religious traditions, which might not be the same as theirs. It also had great traditions of learning, mysticism and the use of a spiritual language that were almost Brahmanical in nature. Some Jewish groups also accept 64 rebirth or reincarnation. This non-proselytising and non-imperialist approach of Judaism has meant that monotheism and iconoclastic tendencies do not necessarily lead to intolerance: Judaism, on the other hand, though a non-imagistic tradition, has been more tolerant than any form of Christianity or Islam. This is because it was never a missionary religion and allowed other people to follow their own different religions without interference, even if 65 these religions used images. There is actually a similarity, largely unexplored, between Hindu Dharma and Judaism: Judaism as an ancient religion resembles Hinduism in a number of respects. Ancient Judaism employed similar fire offerings as the Vedic religion. Its emphasis on Torah or the law is similar to the Hindu emphasis on Dharma. It has actively promoted mysticism in its Kabbalistic tradition, which contains an honouring of the Goddess. In fact some Jewish mystics teach karma and rebirth and promote yogic like teachings and practices, including non-violence. In terms of social practices, the Jews like the Hindus are a tolerant religion, not promoting conversion, and a culture, not merely a belief system. They have never sent armies on crusades and holy wars or sought to impose their religion on others by the force of arms 64 David Frawley, How I Became a Hindu, Voice of India, New Delhi, 2000, http://www.hindubooks.org/david_frawley/how_i_became_a_hindu/additional_studies_of_christianity _and_islam/page10.htm 65 Frawley, Awaken Bharata, Voice of India, New Delhi, 1998, pp.260-1 or propaganda, like Christians and Muslims. The Jews respect other religions, even those 66 who follow very different practices, and do not claim that theirs is the only true religion. Even apparent differences may not be so important: The main difference between Hinduism and Judaism is theological, with the Jews being opposed to the use of images that most Hindus use. However there are Hindu groups, like the Arya Samaj, who also oppose the use of images. In this respect Hinduism can include 67 traditions like the Jewish as one line of approach. So one would need to examine scripture in its correct context: The Bible is mainly the cultural record of the Jewish people, coming from various Jewish leaders over many centuries compiled to deal with the issues of their community, not only 68 spiritual but also mundane. That the Bible is the word of God is cultural hyperbole; it represents the Jewish people’s main experience and interpretation of the Divine, not God’s last word for all humanity or 69 for all time. Even the iconoclastic tendencies among the ancient Israelites may have had extremely pragmatic value: At first I couldn’t understand why the Jews were opposed to image worship, which most divides their tradition from the Hindu. Images are part of our artistic expression and are helpful tools for devotion. Image worship may not appeal to everyone, but there is no need to exclude it. And it is quite unenlightened to reject all images as unholy or those who worship them as unspiritual. However, I discovered an historical reason for the Jewish rejection of image worship. The Jews were a small people that occupied an important trade and military route between two continents, which was a natural battleground for nearby empires. With the larger, more elaborate and imagistic Egyptian and Mesopotamian cultures on either side, the Jews could have been easily assimilated. Their aniconic religion aided in their survival by making them a distinct people and helping them stand apart from their often more materialistic neighbours. Unfortunately this social need got translated into a religious rule that became the basis of religious intolerance, particularly under Christian and Islamic 70 dogma. Their aniconic religion aided in their survival by making them a distinct people and helping them stand apart from their often more materialistic neighbours. Unfortunately this social need got translated into a religious rule that became the basis of religious intolerance, particularly under Christian and Islamic dogma.71 66 Frawley, Hinduism: The Eternal Tradition, Voice of India, New Delhi, 1994, http://www.hindubooks.org/david_frawley/hinduism/sanatana_dharma/page16.htm 67 Ibid. 68 Frawley, How I Became a Hindu, http://www.hindubooks.org/david_frawley/how_i_became_a_hindu/additional_studies_of_christianity _and_islam/page10.htm 69 Ibid., http://www.hindubooks.org/david_frawley/how_i_became_a_hindu/additional_studies_of_christianity _and_islam/page11.htm 70 Ibid. 71 Ibid., http://www.hindubooks.org/david_frawley/how_i_became_a_hindu/additional_studies_of_christianity _and_islam/page12.htm It was this corruption of genuine spirituality of Judaism that became the basis of missionary imperialism cultural and ethnic genocide, and ultra-intolerance in vehicles that were far removed form the Jewish ethos: I could see how the Jews would think that Christians and Muslims had expropriated and distorted their teaching. The Christians transformed the Bible into a teaching that was even used to attack the Jews. The Koran is the Bible rewritten according to the religious urges of the Arabic community, and reflects their social and political expansion as well. The whole idea of a book as the Word of God moved from cultural pride to global aggression.72 Examining this issue further with regard to the original Judaic roots has led to an interesting analysis: Christianity reflects a mystical vision that was crushed before it could really develop. From a Jewish religious sect opposing the Romans it eventually assumed the power of the Roman State and came to embody the very tyranny that it first opposed. A study of the Dead Sea Scrolls reveals that the early Christians were one of many related Jewish movements of the times opposed to the Romans. Most of the teachings attributed to Jesus were part of older Jewish teachings, including many of his parables.73 These portray a similar symbolism of a Messiah and looking to the end of the world, which really meant the end of Roman rule and the reestablishment of a Jewish state. The Messiah was a purely Jewish concept, not the harbinger of a new faith. Jesus, if anything, was a good Jew and should be interpreted in light of Jewish traditions. Though he may have opposed certain Jewish sects, which were many, he was clearly in the line of the Old Testament. Christianity was a misinterpretation of Judaism that occurred after the Romans destroyed the Jewish State and killed its leaders, including the early Christians and their leaders like James, called the brother of Jesus. It took several centuries for Jewish Christianity to evolve into Roman Christianity and we can document this historically with the aid of various historical records. Paul was pivotal in turning this Jewish sect into a Roman religion. He was the real founder of the Christian religion not Jesus or his disciples who remained faithful Jews. Roman Christianity was the invention of a later age when the Jewish Christians, defeated and scattered by the Romans, reorganized and intermingled with the general Roman public. In order to gain support in Roman society they downplayed and then denied their Jewish background.74 However, it is in relation to examining incredible similarities between the Hindu and Jewish traditions that Frawley breaks new ground: Rudra is also called Yahva in the Rig Veda, perhaps cognate with the Biblical Yahweh.75 Certainly there has been a long history of cultural synthesis: 72 Ibid., http://www.hindubooks.org/david_frawley/how_i_became_a_hindu/additional_studies_of_christianity _and_islam/page11.htm 73 Ibid., http://www.hindubooks.org/david_frawley/how_i_became_a_hindu/additional_studies_of_christianity _and_islam/page12.htm 74 Ibid., http://www.hindubooks.org/david_frawley/how_i_became_a_hindu/additional_studies_of_christianity _and_islam/page13.htm 75 Ibid., http://www.hindubooks.org/david_frawley/how_i_became_a_hindu/additional_studies_of_christianity _and_islam/page15.htm Historically there was trade between ancient Israel and India, via the Phoenicians, particularly during the reign of King Solomon, the most famous Jewish king. During the second millennium BC Syria was under the rule of the Mittani, an Indo-European people worshipping Vedic Gods, so some exchange of ideas even at that time might have been possible. Later some Jewish communities went to India where they found protection. 76 There has been a long interchange between Hinduism and Judaism. It is in his classic Gods, Sages and Kings, that Frawley really brings home the reality of affinity between Jewish and Vedic belief systems: The Hebrew El or Elohim, God the Father, may therefore be another form of the same deity as Vedic Il-Varuna. Elohim is actually a plural and neutral term and suggests that the Hebrews originally worshipped the Divine on the form of many Gods and Goddesses much like the ancient Hindus and Egyptians. The Old Testament was compiled after the Persians released the Israelites from their Babylonian captivity. Several books of the Bible thereby have Persian (and perhaps indirect Vedic) influence like the books of Job and Esther. The Hebrew idea of the Messiah comes from books like Daniel and Ezekiel which were written during the Babylonian captivity and may reflect further Persian influence. Possible Vedic influence can be found prior to the time of the Persians as well. Abraham along with his father Terah, went to the city of Haran (Charrhan) before going to Palestine. According to the Biblical story his father dies there after two hundred and five years, and then Abraham left. Haran was in northwest Mesopotamia, the region of the Mittani, and Indo-Aryan people worshipping Vedic God like Indra and Varuna and by some accounts many have been the capital of the Mittani. Perhaps Abraham took some of the Vedic and yogic knowledge of the Mittani with him. The Levites, one of the twelve Jewish tribes, have been related to the Luvian people of Anatolia, who also appear to have been IndoEuropean. The Biblical Garden of Eden, like the sacred lands of Dilmun of the Sumerians and Punt of the Egyptians, was located in the east, toward India. Like the Hindu Mount Meru, it is the source of the four great world rivers. Noah, whose three sons were said to have fathered the different peoples of humanity, resembles the Vedic Yayati. Whose five sons have the same role. Both figures have a split with their children and end up protected by their youngest son (Vedic Puru and Biblical Japheth), whom they bless. The Israelites were a religious reform movement. On one hand, they tried to get back to the more simple form of the ancient religions of the Middle East, like those of Egypt and Babylonia before their fall and corruption. On the other hand, they appear to have rejected them altogether and formed a new religion of their own. The idolatry they complained of in their neighbours was not the true spirit of the ancient religions but their degenerate form. The Old Testament resembles, in several respects, the Puranas of India, books of ancient religious records and genealogies. The true spirit of the ancient religions, like that of Moses, was a worship of the Divine as “I am that I am,” the Divine Self symbolised by the sun that we find in the Vedas and Upanishads. Behind all the ancient solar religions was this sense of the solar Divinity, the Divine Self of pure light. In this regard we can identify the serpent in the Biblical Garden of Eden with the serpent of the Vedas. The Biblical serpent (Greek ophis) is Vedic AhiVritra, the enemy of Indra. The great Vedic victory of Indra is the destruction of the serpent, which is also the winning of the Soma. The Soma-nectar of immortality is the fruit of the sacred tree, the tree of knowledge, that also grows in the Garden of Eden. The victory of Indra is thus the restoration of the soul of man to the Biblical Garden of Eden, 77 which stands for the pure state of the soul before its identification with the physical body. Nevertheless Frawley does not shirk form going into the political realm where necessary, including a strong critique of the Marxist self-alienation India suffered for almost 50 years after independence, and which prevented Hindu-Jewish symbiosis on the political level: 76 Frawley, Hinduism: The Eternal Tradition, http://www.hindubooks.org/david_frawley/hinduism/sanatana_dharma/page16.htm 77 Frawley, Gods, Sages and Kings, Motilal Banarsidass Publishers, Delhi, 1991, pp.280-1 Hinduism as a religion has no real quarrel with Judaism, though unfortunately modern India under leftist and Islamic influence has not properly supported Israel, though the 78 two countries have many common causes. Familiar with the refrain of accusing any proud Hindu of being Nazis, often by Christian and Islamic groups which themselves have much hypocrisy given their own intolerance, Judeophobia, and in some cases open collaboration with the forces of National Socialism during the last world war in Europe, Frawley then makes an interesting comparison between the hatred known as anti-Semitism, and what may well be its modern equivalent, antiBrahmanism: To condemn the Brahmins as the Indian equivalent of the Western higher classes is very misleading. They have been higher only in education, which is cultivated in Brahmanical families. In this regard the hatred of the Brahmins in India resembles hatred of the Jews in Europe. The Jews like the Brahmins are more educated and higher achievers than other groups and therefore jealousy arises against them, though the Brahmins never achieved an economic power like the Jews. At a masterstroke, Frawley at once demolishes the anti-Semitic allegation of Jews being responsible for Communism, India being dominated by a Brahman elitist caste system, and implicitly castigates both Jews and Hindus who would somehow be ashamed and alienated form their respective ancient cultures: A number of leaders of modern India, like Nehru and his family, were of Brahmin ancestry. This has caused some to perceive a Brahmin dominance of modern India. But these figures were only nominal Brahmins. In fact the rule of the Nehru family implemented antiBrahmin policies, and no one in the Nehru dynasty is a practising Brahmin. We should remember that Karl Marx was a Jew but this does not make communism pro-Jewish. In fact such anti-Brahmin Brahmins are often the most vociferous anti-Brahmins because 79 they are trying to deny their own heritage. It is unfortunate that the present Israeli leadership, and unfortunately large sections of that country’s population infatuated with the peace movement, are following the Nehruvian example of self-alienation. The problem is also acute in the Diaspora. Jewish self-alienation, like its Hindu counterpart, can only be neutralised by a return to the respective cultural and spiritual roots. This does not mean being apolitical in nature, and in this sense, Frawley’s work provides a path in which spiritual, cultural, social and political ideas can be synthesised by all victims of ethnic and ideological imperialism. The Kshatriya mentality must be combined with that of the Brahman, meaning constructive activism emanating from constructive thoughts. In this sense the ideal of an “Intellectual Kshatriya”, to use David Frawley’s own term, is as necessary among Jews, just as it is among Hindus. 78 Frawley, Hinduism: The Eternal Tradition, http://www.hindubooks.org/david_frawley/hinduism/sanatana_dharma/page16.htm 79 Frawley, Awaken Bharata, p.76 François Gautier François Gautier is the South Asia correspondent for Le Figaro, one of France's most respected newspapers. He has lived in India since 1971, and has been associated with Auroville in Pondicherry for much of that time. Unlike many native sons of Bharata, he does not disown the country’s ancient Vedic heritage, but feels a part of it. Gautier has been in the forefront of defending Hinduism from attacks such as reducing it to caste, blaming it for India’s poverty, and allegation that Hindu Dharma is fundamentalist, Fascist, intolerant, and a modern form of Nazism. He is especially concerned that Hindus and India are given very negative coverage in the media, and there is absolutely no academic concern with accepting that the Aryan Invasion Theory of Indian history, has actually been objectively disproved. He uses the example of the Jews to show that Hindus have historically been very tolerant of minorities who can exist in harmony with the host community: Obviously, one of the major causes for India's self-depreciating image are the European invasions. The paradox is that no country in the world as India has shown as much tolerance towards accepting in its fold persecuted religious minorities from all over the planet. Take the Jews, for instance, who have been persecuted and treated as secondclass citizens everywhere after fleeing the destruction of the temple of Jerusalem. In India, not only were they welcomed, but also they were allowed to live and practise their religion peacefully, till most of them went back to Israel after Independence... But it is not only the Jews, but also the Parsis, who fled persecution by the Muslims in Iran, or the Christian Syrians, who landed in India in the 3rd century, or the Arab merchants who from time 80 immemorial were allowed to establish trading posts in Kerala. Yet Hindus are never appreciated for this generosity, but castigated by Western countries, whose own history of anti-Semitism is nothing to be proud of, and for which they can be compared very unfavourably with India: As a foreigner having covered India for 25 years, I am shocked by the ambivalence of our standards when it comes to Hindus. There were 400.000 Hindus in Kashmir in 1947 - and only a few hundreds today. All the rest have been made to flee through terror in the late eighties and early nineties. I remember when Muslim militants would stop buses all over Kashmir and kill all the Hindus, men women and children, none of the foreign correspondents and diplomats protested about human rights the way they are doing now after the Gujarat riots. There are 400.000 Hindus who are refugees in their own land, an ethnic cleansing without parallel in the world. Why are none of us interested in highlighting this fact? Do we know that Hindus themselves have been for centuries the targets of genocide at the hands of Muslim invaders and that today in Bangladesh or Pakistan they are still at risk? In Assam, Tripura, or Nagaland, Hindus are being chased out by Bangladeshi illegal immigrants and terrorized by separatist groups, such as the Bodos or the Mizos, while local governments often turn a blind eye. Are we playing our role, which is to inform, educate our fellow countrymen, who are generally totally ignorant about India? Many of us are using the word "genocide" to describe the riots in Gujarat, or even making comparisons with the Holocaust. But do we tell our readers that Jews in India were never persecuted and lived and prospered in total freedom till most of them went back to Israel? The same cannot be said about my country France, where even today they face problems. We do not care to balance our articles: we take an isolated incident such as the murder of 'Graham Staines' or the riots against Muslims in Gujarat, and we make it look, as it is a whole, telling our 81 readers abroad that Christians and Muslims are persecuted in India. 80 François Gautier, India’s Self-Denial, in Hinduism Today, 1999, http://www.hindu.org/publications/fgautier/selfdenial.html 81 Gautier, Francois Gautier Writes, Hindu Views International, 7 May 2003, http://www.hvk.org/articles/0503/167.html Neutralising the allegation of “genocide” or “Nazi” against Hindus is very important to him: Finally, I would like to tell my Marxist friends that instead of crying themselves hoarse over the BJP's victory in Gujarat, of screaming about the 'saffronisation of India,' or the 'fascist trend set by these results,' they should look at it in a different manner. If this is a Nazi trend, then the millions of Gujarati Hindus: upper and middle class, low castes and tribals, who voted for Narendra Modi, are all Nazis. Yet the Indian voter has always shown that he is smart and that he usually casts his ballot in a certain way because he wants to put across a message. What if Gujarat was the first sign that tolerant, peace-loving Hindus who for centuries have accepted other religions and ethnicities and allowed them to practice and prosper in peace (UNESCO recently released a report saying that out of 128 countries where the Jews lived up to 1948, in only one -- India -- were they not persecuted), are fed-up of being made fun off, sullied, harassed, killed, their temples sprayed with bullets and grenades, their train burnt, their 82 Parliament attacked, their markets blown up, their women raped? Indeed the Jews fared better in India overall than in his native France: If I did not know India, I would tend also to believe what I read about India in the Western press: A nation torn by caste discrimination, poverty, corruption, Hindu extremism and natural calamities. But after living more than 30 years in this country, my experience is totally different: Hindus are probably the most tolerant people in the world - they accept that God manifests Himself under different forms, at different times, according to the needs and mentality of each epoch: Krishna, Christ, Mohammed, Buddha... Thus they always allowed throughout the centuries religious minorities who were victimized in their own countries to settle in India and to prosper and practice their religion: The Syrian Christians, in fact the first Christian community in the world, the Jews, who have been persecuted all over the world (including in my own country France), but were left in peace in India; the Armenians, the Parsis, and today the 83 Tibetans. Gautier himself has visited Israel, happy that tow democratic nations, and two very ancient peoples are finding common cause in the modern world. He again reiterates the complete freedom Jews enjoyed before they made aaliya to Israel: Have you ever taken an El Al flight from Mumbai? The security is drastic: You are asked a hundred questions by young men and women, Indians, but of Jewish origin, whose parents emigrated from the first century onwards after the destruction of the temple of Jerusalem, to find refuge in India where they prospered and lived in peace till many of them went back to Israel in 1948 (indeed, India is probably the only country in the world where Jews have not been persecuted). He explained his reasons for the visit: Why did I visit Israel? Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, the founder of the 144 countries-wide Art of Living movement, had been invited by the Government of Israel, thanks to the efforts of Rabbi Cooper and Dr Balitzer from Wisenthal, US-based foundation. All along our trip Rabbi Cooper and Dr Balitzer proved invaluable. I was tagging along because I have always believed that India and Israel have to come together. For 40 years after Independence, India did not have relations with Israel. Yet, India and Israel have much in common - both can learn a lot from each other. Like Indians, Israelis are one of those "elected people of God" - of whom Sri Aurobindo speaks in his book the Hour of God who have managed to keep their spirituality alive in spite of oppressions, invasions and genocides. Indians and Israelis also share a serious problem with Muslim fundamentalists. And India could learn a few lessons from the way Israel handles this problem, however much it is 82 Gautier, Marxism and the Saffron wave, 20/12/2003, http://www.rediff.com/news/2002/dec/20franc.htm 83 Gautier, Indian Media, in Ouest France, 5/4/2002, http://www.media-watch.org/features/1.html criticised by the Western media. Unlike India, which since Independence has chosen to deal with this problem in the Gandhian spirit, that is, by compromising most of the time with Islamic intransigence (if not giving in); Israel has showed that toughness first, followed by negotiations, pays better. Basically, the concept of "land for money" is something that India could learn from: In 1967, Israel was under threat of getting engulfed by its fanatical neighbours, so it stole the initiative by crushing them in a lightning Six-Day War and kept some land which it used later as bargaining chips with Egypt and Syria. FACT (Forum Against Continuing Terrorism), which I launched this year, was taking to Israel an exhibition on Kashmiri Pandits, one of the biggest genocides of the 20th century at the hands of Islamic terrorism, to see how it could be put up at different places in Israel to create public awareness there. Because of the hostility of Arab countries to Israel, El Al cannot overfly any of them and a journey which should take four hours takes, instead, seven hours, nearly the same time as a flight to Europe. We landed in Tel Aviv early in the morning. Tel Aviv is a modern city on the Mediterranean coast. It is much more relaxed than Jerusalem, as it is less subject than the capital to suicide attacks. People there speak several languages, girls look gorgeous and the affable Indian ambassador, Mr Raminder Jassal, who has done so much to improve Israeli-relations, hosted for Sri Sri Ravi Shankar a gracious meeting with the Indian community in Israel. The drive from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem is short, but the impressions are striking: The landscape is dry, rocky and arid and one wonders whether this land is worth fighting for. But Jerusalem is a beautiful city, perched on a hill, all constructed in white stone. As we arrived, the city was shining against the setting sun of a cool November evening. The King David Hotel, where we stayed, is probably one of the most beautiful hotels in West Asia: Old world, stately and entirely furnished in mahogany. It also has a history of violence, as it once housed British troops and was bombed by Jewish activists. The rooms offer a view of the old city of Jerusalem and everything looked so peaceful. Peaceful? Not really: As soon as you step out, you can feel fear: Suicide bombers can strike any time, anywhere and our security would not even allow our car to stop near a bus, for fear of it being blown up! It is Friday evening and we went to the Wailing Wall on this most holy Shabbat day. It is an impressive sight: Hundreds of young men and women, in ancient velvet black coats and funny fur hats, locks falling one each side, face the wall swaying back and forth while chanting an age old prayer that their forefathers have repeated for centuries. Sri Sri too touched the wall reverentially and concentrated for a few minutes: Two very ancient spiritualities met. Like Koenraad Elst, he finds parallels with the disputed sacred Hindu site in northern India: As in Ayodhya, Muslims have placed their mosque on the most sacred space of the Jews, exactly where their ancient temple was built. The golden mosque stands there as a perpetual taunt, as an unending expression of aggression. After the Seven-Day War, the Israelis control the entire area. But it remains very tense: As a mark of respect to Islam, we want to meditate in the mosque, but we are facing the wrong direction and the imam takes objection when he sees the rishi from India in a dhoti and kurta with long flowing beard and tells our security men that "Infidels" are not allowed to worship there. Luckily there are not many faithful at this time and an incident is avoided. However, if Hindus have ignorance with regard to Israel, Jews and Zionism, the more globalised and “First-World” Israelis also lack some basic facts about Hindus: I was surprised to note that whenever I mentioned Kashmir, neither of our interlocutors blinked: Kashmir did not mean anything to them, although it faces more or less the same problem that Israel does at the hands of the Arabs. Even, Mr Sherenzki, the Deputy Prime Minister, looked blank. That is when I realised that an exhibition on Kashmiri Pandits had to come up and we arranged for two venues, one in Tel Aviv, with the possibility of it coming up also at the Knesset, the Israeli parliament in Jerusalem. We thus left with a sense that so much more has to be done so that Indian and Israel, two ancient people sharing some of the same spiritual, cultural and contemporary problems, really start 84 understanding each other. 84 Gautier, Toughness Pays, from The Pioneer, 29/11/2003, http://www.hvk.org/articles/1103/158.html But Kashmir holds important parallels with the Jews’ own experience, especially in that it led to the existence of the other community that as exterminated by the Nazis for purely racial reasons: The massacre of six million Jews by Hitler and the persecution they suffered all over the world in the last 15 centuries has been meticulously recorded after 1945 and has been enshrined not only in history books, but also in Holocaust museums, the most famous of these being the one in Washington DC. It has not been done with a spirit of vengeance: Look at Israel and Germany today, they are in the best of terms; yet, facts are facts and contemporary Germany has come to terms with its terrible actions during Second World War. Hindus too have suffered a terrible Holocaust, probably without parallel in human history. Take the Hindu Kush, for instance; probably, one of the biggest genocides in the history of Hindus. There has practically been no serious research on the subject or mention in history books. The Hindu Kush is a mountain system nearly 1,000 miles long and 200 miles wide, running north-east to south-west and dividing the Amu Darya valley and the Indus valley. The Hindu Kush has over two dozen summits of more than 23,000 feet and historically its passes, particularly the Khyber, have been of great military significance, for they provide access to the northern plains of India. Most foreign invaders have used the Khyber Pass: Alexander the Great in 327 BC, Mahmud of Ghazni, in 1001 AD; Timur Lane in 1398 AD; and, Nadir Shah in 1739 AD. Yet, in the first millennium before Christ, two major Hindu kingdoms, those of Gandhaar (Kandahar) and Vaahic Pradesh (Balkh of Bactria) had their borders extending far beyond the Hindu Kush. The kingdom of Gandhaar, for instance, was established by Taksha, the grandson of Bharat of Ayodhya, and its borders went from Takshashila (Taxila) to Tashkent (corruption of Taksha Khand) in present day Uzbekistan. In the later period, the Mahabharat speaks of Gandhaari as a princess of Gandhaar and her brother, Shakuni, as a prince and later as Gandhaar's ruler (the last Hindu Shahiya king of Kabul, Bhimapal, was killed in 1026 AD). Then came, in 3rd century BC, Buddhist emperor Kanishka, whose empire stretched from Mathura to the Aral Sea (beyond the present day Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Krygzystan) and under his influence Buddhism flourished in Gandhaar. The two giant Buddha sandstones carved into the cliffs of Bamian, which were destroyed by the Taliban, date from the Kanishka period. In Persian, the word 'Kush' is derived from the verb 'Kushtar' - to slaughter or carnage. Encyclopaedia Americana says of Hindu Kush: "The name means literally 'Kills the Hindu', a reminder of the days when Hindu slaves from Indian subcontinent died in harsh Afghan mountains while being transported to Moslem courts of Central Asia." Encyclopaedia Britannica on its part mentions "that the name Hindu Kush first appears in 1333 AD in the writings of Ibn Battutah, the medieval Berber traveller, who said the name meant 'Hindu Killer', a meaning still given by Afghan mountain dwellers". Unlike the Jewish holocaust, the exact toll of the Hindu genocide suggested by the name Hindu Kush is not available. "However," writes Hindu Kush specialist Srinandan Vyas, "the number is easily likely to be in millions." A few known historical figures can be used to justify this estimate. Encyclopaedia Britannica recalls that in December 1398 AD, Timur Lane ordered the execution of at least 50,000 captives before the battle for Delhi; likewise, the number of captives butchered by Timur Lane's army was about 100,000. Encyclopae-dia Britannica again mentions that Mughal emperor Akbar ordered the massacre of about 30,000 captured Rajput Hindus on February 24, 1568 AD, after the battle for Chitod, a number confirmed by Abul Fazl, Akbar's court historian. Afghan historian Khondamir notes that during one of the many repeated invasions on the city of Herat in western Afghanistan, which used to be part of the Hindu Shahiya kingdoms, "1,500,000 residents perished". "Thus," writes Vyas, "it is evident that the mountain range was named as Hindu Kush as a reminder to the future Hindu generations of the slaughter and slavery of Hindus during the Muslim conquests." Since some of the Muslim conquerors took Indian plainsmen as slaves, a question arises: Whatever happened to this slave population? The startling answer comes from The New York Times (May-June 1993). The Gypsies, who used to be wandering people in Central Asia and Europe since around the 12th century, have been persecuted in almost every country (the Nazis killed 300,000 gypsies in gas chambers). Until now their country of origin could not be identified, as their language has very little in common with the other European languages. Recent studies, however, show that their language is similar to Punjabi and to a lesser degree, Sanskrit. Thus the Gypsies probably originated from the greater Punjab. The time-frame of Gypsy wanderings also coincides with early Islamic conquests; hence, it is most likely their ancestors were driven out of their homes in Punjab and taken as slaves over the Hindu Kush. Why does not the Government of India tell Indian children 85 about the Hindu Kush genocide? So indeed, it is the last 1000 years of Hindu history which can be empathised with: Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists have also suffered a terrible holocaust, probably without parallel in human history. Take the Hindu Kush for instance, probably one of the biggest genocides of Hindus. There is practically no serious research ever done about it and no mention in history books. Yet the name Hindu Kush appears many times in the writings of Muslim chroniclers in 1333 AD Ibn Battutah, the medieval Berber traveller, said the name meant 'Hindu Killer,' a meaning still given by Afghan mountain dwellers. Unlike the Jewish holocaust, the exact toll of the Hindu genocide suggested by the name Hindu Kush is not available. 'However,' writes Hindu Kush specialist Srinandan Vyas, 'the number is easily likely to be in millions.' A few known historical figures can be used to justify this estimate. The Encyclopaedia Britannica recalls that in December 1398 AD, Taimurlane ordered the execution of at least 50,000 captives before the battle for Delhi; likewise, the number of captives butchered by Taimurlane's army was about 100,000. The Britannica again mentions that Mughal emperor Akbar ordered the massacre of about 30,000 captured Rajput Hindus on February 24, 1568 AD, after the battle for Chitor, a number confirmed by Abul Fazl, Akbar's court historian. Afghan historian Khondamir notes that during one of the many repeated invasions on the city of Herat in western Afghanistan, which used to be part of the Hindu Shahiya kingdoms '1,500,000 residents perished.' 'Thus,' writes Vyas, 'it is evident that the mountain range was named as Hindu Kush as a reminder to the future Hindu generations of the slaughter and slavery of Hindus during the Moslem conquests.' Or take the recent plight of the Kashmiri Pandits. Over 400,000 Kashmiri Pandits have been forced to flee their homeland. Many Pandit men, women and children have been brutally murdered. About 70,000 still languish in makeshift refugee camps in Jammu and Delhi. Scores of temples in Kashmir have been desecrated, destroyed, looted, more than 900 educational institutions have been attacked by terrorists. Properties of Pandits have been vandalised, businesses destroyed or taken over, even hospitals have not been spared. Did you know that this huge human tragedy is taking place in Free India? 86 Yet again, unlike the Jews, Hindus refuse to wake up: Why does not the Government of India tell Indian children about the Hindu Kush genocide? The horrors of the Jewish Holocaust are taught not only at schools in Israel and USA, but also in Germany. Because both Germany and Israel consider the Jewish Holocaust a 'dark chapter' in history. Yet, in 1982, the National Council of Educational Research and Training issued a directive for the rewriting of school texts. Among other things it stipulated that: 'characterisation of the medieval period as a time of conflict between Hindus and Moslems is forbidden.' Thus denial of history, or negationism, has become India's official 'educational' policy.87 85 Gautier, Learning from History, in Kashmir Herald, September 2003, http://www.kashmirherald.com/featuredarticle/learningfromhistory.html 86 Gautier, Where is India’s Holocaust Museum?, 21/10/2003, http://us.rediff.com/news/2003/oct/21franc.htm 87 Gautier, I Destroyed the Idols, Killed the Worshippers, 31/10/2001, http://www.vnn.org/editorials/ET0110/ET31-6939.html India should learn form Israel on how to improve its image, especially that of Hindu passiveness: And the saddest thing is that India is so isolated in the world today. The Indian Government sought during this hijack the help of the "Free" World - and what did it get ? Some lip service from the US, even though Bin Laden is their enemy number one and they bombed two camps in Afghanistan in the hope of killing him; or some other lip service from the French, who should know better, having to fight on their own soil the deadly Algerian Islamists; and hardly any sympathy in Asia. It is even sadder that the name "India" evokes no respect today in the world. Small countries, such as Indonesia or Saudi Arabia, can harbour deadly terrorists wanted by India; or bigger nations like Japan, a great war criminal hardly sixty years ago, give India moral lessons, because they all know that India takes things lying down. But look again at the Israelis: like the Indians, they were slaughtered for centuries - in their own land by the Romans and when they were scattered around the world, in pogroms in Russia and Eastern Europe. During the Second World War, six million of them went to Hitler’s gas chambers without even a whimper. But after the war, when the new State of Israel was founded, its leaders decided that enough was enough : henceforth it will be "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth". Every time Arab terrorists struck their land, Israelis would retaliate ruthlessly; and every time the sacred land of Israel was threatened, its army would steal the initiative by invading the enemy’s territory. Today, Israel, a tiny nation surrounded by often hostile Arab countries, is feared and respected not only in the Middle East, but all over the world. India is a much bigger and powerful nation than Israel. It is an ancient civilization, which in spite of fifteen centuries of Muslim conquests and European colonialism, still carries within herself a Knowledge which once roamed the shores of ancient Mesopotamia or Egypt, but which has today disappeared from a world ruled by the dogmas and intolerance of it two monotheist religions. But who will protect this Knowledge from the modern Barbarians ? Who will redeem India’s long battered honour ? Who will stand-up to Islamic terrorism ? 88 Where is the Shivaji of modern India ? The question is not just who will be the modern Shivaji of India, but who will be the modern Shivaji with regard to Israel? Where are the Zealots, the Maccabeans, and the individual who will dare to try and emulate Bar Kochba now that such a person is needed in the Middle East to save Israel form destruction? At the present moment in time even the Intellectual Kshatriya is missing, so what chance is there for the Activist Kshatriya when conditions of war effectively generate the need for such a personality? One searches but does not find the intellectual Bar Kochba or the intellectual Shivaji. That is something very much needed in the present vacuum and mental impasse. 88 Gautier, Where is the Shivaji of Modern India?, 2000, http://www.maxpages.com/hindurashtra/IF_SHIVAJI_MAY_BE_ALIVE Navaratna S Rajaram Dr. Navaratna S. Rajaram was born in Mysore, India in September 1943. He holds a B.E. degree in Electrical Engineering from B.M.S. College in Bangalore and Ph.D. in mathematical Sciences from Indiana University in Bloomington, USA. He has taught and conducted research in mathematics and computer science at several American universities and high technology companies. For more than ten years, he was one of America's best-known workers in Artificial Intelligence and Robotics. He has been an advisor to several high technology companies in America and Europe. He has also been a consultant to NASA. Since 1992, he has been an independent researcher and author working on the history and science of ancient India. His work on Vedic Mathematics, relating it to the history of India, Egypt and Babylon is world-renowned. He is the author of several books on the subject including the highly acclaimed Vedic Aryans and the Origins of Civilization written jointly with the famous American Vedic scholar and historian Dr. David Frawley. His has doen groundbreaking research on the decipherment of the 5000 year-old Indus script jointly with the great Indian Vedic scholar Dr. Natwar Jha. This is recognized as the most important breakthrough of our time in the study of Indian history and culture. In his work there are certain areas where he castigates the traditional Christian church or its attitude towards the Jews: This Pope (John XXIII), …...is held up as a paragon of virtue and liberalism for having called the Second Vatican, where he declared that the Jews were not to be blamed for the persecution and death of Jesus. This is patently absurd for it is the Vatican that was responsible for the death and persecution of thousands-nay millions of Jews from the Inquisition to the Nazi Holocaust. And the latter was facilitated by Pope John’s predecessor, Pope Pius XII’s collaboration with the Nazis for which he has been honoured 89 with the title “Hitler’s Pope.” He is now to be made a saint! In fact his interest in the anti-Semitism present within Christian history goes deeper. While discussing the Dead Sea Scrolls, he has made revealed some amazing facts, linked to ancient Jewish practices at the time: In other words, Jesus of Christianity never existed! The story of Jesus is a later fabrication based on what people wanted their Messiah to be. It should also be noted that many important events of Christianity including the Last Supper and even the Crucifixion have no historical basis. Catholics observe a ceremony called the Lord's Supper as a commemoration of the Last Supper. The Dead Sea Scrolls tell us that the Jews of Qumran used to observe the Lord's Supper a hundred years before the birth of Christianity. This means that the story of the Last Supper is a dramatization of this ancient Jewish practice. The Scrolls, long suppressed by the Catholic church, contain references to a Messiah like redeemer who will heal the sick, resurrect the dead, and bring glad tidings: The Gospels of course attribute all these to Jesus the Messiah (Christ). In summary, the whole of Christianity, including the story of the crucifixion of Jesus is a later fabrication, created to gain support of the Roman Empire. This reached its culmination when Constantine gave recognition to Christianity as an official religion in 325 AD, and Theodosius, later, banned all forms of public worship other than the Christian. With this, the pluralistic Roman Empire became a narrow theocracy that soon plunged Europe into a 1000-year Dark Age, like what Muslims did to India. 89 NS Rajaram, Mother Teresa's Saintly Companions, 26/10/2003, I Organiser, http://www.mailarchive.com/goanet@goanet.org/msg05830.html So it was not the Roman Empire that became Christian, but Christianity that became the Roman Empire by turning against the Jews who founded it. St. Paul, the real founder of Christianity was a Hellenized Jew, a rich and privileged Roman citizen who hated fellow Jews. He was like the Indian Secularists today who hate Hindus and Hinduism. He and his successors fabricated large parts of the New Testament to destroy the Jews of Palestine who were in a constant state of rebellion against the Romans. The mythical Jesus was created to facilitate this process. Paul was a Roman agent. Sure to raise eyebrows, are his ideas on the New Testament: The fact that the Gospels are a later fabrication by authors who were agents of the Roman Empire becomes clear upon examining their language and content. (This is why they praise the bloodthirsty Roman tyrant Pilate as a compassionate man and blame the innocent Jews for killing Jesus).90 Jesus in fact may never have even existed. There were many would be Jewish messiahs and wandering preachers in that period who called themselves ‘Christ’. Examining the writings of the Roman historian Tacitus, who mentions the execution of such a figure calling himself “Christ”, during the reign of Tiberius, Rajaram finds anti-Semitism right from the genesis of what can be called Christianity: …if this ‘Christ’ was indeed Jesus, he was guilty of violating Roman law and was executed by the Romans for it; next the Jews had nothing to do with his death. But the Gospels distorted all this by blaming the Jews for killing their ‘Son of God’! So the Gospel version of Jesus and his history are both pure fiction. The Jews have been made to pay a terrible price for this fabrication. They have been the victims of persecution for nearly two 91 thousand years, culminating in the Nazi genocide fifty years ago. In another analysis, Rajaram castigates India’s post-1947 leadership for continuing with an elitist, one could say even indigenous colonialist outlook, and trying to destroy India’s Vedic heritage all in the name of something sinister, which they call “secularism”. This depressing state of affairs and the use of “secularism” to stop all sensible debate on any matter, originated with the first prime minister of India himself. This proved to be very disastrous and ironically, given the positive experience of Jews in India for 2000 years, gave an anti-Semitic thrust to India’s anti-Hindu foreign and domestic policies: Who was it that gave this mantra? Not Gandhi, but that inveterate Hindu-hater Nehru. In a letter to Dr. Rajendra Prasad (November 17, 1953) Nehru wrote: “The Hindu is certainly not tolerant and is certainly more narrow minded than almost any person in any other country except the Jew.” This was the man in whom the overwhelming majority of people in India reposed their trust! It was not just Hindus that he despised, but also the Jews. No wonder his foreign policy was pro-Arab and anti-Israel – a policy that ill-served the nation.92 Perhaps India can now take a more Hindu orientation and do something positive after the waste of 50 years. The visit of Ariel Sharon and the meeting he had with Vajpayee was certainly a positive step in forgetting the embarrassing legacy of Comrade Nehru. 90 Rajaram, Christ And Christianity In The Year 2000, 8/1/1999, http://www.swordoftruth.com/swordoftruth/archives/byauthor/navaratnarajaram/cacity2000.html 91 Rajaram, A Hindu View of the World, Voice of India, New Delhi, 1998, pp.125-6 92 Ibid., p.185 Jay Dubashi Jay Dubashi, originally form Goa, is a member of the Bharatiya National Party’s National Executive. He has combined careers in journalism, writing and an economist. At one point he worked with Krishna Menon in London, but became disillusioned with the Marxism and Nehruvian socialism that was ruining India and her Hindu culture. His writngs often compare the situation of Hindus with that of Jews, and he writes of Jewish affairs, when he touches upon them, in positive light. He also demonstrates an unusually good understanding of Zionism for an Indian Hindu writer. He has explained that like pre-1948 Jews who yearned for their own state, Hindus have similar aspirations: Replace Jews with Hindus, and you will see why the Hindus are angry. They too, believe that they are being denied their nationhood – and like the Jews, they will not rest content until they achieve it. This, in a nutshell, is the reason why the Hindus are angry – though, if they delve deep enough, they will find that they themselves are largely responsible for their present predicament.93 Unlike Jewish organisations, Hindu groups are still caught up in irrelevant spirituality: Where, perhaps, the Hindu organisations have gone slightly off at a tangent is I overstressing the religious basis of the new Hindu consciousness. The angry Hindu of today is not necessarily a pious Hindu; just as angry Einstein was not a pious Jew. He was a political Jew; just as the present crop of angry Hindus are political Hindus. There is a difference, a most crucial difference, that is not appreciated by those who know Hindus only at second remove. Hindus in India have been politicised because, like the Jews before the War, they feel they are being denied their nationhood. This new breed of political Hindus do not go to temples, have not perhaps even seen a Shankaracharya in person, could not recite Gayatri mantra even if they tried, but, nonetheless, are Hindus who believe that India is a Hindu nation that must be home to every Hindu anywhere and where Hindus must be 94 respected, just as Christians are respected in Europe and the Jews in Israel. If being Jewish can be a poltical manifestation, then so can Hindus: Look at the Jews. If you ask a Jew – any Jew whether American, French, British or Israeli – if he is a Jew, he says proudly that he is a Jew. Albert Einstein was born in Germany but had to take several nationalities, including Swiss, before he was thrown out of Germany by Hitler’s thugs and fled to the United States where several years later he became an American citizen. But he did not cease to be a Jew, not in the religious sense – for he was for all practical purposes an atheist and rarely visited a synagogue – but in a political sense. Hindus should emulate the example of Zionism: Einstein was a political Jew and he called himself a Zionist to differentiate himself from religious or ritualistic Jews. When I say India is a Hindu nation, I use the word in its political connotation. I am a Hindu, but I am much more, just as Einstein was a Jew, but he was much more. I am a political Hindu. They coined the word “Zionist”, to distinguish political from pious Jews: We do not have such a word yet, but until then the word Hindu will do. He then makes an interesting comparison with Judeophobia: 93 Jay Dubashi, The Angry Hindus are Political Hindus, in Probe India, November 1987, from Jay Dubashi, The Road to Ayodhya, Voice of India, New Delhi, 1992, p.1 94 Ibid., p.2 As I have said before, a Hindu is anyone who says he is a Hindu. If he says he is not a Hindu, he is not a Hindu. There are some who say, “I am a Hindu, but ….” These are what I call Buttist Hindus, men who are ashamed to call themselves Hindu but are not frank enough to admit that they are ashamed. Such people are worse than Hindus. They are like anti-Semites who go about saying that some of their best friends are Jews. There can be no ifs and buts in my definition. You are a Hindu or you are not. And if you are not, you 95 should be bold enough to say so, which Nehru never was. Like the Jews, Hindus are more than just a religion: “What are we?” asked a famous writer recently, himself a Jew, reviewing a book on the Jews. “What are we, a race, a religion, a culture or a civilisation?” He ended up by saying that the Jews were all this and more; but they were essentially a nation. We Hindus are like the Jews as I have often said in this column as well as elsewhere. We are a race; we are, of course, a religion, we are a culture and we are a civilisation. But we are also something more; we are a nation. The trouble is that you cannot separate these various elements, for they are inseparable. All the elements have got fused into one entity, and that entity is the nation. This can be very confusing, because there are nations which are neither a race, nor a religion, nor a civilisation, yet they are nations. Both France and Germany are catholic countries but they are different nations. The Jews did not have a common territory until recently and speak many languages, but they are a nation, thought they share different cultures. To me, the most important thing about the 96 Hindus is not their religion, but the fact that they are a nation. Calling all Hindus, who are politically active as Hindus, “communal” would seem farcical if applied to Jews: Take Einstein. He was the most Jewish of Jews but nobody said that he was communal. After he was virtually thrown out of Nazi Germany by Hitler and his gangsters, he devoted a great deal of his time to Jewish problems, participating in Jewish politics, and was so Jewish that when Israel became free, he was invited to become the first president of the new nation. There were many attempts to deny Einstein his Nobel Prize on the pretext that he was a Jew, not an ordinary Jew, but a political Jew, and therefore, one to be feared by Christians, who dominated, as they do now and have always done, the Nobel Prize committee. This was a silly argument, but not sillier than the communist argument 97 against Hindu organisations. 95 96 Dubashi, Who is a Hindu?, in The Telegraph, 10/7/1990, in Ibid., p.6 Dubashi, The Guilty Men, in Organiser, 2/7/1989, from Ibid., p.67 97 Dubashi, If the Communists Seize Power, 25 October 1987, in Organiser, from Ibid., p.142 Arun Shourie Arun Shourie is among India's best known commentators on current and political affairs. By his distinctive writing, conscientiously independent perspective with rigorous analysis and meticulous research, he has taken scholarship to new areas. He has been an economist with the World Bank and a consultant to the Planning Commission, and Editor of the Indian Express. His writings have gained him a vast following across the country, as well as several national and international honours. There are some areas where his writing has relevance to this study. In his classic 1995 World of Fatwas, he explains aspects of the growth of Muslim identity in its early years during the time of the Prophet: That the quest has not been an inner-directed one and that there have been all these apprehensions have led to one predictable result: the entire emphasis has been on externals, on the uniform to be worn, so to say. Here too several factors have combined to convert this emphasis into a fixation, and to give it a peculiarity. In the doctrinal sphere from the beginning there had been the charge of Israeliyat – the charge, namely, that the revelations were just regurgitations of Jewish and Christian legends. Accordingly, from the days of the Prophet himself there has been the anxiety to always show that they are different, to insist that they are different. In the world of affairs and men too the same anxiety surfaced, and from the very beginning. Islam was a late-comer, the people already professed some creed or the other, they belonged to and in fact were strongly rooted in some community or the other – in Mecca and Medina at the time of the Prophet, and in every land it conquered later on. Therefore, there has been the anxiety, indeed the compulsion to make them different. No sooner did his power get consolidated in Medina that the Prophet began ensuring that the believers did things differently – the Qiblah was 98 changed from Jerusalem r the Kaba, the festivals and holidays were altered. It was this conscious rejection of all things that Jewish that lay the foundations of Islamic anti-Semitism: As is well known, when the Prophet and his Companions first came to Medina he directed that they bow towards Jerusalem in their prayers, that is Jerusalem was prescribed in the Qiblah. Jewish holidays and festival days were adopted and prescribed fort he faithful. Once the power of the Prophet had been consolidated the faithful were commanded to 99 stop bowing towards Jerusalem and to bow towards the Kaba in Mecca instead. This began to relate to very petty matters: A Jew died. His people were weeping. The Prophet saw them. He said that the dead suffer torment in the grave if his people weep over his death. He therefore forbade believers from weeping audibly over the dead. Similarly, whenever the Prophet accompanied a bier he would not sit down till the bier was lowered into the grave. One day a learned Jew happened to pass by. Addressing the Prophet he exclaimed, “O Muhammad, we also do the same.” The Prophet at once sat down and told the Companions , “Do the opposite of what they do.”100 Interesting comparisons are made with the Third Reich: Just as Muslims were to define their identity by doing things in ways contrary to the ways of the Kafirs, the latter were to do those things which would put them, their cared places in particular at the mercy of Muslims. They were to do things which would mark their inferiority, the equivalent of Jews being asked by the Nazis to wear the Star of David. The 98 99 Arun Shourie, World of Fatwas, Harper Collins India, New Delhi, 1995, p.108 Ibid., p.615 100 Ibid., p.614 Ulema urged the Muslim rulers most persistently that such regulations be adopted, and 101 enforced. True friendship is therefore never fully on the cards: Jews and Christians are Ahl-i-Kitab, true, rules, Mufti Kifayatullah. If per chance one eats with them then there is no harm. But to keep up relations with them beyond necessity and to establish relations of eating-drinking is not correct. For there is the apprehension of injury to Din. The Quran does not say that one must have any relations with Kafirs, Kifayatullah rules stretching the point to accommodate the times, just that one should not associate with them to the harm of Islam. The Prophet himself once inquired if the gift from the goat which had been sacrificed had been sent to the Jewish neighbour; he bought and sold from the Kafirs who stayed in Dar-ul-harb. The essence of the mater, Kifayatullah says, is that to maintain friendship and love with them so far as the liking for their religion is concerned – that is haram. And what is jaiz is only that kind of meeting with them, only those kinds of commercial relations with them which are required for living as neighbours to fulfil social and cultural necessities. These rulings may sound a bit severe to 102 us but in fact they are the most moderate of the rulings. To conclude Shourie offers a warning to Hindu society, but this is one which would easily resonate with concerned and aware Jewish sections of Israel also: The ideology is premised not just on the belief that believers are eternally separate from, and eternally superior to non-believers. It is premised on eternal hostility between the two. Fanaticism and terrorism, aggression are inevitable results of this world-view. Accordingly, the ideology makes it well-nigh impossible for Muslims to live peaceably in societies on which Muslims are just one of several communities. Indeed it makes it impossible for an Islamic state to live peaceably in a world where there are non-Islamic states also. The Ulema, of course hold fast to that ideology today. But their doing so has deep consequences both within the multi-religious societies in which Muslims live, and in other countries: their aggressiveness has fomented a deep reaction among the Hindus in India for instance; and their “wars of liberation”, their terrorism are waking even Europe and the US to the danger which the ideology constitutes. given time, therefore, the ideology will undercut itself as surely as Marxism-Leninism did. But to wait for it do so will inflict incalculable suffering on the country as well as on the 103 Muslims themselves. To pluck a phrase of Lenin: we must give history a helping hand. 101 102 Ibid, p.139 Ibid., p.174 103 Ibid., p.655 Suhas Majumdar Suhas Majumdar was born in 1937, in what is now Bangladesh. He teaches mathematics in a Calcutta college, but has written on the subject of Islamic holy war on infidels, as his own Bengali Hindu community has been a victim of this, not only sine the atrocity of Naokhali in 1946, or even up to this day, but right form the dawn of Islamic imperialism in India. His main work in this regard I Jihad: The Islamic Doctrin of Permanent War, in 1994. Very early on he states something which will make peacenik Israelis and naïve Leftist Jews feel very uncomfortable: Mass-slaughter of Jews in jihad is eminently permissible, as the subsequent chapters will 104 show. One thinks of how the Nazis looted gold from the victims of the Holocaust when understanding the career of Islam: The reader should know that early Islam became prosperous by destroying one by one the Jewish settlements around Medina and wresting their land and goods and women and children as plunder. A hadis refers to this practice of spoliation with absolute candour and 105 incidentally brings out the theory of wholesale Islamisation of humanity. Muhammad appears to have had the annihilation of the Jews in mind from the beginning: The generosity shown by the Prophet to his kinsmen in Mecca was not matched by anything in relation to the Jews of Medina, nor, for that matter of that, to any Jewish tribe of Arabia. Actually, the Prophet’s uniformly stringent measures adopted against the Jews contrasted most signally with his leniency towards the Arabs. To account for the contrast, D.S. Margoliouth credits the Prophet with being a “champion of the national idea” of the Arabs when he massacred the Jews without mercy.” Whatever the explanation, the Prophet’s treatment of the Jews brings out a most important body of Sunnah connected with one aspect of jihad, namely, “making slaughter in the land”.106 Using authentic hadith, Majumdar explains what happened: The Prophet laid siege to the stronghold of Banu Kuraizah, who were starved into suing for submission. The Jews offered to face banishment leaving their property behind. The Prophet did not agree. They appealed for mediation by the Arab tribe of Aus of which they were clients. The Prophet agreed to this and asked the Ausite chief, Sa’d bin Mua‘z, to administer judgement. Sa’d pronounced the verdict in the name of Allah. All male members of the Kuraizah (barring children) were to be put to death, their women and children were to be sold into slavery, and their property was to be distributed among Muslims. The Prophet praised Sa’d as having “adjudged the case with the judgement of God, the Exalted and Glorified”. The slaughter of Banu Kuraizah sheds a lurid light on the early annals of Islam. A big pit was dug in the market place of Medina, and 800 Jews (according to Muir’s calculation) were brought down, chained and manacled, to be beheaded in cold blood. The Prophet himself presided over the massacre. The able-bodies prisoners were brought in companies of five or six, seated in a row on the brink of the pit, and beheaded in a leisurely manner, their bodies being cast into the pit. A woman whose husband had just perished, admitted to having killed a Muslim by throwing a big stone during the siege and, having refused the gift of life granted to the enslaved womenfolk, was promptly despatched at her own request. Her smiling face as she stepped forward for execution is said to have haunted the Prophet’s child-wife Ayesha to the end of her days. The Kuraizah 104 105 Suhas Majumdar, Jihad: The Doctrine of Permanent War, Voice of India, New Delhi, 1994, p.16 Ibid., p.32 106 Ibid., p.42 showed single courage in facing death, but for Islam the punishment meted out to them merely constituted the canonical precedent for “making slaughter in the land”. He also comments on how few western scholars will touch this genocide of Arabia’s Jews with a barge pole: It must be mentioned that barring Muir few European scholars have found fault with the Prophet for the gruesome murder of the men of Banu Kuraizah. According to D.S. Margoliouth “Those who had taken part openly with invaders of Medina could not very well be permitted to remain there. To banish them was unsafe; to permit them to remain was yet more dangerous. Hence they must die….And since it would appear that the Kuraizah had turned against the Prophet merely because he was in extreme danger, their fate, horrible as it was, does not surprise us. If they had not succeeded in harming him, they had manifested the will do so.” More recently a French scholar, Maxime Rodinson, has defended the Prophet in stronger language. As he puts it, “from a purely political point of view, the massacre was an extremely wise move. The chosen solution was undeniably the best.” The Muslim apologist Syed Amir Ali too has defended the Prophet. He argues that as the Jews themselves had wanted the Ausites to arbitrate, no question of blaming the Prophet can possibly arise. However, even if they ignore fact, and fact that are recorded by accepted orthodox Islamic opinion at that, they fool only themselves into believing that they are somehow immune form the same fate. The massacre of the Jewish tribe in Medina was only the beginning: It is not necessary to comment on these judgements pronounced by latter-day critics. But the reader must be reminded of one thing even at the risk of tiresome repetition. To the devout followers of Islam, the massacre of Banu Kuraizah is part of the Prophet’s Sunnah. It is not as if the matter ended with the slaughter that took place in 627 AD in the market place of Medina. Over the centuries, the mujahids have been inspired by this part of the Sunnah to emulate the Prophet in similar massacres of the infidels. Timur at Delhi, th towards the close of the 14 century, followed the Prophet’s seventh century exploit at medina by murdering in cold blood one hundred thousand Hindu prisoners captured by him during his prolonged jihad. A devout follower of the Koran and Sunnah he “made slaughter in the land” rather than seek ransom for his helpless victims. It is not the 800 Jews of Medina, but the millions of infidels slaughtered in subsequent centuries that’s houdl make us pause and reflect. Not only that. Those who defend the Prophet should reflect on the fate of the millions of infidels for whose heads the mujahids knife is being 107 sharpened in all Islamic countries right at this moment. The plunder of innocent Jews was necessary to fuel the growing jihad machinery of Muhammad: The first gainful exploit of Muslims was the victory of Badr. But the plunder obtained therefrom, though opulent, was not considerable enough to feed the growing Muslim population indefinitely. It seems to be this consideration above any other which actuated the Prophet for extirpating the thriving Jewish settlements around Medina and attaching their property to the nascent Islamic state. It has been argues that the Jews themselves had behaved treacherously with him. But if “all earth belongs to Allah and his Prophet” such a rationalisation is hardly necessary. In any event, after the victory of Badr the Jewish tribes of medina started being prey to the Prophet’s repeated assaults. Banu Nainuka was the first tribe to be thrown out. This event occurred close on the heels of Badr. After the reverse a Uhud (625 AD), it was the turn of the Banu Nazir to be banished. Banu Kuraizah, as mentioned earlier, were exterminated after the Battle of Ahzab (627 AD). All these were Jewish tribes of Medina. The very next year saw the raid upon Khaibar (628 AD), that is, on the Jews who resided far from Medina. They were retained in their settlements on condition of tilling their own lands and paying half their produce to the Islamic state. This seems to be the first 107 Ibid., pp42-5 imposition of jizyah in the history of Islam. The extirpation or subjugation of Jews in all 108 these cases was followed by extirpation of vast amounts of ghanimah (plunder). It should always be remembered that this ethnic cleansing was expressly ordered by Islamic scriptures, something which modern apologists are very keen to deny: Is expulsion of non-Muslims from countries conquered by Islam a tenet of jihad? The question is important, for a whole chapter of the Koran is concerned with this very topic. Surah 59 of the Koran is entitled Hashr which in plain English means ‘banishment’. The surah refers to the expulsion of the Jewish tribe of Banu Nazir from Medina in early 625 AD. As mentioned earlier, the Jewish tribes of medina were the first victims of early Islam’s plundering expeditions. Banu Kainuka was despoiled and banished in 624 AD. The enxt year (625 AD) saw the banishment of Banu Nazir. Banu Kuraizah was exterminated in 627 AD. These acts of spoliation and mass-slaughter are celebrated in the 109 Hadis literature with unbounded pride and exultation. Majumdar then offers a stark warning to the West, particularly regarding its pestering of Israel, without understanding the precarious position of the Jewish state: The decline of the West, of which Spengler wrote, is nowhere so evident as in its total indifference to the Islamic doctrine of jihad, and in the absolute neglect of its duty to confront such a creed intellectually while broadcasting over the whole world its pernicious implications. Thanks to the money-power of the oil rich Arab countries, Islam has spread its tentacles to the farthest point of the globe, and is making known its intention of worlddomination in no uncertain terms. The intellect of the West looks at the spectacle, benumbed and fascinated, sometimes breaking into loud acclamations as to the glory that is Islam, and sometimes mumbling in incoherent protests against its “fundamentalism”. As Nirad Chaudhury has pointed out, this division of Islam into two variants – the one Fundamentalist and the other Liberal – is the result of “either ignorance or repulsive hypocrisy”. Whatever else may get liberalised, jihad cannot; and the West’s failure to understand the true nature of the current Islamic Revival must be recognised as the most colossal failure of the present epoch. It is against the background of this failure that a great many contemporary events have to be judged: the West’s prevarication with the events in Bosnia or Kashmir; its impatience with Israel in its life-and-death struggle in surroundings where a single false step could spell its destruction; and, coming to a lower plane, the Prince of Wales’s breaking out into singing the glory of Islam from a public 110 platform. 108 109 Ibid., pp.47-8 Ibid., p.76 110 Ibid., pp.66-7 Abhas Chatterjee Abhas Chatterjee was born in 1942, and read his MA from Formerly one of the top civil servants with the state of incompetence, corruption and bankruptcy brought about Nehruvain Marxism. His book 1995 The Concept of comparisons with Jewish nationality: the University of Delhi in 1963. Bihar, he resigned at the utter by the anti-Hindu policies of Hindu Nation, makes several We Hindus are a nation just as the Germans are a nation, the Armenians are a nation, the Kurds are a nation, the Jews are a nation. Look at the German nation. Their traditional homeland was divided into two. But this did not abate their nationhood. Within a mere fifty years, they achieved re-unification of their homeland and the nation was restored to its original complexion. As for the Jewish nation, they had in fact completely lost hold of their motherland. For nearly 2000 years they remained separated from their traditional homeland. But even that did not cause extinction of the nationhood of the Jews. The Jews remained a nation and despite so much of persecution and tyranny, they re-established their own state in their traditional homeland after 2000 years. The Hindus too have remained a nation, no matter who managed to rule over our homeland during the last millennium, The quintessence of the nation has remained intact. Its substance and entity 111 have remained intact. He uses the example of Israel on how India should be a Hindu state: Israel is the land of the Jewish nation. It has seven per cent Arab population who are Muslims. In India, Muslims are 11% of the population, not very much more than in Israel. In Israel too, these Arabs have been granted full rights of a citizen, full freedom also to follow their religion. But they are regarded as a minority, not as part of the Jewish nation. It is not considered necessary to consult these Arabs on how the affairs of the Jewish nation would be conducted. We too need some carroty of thought as to what would be the poetical role of the people who are not within the pale of the Hindu nation. Their status can be that of minorities only, not of nationals. We would need to form a realistic assessment of their viewpoint, we would have to recognise their attitudes and aspirations on the basis 112 of realism. In cases of violent anti-Semitic incidents, Israel is never afraid to make its voice heard on the matter. This contrasts with India, which keeps silent when Hindus are raped or massacred, and as such cannot be called a Hindu state: There is no State today, certainly not India, to protect Hindu interests in the international arena, to raise voice for the Hindus. If Jews are unjustly treated in any part of the world, the State of Israel, representative of an independent Jewish nation, immediately raises it voice. Recently when some Jews were killed in a bomb explosion in Argentina, the Government of Israel took less than an hour to announce that it will not spare the murderers. But what is the situation of Hindus? In December 1992, no less than 600 Hindu temples were destroyed in Bangladesh, thousands of Hindu homes were burnt down, hundreds of Hindu women were paraded naked on the streets of Bhola town, a number of Hindus were killed, Hindu shops were looted, Hindu deities were desecrated, Hindu girls were dishonoured. But the Government of India remained silent. In Pakistan, 300 temples were destroyed. In Lahore a Minister of Pakistan personally supervised the pulling down of a temple with the help of bulldozers, and several Hindus were murdered. But the Government of India remained silent. No matter how much tyranny, how much injustice is heaped on Hindus anywhere in the world, the State of India is not bothered – 113 this is the essence of Secularism of the Indian State. 111 112 Abhas Chatterjee, The Concept of Hindu Nation, Voice of India, New Delhi, 1995, p.6 Ibid., p.30 113 ibid., p.42 Arvind Ghosh Until his death in 2002, Arvind Ghosh was a leading Hindu scholar and is currently a major publisher of books on the Hindu religion and history. Born in Dacca (now in Bangladesh) and brought up in Calcutta, he graduated from the University of Calcutta in 1944. He was originally from Bengal, but lived during the later part of his life in Texas. Ghosh was a naturalized U.S. citizen and travelled widely throughout Asia, Europe and America. He spoke many languages and wrote frequently in the renowned New Delhi Organiser. Many of his writings have been translated and appeared in the Hindi 'Vir Arjun' and Urdu 'Rozana Pratap' both of New Delhi and the Bengali 'Swastika' of Calcutta. He was a keen supporter of Israel and close co-operation between Jews and Hindus. As with many others, he elucidated on the favourable conditions Jews found in Hindu India, and contrasted this with less another minority who refused to be assimilated or live in harmony with the host community: It is not surprising that theologically the two religions, Judaism and Hinduism, have differences but unlike Mohammedanism and Christianity (specially Catholicism) there is no conflict between the two, as far as mutual conduct goes. The two religions were born and nurtured in totally different geographical and historical backgrounds and circumstances, one in what we know now as Israel and the other on the Indian subcontinent, with a distance of thousands of miles in between. It is well known that those Jews who had settled down in India, thousands of years ago, were treated gently and there never was any kind of persecution of the Jews under the Hindus, just as among two civilized peoples. On the other hand, when the Mohammedans came to India, a great upheaval took place throughout the land by virtue of the unethical code of conduct of the Mohammedans. The Mohammedans' proclivity toward Intolerance, Slaughter, Loot (or Anfal), Arson and Molestation of women of the enemy, came to be known as ISLAM. While the numbers of Jews killed over the centuries of persecution has actually been underestimated, Hindus get no mention at all: It is not correct to say that the Jews had lost only six and a half million of their people during the second world war. That number is only a small part of the total number the Jewish people have lost over the long period of their existence. That figure does not take into account the millions slaughtered during the period of the Inquisition in Spain and Portugal under Catholic suzerainty and before that under Moorish occupation of Andalusia or the decimation of Jewish life and property that had gone on for centuries under the Ottomans and Mohammedans of all hues in North Africa. It has become a fashion today to talk of 'ethnic cleansing'. No one has kept a precise record of the number and ways in which the Jewish people were annihilated throughout Islamic rule as a sequel to the 'ethnic cleansing, kidnapping, hostage taking for ransom and so on', started by the prophet of Islam in the entire Arabian peninsula and later continued by the various Caliphs, in other lands. It does not take too much imagination to evaluate the damage done to the Jewish people over the years by the Mohammedans and Catholics. Similarly, on the Indian subcontinent as well, the slaughter has been immense. The few million dead during the partition of India and Pakistan is nothing in comparison to the number slaughtered by the Mohammedans when they first attacked India. An entire Himalayan range earned the epithet of HINDU KUSH (in other words, where Hindus were slaughtered en masse by Moslems). An estimate by Swami Vivekananda himself evaluated the number of Hindus slaughtered by Mohammedans during the Sultanate days was more than 60 million, and that figure did not take into account the numbers killed in the HINDU KUSH RANGE of the Himalayas. There are certain reasons why such atrocities are barely mentioned: We must not lose sight of the fact that among the Jews, as well as among the Hindus, there are many who suffer from a myopia that prevents them from perceiving the sufferings of their own people. And thus we have inexplicable conduct of the editors of papers like the NY Times, etc. Many of course work under the compulsion of Arab oil money! Yet there are very basic methods in which the two peoples can help each other out of the present impasse: However, it must be said that intellectually, education-wise and in many other ways, the Jews today stand at a very high level of competence and effectiveness. But their numbers are small. The Hindus, on the other hand, still have the superiority of numbers but nothing more. Under such circumstances, the only way the Jews and the Hindus can come to a meaningful cooperation is to lend Jewish technical know-how to the Hindus while the Hindus should provide the right kind of man power to the Jews along with raw materials. Certain factors need to be addressed before that can happen: But that cannot be realized as long as India is ruled by traitors and Jews are divided internally by the left and the right ideologues. The gigantic problems that the Jews have on their hands prevent them from rendering any kind of help to the Hindus. In India, on the other hand, the people are misguided by ill-equipped leaders. Otherwise how can one explain the influx of 20 million B'deshi Mohamedans over several years and the Hindu leaders never even murmured. How come Hindus are being driven away from Kashmir and not a single KASHMIR DAY was observed to bring the matter to the attention of Hindus all over India that a part of their country was being savaged by the Mohammedans? In this country, for instance, the US government instituted the YELLOW RIBBONS at the time when Khomeini's men were busy hostage taking, to inform the general public of what was going on in Iran! Both the Berlin Wall and the Ayodhya mosque were symbols of foreign intrusion and both were brought down by ordinary men and women by their hands and hammers. The Hindu leadership of India failed to draw the analogy between the two cases. Thus we had international acclamation for the fall of the Berlin Wall and world-wide curse for the Ayodhya demolition and the top Hindu leader, Advani even resigned from his post of leadership of the BJP after the demolition of 114 Ayodhya Mosque built by Babar. In India itself, the small Jewish minority followed the harmonious examples of earlier peoples in assimilating with the mainstream, in stark contrast to Islamic invaders and their converts: Even as it is, Moslem minorities are difficult to assimilate in the national mainstream of a country. The Arab financial and ideological support has made the task still more difficult. In India for instance, the Moslems were not the first foreigners to come and settle down in the country. In earlier times, the Greeks, the Scythians, the Kushans and the Huns had also come to India as invaders. By the time the Moslem invaders arrived, all these erstwhile foreigners had been fully assimilated in the native population and their cultures synthesized with the indigenous culture of India. There never was a Greek or Scythian or Kushan or Hun minority problem in India. On the other hand, the Zoroastrians or Parsees came to seek refuge in India when the Moslem invaders attacked Persia and started wide-spread loot, arson and murder. The whole of Persia was forcibly Islamised and only those who could escape such as the ancestors of present-day Parsees of India, survived. The Parsees have remained a distinct minority group with their own characteristic culture. The Jewish minority of India had kept its racial and cultural identity intact for nearly two thousand years. There never was any problem between these groups and the native population of India, the Hindus. It is not necessary therefore for different racial groups to get assimilated or for different cultures to get synthesised before they can live in peaceful coexistence. It is only when a culture is intolerant, exclusive and aggressive that peaceful coexistence becomes impossible. 114 Arvind Ghosh, Jew-Hindu Relations, 1 April 2001, http://www.swordoftruth.com/swordoftruth/archives/byauthor/aghosh/jhr.html In his classic The Koran and the Kafir, Ghosh makes it plain what his arguments are, and explains the agenda of fundamentalist Islam, and its affinity to Nazism, which Israel and the West prefer to ignore: Hitler had written his autobiography Mein Kampf many years before he became Germany's Chancellor. His philosophy and plans were clearly spelled out in his book in all seriousness. He did not hide the fact that his mortal enemy was France, that he desired to annihilate the entire Jewish people, that he wanted to expand the Reich or the German state by taking over Eastern Europe, that he considered the communists the scum of the earth. His objectives were not hidden from the public; anyone interested in finding out the true nature and the implications of Hitler's objectives was free to do so from his open book. But most did not even bother to read his book and thus remained ignorant of many facts concerning them. The few who did, were not heeded to. As a result, disaster after disaster followed; millions died before the world woke up. At terrible cost to humanity, Hitler was eventually overthrown. The Koran's exhortations to the believers to annihilate the kafirs, to confiscate their land and property, to enslave their women and children are for anyone who cares to read the book. The 'jihad' or the holy war is supposed to be waged incessantly until all the kafirs are decimated and the whole earth taken over by the followers of Islam. The methods have been amply illustrated throughout history. The Crusades, the annihilation of the Armenians, the Jews and the Bengali Hindus in East Pakistan are well-known. There is no reason to believe that the objectives of Islam have undergone any modification in recent years. Islam denies any means to its followers to purify itself. It is considered to be in a state of purification achieved by the prophet and all the measures of purification are already enunciated in the Koran and the Hadis, Islam's holy books. Thus Islam forbids any reformation of the prophet's religion. Reformers are forbidden in Islam. The injunctions of the Koran are final and will remain valid for ever and the believers must surrender themselves to its dictates as explained by the mullah in power, Khomeini or anyone else. Power is the key word. The treatment of the Jews under Islam was not a golden age, but one of hell, which other nonMuslims also suffered: On the other hand, no country where Islam has attained unrivalled power, has allowed any non-Islamic minority to survive. The Jews and the Christians were given the status of 'zimmis' by the prophet himself. But what has happened to them in the lands of their birth? The Jews have been finally cleaned up from all Islamic countries. The Christian minorities that managed to survive in Egypt and Lebanon are having a very hard time at the hands of the latest wave of Islamic fundamentalists supported by the oil-wealth. There are no Zoroastrians in Iran any more. The Baha'is are being butchered openly there today. The Hindus of Bangladesh are being herded and hounded out. The Sikhs, Hindus and Christians of Pakistan have already been reduced to microscopic minorities, well on their way to complete extinction. It is to be seen how long the Hindus and Buddhists of Bali in Indonesia and of Malaysia can survive the renewed offensive unleashed by petro115 dollars. Ghosh describes the pathetic genocide of Jews by Muhammad: It was around 627 A.D. that prophet Mohammed raided the Jewish tribe of Qurayza. The Jews were defeated in the fight and many prisoners were taken. They were either sold or assassinated. In one place alone some 800 Jews were beheaded in cold blood. One Jew was let go as he renounced his ancestral religion and accepted Islam. In the year 629 A.D. after the battle of Khaybar and the defeat of the Jews the same play was enacted. All the Jews were put to the sword. The raids undertaken by the prophet and the methods followed became the guide-lines for the caliphs that followed him. The horrible fate of the Medinese Jews was the example Pakistani military were to use in their genocide of Bengali Hindus in the war of 1971: 115 Ghosh, The Koran and The Kafir, 2003 (posthumous), http://www.islamreview.org/KoranKafir/preface.html Only recently the Islamic government of Pakistan enacted similar dramas in Bangladesh, erstwhile East Pakistan. It was 1971 A.D. and while negotiations were still in progress between the two wings of Pakistan, the Moslem government of West Pakistan UNLEASHED A SURPRISE ATTACK ON THE UNARMED POPULATION OF EAST PAKISTAN. Throughout the long night three battalions of soldiers (one infantry, one artillery and one armored) killed defenseless Dacca Bengalis with bayonets, rifles, machine guns, mortars, artillery pieces, rockets, flame throwers and tanks. The targets were: Dacca University, the police barracks, Sheikh Mujib's home, the radio station, offices of pro-Mujib newspaper and of course HINDU HOMES. Several hundred young men, the cream of the country were mowed down at the Dacca University. AT THE HINDU STUDENTS' DORMITORY, THE STUDENTS WHO SURVIVED THE ATTACK WERE FORCED TO DIG GRAVES FOR THEIR SLAUGHTERED FELLOW STUDENTS, EXACTLY LIKE THE 800 JEWS OF QURAYZA, AT THE TIME OF MOHAMMED, THE PROPHET OF ISLAM. Then they too were shot and stuffed into the graves dug with their own hands. THOUSANDS OF HINDUS DIED THAT NIGHT. MORE THAN THREE HUNDRED MOSLEM TROOPS ATTACKED THE GIRL STUDENTS OF ROCKEY HALL, DACCA UNIVERSITY. STRIPPING THEM NAKED, THE TROOPS RAPED, BAYONETED, AND MURDERED LOVELY BENGALI GIRLS. Dozens of girls jumped to their death from the roof of the 116 building rather than suffer the fate of their sisters. 116 Ibid., http://www.islamreview.org/KoranKafir/chapter9.html Anwar Shaikh Anwar Shaikh is a very interesting figure, proof that education and broad-mindedness can enlighten even the most hardened fanatic. He was born in 1928, in a village near the city of Gujrat, in present day Pakistan, into a deeply religious Muslim family. He describes 1947 as the darkest period of his life. He, like so many other Muslim male youth, was told that by murdering the non-Muslims, seducing their wives, burning their properties, was an act of Jihad, the most sacred duty of a Muslim because it guarantees him a safe passage to paradise where no fewer than 72 houris, that is the most beautiful virgins, and pearl-like boys wait for him. During the first week of August, 1947, when he was an accounts clerk in the railway office in Lahore, he saw a train pull in from the East Punjab, full of mutilated bodies of Muslims, men, women, and children. It had a terrific, horrendous effect on him. When he went home I prayed to Allah asking him not to forget his share of houris and boys, then took up a club, and a long knife and went out in search of non-Muslims. He found two men, Sikhs, father and son, the father was perhaps not more than 50, perhaps younger, and his young son, and killed both of them. Next day he encountered another Sikh at Darabi Road and killed him also. Often memories of those terrible days haunt his mind, and he has shed tears of remorse. If it had not been for his fanaticism, engendered by the Islamic traditions those people might have been alive even today, and he might not have felt the guilt which he still does. Then at the age of 26 or so, he became very sceptical of his Islamic faith. He came to the conclusion that it was Muhammad himself, not any divine being, who was telling the people how to bow before him in the name of Allah, as though it were a command from Allah. By now, he felt that this veil of ignorance had been lifted from my mind. Keeping it a personal affair he began to read the Quran in a critical and rational manner. This was made easier when he left for Britain in 1956, and settled in Cardiff. After a long struggle he became a successful property developer, but retired early in order to become a writer on Islam. He no longer called himself a Muslim but a “liberal humanist”, and self-consciously returned to the Vedic fold of his Hindu ancestors. Indeed his forebears had been Kashmiri Brahmans who, like so many others, had been forcibly converted to Islam. His work on Judaism is interesting but flawed, especially in Eternity, where he almost falls into the trap of accusing them of being part of some conspiracy, which includes media control, anti-Germanism, control of the global media, and racial superiority to Gentiles. Nevertheless, if we ignore this, and look at his work in understanding the ethnic cleansing of Jews from 7th century Arabia, and the precedent it has set for relations with modern Israel by the Islamic countries, there are some groundbreaking ideas which few other scholars have dared to touch. In his work Islam the Arab National Movement, Shaikh looked at Islam as a vehicle of Arab imperialism, and an early form of prototype ultra-nationalism: When we look into its background and examine its principles, it becomes evident that Islam in fact, is an Arab National Movement which imposes the Arabian cultural and spiritual imperialism on non-Arabs through an unparalleled system of subtlety and sophistication. One has only to look at the histories of India, Egypt and Iran to reach this 117 conclusion. Indeed it has its own unique form of colonialism: 117 Anwar Shaikh, Islam the Arab National Movement, http://www.islamreview.org/AnwarShaikh/arabnationalism/index.html In view of its deep-rooted tendency of Arab- glorification, Islam does not qualify as a religion but the Arab National Movement. Its success lies in total brainwashing of its non-Arab believers who begin to deplore their own national roots to adore the Arab sanctity, superiority and supremacy. Its spring is the mythical Intercessory Power of the Prophet Muhammad. This psychological paralysis caused the decline of great Asian nations such as India, Egypt and Iran, which once constituted as the great gushers of civilisation but now rank as members of the "Third World" for 118 losing their national identity and zest under the influence of Islam. …….. In fact, Islamic culture is an extension of the Arab imperialism which has weakened the sense of national identity of the non-Arab Muslims to such an extent that they prefer to call themselves Muslims, the people associated with the Arab traditions instead of being Indians, Pakistanis, Iranians or Afghanis. Thus they are easily excited in the name of Islam to do what they will not do ordinarily. Again, as it is the faith of every Muslim to rule the non-Muslims, it makes this culture extremely aggressive……… The national greatness of Muhammad remains unchallenged even today, and will probably remain so in future. It is because the grandeur he bestowed on the Arabs, despite their decreasing political significance, has been increasing culturally over the centuries. The secret lies in his declaring Kaaba as the most sacred sanctuary, making the sanctity of Mecca inviolable, rendering pilgrimage to Mecca as the economic backbone of Arabia, even if there were no oil, raising the Arabic Koran to the status of God's Word and thus declaring Arabic the Divine language, making Allah, an idol of Kaaba, the universal God of Islam, treating his own person the medium of salvation and asserting that an enemy of Arabia is an enemy of his. Thus a Muslim's life is completely dominated by the spiritual hegemony of Arabia at the expense of his own national honour. It is the result of the psychological inferiority engendered by these factors that the nonArab Muslim nations, with the exception of Turks, are averse to the concept of national identity, and prefer to be called Muslims. For this lack of national character, the Muslims in both Asia and Africa have hardly any national histories of their own, and nearly lack such events which may be associated with national pride, prestige and pomposity. Most of them have a history of political subservience and all the degradation that goes with it. ……. On the contrary, Arabia is not the homeland of the non-Arab Muslims but they treat it as such though it is a make-believe arising out of religious convictions which cannot be given the mantle of reality because neither the Arabs will accept them as the citizens of Arabia nor does it have the means to accommodate and support 1,000,000,000 Muslims. One should realise that by making himself the pillar of faith and the sole medium of salvation, the Prophet has created the same relationship between himself and the nonArab which exists between a burning lamp and moths. These tiny insects have developed an urge to cremate themselves on flames without any external pressures. Take for 119 example, the Muslims of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. It is important to explain this as Shaikh’s explanation of the anti-Semitism by Islam is from a slightly different perspective: Islam was the name that the Prophet Muhammad gave his religion. Therefore, following the Semitic tradition, he had to find a deity that inspired this faith. Though there is no Biblical authority for it, the Prophet asserted Islam as the true religion of God who sent Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and many other prophets to promulgate and restate it. Thus, what he advocated, he claimed, was the same old faith but it had been corrupted by the Jews. So he had no qualm in adopting most of the Jewish principles and practices with a view to renovating the old religion of God, which he called "Islam" as opposed to Judaism, and Christianity. In fact, he made a great effort to convert Jews. He adopted, not only a good deal of their creed, but also repeatedly said that God had exalted the children of Israel over the rest of mankind. As a process of this wooing, he wanted to find a name for his God that should prove attractive to the Jews, and also to the Arabs, his real people…….. The Prophet chose Allah as the Supreme God for national reasons. At that time, the Jews held a considerable social status in the Arabian peninsula owing to their glorious history, religious precedence, defiance of persecution and material prosperity. He knew that his people could not be lifted to a higher position unless the Jews 118 119 Ibid., http://www.islamreview.org/AnwarShaikh/arabnationalism/Preface.html Ibid., http://www.islamreview.org/AnwarShaikh/arabnationalism/Chapter3.html accepted his religion and thus made to behave as if they were Arabs. Failing that, they ought to be turned into second class citizens or banished. He certainly took great strides in this direction, claiming that Jews and Arabs had common ancestry form Abraham. When all attempts failed, the attitude changed: Since the Jews refused to be a part of the Arab nation, their condemnation as an accursed race was not sufficient. Creation of a pure nation, demanded that the Jews must be expelled from Arabia. So, the policy of ethnic cleansing was adopted, and the Jews were banished. At this juncture, one ought to remember that Islam is less a religion and more an Arab National Movement. As now, the Jews had always been proud of their racial superiority because Yahwe, the Jewish God, had chosen them as His own people by entering into covenants with the Jewish patriarchs such as Noah and Abraham. The latter had two sons: Isaac and Ishmael. The Bible clearly declares in Genesis 17-18 that God made an everlasting covenant with Isaac, the Jewish patriarch, but the Koran states quite differently: "We (God) made covenant with Abraham and Ishmael." (The Cow: 115) There is no historical evidence whatever that the Jews altered the Old Testament to this effect. They did not need to do so because this statement had existed in their Scriptures many centuries before the Koran was composed. This is how the Prophet transferred the Divine sanctity to his own nation to make them feel exalted. Glorification of Allah by the Prophet as the supreme and the only God is a part of Arab nationalism. Firstly, as stated previously, Allah was Yahwe's superior, thus the Arabs, the people of Allah have to be better than the people of Yahwe, the Jews. Yahwe had been proclaimed as the God of Israel, but to be better, Allah had to be the God of the universe. This is exactly what the Prophet did: thus Allah is All- knowing, All-powerful and omnipresent. The Old Testament does not claim such attributes for Yahwe. Why was Allah proclaimed as the most glorious and the only God? It is because He was an Arab god whose statue was worshipped in the Kaaba itself for centuries. Of course, Allah was not the only god of the Kaaba, which had developed into a pantheon owing to the influences of the foreign cults. It was very much like a Hindu temple devoted to idolatory and organised on the Hindu doctrine of Triad (Trimurti) which means three-inone. Allah had his three daughters in the Kaaba, worshipped along with him. He uses Quran and hadith to show how Muhammad mentioned that the Arabs as children of Ishmael (Ismail) are superior to the children of Isaac (Ishak), and that of the Arabs, the Qureish, that is Muhammad’s clan, are the superior. He made reconciliation with his own people, but not with the Jews: During the early period of his prophetic ministry, the Prophet did everything to woo them to his faith; he appointed Jerusalem as the Kibla, which the Muslims should face to say their prayers. It was, indeed, a great honour to the Jews. Then the Koran repeatedly said that Allah had exalted the Jews over all races. However, all these conciliatory steps had the opposite effect on the Jews, who made the mistake of joining the Quresh in opposing the Prophet. When he became victorious, he treated the Jews with contempt but forgave the Quresh, his kith and kin.120 The theme is kept in another classic of Anwar Shaikh, his 1998 Islam: the Arab Imperialism. Here he hypothesises what would have happened if the Jews had accepted him as a prophet in the same vein as Abraham or Moses: Adoption of Jerusalem as the Kibla or direction of worship by Muhammad, is the master stroke of his political acumen, which also proves that for raising a Super Semitic Nation, he was fraternal, flexible and far-sighted. As I shall explain in another chapter, it was a political act of high courage, which could not be taken without stupendous good will. In 120 Ibid., http://www.islamreview.org/AnwarShaikh/arabnationalism/Chapter2.html fact, it was a supreme example of sacrifice, which only a man of Muhammad's stature could envisage. Had the Jews listened to the Prophet, the unrivalled glory that Kaaba has enjoyed for the last fourteen centuries, would have belonged to Jerusalem, bestowing divine reverence on the Jews, instead of the unspeakable condemnation that they have suffered in the world of Islam since its inception. But this did not happen as we all know by now: The Jewish refusal to embrace Islam, turned the Prophet against them, and he decided to raise a purely Arab nation instead of a Super Semitic Nation. Considering the ferocity of the Prophet's anti-Jewish action, it is obvious that he thought of Judaism as a permanent threat to the Arabs and his creed. Therefore, he prepared a master plan: 1. To raise a pure Arab nation by eliminating the Jews from Arabia. 2. To make Islam the tool of self-perpetuating Arab Imperialism in such a way that, although it is sharp, shocking and shattering in purpose, its appeal must be hilarious, hooking and hypnotising. In fact, it must create similar mental conditions in the non-Arab Muslims as a flame does in moths and they become eager to cremate themselves on it. 3. Realising the world-wide spread of the Jews and their influence stemming from their commercial expertise, he made Jew-hating a doctrine of the Islamic faith so that the Muslims all over the world must join the Arabs in condemning the Jews in the international arena. Shaikh then relates the story of the Banu Qainuka: The Banu Kainuka, a Jewish tribe, were besieged in A.D. 624. After a fortnight, they surrendered. The Prophet wanted to execute the lot of them. Abdullah bin Ubayy, who had been their ally, begged mercy for them. The prophet turned his face away to ignore the plea but Abdullah persisted in his pleading and caught hold of the Prophet's arm. The Prophet cursed him loudly and commanded him to release his grip but he would not do so until he had compassion on the captives. In support of his action, Abdullah enumerated the virtues of his Jewish associates and said, "I will not let thee go until thou hast compassion on my friends; 300 soldiers armed in mail, and 400 unequipped - they defended me on the fields of Hadaik and Boath. Wilt thou cut them down in one day O Muhammad?" Though fallen from the pulpit of power, Abdullah was still too powerful to be ignored. "Let them go!" the Prophet said reluctantly; "the Lord curse them, and him (Abdullah) too." Though the Prophet spared their lives, he banished the whole tribe of Banu Kainuka from Arabia. Here, the stance taken by Abdullah bin Ubayy clearly demonstrates that the Arabian Jews were not faithless and treacherous people as depicted by the Muslim historians. They honoured their alliances and fought for their principles. It is unfair to denigrate a people for struggling to hold its traditions and liberties. The story of the Jews of Khaibar: What do these Koranic verses imply? They state that the Prophet had extended an invitation of embracing Islam to the Jews of Khaiber but they ignored the call. For inducing a false lull, the prophet allowed them sufficient time to feel smug about the warning (i.e. embrace Islam or else). Then all of a sudden, without giving them a notice of battle, as had been the custom of the invaders for centuries, the Prophet attacked the Jews of Khaiber. The hadith no. 4437 (Muslim) describes the event: "When we entered the town, he (the Prophet) said:' God is Great. Khaiber shall face destruction .... it is a bad day for them who have been warned (and have not taken heed).'" The people of the town had just come out (from their houses) to go about their jobs. They said (in surprise): "Muhammad has come. We captured by force." It is really astonishing that the Prophet attacks a people without any ultimatum, ignoring the established customs of warfare, especially when their only crime is that they refuse to accept him as the Apostle of God. Even a more stunning attitude is that of Allah, who feels so proud of the situation that He exclaims: "Glory be to thy Lord, the Lord of Glory!" The situation that arose from this raid has been described in hadith no. 3325 (Muslim) and explained in the footnote by the annotator (in note no. 1870). As a result of the successful invasion, whatever the vanquished possessed, became property of the victor by grace of Allah. In the huge holy booty, was included a dazzling Jewish beauty of seventeen called Safiyya, the daughter of Huyayy bin Akhtab, the Chief of Quraiza and al-Nadir. She was the wife of Kinana, the keeper of the great treasure, reluctant to disclose its secrets. The Prophet ordered al-Zubayr bin al-Awwam to "torture him until you extract what he has." As a result, there was "kindled a fire with flint and steel on his chest until he was nearly dead." Once the treasure was discovered, he lost his significance, and was put to death at the Prophet's behest. The pious victory turned the profane prisoners of war into possessions for the holy crusaders; one of them called "Dihya" came forward and said, "Messenger of Allah, bestow upon me a girl out of the prisoners." He said: "Go and get any girl." He made a choice for Safiyya bin Huyayy. Dihya's fellow-crusaders, realising what had happened, reported to the prophet: "She is worthy of you only .....we have not seen the like of her among the captives of war." It is easy to see that it was not a reference to her social status but the bewitching beauty. The Prophet summoned them, and said to Dihya: "Take any other woman from among the prisoners." Hadith no. 3329 (Muslim) describes the rest of the episode, which took place the day when her entire family had suffered decimation along with her husband. The Prophet freed Safiyya on the condition of marrying him. Anas, the narrator of this hadith adds that the prophet "then sent for my mother and asked her to embellish her (Safiyya). Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) then got out of Khaiber (and kept moving) until when he was on the other side of it (Khaiber); he halted and a tent was pitched for him (to pass the night.)" Next morning a simple nuptial feast was held. Thereafter the journey to Medina started, Safiyya being seated behind him. Reaching close to the destination, their camel stumbled, and they both fell down. As people rushed to them, the Prophet said: "We have received no injury. We entered Medina and there came out the young ladies of the Household ( i .e. Prophet's other wives ) . They saw her (Safiyya) and blamed her for falling down." The faithful have advanced some incredible arguments for Muhammad's marriage to Safiyya, but the fact is her alluring beauty. The Prophet stopped his journey while he was just on the other side of Khaiber and still within the tactical reach of the enemy if he could take revenge. Some sceptics have pointed out that the prophet should not have consummated his marriage with Safiyya immediately, as he did, because she was a young widow. According to his own law, he must have allowed sufficient time to establish that she was not pregnant. Then the Banu Quraiza: Having expelled Banu Nadir from Arabia, the Prophet Muhammad decided to exterminate Banu Quraiza, another Jewish tribe. Since it is the habit of the Muslim expositors to turn, twist and treat every event to suit their own palate, I shall ignore their explanations of this highly doleful episode of history to dwell on the actual handling of the Jews by the Prophet. For the sake of consistency, I may quote it from my own book: "Faith And Deception." According to Aisha, the Prophet had just returned from the Battle of Ditch, and had hardly taken off his armour when the angel Gabriel appeared and told him to destroy Banu Quraiza (hadith no. 4364 - Muslim). Just see, how proudly Allah narrates this event in the Koran: "And He (Allah) brought down those of the People of the Book, who supported them from their fortresses and cast terror in their hearts; some you (Muhammad) slew, some you made captive. And He (Allah) bequeathed upon you their lands, their habitations, and their possessions, and a land you never trod. God is powerful over everything." (The Confederates, XXXIII: 25) The besieged Jews, having suffered for twenty-five days, surrendered on the condition that their fate would be judged by Saad bin Muaadh, a chieftain of the Ansar. The hadith no. 4369 of the Sahih Muslim contains his judgement, which states " ... kill their fighters and capture their women and children." The Jews were taken out from their fort, and like animals, were penned up in separate yards. They prayed all night to their Lord God for mercy while a long deep trench was being dug up by the zealous Muslims at the command of the Prophet. It was a mass grave for the Jews, who had defied Muhammad to protect their faith, possessions, wives and children. As the sunrays were about to break through the curtain of darkness, the grave was ready to provide a last refuge to the victims of helplessness. Having said prayers to the Most Compassionate Allah, the Prophet, who claimed to be Mercy for all beings, took a seat by the dreadful pit to supervise the operation personally. The Jewish men were brought in bands of five or six, without knowing their destination. Each man, with his hands tied at the back, was commanded to lie down and stretch his neck over the bank of the ditch, where stood Ali and Zubair, who removed heads from their bodies with massive swords. By dusk, the job was completed. The pleasure of Allah and Muhammad led to the cold-blooded killing of 800 Jewish men, which in terms of today's inflated population, would equal 80,000 men. Their children were enslaved and women turned into concubines with a view to providing the faithful with the foretaste of paradisiac delights. Saad bin Muaadh's decision was a demonstration of extreme cruelty, especially when the Prophet Muhammad claimed to be "Mercy for all beings," and not just for the Muslims. The Muslim scholars justify this verdict on the pretext that Saad was not in a good mood owing to ill health. This in fact, is an anti-Islamic attitude because another hadith states as a principle that a Qazi (judge) must not give judgement when in a bad state of mind. The attitude of the Muslim scholars is false because the hadith no. 4371 (Muslim) clearly states that the prophet fully approved of the judgement by saying: "you have judged their case with the judgement of God, the Exalted and Glorified." Among the Jewish women that fell to the Muslim faithful as spoils of the war, was an enchanting young beauty of twenty-two, called Rihana, whose husband, parents and closest relations had just been massacred and buried at the Prophet's command. He wasted no time in inviting her to accept his Prophethood and become one of the wives, but she failed to understand how the "Mercy for all beings" could make such a proposal when she was being choked by grief, pain and sorrow. When she refused to embrace Islam, the prophet took her for a concubine, which is an unmarried slave woman. The Islamic law allows the master to use her sexually, but treats her children as legitimate! The Prophet owned another concubine presented to him by the Governor of Egypt as a personal gift. Her name was Mary (Mariya); she bore him a son called "Ibrahim." Shaikh finds this crime in many ways a forerunner of the Nazi war machine or what happened in the Balkans in the last decade of the twentieth century: From the above episode, one can clearly see that the treatment of Banu Quraiza and other Jewish tribes, is a pathetic model of ethnic cleansing. The Jews suffered this fate when they refused to become Arabs. We cannot find an example of such extreme nationalism so early in history. Yet the Muslims believe that Islam does not recognise nationalism. They insist that it is a message of international brotherhood! He does not see how such an ideology could ever foster universal brotherhood: In fact, Islam is based on the racial pride of the Prophet Muhammad, who wanted to exalt the Arabs over the Jews. For sake of convenience, I re-quote the hadith: "Of the two tribes that God chose as the best were the descendants of Ishmael and Isaac. God preferred the children of Ishmael (Arabs) to the children of Isaac (the Jews). Then, God created Muhammad in the chosen tribe of Quresh (the descendants of Ishmael) and then He chose the best family among the Quresh and created Muhammad as the best of men." (Jame Tirmze, Vol. 2)121 Despite some obvious Jewish influence, there is one major factor setting Islam apart from Judaism: Since every culture has its own traditions, Prophethood, as a part of the Middle Eastern culture, has a validity for its own people. But thrusting it on other nations as Islam does for establishing Arab hegemony, is aggressive and undesirable. On the contrary, the Mosaic Prophethood is harmless because the Jews do not seek conversion through propaganda, persecution and promises. Instead the violent anti-Semitism is an integral part of the Arabian nationalist creed: Still worse is the Islamic attitude that preaches destruction of the Jews as part of faith and means of salvation. It has caused such an inhuman animosity between the Muslim and 122 Jewish groups that it is likely to threaten survival of the human race. By complete contrast, the existence of Judaism does not threaten anyone: To understand the situation, one must realise that the Jews are a racial group like any other nation, and, therefore, entitled to preserve their national integrity through all possible means. Their religion has become their personal affair and does not seek expansion through persistent propaganda or persecution. Neither it advocates annihilation of the Gentile on religious grounds nor it seeks abrasive international grouping to create discord, distrust and destruction in the name of God or Moses to promote the Jewish cause. I could have ignored the reference to Judaism but the nature of the discussion does not permit it. Shaikh again think of what would have happened had the Jews accepted Islam: It appears that the prophet Muhammad originally dreamt of a Super Semitic Nation, with the Arabs as the senior partners, and to achieve this goal, he was willing to concede a good bit to the Jews: 1. He acknowledged that God had exalted the Jews over all the people. (The Cow, II: 115) 2. He made Abraham, the Jewish patriarch, as the Leader of mankind including the Arabs. 3. He also declared that Islam was not a new faith but the old Jewish faith of Abraham. 4. However, his Master Stroke was the appointment of Jerusalem as the Kibla of Islam i.e. the direction of prayers for all Muslims. It means that all Muslims would pay the same adoration to Jerusalem as did the Jews but there was one basic condition attached to it i.e. the Jews of Arabia must embrace Islam, which in religious and national terms meant 121 Shaikh, Islam: the Arab Imperialism, 1998, http://www.islamreview.org/AnwarShaikh/arabimperialism/Chapter6.html 122 Ibid., http://www.islamreview.org/AnwarShaikh/arabimperialism/Chapter7.html that the Jews would follow the Koranic law and the Arab traditions instead of the Torah and the Jewish practices. Circumstantial evidence suggests that in all probability, Muhammad hoped that if the Arabian Jews accepted him as the Last Messenger of God, the rest of the Jews in diaspora would also follow suit, thus fulfilling his dream of the Super Semitic Nation on his terms. Obviously, he was convinced of the Jewish expertise that they had accumulated over the centuries. Further, Jesus Christ was also a Jew, whose reverence had raised the holy status of Jerusalem beyond imagination. Thus, this City of David, by becoming the Muslim Kibla would raise the prestige of Muhammad, resulting in his acceptance by both the Jews and Christians. It was a brilliant plan but its success depended on the attitude of the Arabian Jews towards Muhammad as the Prophet. To the utter sorrow of the Jews, they stubbornly denied him, incurring the apostolic wrath not only for themselves but also the entire Jewish race for all times. Choosing Jerusalem as the Qiblah and really hoping that the Jews would accept his as the final prophet may have been out of fear more than anything else: It appears that Muhammad thought of the Jews as the most formidable foe, who could harm his religion and the country. Therefore, he was not content with their extermination in Arabia, and desired their permanent suppression by his followers during all ages. So, he adopted a stunning hate-love policy towards Jerusalem to seal the Jewish fate: "Turn thy (Muhammad) face towards the Holy Mosque (Kaaba); and wherever you are, turn your faces towards it." (The Cow, II: 135-140) Thus, the Prophet Muhammad deprived Jerusalem of the dignity that he had bestowed upon it: it was no more the Kibla of Islam. Why? Look at the following verse: "Those are they (the Jews) whom God has cursed; he whom God has cursed, thou will not find for him any helper Or have a share in the kingdom? If that is so, they do not give the people a single date-spot ..." (Women, IV: 55) It is difficult to interpret this verse on its own. However, it is clear from it that the Jews are no longer a Blessed, but a Cursed people. The Koran has given reason for this Divine change of heart, that is, they have not believed in Muhammad. The meaning of this verse begins to amplify itself when we consider this hadith: "The last hour would not come unless the Muslims fought and killed the Jews ... and until the Jews hid themselves behind a stone or a wall would say: 'Muslims, the servants of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him."' (Hadith no. 6985, Muslim, Vol. 4) One should note that this hadith directs All Muslims, and not just the Arabs, to kill the Jews, wherever they are found. The Jew-bashing in Arabia and the immense hatred found against them in all the Islamic sacred books and literature, has resulted in a strange but a very strong belief among all Muslims throughout the world: they believe that the Koran has forbidden return of the Jews to Jerusalem and form a government of their own. Why should not the Jews return to Jerusalem? Muhammad accomplished this feat through a stroke of sagacity, which has no parallel in the world history. Look at the following: "Glory be to Him (Allah), who carried His servant (Muhammad) by night from the Holy Mosque (Kaaba) to the Further Mosque (Jerusalem), the precincts of which we have blessed ..." (The Night Journey, XVII: I) It is a reference to the Prophet's visit to Allah when on his way to seeing the Almighty in person, he was taken to Jerusalem as a part of his holy itinerary. Thus Jerusalem became a sacred place in the Islamic faith and an integral part of its territory! Frankly speaking, one should add that the appointment of Jerusalem as the Muslim Kibla has nothing to do with spiritual affairs; it was simply a political decision seeking a permanent foothold in the Jewish life. Look at the following facts: 1. The change of Kibla took place at the repeated requests of Muhammad because "We ( Allah ) have seen thee turning thy face about in the heaven; now we shall surely turn thee to a direction (Kaaba) that shall satisfy thee ( O Muhammad)." (The Cow, II: 137) One should remember that Allah always acts as Muhammad desires! Change of Kibla was Muhammad's decision that he imposed on Allah for the benefit of the Arabs. 2. The Koran (2: 148) states that every nation has its own Kibla. Therefore, the Arabs should have had their own Kibla right from the beginning. The mere fact that they did not, demonstrates its political nature. 3. Umar had a hand in the change of Kibla on national ground (hadith no. 5903 - Muslim). This great Arab nationalist was stabbed to death by a Persian slave owing to his (Umar's) racial bias. 4. The Prophet had commanded his followers not to defecate, facing Kaaba and Jerusalem because both ranked as Kibla. These instructions, which were binding on every Muslim, were meant to show one's respect to the holiness of these places. However, the Prophet himself ignored it in respect of Jerusalem: "Narrated 'Abdullah bin Umar: People say whenever you sit for answering the call of nature, you should not face the Kibla or Bait-i-Muqaddis (Jerusalem). I told them, "Once I went up the roof of our house and I saw Allah's Messenger (Muhammad) answering the call of nature while sitting on two bricks facing Bait-ul- Muqaddas (Jerusalem) but there was a screen covering him.'" (Bokhari, 147 Vol. I) Muhammad's act clearly demonstrates that he did not have genuine respect for Jerusalem: it was just a political convenience to him. It is further confirmed by the fact that twice a year (during Shabaan and Zwilhajj) Kaaba, the Arabian Kibla, receives a highly reverential treatment when it is washed with gallons of rose-scent and Zamzam water and is honoured with a change of new covering every year, but nothing of the sort takes place in regard to the Bait-ul- Muqaddas ( Jerusalem )! The establishment of the state of Israel is to Islam the most unthinkable event, and is played out in the international arena in the form of anti-Zionist resolutions at the UN and elsewhere: Diaspora, that is, dispersal of the Jews from their homeland, first resulted from the Babylonian Exile of 586 B.C. What Muhammad did twelve centuries later, only fractionally added to it, and does not strictly come within this category. Though the Jews came to be settled in Persia, Spain and many countries of the West, it has been the burning desire of the Diaspora Jewry to return home despite the fact that they did very well in the foreign lands. Returning home i.e. to Jerusalem became, not only a fervent desire but an integral part of the Jewish faith. This is what led to the formation of the Zionist Movement, which sought to achieve this goal. While this forms the greatest triumph for the Jews, it strikes at the Islamic precept of No-Return, which the Muslim Zealots have so painfully forged over the centuries to keep the Jews out of their Motherland. Returning of the Jews to Israel may just be a historical event to the world but for the Muslims it is a tragedy of immense proportions because it strikes at the root of the Islamic traditions which hold that the Jews have been cursed by Allah and, as a result, shall not be allowed to return to Jerusalem and form a government of their own. Bearing this Islamic doctrine in mind, one can realise why the Prophet Muhammad wanted to lay a spiritual claim on Jerusalem as a part of the Islamic faith despite having no real reverence for it. Obviously, it was a political ploy to interfere with the Jewish history. To stress the enormity of the situation, I must add that there is no Judaism without Jerusalem. This fact is borne out by the concept of Diaspora, which describes the religious, eschatological, philosophical and political concerns of the Jewish people. It means that the Land of Israel (and Judah) has been given to the Jews as a fulfilment of the Divine Promise, and returning to it is a part of the messianic hope. Here, one can see the most devastating conflict between the Jewish faith and the Islamic Law of No-Return. And who is responsible for the lethal strife? It is the doctrine of Prophethood, which enables a person to realise the dictates of his super ego in the name of a supernatural Power, termed as God. Here the clash is between two Prophets - Moses and Muhammad. Who was right? - Moses, who claimed that Israel is the Land promised to the Jews by God, and therefore, it is exclusively theirs - or is it Muhammad who asserts that the Jews have been cursed by God for not believing in his prophethood, and as a result, shall not be allowed to return to Israel and form their own government? The fact, as we see is, that the Jews have returned to Israel for the last fifty years and have been able to form a government of their own. While it gives them a lot of satisfaction, it has hurt the Muslims badly and they desperately want to restore the dignity of the Islamic faith by expelling the Jews from Israel, which they claim to be their First Kibla. To prove the Koran right, the Muslims are determined to exterminate the Jews in Israel. In fact, Muhammad's eternal desire to humiliate the Jews is rooted in his national tendencies. He abhorred the Jews, not only because he thought of them as the rivals to the Arabs, but also because he could not swallow their claim of racial superiority based on the choice of God; the Jewish claim to be the only legitimate descendants of Abraham has proved highly provocative to the Arab ego, fathered by Ishmael; mundane success of the Jews is another cause of envy. To remedy this situation, the Prophet not only declared the Arabs as racially superior to the Jews but also checked their historical progress by laying a perpetual claim on Jerusalem. He must have realised that the Arabs on their own might not be able to stop the Jewish march to glory, and therefore, he put the weight of Islamic Imperialism behind the Arabs. This stratagem expresses the political vision and patriotic sincerity of the Prophet Muhammad. As already described, Muhammad projected himself to be the Behavioural Model ( 33:20) not only for the Arabs but all Muslims irrespective of where they come from. It means, to qualify for paradise, a Muslim must copy the Prophet in all details such as eating, drinking, talking, walking, thinking and acting. Thus, a true Muslim must hate the Jews as did the Prophet. Here one can see the nature of Islam, as the Arab Imperialism. This is a specially devised faith to serve the national interest of Arabia - subtlety being its key-word. During the heyday of the British, if there was a political upheaval in a certain part of the Empire, the government had to mobilise armed forces from other territories to restore the situation. But the unique form of Arab Imperialism that the Prophet invented, does not depend on armies; the Muslims of non-Arab origin have been so thoroughly brainwashed that they hate the Jews as their religious duty and shall be happy to join any campaign of Jewbashing of their own free will and at their own expense. The fact that most Muslim countries have still not recognised Israel, is a product of these religious tendencies. Over the last fifty years, the Israelis have fought several wars against the Arabs and are still on permanent alert against them, particularly, and the world of Islam, generally. It is usually believed that the American oil interest is the real cause of political instability in the Middle East, and some go as far as to claim that the Jews have been planted there by the West for this reason. This is a sheer nonsense because the Americans and the Western nations buy oil from the Arab countries at the internationally fixed prices as set by the free economic forces. The truth is the other way round: if the Americans and Europeans did not buy oil from Arabia, she would run into dire economic conditions. The real cause of trouble is the clash of the two Prophets - Moses and Muhammad: the Jews want to feel secure in their Promised Land and the Arabs, believing the Jewish return against the precepts of Islam, desperately want to uphold the dignity of their faith by drowning all Jews in the sea of Galilee. The Arabs have been tremendously helped by their Islamic Imperialism and the Jews have been lucky (so far) to defend themselves with the help of the West. How long can the Jews stand up to the Arabs and their one billion followers? When they find it impossible to survive through political means, that will be the saddest moment not only for them and the Arabs, but also the entire human race. The Jews, who believe in the Law of Talion, shall not go down quietly. To demonstrate their hatred of Islam, they will turn Mecca and Medina into Hiroshima and Nagasaki, thus mobilising the spirit of Islamic Jehad, which is a practical demonstration of Allah's "terrible retribution" (The Cow, II: 205). It will create a state of war throughout the world. What I have said above is not a wild guess but a calculation based on Arab-Jewish antagonism that has persisted over the centuries. The cause of this perpetual strife is not the Jewish religion because a Jew is someone, who is racially Jew, and not just a follower of the Jewish religion. Again, he is not dedicated to propagating his religion for gaining converts, though the doors of a synagogue are open to those, who want to embrace this faith of their own free will. It is the seeker, who has to prove his genuineness for admission. On the contrary, Allah has made it obligatory for all humans to embrace Islam; those who refuse to accept it, qualify as the "Satan's Party" and must be eliminated by the Muslims, who rank as "Allah's Party." Rejection of Islam is the most heinous crime that one can imagine, and for this reason one is liable to a terrible punishment: Allah Himself declares was on infidels and legitimises the most despicable acts such as murder, rape, arson and enslavement of non-Muslims, when they are committed to spread Islam. This is called "Jehad," the Holy War. The West tasted its Holiness for four hundred years in the form of the Crusades, which reduced the European population to half of its normal size. This Islamic attitude is at its worst towards the Jews. Any Muslim, who can kill a Jew is sure to win a seat in paradise. Realising this fact, some Islamic countries have made Jewbashing as the cornerstone of their foreign policy with a view to winning leadership of the Muslim world. This is what makes Israel wary of the Muslim lands and they have to watch their economic and military progress. History has recorded that Israel launched an air raid against Iraq in 1981 to destroy its nuclear reactor at Osirak. It was considered an unprovoked attack by the Muslim world. Apparently, it was so, but in view of the above mentioned facts, it was not. As a humanist, I must emphasise, once again, that man is intellectually and morally too great to need guidance of any supernatural agency. Thus, Prophethood or Revelation, being a political device, is the source of primitiveness and destruction to humankind, and these remarks equally apply to both the Koran and the Bible. These books are highly selfcontradictory. Therefore, instead of leading, they mislead people. Take for example, the Islamic Law of No-Return in relation to the Jews. The Koran in The Table, V: 20-25 contravenes itself: "And when Moses said to his people, 'O, my people, remember God's blessings upon you .... When He gave you such as He had not given to any being.'" "O, my people, enter the Holy Land, which God has prescribed for you, and turn not back in your traces...." " They said, 'Moses, there are people in it, very arrogant; we will not enter it until they depart from it; if they depart from it, then we will enter.' Said, two men of those that feared God whom God had blessed, 'Enter against them ... when you enter it, you will be victors.'" In a nutshell, it means that Palestine i.e. Israel (and Judah) is the Holy Land that has been prescribed for the Jews by Allah, who has assured them victory in the struggle. Today, due to the enormity of weapons, Israel is not just an Arab-Jewish affair because it may involve the survival of mankind. Since this clash is a product of the prophetic rivalries, one can clearly see that Prophethood has nothing to do with guidance; it is simply a political doctrine, which especially, exposes the reality of Islam as the tool of Arab Imperialism owing to its active role in the international field as well as its dictatorial part in 123 the internal affairs of every Muslim country. 123 Ibid., http://www.islamreview.org/AnwarShaikh/arabimperialism/Chapter8.html Anant Kakba Priolkar In his 1961 book The Goa Inquisition, AK Priolkar uses primary source reproduction to show the ravages that the Portuguese under the authority oft eh Inquisition, officially set up by the Roman Catholic Church to root out heresy, did to Goa and other areas under the control of Portugal in India. Though the major destructive impact, both physical and cultural, was on the Hindus, there were also Jewish victims of the Goa Inquisition. Indeed in both Spain and Portugal from where the Inquisition had achieved its highest level of what might be called “respectability”, anti-Semitism was a its very core, and even Jews converted to Christianity, as Koenraad Elst explains in his works, were not immune form relentless persecution. In 15th century Spain, the situation was thus: At this time in Spain the Jewish community occupied the foremost positions in many fields – trade, scholarship and politics. This provoked the envy of their Christian brethren and interested parties succeeded, by spreading all manner of malicious rumours and calumnies against this unfortunate race, in inciting the crowds to indiscriminate massacres and pillage.124 Many Jews were forced to embrace Christianity in order to survive. Yet event hen there were those who continued to practice Judaism in secret. Meanwhile Spain was made into a political union by the marriage of Ferdinand of Aragon to Isabella of Castile. The latter’s childhood confessor was the Dominican monk, Torquemada, a name that was to be associated with cruelties and villainy of the worst type. With his scheming the Inquisition was established in Spain in 1484: Many Jews and new converts escaped to neighbouring territories like France, Italy and Africa in order to escape the terror o the Spanish Inquisition. Strong attachment to their land of birth, their people or their property, however, prevented many others form doing so and they preferred to remain in Spain even at the risk of attracting the attentions of that dread Tribunal. The Jews offered to pay 30,000 ducats to Ferdinand for their privilege of being allowed to remain in the country on any terms. Ferdinand out of avarice and Isabella out of magnanimity were inclined to accept this offer. Torquemada entered the palace at this stage, and throwing a Crucifix on the table, exclaimed: “Judas Iscariot sold his master for thirty pieces of silver You wish to sell him for 30,000 ducats. Here he is, take him and sell him.” This dramatic gesture had the desired effect and the Royal couple changed their minds. On March 31, 1492 it was decreed that Jews should be banished from the Kingdom. The decree allowed them four months within which to wind up their affairs and leave the country, failing which they would be liable to capital punishment and their property confiscated . Even conversion to Christianity did not mean security against the 125 unkind attentions of the Inquisition. Some escaped to Portugal, where initially conditions were favourable. However they were also soon faced with expulsion within only a few months by Joao II, and many ended up abandoned on the Maghreb coast, and then enslaved by the Moors. Times were changing for the worse: These actions of the Portuguese king caused great concern among the local Jewish community. There had been a long tradition of tolerance of Jews in Portugal and the Jewish community, as a result of their superior intelligence, habits of hard work and thrift had carved out for themselves a position of considerable influence and power in that country. From very early times, they functioned as the farmers of public revenues. However, the distinction between the followers of the dominant religion and those of a religion which was merely tolerated was made clear beyond doubt in certain disabilities from which the latter suffered and great care was taken to see that they did not abuse 124 125 AK Priolkar, The Goa Inquisition, Voice of India, New Delhi, 1991 (originally 1961), p.5 Ibid. p.8-10 their vast resources to pervert the religion of the former. The synagogues could not hold real estate as the Christian Churches did. In addition to the general imposts, all Jews had to pay a special poll tax. (This formed the precedent for a similar tax imposed on Hindus in Goa during the early Portuguese regime). If the son of a Jew embraced Christianity, not only was the father not permitted to disinherit him, but, on the other hand, the son was entitled to receive immediately a share in the patrnal and maternal estates it being presumed for this purpose that both the parents were dead; as a consequence if the son was the only child, he immediately received two-thirds of the family property. This measure proved very effective as an incentive to conversion. The Jews were forced to live in segregation in separate parts of towns which were known as Judarias and were administered by committees of their representatives known as Communes. They were not allowed to employ Christians as servants. They could not wear silk garments or jewels and could not ride horses. However, they had the freedom to follow their religion and to sue its practices in their synagogues and were governed in relations of personal law by their won customs. Joao II was succeeded in 1495 by his nephew Manoel. The situation for the Jews was to deteriorate rapidly, as the new king wished to marry princess Isabella, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, who was a fanatic Judeophobe. The marriage took place in 1497, and the fate of that country’s Jews was sealed. All Portugal’s Jews who refused to convert to Christianity were ordered to leave the country: As the period allowed for the departure o the Jews was nearing its end, heads of principal Jewish families who had not succeeded in secretly leaving the country pressed the king to provide them with ships or at least to permit them to hire ships at their own cost. They were asked to gather in Lisbon where the royal promises would be fulfilled. Accordingly, it is said that more than 20,000 of them assembled at Estaos, a palace in Lisbon. Here, a cruel fate awaited them. Children who had not already been taken away by the king’s officers, were snatched away from their parents without regard to age or sex, and thereafter, even older men of all ages were baptised by force. Yet even as New Christians, the converted Jews were not safe from popular anti-Semitism. Under the influence of Catherine, queen of the next king, Joao III, Dominican friars gained power, and the Inquisition was established in Portugal in 1541.126 This did not bode well for even those Jews who had escaped to the one land that had been free of anti-Semitism: After the Portuguese had established colonies in India, many Jews from Portugal settles down therein with the object of taking advantage of the new opportunities for trade and commerce. Later on, when the Portuguese became increasingly precarious as a result of the growing ferocity of the popular odium against them and threats of organised persecution at the hands of the Church and State, others sought refuge in the Indian colonies in quest of greater security and tolerance. There were also Jewish communities who had made their home in India from ancient times. Many Jews were employed by the King of Cochin, who, according to Padre Lucena, was, as a consequence, known as the King of the Jews. However, even in India, they were persistently pursued by the hatred 127 and intolerance of their Christian brethren. So along with crimes against humanity with reference to the Hindus of Goa and other parts of India, the Roman Catholic church under the Portuguese effectively introduced anti-Semitism into an environment where it had not even existed. This was done via the Inquisition. The Vatican has apologised to the Jews for the crimes it has committed against them, but stubbornly refuses to do so to the Hindus. It shows that in some cases, the spirit of the Inquisition is far from dead. 126 127 Ibid., pp.11-20 Ibid., p.27 Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) The RSS or Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (National Volunteer Organisation) is often banded a militant Hindu outfit with Nazi and Fascist inclinations. Again this is Marxist definition, and the few quotes below will show that RSS leaders were pretty respective of India’s Jewish minority. This is one charge Marxists would find hard to label them with, that of anti-Semitic, but they do try, conveniently ignoring the contributions Communism and socialism have made to hating the Jews. Though called Nazi for remarks made in his classic We: Our Nationhood Defined, in 1939, MS Golwalkar, leader of the RSS from 1940 to 1973, did not actually praise Hitler, but commented on the non-viability of two nations living in the same nation. His idea was assimilation not apartheid, genocide or ethnic cleansing, no matter what is said about him to this day. Indeed he had sympathy for the Zionist project: ….in order to confer their lost Nationality upon exiled Jews , the British with the help of the League of Nations began to rehabilitate the old Hebrew country, Palestine, with its long lost children. The Jews had maintained their race, religion, culture and language; and all they wanted was their natural territory to complete their Nationality. The reconstruction of the Hebrew Nation on Palestine is just an affirmation of the fact that Country, Race, Religion, Culture and Language must exist unequivocally together to form the Nation idea.128 MS Golwalkar, from his classic Bunch of Thoughts: The Christians committed all sorts of atrocities on the Jews by giving them the label “Killers of Christ”. Hitler is not an exception but a culmination of the 2000-year long 129 oppression of the Jews by the Christians. On 3 April 1966, the RSS mouthpiece Organiser encouraged a pro-Zionist stance: [Israel] is the hope of all the Jews the world over; and it is the symbol of stability in a very 130 unstable part of the world. Balasaheb Deoras, who succeeded Golwalkar as RSS leader: In a book published by the Israeli Consulate in Bombay . . . it says that the Jews were illtreated and subjected to all sorts of humiliations all over the world, the only exception being Bharat and that during their long sojourn in Bharat, there was not even one single instance of their persecution.131 And again: The Israeli Consulate in Bombay has published a book about Israel. It says that Jews form different countries came to Israel because they were discriminated against and were persecuted. And the book says that the only exception is India. In the long history of the 132 Jews stay in India, there is not even one incident of discrimination and persecution. K Surya Narayana Rao, who contributed to the book Why Hindu Rashtra: Elst, Saffron Swastika, pp.159-160 MS Golwalkar, Bunch of Thoughts, Jagarana Prakashana, Bangalore, 1966, p.210 130 Joan G Roland, Jews in British India, University Press of New England, Brandeis University, 1989, p.245 131 Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, RSS: A Force for Social Change, Jagarana Prakashana Kempegowda Nagar, 1981, Bangalore, pp.7-8 132 RSS, Sri Balasaheb Deoras Answers Questions, Sahitya Sindhu, Bangalore, 1984, p.3 129 128 A Hindu State has always functioned as a secular and democratic State. There was never an autocratic or a fascist Hindu king. History bears witness to this. When Jews and Parses were persecuted by the Christian and Muslims respectively in their own countries, many of them ran for shelter to this country and since centuries they have been living here peacefully. Neither they had any problem from the Hindus nor the Hindus had any problem from them. The parses particularly have totally identified with the culture and national life of this country, still maintaining their religious identity. There are no conflicts or complaints on either side. Most of the Jews have returned to Israel after they got back their motherland. And what the Israeli government has got to say about their centuries of stay in this country? I would like to quote from the booklet Indian Jews in Israel published by the Israel Consulate general in India. "While most of the Jews came to Israel (from countries other than India) driven by persecution, discrimination, murder and attempts at total genocide, the Jews of India came (to Israel) because of their desire to participate in the building of their Jewish Commonwealth, because of their unshakable belief in the redemption of Israel. Throughout their long sojourn in India, nowhere and at no time were they (Jews) subjected 133 to intolerance, discrimination or persecution." In 1993, Muzaffar Hussain, a Muslim contributor to the RSS newspaper Organiser exploded the myth of the so-called Palestinian liberation struggle: Elaborating on the objectives of the Muslim brotherhood, Editor Zuckerman has written that hitherto Muslim leaders used to dwell on the miseries of the Palestinians. They said that the Palestinians were being oppressed in the name of Israel. They are being exterminated by violent means. When the newspapers doled out the tales of Jewish cruelties, the sympathies of the general readers were in favour of the Arabs. Every humanist organisation used to raise its voice in support of the Arabs. But as the stories unfolded the readers began to hear in the Palestinian agitation a message loud and clear. And that message was that the Palestinians in particular and the Arabs in general were out to ‘liberate’ not only the territories occupied by Israel but to recapture all those territories in the world that were not long ago under Islamic rule. In short they aim at regaining their lost empire of Islamic rulers. Their goal was not merely to liberate Palestine 134 but to capture territories from Spain to India which were under Islamic rule. Atula Rawat in Organiser of 29 October 2000: The raging conflict in West Asia has its worldwide impact. The Arab nations, on the one hand, have created a worldwide oil crisis. On the other hand, they are trying to blackmail perceived soft states like India into at least condemning Israel. They have achieved a unity of sorts in trying to blackmail India. A report in an international Muslim newspaper writes in a warning tone that an “Indian reaction favouring Palestinians is expected before it is too late....” The Semitic secularist lobby led by the left has also jumped into helping the Arab nations in this exercise. The communists have begun to denounce the so-called pro-Israel tilt of the NDA Government. The CPI-M has demanded that the Government of India should demand a meeting of the UN Security Council where Israel should be condemned. These Indian champions of the Arab cause demand roll- back of petrol prices despite their very own patrons creating the fuel crisis world over. This is also a time when the Government of India should take into consideration the history of past fifty years of Indo-Arab relations. It is to be remembered that these were the same Arab nations who had always sided with Pakistan in both 1965 and 1971 wars. Despite the Nehruvian foreign policy, which had always supported them, even on the issue of terrorism in Kashmir the Arabs have usually taken the side of Pakistan and terrorism. In reality, terrorism has been their modus operandi even in their fight against Israel. No wonder, Yasser Arafat, the leader of Palestinians, was known for a long time as a major terrorist leader. His stubborn attitude on Jerusalem is an indicator of the extreme hardline that he takes. The reports on corruption he indulged in abound in the world press. K Surya Narayana Rao, The Concept of Hindu Rashtra, in Why Hindu Rashtra, http://www.hindubooks.org/whr/the_concept_of_hindu_rashtra/page11.htm 134 Muzaffar Hussain, Islamic Fundamentalism Overtaking India, in Organiser, 2 May 1993, from Anand Shankar Pandya (editor), Ayodhya: An Answer to Terrorism and Fundamentalism, Anand Shankar Pandya, Bombay, 1993, pp.67-8 133 On the other hand, we have a natural friend in Israel, the nation of people who have been suppressed for two thousand five hundred years. Their suffering in all nations except in India in their Diaspora has endeared India to the Israelis. Despite a negative Nehruvian policy towards them, the Israelis had more of positive feelings towards India than the Arab nations whom our secularists pampered for consolidated Muslim vote- bank back home. For a long time the Muslim vote-bank politics was sought to be camouflaged behind the smokescreen of an argument of procurement of petroleum from Arab nations. The secularists who advanced this argument never bothered to tell that India was never given oil at cheaper rates. On the other hand, Pakistan being an Islamic country was given oil on different terms and conditions. Due to the radical Arab postures, there is almost no chances of any peace initiative to succeed. The Egyptians are hosting an Arab Summit on October 21. Islamic leaders like Ghaddafi have already demanded war against Israel or at least a blockade. Observers are expecting that the Summit will take a hardline position on the issue and may show an unprecedented unanimity. That would naturally increase both the chances of war with Israel and the deepening oil crisis in the world. In such a time of turmoil, India must stand on the side of Israel who has been a natural friend and has offered its support many a times on such vital issues as fight against terrorism. Terrorism, which is the single largest problem before both Israel and India, has led to a situation for both the countries where they are sailing in the same boat. Even now, while the Israeli Prime Minister has written two letters to our Prime Minister, apprising him of the situation, there is no such letter from the Yasser Arafat. Even now it is only the Indian Consulate in Gaza who is keeping in touch with the Palestinian leadership. On the other hand, Israeli Prime Minister Barak's letter came just after the violence started. He followed it up with a second letter last Thursday. While the Indian decision to send medicine for Palestinians may be termed a humanitarian help, the political and diplomatic efforts should be made by India to support the Israelis who are beleaguered by terrorism just as we are, whatever may be the objections of the 135 Arabian agents—both green and red. Ram Madhav of the RSS in September 2003 on Ariel Sharon’s visit: The entire world acknowledges that Israel has effectively and ruthlessly countered terror in the Middle East. Since India and Israel are both fighting a proxy war against terrorism, therefore, we should learn a lesson or two from them. We need to have close cooperation 136 with them in this field. 135 Atul Rawat, Arabian Night(mare)s, in Organiser, 29 October 2000, http://www.organiser.org/29oct2000/world.html 136 Onkar Singh, RSS slams Left for opposing Sharon's visit, 10 September 2003, http://www.rediff.com/news/2003/sep/10sharon11.htm Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Though called a Fascist, Hindu nationalist and anti-minority party by Leftists, the BJP does admit to having roots in Vedic culture of India, just like its erstwhile predecessor the Bharatiya Jan Sangh. This is why it is called a Nazi party, because to Marxists anything Hindu is Nazi and racist, just as anything Jewish is Zionist hence also racist and the counterpart to Nazism. In 1953, the Jan Sangh was formed by members and ex-members of the RSS such as Balraj Madhok. From the beginning this Hindu oriented party, in stark contrast to the Marxist Communist Party of India and Congress, wanted full recognition of Israel. In 1965, Jan Sangh stated the following: Israel is the only really democratic country in West Asia. It is a highly developed country and has been playing an increasingly important role in the economic development of newly emerging African countries…….By developing closer relations with Israel, India would not only contribute to stability in West Asia but will also improve her position in a number of African States. It is…..imperative that India must have full diplomatic relations with Israel. Dr. Saradindu Mukherji of the BJP explains her party’s position: India has only lately established diplomatic relations with Israel, yet the BJS/BJP had long demanded such a step. All the other parties had opposed it, keeping in mind the domestic vote and subservience to the Islamic "ummah." Without being anti-Arab, it is possible to be just toward Israel. After all, Israel has never done anything against India.137 BJP former Vice-President KR Malkani in 1995: When, in 1991, the Congress formed the Government on its own, even though it did not have a majority of its own, the BJP acted very responsibly and helped it have a speaker of its choice, content with deputy speakership of the Lok Sabha. Having been all along opposed to a licence-permit-quota Raj it welcomed the policy of liberalization in principle. At long last New Delhi recognised Israel and South Africa, something the BJP had urged for long.138 The BJP reiterate the hospitality Jews received when they fled persecution: Hindu society has an unquestionable and proud history of tolerance for other faiths and respect for diversity of spiritual experiences. This is reflected in the many different philosophies, religious sects, and religious leaders. The very foundation of this lies in the great Hindu heritage that is not based on any one book, teacher, or doctrine. In fact the pedestal of Hindu society stems from the great Vedic teachings Ekam Sat Viprah Bahudha Vadanti -- Truth is One, Sages Call it by Many Names, and Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam -- The Whole Universe is one Family. It is this philosophy which allowed the people of Hindusthan (land of the Hindus) to shelter the Jews who faced Roman persecution, the Zoroastrians who fled the Islamic sword and who are the proud Parsi community today, and the Tibetan Buddhists who today face the communist secularism: persecution of religion. Then compare the respective situation of Hindu and Jewish aspirations: So long as freedom to Jews meant that symbols of the Holocaust in Europe were condemned, so long as freedom to African- Americans meant that the symbols of racial discrimination were wiped out, and so long as freedom from imperialism to all people 137 Saradindu Mukherji, Nationalism Is Cornerstone of BJP's Foreign Policy, http://www.bjp.org/pomi.htm 138 KR Malkani, BJP History: It’s Growth and Onward March, http://www.bjp.org/history.htm meant that they would have control of their own destinies, that they would have their own heros, their own stories, and their own culture, then freedom to Hindus meant that they would have to condemn the Holocaust that Muslims reaped on them, the racial discrimination that the white man brought, and the economic imperialism that enriched Britain. Freedom for Hindus and Indians would have to mean that their heroes such as Ram, Krishna, Sivaji, the Cholas, Sankaracharya, and Tulsidas would be respected, that their own stories such as the Ramayana and the Mahabharata would be offered to humanity as examples of the brilliance of Hindu and Indian thinking, and that their own culture which included the Bhagavad Gita, the Vedas, the temples, the gods and goddesses, the art, the music, and the contributions in various fields, would be respected. Freedom meant that as the shackles of imperial dominance were lifted, the newly freed 139 people would not simply absorb foreign ideas, they would share their own as well. The BJP’s Dina Nath Mishra says it again: Those Jews and Parsis were unwelcome in any land but India welcomed them with open arms.140 On the BJP website, an article by S Gurumurthy mocks the idea that Hindutva was ever akin to fundamentalism, Fascism, intolerance and National Socialism: In the East, more specifically in India, there prevailed a society and a social mind which thrived and happily grew within a multiplicity of thoughts. "Ano bhadrah kratavo yantu visatah" ("let noble thoughts come in from all directions of the universe") went the Rigvedic invocation. We, therefore, welcomed all, whether it was the Parsis who came fleeing from the slaughter of Islamic theocratic marauders and received protection here for their race and their religion, or the Jews who were slaughtered and maimed everywhere else in the world. They all found a secure refuge here along with their culture, civilization, religion and the book. Even the Shia Muslims, fearing annihilation by their coreligionists, sought shelter in Gujarat and constituted the first influx of Muslims into India. Refugee people, refugee religions, refugee cultures and civilizations came here, took root and established a workable, amicable relationship with their neighbourhood. They did not -- even now they do not -- find this society alien or foreign. They could grow as constituent parts of an assimilative society and under an umbrella of thought that appreciated their different 141 ways. Another featured writer, Balbir K Punj, denounces anti-Semitism in the wake of the Word Trade centre bombings in New York: Narendra Modi was pilloried by our "secularists" when he too spoke some home truths. This section has been turning a blind eye and even justifying the rising tide of militancy in Islam and the wide support that the terrorists are getting from a section of their community whether through silence or through coercion. What is worse is that there is no organised attempt within the community to counter extremist elements. Many liberal Muslims individually call some acts of Muslim terrorists as "un-Islamic." But there has not been a single fatwa issued against any terrorist even though imams frequently issue fatwas on whom the Muslims should vote for. Even as late as last November, there was an irresponsible statement from Saudi interior minister Prince Nayef (in the Kuwaiti Arabic daily Assyasah) denying that 15 Saudis took part in the attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon and accusing the Jews of being responsible for the attacks since they stood to 142 benefit from the subsequent criticism of Islam and the Arabs. The present Prime Minister of India, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who leads the BJP was interviewed by the Israeli newspaper, Ha’aretz, and explained the long Jewish association with Hindus: 139 140 BJP, Hindutva: The Great Nationalist Ideology, http://www.bjp.org/philo.htm Dina Nath Mishra, Resolving Minority Problems, 25 March 2002, http://www.bjp.org/paip.htm 141 S Gurumurthy, Semitic Monotheism: the Root of Intolerance in India, 1993, http://www.bjp.org/philo.htm 142 Balbir K Punj, Gujarat Calls a Spade a Spade, from Asian Age, 24 December 2002, http://www.bjp.org/paip.htm The interaction between the people of India and the Jewish diaspora has a long history, dating back to the 1st century A.D. Two communities of the Jewish people in India even trace their roots to the ten 'lost tribes' of Israel. The story of the Jewish diaspora in India has been uniformly positive. India is one of very few countries in the world, which has never had a trace of anti-Semitism at any time in its history. The people of India were deeply anguished at the holocaust visited upon the Jewish people during the Second World War. If there were any reservations about the Zionist Movement, they were about some of the means adopted by the movement. I believe India and Israel should focus on building bilateral relations on the basis of shared perspectives and commonalities between our two democracies. This has to be a forwardlooking exercise, rather than harking back to perceptions of the past. On the basis of this, he thought the future for co-operation was very bright: We see this first visit to India of a Prime Minister of Israel as a landmark in the history of our bilateral ties. India-Israel relations have acquired a multi-dimensional character, particularly over the last decade. While our defence cooperation is substantial and growing, we have also a lot to share with each other in agricultural sciences, in high technology - including Information Technology, in peaceful applications of space technologies, etc. India has benefited from Israel's world famous expertise in agricultural technologies. India is now Israel's second biggest trade partner in Asia, and the largest item of our trade is actually gems and jewellery. Tourism is another area with great potential, as is culture, since both our countries are host to some of mankind's greatest historic and cultural treasures. I am confident that the visit of Prime Minister Sharon will raise our bilateral relationship to an entirely new level of cooperation.143 On the occasion of Sharon’s visit to Delhi, he was recorded as praising both Jewish and Hindu cultures due to their antiquity, as well as the microscopic Jewish minority in India: Our lands have supported the birth of great and ancient religions and civilisations. Jewish communities in India have, over the centuries, painted rich colours into the mosaic of Indian society.144 Now there were also the binding ties of democracy: I believe India and Israel should focus on building bilateral relations on the basis of shared perspectives and commonalities between our two democracies.145 Interview of Prime Minister of India Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee by Ha'Aretz (Israel), 8 September 2003, http://www.meadev.nic.in/govt/interveiwpmwithisrealmedia.htm 144 Jawed Naqvi, Protests mark Sharon's visit: Closer Indo-Israel ties top agenda, in Dawn, 10 September 2003, http://www.dawn.com/2003/09/10/top12.htm 145 Jeffrey Coleman, Growing Alliance, AIPAC Near East Report, 6 October 2003, http://www.aipac.org/Growing%20Alliance100603.htm 143 Sri Rama Varma IV, Maharaja of Cochin, 1948-9 Rama Varma IV, also known as Parikshith Thampuran, was the last official ruler of the Cochin Empire. In 1949 Travancore and Cochin merged and his kingdom came to an end. He ruled for just one year, but was recognized as the Velliya Thampuran of Cochin until his death in 1964. Under the State Reorganization Act of 1956, Travancore-Cochin lost a few districts and gained a few others, to form a new state, Kerala. In 1949, on a visit to the Paradesi Synagogue: The tie of friendship between your community and the Royal family became only stronger and closer in the course of time. It may interest you to know that my grandmother used to tell us o the very pleasant hours she and the other princesses of her age spent in the company of your womenfolk who usually gathered at the palace in the afternoons. [The Paradesi synagogue is] a standing monument of the religious toleration and hospitality that prevailed in this part of the country from time immemorial. It is a thing of beauty and an architectural achievement in itself, a clear and visible evidence of the material prosperity and progress attained by your community under the kind patronage of the Royal family ever since you came here as the honoured guests of the people. …..No other people deserved such treatment better. You have, on occasions more than once, shown your unflinching loyalty to the King and country that adopted you and gave you shelter. Of course, your community is small, but its historical importance is really great….The prosperity of the State and welfare of the people, irrespective of caste, community or colour, shall always be uppermost in my mind, and I shall endeavour to promote them to the nest of my abilities. It is very gratifying for me to learn that your coreligionists are now celebrating their national freedom in Palestine, the original home of your forefathers, and I heartily congratulate you on this very happy occasion.146 146 JB Segal, A History of the Jews of Cochin, Valentine Mitchell, London, 1993, pp.98-9 King Bhaskara Ravi Varman I’s grant of autonomy of to the Jews of Kerela, c.1000AD In the Holy Ark of the Cochin Synagogue, there are copper plates with engraved writing in old Malayalam, claiming that they were given to Joseph Rabban, leader of the Jews, by a king called Cherumanperumal. The traditional date of these is 379AD, but a date to be nearer 1000AD is now thought to be more likely. For this reason the inscriptions are taken to mean that “Jospeh Rabban” was to represent all Jewish leaders, and the king “Cheramanperumal” any monarch of ancient and medieval Kerela: Hail Prosperity! This is the gift that His majesty, King of Kings, Sri Bhaskara Ravi Varman, who is to wield sceptre for several thousand years, was pleased to make during the thirty sixth year opposite to the second year of his reign [according to Narayanan, 1000 C.E.], on the day when he was pleased to reside at Muyirkkode. We have granted to Joseph Rabban, Ancuvannam, tolls by the boat and by carts, Ancuvannam dues, the right to employ day lamp, decorative cloth, palanquin, umbrella, kettledrum, trumpet, arch, arched roof, weapon and the rest of the seventy-two privileges. We have remitted duty and weighing fee. Moreover, according to this copper-plate grant given to him, he shall be exempted from payments made by other settlers in the town to the king, but he shall enjoy what they enjoy. To Joseph Rabban, proprietor of Ancuvannam, his male and female issues, nephews and sons-in-law, Ancuvannam shall belong by hereditary succession. Ancuvannam shall belong to them by hereditary succession as long as the world, sun and 147 moon endure. Prosperity! 147 Nathan Katz, Who are the Jews of India?, University of California Press, Los Angeles and Berkeley, 2000, pp.33-5 Positive Comments from Non-Hindus on the Lack of Anti-Semitism among Hindus, and the Growing Jewish-Hindu Co-Operation in combating Hate The lack of anti-Semitism and a flourishing Jewish community in India for 2000 years has been recognised by some scholars, despite the present trend to paint anything remotely Vedic as an Indian nativist version of Fascism and National Socialism, as well as the more common allegation of being Hindu fundamentalist. More recently Jewish intellectuals are asking deeper questions as to why the Hindu ethos of India was free of anti-Semitism, while on the political front, certain courageous individuals are urging co-operation with India, and the Hindu community in America. Joan G Roland Brandeis University (1989) Bene Israel feel strongly that the Jews owe a great debt to Indians where they have always been treated well, and that they should not abandon her……Their emigration to Israel was conditioned not, as in so many Eastern countries, by a persecution resulting from the creation of the State of Israel, but by an attraction to the Holy Land and an uncertainty about postcolonial India.148 Reuben Raymond Bene Israel Indian Jew, born in Israel, and community leader in the Negev settlement of Beersheva (1999): Other Israeli Jews don't like their motherland because they were driven out but we weren't. We can never forget what India has done for us. India is still our motherland and Israel is our fatherland.149 Ezekiel Issac Malekar Rabbi at New Delhi synagogue: India is the only pluralist country where Jews haven't faced any anti-Semitism or persecution. Jews have been here for over 2,000 years and contributed significantly to the 150 country's growth. (4 September 2003): Israel is in my heart but India is in my blood.151 Jews have lived peacefully in India for 2,000 years. There has never been the slightest persecution.152 148 149 Roland, op. cit., pp.263-4 Sejal Mandalia Indian Jews in Israel, 1999, http://66.102.11.104/search?q=cache:BJcNnWacpIIJ:www.gopio.net/indian_jews.doc+indian+jews&hl =en&ie=UTF-8 150 Indian Jews hope for closer Indo-Israeli ties, in Times of India, 4 September 2003, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/html/uncomp/articleshow?msid=164884 151 Raphael Meyer, The Jews of India, http://www.the-south-asian.com/March2001/Jews_of_IndiaIntro.htm Bentzion Ben Yosef Yakof Mumbai Indian Jew, now living in Houston, Texas, as an artist (1994): We were respected. There was freedom. There was no conversion impulse in Jewish or Hindu life.153 Nathan Katz, Ellen S Goldberg Dr. Nathan Katz is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the University of South Florida. Ellen S. Goldberg is a writer, photographer and editor (1988): In this exotic corner of the diaspora, a realm in which Jews lived for millennia in freedom and dignity, bathed in the affection of their Hindu brethren, India was the most hospitable of homes, a nation which has been host for six distinct Jewish communities: the ancient and celebrated Cochinim, the once-forgotten Bene Israel, the courtiers of the Mughal emperors, Portuguese Marranos, the commercially and industrially prominent Baghdadis, the scattered Ashkenazim, and today's tribal Jews 154 of the far northeast. Nathan Katz In 2000 Dr. Katz published his groundbreaking book Who are the Jews of India?, which researched in depth the Jewish experience in India: Jews navigated the eddies and shoals of Indian culture very well. They never experienced anti-Semitism or discrimination at Indian hands……Indian Jews lived as all Jews should have been able to live: free, proud, observant, creative, prosperous, self-realized, full contributors to the host community….. The Indian chapter is one the happiest in the Jewish Diaspora……155 Their amicable relations with their neighbours, particularly the local nobility, obviated the defensive identity barriers often found among Jews who live under Christian or Muslim rule. The unique Hindu polity that insists each group in society should maintain its own cultural and religious distinctiveness enabled Jewish acculturation without assimilation. That the Cochin Jews abandoned India for Israel in no way diminishes the quality of their life on the Malabar Coast. They lived as all Jews should have been permitted to: free, pious, creative, and prosperous, contributors to both their host culture and their own Jewish world. When conditions permitted, they returned to the ancestral home of their dreams and prayers. The story of their community reads like an idealized script about 156 Jewish dignity and survival…… The three very different communities of Jews in India157 had one determining factor in common: the absence of indigenous anti-Semitism. All three testify that maintaining Jewish identity is not merely a defence mechanism against a hostile world. On the contrary, Jews of India demonstrate how the Jewish communities flourish in an Shaun Tandon, In India, Israeli PM to find small but resilient Jewish community, 2003, Agence France-Presse, http://quickstart.clari.net/qs_se/webnews/wed/cf/Qindia-israel-jews.RC6x_DS8.html 153 Hindus, Jews share bonds of Faith, 22 January 1994, http://www.hindunet.org/alt_hindu/1994/msg00023.html 154 Katz, Goldberg, The Last Jews of India and Burma, 15 April 1988, Jerusalem Centre for Public Affairs, http://www.jcpa.org/jl/jl101.htm 155 Katz, Who Are the Jews of India?, p.4 156 Ibid., p.161 157 Cochini, Bene Israel, Baghdadi 152 atmosphere of amity. Save for isolated incidents – Portuguese rule in Cochin for example, 158 of the Swaraj movement – Jews in India have always or the pro-German faction enjoyed the respect and affection of their neighbours. Indeed, today Jews play a significant role in Indian political discourse, in which Hindu tolerance is a major theme. The so-called Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in New Delhi recently appointed a Jew, General Frederick Jacob, as governor of Goa and recently promoted him to the demanding position of governor of Punjab.159 Norman Cahoum Leader of Baghdadi Jews in Calucutta, talking to Dr. Nathan Katz in 1987: We are taught to abhor idolatry to prevent its assimilation into Abraham’s family of religions… We don’t want to profess too much all these similarities because Judaism will not accept, but if you look at it closely you will see that Judaism and Hinduism have so much in common….[In India] We are accepted totally, at the same time we are treated with kid gloves, like special guests….These people [Hindus] are civilized; the others are barbarians bent on proselytisation. If you ask any Jew who has lived in India, from Cochin to Calcutta, you will find that although the Hindus are called idolaters, they are more 160 accepting of Jews than those so-called new religions that grew out of Judaism. Joshua Brandt Jewish-American journalist (2003): Hymowitz, the former interim executive director of the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco, is a national JCC consultant. He begins a new stint on Monday as interim executive vice president of the Greater Los Angeles Area JCCs. He went to Bombay in February to work with the Bene Israel community to help upgrade India's lone JCC……. "Because they have such a tiny community there," he said, "they really are concerned about preserving their heritage. And they don't really look upon intermarriage all that kindly……. If assimilation is a big concern, however, anti-Semitism is not. "The Israeli ambassador to India said that there is no discrimination against Jews in India," Hymowitz said. "He also commented that India's really the only country in the world you 161 can say that about." Doreen Bell-Doton (2002) During the ten years that we lived in Arad, in the northern Negev, it was my privilege to become acquainted with a number of Jews who are originally from India. They have their own synagogue in Arad. It was a pleasure to go there to pray on the Sabbath day and see that on the Sabbath day the women wear saris. They don't wear saris during the week, having adopted Western dress. This indicates to me that the Jews of India consider the sari not only festive and aesthetic, but appropriate dress for the holiest day of the Jewish week. It was a pleasure to see that much of the written material on the walls in the synagogue is in Hindi. I understand this to mean that it is important to the Israeli Here Katz alludes to Subhas Chandra Bose who sought help from the Axis, but was never actually anti-Semitic 159 Ibid., pp.163-4 160 Ibid., pp.158-9 161 Joshua Brandt, Ex-JCC Director helps Jews in India, San Francisco Jewish Community Publications Inc, 2003, http://www.jewishsf.com/bk000428/sfhymowitz.shtml 158 community who hail from India to retain not only the ability to speak, read and write Hindi, but the weltanshauung of the language as well. Most of all it was a very great pleasure to see that among the Indian congregation there were a number of new arrivals from Ethiopia who had been welcomed into the prayer quorum and had found a comfortable place to pray there. It is very typical of people from India to accept "outsiders" and make them feel wanted and at home. Moreover, the Jews from India speak only well of their former homeland and travel back to visit as much as their finances allow. Unlike Jews who fled to Israel as a refuge, the Jews from India never felt persecuted and came here out of Zionist sentiment only. The Jews who came to Israel from India came not to escape an 162 unfriendly or even hostile Diaspora, but to build the country. Elijah E. Jhirad President of Congregation Bina (1982): The fact that Jews went to India is no surprise. The question should be why more Jews 163 did not go there and instead went to what were then barbaric countries. Daniel J. Elazar Professor Daniel J. Elazar (1934-1999)of Temple University in Philadelphia, was a leading political scientist and specialist in the study of federalism, political culture, the Jewish political tradition, Israel and the world Jewish community. As founder and President of the Jerusalem Centre for Public Affairs, he headed the major independent Jewish "think tank" concerned with analyzing and solving the key problems facing Israel and world Jewry. Who is not curious as to how the Jews of India survived for so long in an atmosphere of tolerance when other Jewish communities such as that in China, benefiting from similar toleration, assimilated so thoroughly. Their argument is that India as a host society combined tolerance with culturally enforced diversity which made the difference. Indian society, with its several major religions and further division within Hinduism into four major castes, a fifth of outcasts, and over 3,000 subcastes, tolerates wide diversity but does not permit people born into one group to cross over into another or even to associate with the others beyond the public square, since the food taboos of every religious community, caste and subcaste mean that they cannot eat with one another. Nothing separates more than that. The Jewish community could fit into India as another caste and even developed its own subcastes, as the authors explain, properly denoting this as the Cochin Jews' one 164 great (and sad) departure from halakhic Judaism. Benedicta Pereira Cochin Sephardi Jew There are few places in the world where Jews can claim centuries of peaceful coexistence with the local population . The district of Jew town in Cochin on the Malabar Coast of Southern India is one of them ….. With only few dozens of Jews left here yet a strong sense of community still exists in Cochin . Jewish identity is infused with the history of their ancestors in India. There is no contradiction that the Jews of India have pride in being both Indian and Jewish. Doreen Bell-Doton, Dual Citizenship for the Jews of India, 25 August 2002, http://www.boloji.com/outlook/053.htm 163 Jew Terms Anti-Semitism Notably Scarce in India, from India Abroad, 9 April 1982, http://www.gaycourter.com/IndiaAbroad.htm 164 Daniel J Elazar, The Last Jews of Cochin: Jewish Identity in Hindu India, Jerusalem Centre for Public Affairs, http://www.jcpa.org/dje/articles/cochin-pref.htm 162 Their identity is infused with the history of their ancestors in India. Some scholars put it that Jewish settlers came to India almost 1500 years ago it was a local Hindi Maharaja who offered them sanctuary and land to build a synagogue……. Perhaps the most unique aspect of the Indian Jewish experience is the complete absence of discrimination by a host majority. The secret of India's tolerance is the Hindu belief which confers legitimacy on a wide diversity of cultural and religious groups even as it 165 forbids movement from one group to another. Shalva Weil Dr. Shalva Weil is an anthropologist and a researcher with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Ben Gurion University of the Negev in Beer Sheba, Israel, specializing in Indian Jewry. Dr. Weil is the Founding Chairperson of the Israel-India Cultural Association: The Bene Israel are probably the only Jewish community in the world today which did not experience anti-Semitism. Living in harmony with their Indian neighbours for two thousand years, they were free to practice Judaism and develop as a community.166 Sabrina Kerbel Canadian journalist (1998) It is a little known fact that India has an unbroken record of more than 2,000 years of hospitality to Jews. Jews there enjoyed political, economic, religious and intellectual freedom. In addition, as a result of the rigid caste system they integrated, but did not assimilate…..This vibrant Jewish community also produced many creative people – journalists, authors, and artists in the Indian film and stage industry. Four Jews have received the Padrna Shri, the Indian government's highest award to outstanding 167 individuals in various fields of endeavour. Ann Schaffer The director of the American Jewish Committee's (AJC) Belfer Centre for American Pluralism (2002): India is building a close relationship with Israel and America, which we certainly want to 168 encourage and support, because it's good for Israel and it's good for America. Shulamit Bahat, Acting Executive Director of the American Jewish Committee: The Taliban's wilful targeting of Afghans who practice the Hindu religion, first by destroying treasured Buddhas, and now by forcing Hindus to distinguish themselves with discriminatory badges, is extremely painful for Jews.169 Benedicta Pereira, Kerela Jews, http://www.shalom2.20m.com/page3.htm Shalva Weil, The Bene Israel of India, 1997, http://www.bh.org.il/Communities/Archive/BeneIsrael.asp 167 Sabrina Kerbel, India Boasts a Thriving Jewish Community, 10 September 1998, The Canadian Jewish News, http://www.cjnews.com/pastissues/98/sept10-98/feature/feature3.htm 168 Larry Ramer, Pro-Israel Activists Seeking Allies Among Immigrants From India, Forward Magazine, 21 October 2002, http://www.factsofisrael.com/load.php?p=http://www.factsofisrael.com/blog/archives/000420.html 169 AJC, Taliban Treatment of Hindus Harkens Back to Nazi Germany, 23 May 2001, http://www.charitywire.com/charity11/00695.html 166 165 Paul Goldenberg The president of The National Public Safety Learning Centre, which consults with American Jewish organizations on security matters, and former head of the New Jersey state attorney general's bias-crime unit: People don't realize that India is at the forefront of the war against terrorism.170 Jeffrey Colman Senior Congressional lobbyist with AJC: When India, Israel and the U.S. are under attack by extremists, there's a great deal of common ground and common interest in opposing them. The Jewish community needs 171 broad support for its issues and coalition-building is important to us. Steve Israel The Jews were always an insignificant minority in the vastness of the Indian continent, reaching a peak of a few tens of thousands earlier this century. There was no anti-Jewish feeling and the Jews prospered as a community largely composed of merchants and traders.172 Stacey Menchel Scholar at Emory University in USA: One of the most interesting things about Indian Jewish communities is the general lack of anti-Semitism. In ancient times, the Cochin Jews were accepted by the Hindu rulers, and for the most part lived in a peaceful environment. The major reason for this phenomenon is the predominance of the Hindu caste system. Considered their own separate caste, the Jews did not disrupt Indian society. As long as they married and socialized in their own group, which they did enthusiastically, the other castes had nothing to complain about.173 Stephen Brown Canadian journalist with FrontPage Magazine: For both countries, it is a natural alliance; they see themselves facing some of the same problems vis-à-vis Islamic terrorism, such as cross-border infiltration, disputed territory and threatened annihilation. Like with the West Bank, Islamic extremists in South Asia have made it clear they will not stop with the "liberation" of Kashmir, the Muslim-majority Indian state they want to sever from India. Thereafter, their stated goal is to set up two more Islamic states in northern and southern India for the Muslims living there, having in store for India and Hinduism the same fate they intend for Israel and Judaism in the Middle East - total eradication….. Ibid. Ibid. 172 Steve Israel, Broadening the Picture Beyond America: India, The Department for Jewish Zionist Education, 2003, http://www.jafi.org.il/education/100/concepts/d2-7.html 173 Stacey Menchel, Jewish Communities of India, 2000, http://www.emory.edu/ENGLISH/Bahri/Jews.html 171 170 Opposition to the Sharon visit inside of India was negligible. Only a few thousand Muslims and leftists demonstrated in New Delhi against the Israeli prime minister’s presence. AntiSemitism is also nonexistent in India, a country whose Jewish community numbers about 70,000. So, with its one billion population, powerful military and strong stance against Islamic extremism, it is therefore no wonder the Israeli leader said at the start of his visit: 174 "We regard India as one of the most important countries in the world." Jason F Isaacson International Affairs Director of the American Jewish Committee ……the help that Israel was really able to give to India at the time of the Kargil crisis as a friend and ally, had not taken place before. It is becoming clear that democracies like India, Israel and the US have to stick together and nothing has made that clearer than the 175 event [9/11] two years ago. Prime Minister of Israel, Ariel Sharon We are very much interested in developing and strengthening our relations with India because India is one of the most important countries in the world. We believe in democracy... I hope my visit will contribute to strengthening our relations 176 with India. Today Israel and India are embattled democracies, sharing values and the challenge of terrorism. United in our quest for life, liberty and peace our joint determination to fight for 177 these values can inspire our hopes for a better future for our people. Shimon Peres India and Israel are co-operating on security and intelligence matters because we have a common enemy: terrorism.178 If India joins NATO, the world can fight the common enemy terrorism, which is now becoming a global phenomenon.179 Abraham H. Foxman Anti-Defamation League National Director and a Holocaust survivor: We are deeply troubled by the Taliban’s continual repression of its people. Particularly painful, with its unavoidable connections to history, is the order requiring all Hindus in 174 Stephen Brown, Israel and India: An Alliance Forged by Terror, 15 September 2003, http://www.indolink.com/Analysis/a091703-142047.php 175 Israel helped India during Kargil, 8 September 2003, http://www.rediff.com/news/2003/sep/08sharon2.htm 176 We want Strong Ties with India: Sharon, 9 September 2003, http://www.rediff.com/news/2003/sep/09sharon1.htm 177 Sharon pays homage to Mahatma Gandhi, 9 September 2003, http://www.rediff.com/news/2003/sep/09sharon2.htm 178 Rahul Bedi, Israel and India draw Closer, 14 March 2002, http://www.janes.com/security/international_security/news/jir/jir020314_1_n.shtml 179 Onkar Singh, Peres urges Pakistan to uproot Terrorism, 7 January 2002, http://www.rediff.com/news/2002/jan/07isr2.htm Afghanistan to wear an identity label ontheir clothing. This is an extension of the Taliban’s policy of religious intolerance and a stark reminder of the exclusionary tactics employed by the Nazis as a precursor to genocide. The Taliban rulers in Afghanistan have adopted a policy that more than 60 years ago spelled the beginning of the end for six million Jews. The Holocaust began with the ostracizing of the Jewish people and their forced separation from society, which can be the only purpose of labeling "others" as outsiders. In Nazi-occupied Europe, the badge of shame was the yellow Star of David worn as a patch. In Afghanistan, the Taliban rulers today are ordering Hindus to wear a similar label to enable Muslims to identify them. This is a clearly a policy founded on intolerance, mistrust and religious hatred. One would hope that we have learned from history. Following the recent desecration of statutes in Afghanistan, it has now progressed to marking people. We cannot help but ask, "What comes next?" We call on the international community and all religious leaders to 180 immediately speak out against this practice. Michael Kleiner Kleiner is a Knesset member of the Herut party, an made this comment with reference to the Taliban forcing Hindus to wear yellow badges on their clothing: ….the suffering of the Hindus in Afghanistan is an issue for all Jews and the whole 181 world. Those who think that the Nazi lexicon is embraced only by the extremist Moslems in Afghanistan are not aware of the extreme talk of the Palestinian Authority, Egypt, Jordan and Syria where there is a Goebbels-style systematic propaganda campaign against the Jewish People…..The suffering of the Hindus in Afghanistan is a matter of concern for all 182 Jews and all citizens of the world. Aaron Krell Krell is a Holocaust survivor from Poland, and now lives in New York, and was shocked at the Taliban’s decree on Hindus: When I saw it on television, I am only wondering one thing. In those days a lot of people didn't care what happened to the Jews. Would it be today that people wouldn't let it 183 happen to the Hindus? Mark Schickman Head of the Holocaust Centre of Northern California on the Taliban forcing Afghan Hindus to ear badges: Like the Nazis before them the Taliban are systematically destroying religious and cultural foundations of minority culture, and then publicly stigmatizing that population.184 ADL Calls on Word Leaders to Condemn Afghanistan’s Policy of religious Labelling, 22 May 2001, http://www.adl.org/presrele/DiRaB_41/3842_41.asp 181 Holocaust survivors sympathize with Afghani Hindus, from Jerusalem Post, 25 May 2001, http://www.jpost.com/Editions/2001/05/24/LatestNews/LatestNews.26849.html 182 Herut MK Michael Kleiner demands an urgent Knesset discussion in the wake of Taliban decrees against the Hindus in Afghanistan, IMRA - Independent Media Review and Analysis, 22 May 2001, http://www.hvk.org/articles/0501/89.html 183 Holocaust survivors sympathize with Afghani Hindus, from Jerusalem Post, 25 May 2001, http://www.jpost.com/Editions/2001/05/24/LatestNews/LatestNews.26849.html 180 Voices of Disharmony: The Lowest Common Denominator linking Anti-Semitism and anti-Hinduism When one examines the following one finds that condemnation of Jews and Hindus for various racial, ethnic, religious or political reasons is to be found in the same breath. With the recent burgeoning alliance between India and Israel, and the co-operation between long established Jewish organisations in the USA, and more recent Hindu immigrants form India, anti-Semites and anti-Hindu activists, many either Marxist or Islamic have warned of the dangers of the Zionis-Hindutva alliance, or in the case of one rather imaginative hatemonger, the “Brahmanic-Talmudic” alliance. As I said at the very beginning only by destroying the outdated racist colonialist theory of the Aryan invasion of India, and by demonstrating that Jews resided for 2000 years in India with no anti-Semitism from the Hindus, will the myths of Jewish supremacism, Zionism as racism, and Hinduism as Saffron Fascism be demolished. This is something which western academics are either to lazy or afraid to even contemplate. The Holy Inquisition of the Roman Catholic Church in Portuguese India To root out heresy and all non-Christian practices that did not comply with the doctrine of the Papacy, the Inquisition by the Portuguese in Goa had special venom reserved for Jews, as anti-Semitism was carried over from Europe, and Hindus as typical examples of idolworshipping heathens. The persecution of Jews by the Inquisition, directly sanctioned by the Roman Catholic Church establishment, is well known. That I did the same to Hindus, and has yet to apologise or even acknowledge it, is constantly ignored: St. Francis Xavier to D. Joao III, in 1545: The second necessity for the Christians is that your majesty establish the Holy Inquisition, because there are many who live according to the Jewish law, and according to the Mohamedan sect, without nay fear of God, or shame of the world. And since there are many who are spread over the fortresses, there is the need of the Holy Inquisition and of many preachers. Your majesty should provide such necessary things for your loyal and faithful subjects in India. Jesuit priest JM Nunes Barreto to Rome in 1551: This is to inform Your Paternity that the Inquisition is more necessary in these parts than anywhere else, since all the Christians here live together with the Muslims, the Jews and the Hindus and, also the largeness of the country itself causes laxness of conscience in persons residing therein. With the curb of the Inquisition they will live a good life. And since the people of this country set store by their honour, if they do not mend their ways from consideration of what they owe to God, they may do so at least out of fear of the 185 disgrace and shame of prison and other penalties. Bispo de Dumense, 1522: Around the territories of the neighbours of Goa, there exist in that island temples in which status of the enemy of the Cross are worshipped and every year their festivals are 184 Melissa Radler, Nina Gilbert, Holocaust Center President likens Taliban to Nazis, 2001, Jeruslam Post Service, http://www.jewishsf.com/bk010525/ip11a.shtml 185 Priolkar, op. cit., pp.23-4 celebrated. These are attended by many Christians, both Europeans and natives, which is very wrong in that it promotes idolatry. It will be service to God if these temples in the island of Goa are destroyed and in their stead churches with saints are erected, and it is ordered that whosoever desires to live in this island and have house and lands there should become a Christian, and if he does not wish to be one should go out of the island. I assure Your Majesty that there would be no individual who did not turn to the faith of Our Lord Christ, because if exiled from this island 186 he will have no means of livelihood. Vicar General Fr. Minguel Vaz in 1545: Since idolatry is so great an offence against God, as is manifest to all, it is just that Your Majesty should not permit it within your territories, and an order should be promulgated in Goa to the effect that in the whole island there should not be any temple public or secret, contravention whereof should entail grave penalties; that no official should make idols in any form, neither of stone, nor of wood, nor of copper nor of any other metal; that no Hindu festival should be publicly celebrated in the whole island,; that Brahmin preachers from the mainland should not gather in the houses of the Hindus; and that persons who are in charge of St. Paul’s should have the power to search the houses of the Brahmins and other Hindus, in case there exist a presumption or suspicion of the existence of idols 187 there. Gomes de Vaz, in 1567: There also took place in this year the destruction of the Hindu temples which existed in the territories of Your Majesty, of which none remains, for the priests of St. Francis also razed out f memory all those which existed in Bardez.188 Karl Marx The very name of Marx conjures up ideas of liberation, freedom of bondage, anti-colonialism, liberation movements, all joined in the march to a glorious future. In reality of course Marxism has incarnated itself in terms of genocide, slavery of the gulag, repression, torture, and self-alienation from national cultures. Though now discredited largely as a deadly, evil and extremely unhealthy joke of an ideology, Marxism continues to stagger on like a wounded man-eater in parts of India. The claim that it is the only shield against any form of Nazism and Fascism is of course a pathetic excuse to have some relevance, because as any objective and serious student can evaluate, both Fascism and Nazism (National Socialism) have their roots in Marxist socialism, and in the case of the latter, Bolshevism. India’s Marxists are so self-alienated from their own Vedic culture, that they do not even bother looking at how Marx viewed India and Hinduism. He saw Hinduism as nothing more than backward superstition, which is hardly surprising considering he had no use for spirituality: Hindostan is an Italy of Asiatic dimensions, the Himalayas for the Alps, the Plains of Bengal for the Plains of Lombardy, the Deccan for the Apennines, and the Isle of Ceylon for the Island of Sicily. The same rich variety in the products of the soil, and the same dismemberment in the political configuration. Just as Italy has, from time to time, been compressed by the conqueror’s sword into different national masses, so do we find ] Hindostan, when not under the pressure of the Mohammedan, or the Mogul , or the Briton, dissolved into as many independent and conflicting States as it numbered towns, or even villages. Yet, in a social point of view, Hindostan is not the Italy, but the Ireland of the 186 187 Ibid., pp.66-7 Ibid., pp.73-4 188 Ibid., p.87 East. And this strange combination of Italy and of Ireland, of a world of voluptuousness and of a world of woes, is anticipated in the ancient traditions of the religion of Hindostan. That religion is at once a religion of sensualist exuberance, and a religion of self-torturing asceticism; a religion of the Lingam and of the juggernaut; the religion of the Monk, and of the Bayadere…… Now, sickening as it must be to human feeling to witness those myriads of industrious patriarchal and inoffensive social organizations disorganized and dissolved into their units, thrown into a sea of woes, and their individual members losing at the same time their ancient form of civilization, and their hereditary means of subsistence, we must not forget that these idyllic village-communities, inoffensive though they may appear, had always been the solid foundation of Oriental despotism, that they restrained the human mind within the smallest possible compass, making it the unresisting tool of superstition, enslaving it beneath traditional rules, depriving it of all grandeur and historical energies. We must not forget the barbarian egotism which, concentrating on some miserable patch of land, had quietly witnessed the ruin of empires, the perpetration of unspeakable cruelties, the massacre of the population of large towns, with no other consideration bestowed upon them than on natural events, itself the helpless prey of any aggressor who deigned to notice it at all. We must not forget that this undignified, stagnatory, and vegetative life, that this passive sort of existence evoked on the other part, in contradistinction, wild, aimless, unbounded forces of destruction and rendered murder itself a religious rite in Hindostan. We must not forget that these little communities were contaminated by distinctions of caste and by slavery, that they subjugated man to external circumstances instead of elevating man the sovereign of circumstances, that they transformed a self-developing social state into never changing natural destiny, and thus brought about a brutalizing worship of nature, exhibiting its degradation in the fact that man, the sovereign of nature, fell down on his knees in adoration of Kanuman, the monkey, and Sabbala, the cow. England, it is true, in causing a social revolution in Hindostan, was actuated only by the vilest interests, and was stupid in her manner of enforcing them. But that is not the question. The question is, can mankind fulfil its destiny without a fundamental revolution in the social state of Asia? If not, whatever may have been the crimes of England she was 189 the unconscious tool of history in bringing about that revolution. But what is surprising is his utter detestation of the ancient land of the Vedas, as a mere piece of earth ripe for colonisation. Far from condemning British rule, he thought it logical and progressive, as India had always been a land of invasions. Hindus never had the capability to rule themselves. India could never develop without British colonisation. Hindu civilisation was stagnant and incapable of progress: How came it that English supremacy was established in India? The paramount power of the Great Mogul was broken by the Mogul Viceroys. The power of the Viceroys was broken by the Mahrattas. The power of the Mahrattas was broken by the Afghans, and while all were struggling against all, the Briton rushed in and was enabled to subdue them all. A country not only divided between Mahommedan and Hindoo, but between tribe and tribe, between caste and caste; a society whose framework was based on a sort of equilibrium, resulting from a. general repulsion and constitutional exclusiveness between all its members. Such a country and such a society, were they not the predestined prey of conquest? If we knew nothing of the past history of Hindostan, would there not be the one great and incontestable fact, that even at this moment India is held in English thraldom by an Indian army maintained at the cost of India? India, then, could not escape the fate of being conquered, and the whole of her past history, if it be anything, is the history of the successive conquests she has undergone. Indian society has no history at all, at least no known history. What we call its history, is but the history of the successive intruders who founded their empires on the passive basis of that unresisting and unchanging society. The question, therefore, is not whether the English had a right to conquer India, but whether we are to prefer India conquered by the Turk, by the Persian, by the Russian, to India conquered by the Briton. 189 Marx, The Future Results of British Rule in India, 1853, http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1853/06/25.htm England has to fulfil a double mission in India: one destructive, the other regenerating the annihilation of old Asiatic society, and the laying the material foundations of Western 190 society in Asia. Anti-Semites always harp on about Marx being a Jew. They nicely omit that though born a Jew, his father converted to Lutheranism. Marx became very anti-Jewish, self-alienated like so many Hindus are by being brainwashed by his sick ideas. Marx contributed much to modern anti-Semitism, which is why hatred of Jews was so integral to socialism and Communism, and thereby transmitted to National Socialism and contemporary anti-Zionism: On what grounds, then, do you Jews want emancipation? On account of your religion? It is the mortal enemy of the state religion. As citizens? In Germany, there are no citizens. As human beings? But you are no more human beings than those to whom you appeal. …. We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time, an element which through historical development -- to which in this harmful respect the Jews have zealously contributed -- has been brought to its present high level, at which it must necessarily begin to disintegrate. In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism. … The Jew has emancipated himself in a Jewish manner, not only because he has acquired financial power, but also because, through him and also apart from him, money has become a world power and the practical Jewish spirit has become the practical spirit of the Christian nations. The Jews have emancipated themselves insofar as the Christians have become Jews…….. Judaism continues to exist not in spite of history, but owning to history. The Jew is perpetually created by civil society from its own entrails. What, in itself, was the basis of the Jewish religion? Practical need, egoism. The monotheism of the Jew, therefore, is in reality the polytheism of the many needs, a polytheism which makes even the lavatory an object of divine law. Practical need, egoism, is the principle of civil society, and as such appears in pure form as soon as civil society has fully given birth to the political state. The god of practical need and self-interest is money. Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist. Money degrades all the gods of man -- and turns them into commodities. Money is the universal self-established value of all things. It has, therefore, robbed the whole world -- both the world of men and nature -- of its specific value. Money is the estranged essence of man's work and man's existence, and this alien essence dominates him, and he worships it. The god of the Jews has become secularized and has become the god of the world. The bill of exchange is the real god of the Jew. His god is only an illusory bill of exchange. The view of nature attained under the domination of private property and money is a real contempt for, and practical debasement of, nature; in the Jewish religion, nature exists, it is true, but it exists only in imagination…….. Since in civil society the real nature of the Jew has been universally realized and secularized, civil society could not convince the Jew of the unreality of his religious nature, which is indeed only the ideal aspect of practical need. Consequently, not only in the Pentateuch and the Talmud, but in present-day society we find the nature of the modern Jew, and not as an abstract nature but as one that is in the highest degree empirical, not merely as a narrowness of the Jew, but as the Jewish narrowness of society. Once society has succeeded in abolishing the empirical essence of Judaism -huckstering and its preconditions -- the Jew will have become impossible, because his consciousness no longer has an object, because the subjective basis of Judaism, practical 190 Ibid., http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1853/07/22.htm need, has been humanized, and because the conflict between man's individual-sensuous existence and his species-existence has been abolished. The social emancipation of the Jew is the emancipation of society from Judaism. 191 Adolf Hitler His views on Jews are notorious and offensive. Less well known are his views on Hindus. With Hindus always having the swear word Nazi thrown at them and any Hindu political manifestation known as Hindutva, being called Indian or more specifically Hindu Nazism, let us examine how Hitler actually detested the people and Vedic culture of India, for racial, ethnic, religious and ideological reasons: In Mein Kampf: As early as 1920-21, when the young National Socialist movement began slowly to rise above the political horizon, and here and there was referred to as the movement for German freedom, the party was approached by various quarters with an attempt to create a certain bond between it and the movements for freedom in other countries. This was in the line of the ' League of Oppressed Nations,' propagated by many. Chiefly involved were representatives of various Balkan states, and some from Egypt and India, who as individuals always impressed me as pompous big-mouths without any realistic background. But there were not a few Germans, especially in the nationalist camp, who let themselves be dazzled by such inflated Orientals and readily accepted any old Indian or Egyptian student from God knows where as a 'representative' of India or Egypt. These people never realized that they were usually dealing with persons who had absolutely nothing behind them, and above all were authorized by no one to conclude any pact with anyone, so that the practical result of any relations with such elements was nil, unless the time wasted were booked as a special loss. I always resisted such attempts. Not only that I had better things to do than twiddle away weeks in fruitless 'conferences,' but even if these men had been authorized representatives of such nations, I regarded the whole business as useless, in fact, harmful…. I still remember the hopes, as childish as they were incomprehensible, which suddenly arose in folkish circles in 1920-21, to the effect that British power was on the verge of collapse in India. Some Asiatic jugglers, for all I care they may have been real 'fighters for Indian freedom,' who at that time were wandering around Europe, had managed to sell otherwise perfectly reasonable able people the idée fixed that the British Empire, which has its pivot in India, was on the verge of collapse at that very point. Of course, it never entered their heads that here again their own wish was the sole father of all their thoughts. No more did the inconsistency of their own hopes. For by expecting the end of the British Empire to follow from a collapse of British rule in India, they themselves admitted that India was of the most paramount importance to England. It is most likely, however, that this vitally important question is not a profound secret known only to German-folkish prophets; presumably it is known also to the helmsmen of English destiny. It is really childish to suppose that the men in England cannot correctly estimate the importance of the Indian Empire for the British world union. And if anyone imagines that England would let India go without staking her last drop of blood, it is only a sorry sign of absolute failure to learn from the World War, and of total misapprehension and ignorance on the score of Anglo-Saxon determination. It is, furthermore, a proof of the German's total ignorance regarding the whole method of British penetration and administration of this empire. England will lose India either if her own administrative machinery falls a prey to racial decomposition (which at the moment is completely out of the question in India) or if she is bested by the sword of a powerful enemy. Indian agitators, however, will never achieve this. How hard it is to best England, we Germans 191 Karl Marx, On the Jewish Question, 1844, http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/jewish-question/ have sufficiently learned. Quite aside from the fact that I, as a man of Germanic blood, 192 would, in spite of everything, rather see India under English rule than under any other. In March 1945 he commented on the Indian SS legion, or Azad Hind (Free India) Legion, which actually took part in the final defence of Berlin against the Red Army: The Indian legion is a joke. I believe that if Indians could be used to turn prayer-wheels they would be the most indefatigable soldiers in the world. But using them in a life-anddeath war is pure madness. They cannot even kill an Englishman.193 He was dismissive to his Indian “ally” and “collaborator” Subash Chandra Bose on 27 May 1942: You people cannot rule, you are better off under the British. What do you want 194 independence for? Theodore Bilbo Racist senator, governor of Mississippi, member of the Ku Klux Klan, who wanted all blacks “repatriated” to Africa. His views on Hindus represent the accepted social Darwinist and eugenic ideas that were just being discredited, yet remained in force until Civil Rights triumphed after his death. His idea on the Aryan Invasion myth are unfortunately still with us: When the Hindoos, Aryans of the migratory Caucasian race, arrived in India, they found themselves surrounded by a mass of yellow-black-white mongrels……. The white invaders of India produced a great civilization which even today we view with amazement and awe. They excelled in science and were the first to perform many surgical operations. Undisputable evidence of their culture may be found in art, poetry, drama, law, and philosophy, but the progress continued only so long as the blood of the conquerors remained white. As the blood became corrupted, the culture and civilization became stagnant and decayed. The caste system which for centuries enabled this race to produce art, science, and a great religion had no power to vitalize the blood when it became mongrelized…… The white civilizers of India gave the world a great civilization, and it would seem that nothing could have caused their deterioration, but mongrelization over hundreds of years destroyed race and civilization. The Hindoos used caste, supported by law and religion, to keep their blood pure. They used every remedial measure known to man except physical separation of the races in order to maintain racial integrity, but all their efforts failed and the result may be written in one word - amalgamation or mongrelization. Men who call themselves Hindoos still exist but in name only. The blood of the proud, aristocratic Aryan of India was submerged in the yellow-black-white swamp and lost 195 forever in the mongrel marshes. On the mythical Jewish threat to America: Those People in the United States today who advocate a mongrelized Nation may be called disciples of Professor Franz Boas, who for many years was a member of the Department of Anthropology of Columbia University. Professor Boas, a Jew, brought considerable notoriety to himself during the early years of this century by his efforts to destroy all concepts of race and to encourage and promote miscegenation in this country. 192 193 Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, http://www.crusader.net/texts/mk/mkv2ch14.html Elst, Saffron Swastika, p.524 194 Ibid, 195 Theodore Bilbo, Take your Choice – Separation or Mongrelization, 1946, http://www.churchoftrueisrael.com/tyc/tyc-02.html A naturalized citizen of the United States. Professor Boas did everything in his power to destroy the racial ideals of the Nation which he took for his own. When he arrived on these shores, from the heart of Germany at the age of twenty-one, he saw what the white race had accomplished in the new world. He certainly must have been familiar with the history of the American colonies, and the civilization of this country was proof before him of the ability of the American pioneers and their descendants. Yet for some reason which has never been publicized, this German Jew, a newly-arrived immigrant, wanted to destroy the racial stock which had carved this mighty Nation out of a wilderness. Professor Boas frankly and boldly proclaimed that he was in favor of the miscegenation.of the races. He wrote a number of books and made numerous speeches which were recorded so that there can be no doubt as to what were his beliefs and objectives…… Another author who, in his own way, has added his plea for a mongrelized Nation is William B. Ziff, of Chicago, Illinois, a Jewish ex-candidate for Congress and a former chairman of an interracial society, who discusses "The Tragic Struggle of Race" in his 196 book, The Gentlemen Talk of Peace. George Lincoln Rockwell Leader of the American Nazi Party until his death in 1967. He regurgitated similar themes as Hitler, Bilbo and Marx: From White Power (1966): Most Americans meekly work about two days out of every week, not to take care of themselves and their dear ones, or even to help OUR nation- but to send wheat, food, machinery and our services to Communists, cannibals and criminal gangsters posing as "statesmen" in Africa, Haiti, Asia, India, etc., and loafing Negroes in America, Much of what we send to India for instance is devoured by millions of sacred COWS and ratswhile there are hungry Americas right here at home!197 The Jews have crushed the truth about human breeds and convinced much of the White world that the developed (White) nations "owe" endless aid to the "undeveloped" (Black) nations. This utterly insane lie, spread all over the earth, has produced a devil's "miracle" it has sent doctors, medical care, schools, money, machines and technology to the most animalistic populations of backward Africa, to India and to every place where inferior humanity has previously been limited in its numbers by its own stupidity and ignorance since the beginning of time. But, since colored people are all supposed to be "equals," the equalist fanatics have followed through in the attempt to make them equal, by pulling them up with modern medicine and science. This has taken all limits off the breeding of these people…… The battle is now for possession of the whole planet. And the colored hordes of Genghis Khan have almost won. From Africa, India and Asia they are swarming like a plague of 198 poisonous locusts, into all White nations. All the colored nations have this same over-population problem, as we have already shown in the first parts of this book. China, India, and Africa would be blessed by the destruction of several hundred million extra hungry mouths.199 David Duke In My Awakening, he asks us to cast away our “prejudices” and look at the issue of race and human genetics afresh. Yet he totally ignores all recent archaeological and scientific, 196 197 Ibid., http://www.churchoftrueisrael.com/tyc/tyc-10.html George Lincoln Rockwell, White Power, 1966, http://www4.stormfront.org/posterity/ns/WP/WP1.html 198 Ibid., http://www4.stormfront.org/posterity/ns/WP/WP9.html 199 Ibid., http://www4.stormfront.org/posterity/ns/WP/WP13.html including his beloved human genetic, evidence regarding the Aryan Invasion Theory. Instead he reiterates the old racist myths to reproduce the same old trash in his so-called literary masterpiece, without doing so much as a respectable amount of research on the matter: Aryans, or Indo-Europeans (Caucasians) created the great Indian, or Hindu civilization. Aryans swept over the Himalayas to the Indian sub-continent and conquered the aboriginal people. The original term India was coined by the Aryan invaders from their Sanskrit word Sindu, for the river now called the Indus. Sanskrit is perhaps the oldest of the Indo-European languages, having a common origin to all the modern languages of Europe. The word Aryan has an etymological origin in the word Arya from Sanskrit, meaning noble. The word also has been associated with gold, the noble metal and denoted the golden skinned invaders (as compared to the brown skinned aboriginals) from the West……..200 As I walked over the ancient road and through the patches of dry weeds toward the temple, I reviewed all that I had read about India and all that I had seen firsthand. I recalled the fact that the highest classes were the lightest-skinned, that nothing was more insulting to an Indian than calling him "black," that "Varna" (caste) is the Indian word for color. The original language of the ancient Aryan invaders, Sanskrit, is an ancient IndoEuropean language with direct links to every other European language. Ancient Sanskrit literature even has descriptions of Aryan leaders as having light eyes and hair. As I neared the temple, I thought about the splendor that once was and about the dreadful squalor I had witnessed since my arrival in the India of today. I noticed that the temple’s dome had partially caved-in. Only two walls remained standing. Still closer, I saw thousands of pockmarks eroding the structure. Each of them had once housed a precious stone, but these had long ago been pried loose and picked clean. I wondered if all the monuments of Europe and America would eventually endure the same fate as this one. Around the corner of the temple, on the partially shaded side, I saw something that will forever remain in my memory. In the shade sat a little, brown, half-caste Indian girl. She was thoroughly emaciated and resembled some sort of hideous doll except that she moved slightly, and her animated bones and skin had a terrifying effect. She was so malnourished that her face had not developed properly, but her eyes were very large, and in their own way they were hauntingly beautiful. On one cheek was an open sore the size of a quarter. More sores covered her arms, chest, and legs. Dozens of flies covered each sore, jockeying with each other to feast on her flesh. Occasionally the little girl would brush her frail hand over one of the sores, causing the flies to retreat. Inevitably, though, once her hand had passed, the flies returned like iron filings to a magnet. The child held her hand out to me, begging for a few rupees. I dug my hand deep into my pocket, pulled out all the Indian coins I had, and carefully tipped them into her dark, skeletal hand. I turned and stumbled back out into the hot Indian sun, my eyes blinded by tears. On the way back to my room I wondered if, in a few hundred years, some half-black descendant of mine would be sitting among the ruins of our civilization, brushing away the flies, waiting to die. Every day our nation grows a little darker from the torrential immigration of non-Whites, high non-White birthrates, and increasing racial miscegenation — and with each passing day, we see the quality of our lives decline. Crime is ever on the increase, drug activity proliferates, educational quality declines, and the American standard of living suffers. There are those who ridicule the healthy racial values of our forefathers and replace them with the pseudo-science of egalitarianism. Treason to our 201 heritage thrives, and corruption feeds in the highest places. The nation of India, like most of the Third World, has already passed the point of no return. She cannot feed or otherwise adequately take care of herself, not even with repeated injections of Western capital, aid, and technology. The huge populace of modern-day India cannot sustain the level of culture and economic well-being that its highcaste forebears created. 200 201 David Duke, My Awakening, 1999, http://www.duke.org/awakening/chapter29_03.html Ibid., http://www.duke.org/awakening/chapter29_07.html It is not, however, too late for America and the West. No matter how dark our destiny may appear, there is enough genetic treasure among our people to fashion a road to the stars. Those who know the racial truth often excuse their inaction by expressing pessimism. Suggesting that "the battle is already lost" is often simply an excuse for cowardice. Our race's struggle for survival and evolutionary advancement became the meaning of my life when I looked into that little Indian girl's forlorn face, for I then knew exactly what I must do. Prospects of victory or defeat became irrelevant to my responsibility and my honor. I resolved to live my life in the original meaning of the term Aryan, a noble life of dedication to my people. My life from that moment onward has been in the service of my people and the Promethean task ahead. I became determined that my life would be about awakening the Aryan inside of every European. When I grow weary in this battle and I find my character smeared or my personal life attacked, that girl’s gaunt face is there to haunt me, to drive me onward. When my personal safety — or that of my loved ones — is threatened, that girl’s pleading countenance is there to remind me, in the most graphic terms what failure would mean for our progeny. I learned that it was my responsibility to do all that I could for the survival of my heritage. In the crisis our race now faces, all of us who know the truth must carry that same personal responsibility, and with it the understanding that any individual danger or suffering must be endured when the fate of our whole people is at stake. Such was the altruism that brought our forebears through the crucible of the ice ages of prehistoric Europe, and now we must draw from that genetically imprinted trait as we stand on the 202 brink of being inundated by the masses of the Third World. Now for his attitude towards Jews which tries to pin anti-Semitism on a myth he calls Jewish supremacism, claiming it is based on the Talmud. One wonders if he ever realised just how anti-Semitism was caused by interpretations of his beloved Bible, and if he is at all familiar with the Quran and Hadith, and how it is used by his terrorist allies in the Middle East. One wonders if he is aware in his rather basic and naïve reading of Indian history that he bothered to find out one simple fact: that Jews never had any trouble with the host community of Hindus: The Jewish religion had an evolution quite different from that of early Christianity. The Jewish people and their religion were entwined. Belief in God was necessary to preserve the tribe and secure God's blessings as much as preserving the tribe was important to safeguarding the religion. However, according to the Zionist State of Israel, race is far more important than religious belief. A prospective immigrant does not have to practice or believe in Judaism to immigrate to Israel, in fact he can be an outspoken atheist and Communist, he must only prove Jewish descent. Protection of the ethnic identity of the Jewish people became the main reason for Judaism's existence.203 In rejecting Jesus Christ and the love and tolerance he preached, Judaism proceeded on its path of chauvinism. It culminated in the pages of the Talmud, an encyclopaedic exposition of Jewish law and custom, compiled by hundreds of rabbis over the centuries. The American Heritage Dictionary describes it as "constituting the basis of religious authority for traditional Judaism." The Talmud was first transcribed in Babylonian times, and the oral tradition is many centuries older. By the sixth century AD it was put into written form, becoming the most important religious work of the Jewish people, the chief canon of their religion. In it they finally codified their most chauvinistic tendencies.204 When I looked up anti-Semitism in the major encyclopaedias, all of them attempted to explain historical anti-Semitism purely as a Christian intolerance of non-Christian Jews. Sometimes, they even suggested that Christians persecuted Jews simply because the Gospels blame the Jews for the crucifixion of Christ. They never even suggested that one of the sources of anti-Semitism could have been the hateful and ethnocentric attitudes of 202 203 Ibid., http://www.duke.org/awakening/chapter29_08.html Ibid., http://www.duke.org/awakening/chapter16_03.html 204 Ibid., http://www.duke.org/awakening/chapter16_04.html the Jews themselves, as expressed and encouraged toward Gentiles in their own religious 205 law. There were many tribes, nationalities and conflicting religious sects that migrated to the great cities of the Roman Empire. Yet, of all these groups, only the Jewish tribe elicited such relentless hostility throughout the centuries. Only the Jewish tribe never assimilated into the Roman population. Could their own Talmudic practices and their disdain for nonJews have had something to do with the enmity they generated? It seemed logical to me that these things contributed to anti-Jewish sentiments in the West.206 The Jewish religion, as codified by the Talmud, is less concerned with an afterlife than with the survival and power of the Jewish people. Driven by the belief that Jews are the "Chosen People," Judaism is held together by chronic recitals of past persecutions. In a world that renounces racism, Judaism is the only creed on Earth praised for fostering genetic exclusion, elitism, ethnocentrism, and supremacism. Modern Israel is the only Western state that is openly theocratic, that unashamedly proclaims itself a nation whose purpose is to advance one religion and one unique people. Israel defines Judaism as the state religion, with little separation of church and state in its civil and religious laws. In spite of their religious state, most Jews in Israel identify themselves as "secular." But, even the non-religious Jews of Israel and America support the Orthodox-run state of Israel, and they support numerous organizations run by Orthodox Jews around the world, as a mechanism of preserving their cultural and racial heritage. Most of us never see the reality of Jewish chauvinism and power because we have not organized the scattered facts into a coherent whole. Like a child's connect-the-dot puzzle, most of us have not yet completed the picture. The media erase as many dots as they can from our awareness, and anyone who succeeds in connecting all the dots is bludgeoned back with the ultimate moral weapon: accusations of anti-Semitism. Given the powerful Jewish influences that have so much power in this nation's media and finance, it is amazing that any Gentiles would dare oppose them. One accused of being an anti-Semite faces an intractable enemy organized around the world - one that will do whatever it takes to discredit, intimidate, and destroy him. After I completed a survey of readings in the Talmud and of the modern Zionist writers, I realized that the Europeans were not the only historical practitioners of racial and religious intolerance. Actually, the Jews have been quite proficient at it themselves. Once I accepted that Jewish ethnocentrism existed, again I asked the question that had arisen after my enlightenment on the "Russian Revolution": Why were we forbidden to know this? A Jew can rightly object to slanderous criticism from Christians. Why should I, as a Christian, not be upset by slanderous criticism of my heritage by Jews? If hateful sentiments by Christians against Jews are wrong, why is the converse not just as reprehensible? Are the media right in suggesting that Christians have a monopoly on hate, while Jews have a monopoly on charity? Which religion, as judged by the evidence of its own writings, is more motivated by hatred? Even as I write these provocative words, I harbor no hatred toward the Jewish people. There are intolerant Jews just as there are intolerant Gentiles. It is also true that there are many Jews who respect our Christian heritage. But unless the nonchauvinist Jews will work hard to bring to their own faith and community the same kind of love and reconciliation that Christ taught, the cycle of hatred between Jew and Gentile could fester. If this happens, we could see repeated the terrible excesses of the past. The government, church, and media establishment zealously work to diminish Gentile intolerance of Jews. That objective can be realized only through an equal effort to lessen Jewish chauvinism, suspicion, and anger against Gentiles. As the Israeli human-rights activist Israel Shahak wrote, "Anti-Semitism and Jewish chauvinism can only be fought simultaneously." After reading the words of Zionism's modern founder, Theodore Herzl, I fully realized that there are, as he expressed it, "alien" power brokers in our civilization. These are people who do not share our culture, our traditions, our faith, our interests, or our values. I 205 206 Ibid., http://www.duke.org/awakening/chapter16_06.html Ibid., http://www.duke.org/awakening/chapter16_07.html realized that if I desired to preserve the heritage and values of my people, I would have to defend my people from the intolerant sector within the Jewish community that seeks not conciliation but domination. When I was 16, I never suspected that just by pointing out the powerful Jewish elements of anti-Gentilism I would be labeled anti-Semitic. I do not accept that label today, and I still believe that it is no more anti-Semitic to oppose the Jewish supremacism than it is anti207 Italian to oppose the mafia. While Zionists in Israel were dispossessing the Palestinians, Zionists in America were busy consolidating their power in all the Western nations also, promoting policies that would weaken the identity and the will for self-preservation of the founding Gentile elements. They had even set about to make us a minority in our nation, just as they had made the Palestinians a minority in Israel. I knew the day would not be far off when we, like the Palestinians, would become an oppressed minority in our own land. The fact that the ship attacked by Israel was named the Liberty has a bitter appropriateness, for I knew that if the Zionists succeeded in their ultimate objectives they would destroy our people’s life and liberty. The structure and form of modern Israel proves that Jewish supremacism is not an ideology of the past, but an ominous reality of the present, overtly expressed in every sinew of the Israeli state. The fact that the Jewish power structure in America and around the world intensely supports it offers convincing evidence that little had changed in the struggle between Jew and Gentile over the last 2,500 years. Moreover, the fact that Jews have been able to get the Western world to support Zionism in all its glorious hypocrisy is testament to their power of over all forms of media and over our nation’s governments. 208 The European race cannot survive unless that power is broken. If the Talmud did encourage this Jewish supremacism then why was it absent in India? I mean here was an ideal place full of idol worshipping Gentiles. The reason is obvious. There is no Jewish supremacism, there never was and it does not exist. It is like the Aryan Invasion Theory, a myth. Myths are what give David Duke his meaning in life, and he wastes his time constructing ideas based upon an Aryan invasion of India which never even took place, and a Jewish supremacism which does not even exist. It is unfortunate that while the latter idea is recognised for the hate that it is, the idea of a primeval white Aryan invasion of India is not challenged. Indeed challenging it brings accusations of being a Hindu nationalist, fundamentalist and hence a Nazi and Hitler admirer, perhaps the only instance of being called a Nazi when actually attacking the core element of National Socialist ideology itself. Arthur Kemp Formerly of South Africa, Kemp writes for pro-apartheid and pro-Nazi outfits. Again we have the accepted idea of the Aryan invasion, which he is free to disseminate because he is backed by so called India experts, especially the Marxists: Another branch of the Aryans penetrated as far east as India, where they also settled and built a civilization. Although the Aryans established a powerful White civilization in Northern India, it would be incorrect to think that the native Indians had not created anything of their own. Mixed with original White Mediterraneans, the Indus civilization created by the Harappans was already in existence by the time the Aryans invaded. The invading Aryans were however more advanced and referred to the conquered Indians as "Dasyu" - the "dark ones" or slaves….. Quotes from the Rig Veda, the original Holy Book of the Aryan conquerors of India (which has now been corrupted but is still to this day in use as the main Hindu religious text) contains a great many references to the race of the conquerors and the conquered……. 207 208 Ibid., http://www.duke.org/awakening/chapter16_12.html Ibid., http://www.duke.org/awakening/chapter22_19.html The last of the Aryans can be found today in certain segments of Indian society, and most notably in that country's film industry, known as Bollywood…..Preity Zinta, who, although from modern India, clearly shows the eye color, features and skin color of the ancient 209 Indo-Europeans. Amongst the first Whites to enter India were the ancient White Mediterraneans who established the Harrapan culture, and then later the Indo-Aryans who penetrated the Punjab valley around the year 1500 BC. Their demise has already been recounted, absorbed into the mass of native Indians, their only legacy the caste system in India; a few 210 very high caste White looking Indians; and their corrupted religion, Hinduism. Then on Jews, where he almost mirrors David Duke: The origins of this original anti-Jewish feeling lie within the nature of Jewish society itself: exclusively ethno-centric with a binding religion and inward looking culture, the Jews always managed to maintain themselves as an isolated community in all of the nations in which they settled. This tradition has maintained itself to this day…… It was in Imperial Rome that the very first Jewish community in Europe was formally established in 139 BC. It was not long before Roman opinion was aroused against them: they were the subject of frequent attacks in the Roman senate in speeches by amongst others the famous orator Cicero around the year 50 BC…… This Jewish domination of the mass media and the political decision making process in the USA and Western Europe, will have increasingly serious consequences for the Whites of these parts of the world as the power and anger of the Islamic world spreads. Gentiles in the West are associated with Jews by the Muslims - and not undeservedly so, given the slavish support which the West appears (through the Jewish dominated mass media and 211 governmental control) to give to Israel and World Jewry. All things said, to have been a Jew in Nazi Germany could not have been a pleasant experience: but, as the over 4.3 million claims against the post war German state from Jews who suffered as a result of this persecution, (by 1998 the German state had paid out over $50 billion in reparations), certainly far fewer of them died than what is most often claimed. Increasingly, all the evidence urges a complete revision of this aspect of the history of World War Two.212 Raja Harish Swamy Indian Marxist of the socialist and anti-Hindu Forum of Indian Leftists (FOIL), warning of the joint dangers of Hindutva and Zionism, a convenient package with anti-Semitism and anti-Hinduism rolled into one: Israel has long been a supporter of the worst fascists and criminals in the world. From openly supporting the Botha apartheid regime in South Africa and Zaire’s Mobutu, arming and training Salvadoran death squads, Lebanese Phalangists, and UNITA in southern Africa, to the recent military support for Colombia’s right wing paramilitaries, Israel’s despicable track record confirms its function in the American empire. As Hindutva strengthens its hold on India, Israel’s role in South Asia is beginning to become clearer. Just last week in the midst of irresponsible warmongering by the decrepit leaders of India and Pakistan, Israel sent a delegation to India to express “support against terrorism.” Such open interference in support of the Hindutvadi agenda makes Israel a dangerous enemy of the Indian people. However this trend has a history and several disturbing aspects 209 Arthur Kemp, March of the Titans – History of the White Race, 2003, http://www4.stormfront.org/whitehistory/hwr5c.htm 210 Ibid., http://www4.stormfront.org/whitehistory/hwr47.htm 211 Ibid., http://www4.stormfront.org/whitehistory/hwr63.htm 212 Ibid., http://www4.stormfront.org/whitehistory/hwr64iv.htm reveal deeper connections between the purveyors of Hindutvadi ideology and their Zionist friends……. Both Hindutva and Zionism thrive on grossly falsified histories--racist narratives with strong similarities….. Ancient Israel and ancient Hindu India are only possible when everything else is excised: for ancient Israel, Palestinian history is not permissible because the Bible chooses Israelites as the chosen people. All material evidence that cannot be quickly interpreted as proof of the Bible’s veracity is not relevant. For Hindutva’s ancient Hindu past, everything great must either be Hindu or not; everything meagre, bad, undesirable is foreign; therefore all that is labeled foreign is evil, negative, undesirable. The quest for Ram’s temple continues in the same vein as the fantasy of King Solomon’s temple, both fantasies necessitating the destruction of mosques, in the latter case the third holiest shrine in Islam. Why are Hindutva and Zionism so hellbent on temple building when their primary goal is using the secular state to carry out genocidal social engineering? Both assert that the symbolism of temple building is supposed to represent a resurgence, a return to an ancient lost glory, one that in reality never existed…….. The Hindutva-Zionist nexus is an ongoing project of collaboration between fascist movements broadly following an agenda that serves the interests of US imperialism. It is an axis of evil in that it derives from and promotes genocidal racism while carefully serving the economic interests of imperialist capital. It enables and facilitates the US imperialists to pursue their geopolitical agenda of cornering the vast oil reserves of West and Central Asia. It also draws strength from, and strengthens the Bush administration’s “war without end,” as it is founded on a virulent hatred of Muslims, most notably because Muslims make up the majority populations in the areas where the oilfields lie. Taken together, the Bush axis of evil in reality is a nefarious alliance between US capitalism, Zionist Israel, and Hindutva, whose ideological camaraderie derives from the fascistic worldview of the Huntingtonian “clash of civilizations.” In the light of this axis of evil, Israel’s siding with Hindutva constitutes a threat to India and demands a response from the left and progressive forces in India. The struggle for a free Palestine is inevitably tied to the struggle for a free India, neither of which can be achieved without a powerful internationalist left that struggles against the fascistic agents of imperialism. Billion-dollar arms deals have no bearings on the will of a people to be free, as can be seen in the incredibly brave struggle of the Palestinian people. Ultimately Zionism and Hindutva, like their imperialist sponsors, will end up on the dung heap of history. The left must ensure 213 that they reach there sooner rather than later. Prakash Karat Writer for the anti-Hindu and anti-Zionist (meaning anti-Semitic) Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPI (M), on the farcical and so-called “Anti-Racist” Conference in Durban, South Africa, in 2001: It is well known that racial discrimination persists in the USA, with the blacks and other coloured people being subjected to social and economic discrimination in various forms. By walking out of the Durban conference, the US administration has laid itself open to the charge that it wanted to evade the issue altogether. Further, it underlined the US opposition to the central question which dominated the conference --- the question of apologising for the heinous practice of slavery undertaken by the white nations and the colonial powers. The other issue which dominated the conference was the Palestinian people’s struggle against Zionism and Israel trampling upon the rights of the Palestinians. The Zionist ideology represents Jewish extremism which does not recognise the rights of any nonJewish people. The US and Israel walked out of the conference protesting against the wording in the draft declaration which condemned Israel for its brutal treatment of the Palestinian people. ….. Raja Harish Swamy, Zionism, Hindutva and Mickey Mouse Imperialism, 21 July 2002, Ghadar forum of FOIL, http://www.proxsa.org/resources/ghadar/v5n2/zionism.html 213 The official Indian delegation led by Omar Abdullah, minister of state for external affairs, played a role unworthy of India at Durban. First of all, the Indian government refused to condemn Israel strongly, nor was it prepared to take cognisance of the reactionary features of Zionism. In a reversal of India's long standing opposition to Zionism, the official delegation took the position that India is now committed to repealing the UN resolution terming Zionism as racism. The pro-Israeli stand reflects the growing nexus between the BJP regime and the Israeli government under American auspices. Nor was India's voice 214 heard strongly in support of the demand for reparations for slavery and the slave trade. Vijay Prashad Vijay Prashad is Associate Professor and Director of International Studies, Trinity College, Hartford, CT. USA. This short piece leaks out his anti-Semitic, anti-Hindu and smug Marxist ideas: Hindutva's alliance with the Jewish-Zionist state is not so strange after all, because at the ideological level Hindutva is much like Zionism, for both extol the importance of the RaceState, and both cast aspersions at the presence of a Muslim minority. If the activists of Hindutva yell 'Jao Kabristan ya Pakistan' (Go to the Graveyard or Pakistan) to Indian Muslims, those of radical Zionism follow Golda Meir [former Israeli Prime Minister, Labor] in the belief that 'there is no such thing as a Palestinian.' ….. Israel sees India as a vast market for its arms, and as an ally against what it calls the Islamic world. The US, under the right, is eager to see a new configuration that includes India and Israel to encircle both Islam and Communism, to dispatch the new bogeymen of the 21st Century. These are dark times.215 Ashraf Abbas This is a journalist for the Indian Muslim Milli Gazette, who not only ignores the burning of innocent Hindu victims which began the violence in Godhra, but blames the anti-Muslim carnage (of course ignoring the Hindu victims, as they do not count as human beings) on Israel, in an incredibly wild and unsustainable anti-Semitic conspiracy theory: The common thinking of Muslims living in riot-affected areas of Gujarat is that the butcher of Palestinian Muslims, Israel, is directly involved in these terrible anti-Muslim riots. It is quite possible that some people may consider it a flight of fancy but those who have observed the conditions prevailing in Gujarat and have a deep understanding of the IndoIsraeli relations, do not consider it a remote possibility. According to informed sources, Narendra Modi was in Israel for some time before being appointed as chief minister. A few months ago hundreds of youngmen of Gujarat were sent to Israel ostensibly for agricultural work where they were imparted special training. These youths imbibed with Hindutva played an important role in the burning of Gujarat. A citizen of Ahmadabad badly affected by these riots said that some packets of the dangerous chemicals used by the rioters had been found with 'Made in Israel' mark on them. The seriousness of the issue can very well be judged after the discovery of these facts. Famous defence analyst having a close watch on Israeli defence matters, Hisam Swelm, in one of his new books on Indo-Israeli relations has expressed deep concern over India's growing relations with Israel which can prove very dangerous, and even fatal, for India Prakash Karat, US Exposed, India Disgraced, from Peoples Democracy, 16 September 2001, http://pd.cpim.org/2001/sept16/2001_sept_16_durban.htm 215 Vijay Prashad, Imperialism, Israel & India: Hindutva-Zionism: An Alliance of the New Epoch, February 2002, http://www.between-lines.org/archives/2002/feb/Vijay_Prashad.htm 214 itself. Swelm has regretted that for Hindutva rulers of India, four million Jews of Israel are 216 more important than 1.04 billion Muslims and 54 Islamic countries. Praful Bidwai Yet another Indian Leftist political analyst: Pokhran-II thus brought to fruition a long-standing Hindutva agenda, rooted in obscurantism, religious sectarianism and exclusivism, Darwinian biological theory, a cult of action and physical fitness, and blind faith in the noble character of the soldier's calling. American praise for the BJP's audacity in taking "the initiative" to conduct nuclear tests in the teeth of global opposition only shows how close and comfortably collusive the neoconservatives who rule the U.S. can get with the traditional religious ultra-conservatives of the BJP, just as they nurture a special relationship with Israel's Likudnik Zionist conservatives. It also shows the shallowness and flimsiness of Washington's professed commitment to universal values such as democracy, secularism, pluralism and liberalism.217 Jayati Ghosh Yet another detestable Marxist Indian writer: Already, India is the largest market for high-tech Israeli weapons, accounting for almost one half of Israel's arms exports. Israel has become the second largest supplier of arms to India, after Russia. Israel has already provided India with sea-to-sea missile radars and other similar systems, border monitoring equipment and night vision devices. This new arms exchange has the blessings of the Bush administration, which recently cleared the sale and delivery of Israel's new Phalcon reconnaissance aircraft to India. This sale had been stayed when the border tensions with Pakistan were at their height in 2002, and a similar sale to China had been disallowed. But now, apparently, the U.S. government thinks that such Indo-Israeli military cooperation is all to the good. In addition, recently there have been reports of Indo-Israeli plans to collaborate on the development of a missile defence system, using the basic technology of Israel's Arrow anti-missile system, which was developed jointly with the U.S. Such hardware exchange between India and Israel is supported by other forms of military cooperation as well, all under the benevolent gaze of Washington. Several thousand Indian soldiers are being given specialised "anti-insurgency training" in Israel. In Israel, strategic thinking looks upon the Indian Ocean as a useful and desirable location for military infrastructure, using the cooperation of the Indian Navy. Apparently, Israel has already conducted tests on the possibility of launching nuclear warheads in the Indian Ocean off the Sri Lankan coast. All this has been encouraged and abetted in India and in the U.S. by playing up to the anti-Muslim sentiment implicit within the ruling BJP. Recently, the Prime Minister's National Security Adviser (whose very designation is unabashedly copied from the U.S. administration's nomenclature) Brajesh Mishra visited the U.S. It was the first time that a representative of the Indian government actually attended and addressed a gathering of the American Jewish Committee, a right-wing Zionist lobby. Even more than his presence at that function, what he said was enough to confirm the common attitude of the current Indian government with such right-wing anti-Islamic groups. Mishra is reported to have argued that only a core of "true democracies" such as the U.S., Israel and India can effectively fight terrorism, because they are the prime targets and therefore must form an alliance. This alliance, according to Mishra, should not dither in this war by trying to define terrorism or discussing its causes. Rather, the implicit argument would be that it is apparently enough to decide that all terrorists come from a particular religious source. 216 Ashraf Abbas, Gujarat Riots: Was there an Israeli Connection?, 2002, http://www.milligazette.com/Archives/01082002/01082002080.htm 217 Praful Bidwai, A Dangerous Collusion, http://www.frontlineonnet.com/fl2016/stories/20030815004911700.htm This appalling conclusion was actually confirmed by Home Minister L.K. Advani in an interview with Fox News. Advani said: "Terrorism in so far we have seen it on September 11 or December 13 has a common source and that common source has described the U.S., Israel and India as its three main enemies." Brajesh Mishra, at the meeting with the American Jewish Committee, apparently ridiculed the distinction sought to be made between terrorists and freedom fighters. (What, then of our own Bhagat Singh, to quote only one example?) He is also quoted as saying that "another fallacy propagated is that terrorism can only be eradicated by addressing the root causes". In other words, political solutions are a waste of time, whether in Jammu and Kashmir or in Palestine. Surely, this unqualified aggressive stance would have made even hardened Zionist hawks sit up in some surprise. Not surprisingly, the American Jewish Committee has announced that it is 218 soon setting up an office in New Delhi. Nur Muhammad Islamic fundamentalist contributor to pseudo-Dalit web pages: Now, the mujaheddin are seeking to liberate the Muslim-majority areas in India and create a `Mughalstan' stretching from Bengal to Punjab! The fall of the Brahminist Hindu state would liberate millions of oppressed non-Brahmins from the Kautilyan yoke. Sudras (Dalits, Dravidians), Muslims, Nagas, Mizos, Sikhs and all other oppressed nationalities of Brahmin-Occupied India must unite to overthrow the Kautilyan state. Now, after the fall of the Soviet Union, it is only Israel that is supporting Kautilyan Bharat. One down - two to 219 go! Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan The Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan is a fundamentalist Islamic party in Pakistan, which espouses anti-Hindu, anti-Semitic, and anti-democratic venomous rhetoric: Any self-respecting Muslim would not tolerate even the existence of Israel. All true Muslims believe that withdrawal from an inch of Palestinian land is ‘haram’. This is the Muslim land. Bait-al-Maqdas, the first ‘Qibla’, is our honor and our identity; no Muslim can even think of bargaining on that. The awesome situation in Palestine is, that Muslims residing there since thousands of years have been expelled and Jews have been brought from all corners of the globe as ‘settlers’. Now they say: we should recognize this 220 occupation as legitimate….. When as a result of the Muslim preaching efforts the low caste Hindus in southern India were attracted to Islam, then Indira Gandhi and the Brahman establishment in India instigated and encouraged the Hindu extremism. Particularly, in the Hindu belt of northern India a violent wave erupted aimed at Muslim killing. The issue of ‘Babri’ mosque was lossed up. Controversy was created concerning Muslim Family Laws and an environment of religious bias was created only for political expediency. This is, however, the irony of history, that Congress could not profit from what was its own creation. The real dividend 221 went to Bhartia Janata Party…... Look at the other side of the border….. Hindu chauvinism is encouraged and inspite of the decisions of the highest courts and pledges by the government, hundreds of thousands of Hindus performed their religious rituals in the demolished Babri mosque. To that, the silence of Pakistan and the Ummah at large is simply disgraceful and regrettable.222 218 Jayati Ghosh, The dubious new alliance, from Frontline, June 2003, http://www.flonnet.com/fl2012/stories/20030620005411900.htm 219 Nur Muhammad, Brahmin-Engineered Genocide of 1 Million Muslims in Afghanistan, August 1999, http://www.dalitstan.org/journal/genocide/muslims/neh_afgh.html 220 Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan, Miscellaneous Questions, http://www.jamaat.org/qa/Miscellaneous.html 221 Ibid., Revival of the Hindu Chauvinism in India and the Islamic Movement, http://www.jamaat.org/qa/revival.html 222 Ibid., Pakistan-India Relations and Kashmir Dispute, http://www.jamaat.org/issues/kashmir.html Professor Khurshid Ahmed, who has contributed much to the hate ideology of Pan-Islamism, is featured on the Jamaat website linking the Zionist-Hindu threat: While we would present our view substantiating it with arguments, we want to foretell the result of our analysis in clear words that recognizing Israel would be an error of Himalayan proportions on our part, and that it would incite nation’s hatred and protest besides inviting Allah’s wrath…… Zionists base their claim on the Palestinian land in a so-called Divine pledge in the Bible. This is no more than a myth, at the most. On the basis of this make-believe, imaginary right, Europe’s rich and politically ambitious Jew leadership launched a Zionist movement th towards the end of the 19 century. With temptation, oppression and suppression, political maneuvering and colonialist designs, and by pitching Arabs and Turks against each other, they got foothold in this land during the times of British mandate. Thus, the goal of establishing a Jewish state of Israel was realized apparently under a UN General Assembly resolution on 14 May 1948, but in reality by the use force and military might and Palestinians’ forceful expulsion and genocide…. We do not intend to narrate the whole tragic episode, we want to highlight the historical fact that Israel is not a real and natural State coming to existence on the basis of the right of self-determination of the people of the region. Rather, it is a ‘stolen’ land and a state that has come into being by expelling the original inhabitants from their lands and settling the colonizers from outside. Without understanding the genesis of this State, it is impossible its position in the region. It is not a Middle Eastern State, it is an embodiment of a colonizing power’s domination and suppression in the heart of the Middle East, a state that is devoid of legitimacy under the international law – and would remain so. It owes its existence to ‘occupation by force’ and to accept occupation a basis for conferring legitimacy to a country is not only a violation of the international law, it also constitutes a menace to international peace….. Israel’s Jews were not the original inhabitants of the region – nor are they to this date. They were collected from all over the world and given control of others’ country by expelling the original inhabitants, merely with sheer use of force and under the umbrella of colonial power. Then, the United Nations was used for giving it legal legitimacy. These outsiders are imposing their culture and life-style on the region and are there only on the basis of force….. To us, the State of Israel has no legitimacy….. Israel is not just a colonial and expansionist State; it is also a racist one…… Jewish occupation of Al-Aqsa and talk of recognition of Israel! Could there be any more perverse thinking?..... From Day One, and particularly after acquiring nuclear capability, Pakistan has been a special target of Israel’s hostility. Israel is working in collusion with India to destabilize the whole region and, more specifically, Pakistan. Is our leadership is unconscious of the designs of Israeli leadership?.... Right at the time when the General and his associates were talking about national debate on recognizing Israel, its official spokesman announced that Ariel Sharon would visit India in September and that even if Pakistan accepts Israel, it would give more importance to its relations with India. (Ausaf, London, 12 July 2003) Perez’s statement published in The Nation on 9 January is also worth pondering. He had said that Israel would side with India in case of an India-Pakistan war. So, is it this Israel with which expectations of good-will and friendship are being entertained!... While our leaderships do not tire talking about the vision of Pakistan’s founding fathers, but know little about their views and feelings about Israeli and Zionist designs. Allama Iqbal very well knew the implications of Europe’s being in clasp of Jews. He also asked: if 223 Jews have any right on the Palestinian land, why should Arabs not lay claim on Spain! Ghani Jaffar Scholar with the Institute of regional Studies in Islamabad, and originator of the unique idea of a Brahmanic-Talmudist Axis: India and Israel are arguably the only tow entities in the world to carry their respective baggage of the otherwise globally outdated creed of racism into the twenty-first century. As against some of the international actors which humanity had to contend with, at a terrible cost, during the outgoing hundred years, however, the racist moorings of both India and Israel are in each case embedded in the deeper and more secure realm of religious belief than the primarily politico-cultural ethos of say, a Nazi Germany or a South Africa with its apartheid, in the past. The still surviving – indeed, highly animated – self images of India and Israel are, to say the least, foreign to this global village of the modern era; fashioned as they are on their several precepts of ethnic purity sanctified by religion which safeguard the racial superiority of the Brahmin on the one hand and of the Zion on 224 the other. TT Poulose Writer for Asian Affairs and disarmament expert: There seems to be an ideological affinity between Israel’s right wing parties (to which Sharon belongs) the Jana Sangh and the BJP. Israel glorifies Zionism and according to Harvard Sociologist, Natham Glazer, it is synonymous with democratic principles of equality of human rights. But in Israel there is a ban on “inter-denominational marriage”. There is only the “Jewish nation” and the “Jewish people”, recognized under Zionism. These are and will always remain the “chosen people” of the Old Testament. The BJP with its Sangh Parivar believes in a similar ideology of an exclusive Hindu nation or “Hindu 225 Rashtra”. Asim Khan Asim Khan is a member of the “1924.org”, and is an experienced writer, having written for Islamic magazines as well as serving as an editorial advisor. He has been active in the Islamic da'wah for 8 years, giving talks and circles in the London area in addition to his writing. His writings typify the anti-western, anti-democratic, anti-Hindu, and anti-Semitic rant of such Khilafah organisations: International renowned terrorists, Israeli Leader Sharon and Indian Prime minister Vajpayee, met in Delhi recently to discuss their outlook towards the Islamic threat. Together they condemned their respective Muslim populations for having the audacity to resist oppression and occupation….. The meeting raised suspicion amongst analysts about progress on an Indian-AmericanIsraeli axis, which has been actively promoted by New Delhi and Jerusalem…… 223 Professor Khurshid Ahmed, Israel, Pakistan and the Muslim World, September 2003, http://www.jamaat.org/Isharat/ish0903.html 224 Ghani Jaffer, The Brahmanic-Talmudist Alliance, 2002, http://66.102.11.104/search?q=cache:TSpv8I9iQ9EJ:irs.org.pk/regional%2520studies%2520editions/S pring%25202002.pdf+ghani+jaffer&hl=en&ie=UTF-8 225 TT Poulose, Sharon’s Visit Signals Ideological Shift, October 2003, http://asianaffairs.com/oct2003/diplomacy_in_israel.htm Regardless of the formal existence of an “axis”, America clearly provides unrelenting support towards its fellow “terrorist” governments, India and Israel…… Israel has clearly earned her “terrorist” credentials by her daily murder of Muslims with missiles, helicopter gunships and tanks. She doesn’t think twice about firing missiles into crowded and run down housing complexes, in her attempt to kill individuals. On a daily basis she continues to bulldoze villages, and arbitrarily arrest and torture those she has forced out of their homes into makeshift refugee camps. And all of this, having illegally occupied the land of Palestine in the first place. India is also cut from the same terrorist fabric. She has a long history of brutality, and has instigated and supported the mass murder of Muslims in villages and towns across Kashmir for half a century. Most recently in Gujarat, crazed fanatical Hindu mobs to ran wild, killing and torturing thousands of innocent Muslims, whilst the police and government officials looked on without lifting a finger. In other parts of India, the same terrorist Hindu mobs reduced a historic Masjid to rubble, and initiated plans to build a disgusting temple in its place. Again, the government did nothing to stop this terrorism; rather officials gave their full backing to the terrorist actions and objectives. And America’s terrorist credentials need little or no proof. She dropped two atomic bombs on Japan in WW1, even though it was clear to her that the Japanese were preparing to surrender. She invaded Vietnam, killing many thousands and used chemical weapons against its’ civilians. She has supported so many repressive and bloody tyrants throughout Latin America, Africa and the Middle East, that history might be hard pushed to find someone with greater despotic credentials. Like their American counterpart, both India and Israel flout international laws and pursue their interests through tyranny without any cause for concern. UN resolutions are not worth the paper they are written on, when it comes to Israel. Her illegal occupation OF Muslim land, building of the settlements, and persecution of her citizens have earned many security council resolutions, which have never been enforced. And India ignores calls by the UN for any discussion of its illegal, and unpopular, occupation of Muslim Kashmir. Consequently it is not surprising that the Israeli and Indian governments are eager to join forces with the Americans, whose backing will make pressure from the International community and International bodies pointless. These three countries exemplify the nature of Capitalist states; terrorising their opponents and arrogantly defying the very principles and laws that they claim to have conviction in, whilst ensuring others are forced to abide by them. Surely if they were to join forces, with their terrorist credentials clear for all to see, would they not be the world’s real “axis of 226 evil”? Mohondas Karamchand (Mahatma) Gandhi The misnomered Mahatma (great soul) and father of India has a personality cult that is used by anyone who wants to get any credibility, no matter how much rubbish they spout forth, and how much personal wealth they amass as corrupt politicians, apathetic social activists, and the plethora of “academics” who make their entire livelihood out of assailing Hindus and their Vedic heritage. Gandhi was so keen to elicit the support of fundamentalist Islam in his campaign for Indian independence (or more covertly his own personality cult), that he did not hesitate in stooping to pretty dirty anti-Semitic diatribes: Daily Herald, 16 March 1921: No influence, direct or indirect, over the Holy Places of Islam will ever be tolerated by Indian Mussulmans. It follows, therefore, that even Palestine must be under Mussulman control. So far as I am aware, there never has been any difficulty put in the way of Jews and Christians visiting Palestine and performing all their religious rites. No canon, however, of ethics or war can possibly justify the gift by the Allies of Palestine to Jews. It would be a breach of implied faith with Indian Mussulmans in particular and the whole of India in general. Young India, 23 March 1921: 226 Asim Khan, India, Israel and America – the real axis of Evil, 22 September 2003, http://www.1924.org/international/index.php?id=713_0_14_0_M The Jews, it is contended, must remain a wandering race unless they have obtained possession of Palestine. I do not propose to examine the soundness or otherwise of the doctrine underlying the proposition. All I contend is that they cannot possess Palestine through a trick or a moral breach. Young India, 6 April 1921: The Jews cannot receive sovereign rights in a place which has been held for centuries by Muslim powers by right of religious conquest. The Muslim soldiers did not shed their blood in the late War for the purpose of surrendering Palestine out of Muslim control. Jewish Chronicle, 2 October 1931: Zionism in its spiritual sense is a lofty aspiration. By spiritual sense I mean they should want to realise the Jerusalem that is within. Zionism meaning reoccupation of Palestine has no attraction for me. I can understand the longing of a Jew to return to Palestine, and he can do so if he can without the help of bayonets, whether his own or those of Britain. In that event he would go to Palestine peacefully and in perfect friendliness with the Arabs. The real Zionism of which I have given you my meaning is the thing to strive for, long for and die for. Zion lies in one`s heart. It is the abode of God. The real Jerusalem is the spiritual Jerusalem. Thus he can realise this Zionism in any part of the world. Harijan, 26 November 1938: My sympathies are all with the Jews. I have known them intimately in South Africa. Some of them became life-long companions. Through these friends I came to learn much of their age-long persecution. They have been the untouchables of Christianity. The parallel between their treatment by Christians and the treatment of untouchables by Hindus is very close. Religious sanction has been invoked in both cases for the justification of the inhuman treatment meted out to them. Apart from the friendships, therefore, there is the more common universal reason for my sympathy for the Jews. But my sympathy does not blind me to the requirements of justice. The cry for the national home for the Jews does not make much appeal to me. The sanction for it is sought in the Bible and the tenacity with which the Jews have hankered after return to Palestine. Why should they not, like other peoples of the earth, make that country their home where they are born and where they earn their livelihood? Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French. It is wrong and inhuman to impose the Jews on the Arabs. What is going on in Palestine today cannot be justified by any moral code of conduct. The mandates have no sanction but that of the last war. Surely it would be a crime against humanity to reduce the proud Arabs so that Palestine can be restored to the Jews partly or wholly as their national home. The nobler course would be to insist on a just treatment of the Jews wherever they are born and bred. The Jews born in France are French. If the Jews have no home but Palestine, will they relish the idea of being forced to leave the other parts of the world in which they are settled? Or do they want a double home where they can remain at will? This cry for the national home affords a colourable justification for the German expulsion of the Jews. But the German persecution of the Jews seems to have no parallel in history. The tyrants of old never went so mad as Hitler seems to have gone. And he is doing it with religious zeal. For he is propounding a new religion of exclusive and militant nationalism in the name of which any inhumanity becomes an act of humanity to be rewarded here and hereafter. The crime of an obviously mad but intrepid youth is being visited upon his whole race with unbelievable ferocity. If there ever could be a justifiable war in the name of and for humanity, a war against Germany, to prevent the wanton persecution of a whole race, would be completely justified. But I do not believe in any war. A discussion of the pros and cons of such a war is therefore outside my horizon or province. But if there can be no war against Germany, even for such a crime as is being committed against the Jews, surely there can be no alliance with Germany. How can there be alliance between a nation which claims to stand for justice and democracy and one which is the declared enemy of both? Or is England drifting towards armed dictatorship and all it means? Germany is showing to the world how efficiently violence can be worked when it is not hampered by any hypocrisy or weakness masquerading as humanitarianism. It is also showing how hideous, terrible and terrifying it looks in its nakedness. Can the Jews resist this organised and shameless persecution? Is there a way to preserve their self-respect, and not to feel helpless, neglected and forlorn? I submit there is. No person who has faith in a living God need feel helpless or forlorn. Jehovah of the Jews is a God more personal than the God of the Christians, the Mussalmans or the Hindus, though as a matter of fact in essence, He is common to all and one without a second and beyond description. But as the Jews attribute personality to God and believe that He rules every action of theirs, they ought not to feel helpless. If I were a Jew and were born in Germany and earned my livelihood there, I would claim Germany as my home even as the tallest gentile German may, and challenge him to shoot me or cast me in the dungeon; I would refuse to be expelled or to submit to discriminating treatment. And for doing this, I should not wait for the fellow Jews to join me in civil resistance but would have confidence that in the end the rest are bound to follow my example. If one Jew or all the Jews were to accept the prescription here offered, he or they cannot be worse off than now. And suffering voluntarily undergone will bring them an inner strength and joy which no number of resolutions of sympathy passed in the world outside Germany can. Indeed, even if Britain, France and America were to declare hostilities against Germany, they can bring no inner joy, no inner strength. The calculated violence of Hitler may even result in a general massacre of the Jews by way of his first answer to the declaration of such hostilities. But if the Jewish mind could be prepared for voluntary suffering, even the massacre I have imagined could be turned into a day of thanksgiving and joy that Jehovah had wrought deliverance of the race even at the hands of the tyrant. For to the godfearing, death has no terror. It is a joyful sleep to be followed by a waking that would be all the more refreshing for the long sleep. It is hardly necessary for me to point out that it is easier for the Jews than for the Czechs to follow my prescription. And they have in the Indian satyagraha campaign in South Africa an exact parallel. There the Indians occupied precisely the same place that the Jews occupy in Germany. The persecution had also a religious tinge. President Kruger used to say that the white Christians were the chosen of God and Indians were inferior beings created to serve the whites. A fundamental clause in the Transvaal constitution was that there should be no equality between the whites and coloured races including Asiatics. There too the Indians were consigned to ghettos described as locations. The other disabilities were almost of the same type as those of the Jews in Germany. The Indians, a mere handful, resorted to satyagraha without any backing from the world outside or the Indian Government. Indeed the British officials tried to dissuade the satyagrahis is from their contemplated step. World opinion and the Indian Government came to their aid after eight years of fighting. And that too was by way of diplomatic pressure not of a threat of war. But the Jews of Germany can offer satyagraha under infinitely better auspices than the Indians of South Africa. The Jews are a compact, homogeneous community in Germany. They are far more gifted than the Indians of South Africa. And they have organised world opinion behind them. I am convinced that if someone with courage and vision can arise among them to lead them in non-violent action, the winter of their despair can in the twinkling of an eye be turned into the summer of hope. And what has today become a degrading man-hunt can be turned into a calm and determined stand offered by unarmed men and women possessing the strength of suffering given to them by Jehovah. It will be then a truly religious resistance offered against the godless fury of dehumanised man. The German Jews will score a lasting victory over the German gentiles in the sense that they will have converted the latter to an appreciation of human dignity. They will have rendered service to fellow-Germans and proved their title to be the real Germans as against those who are today dragging, however unknowingly, the German name into the mire. And now a word to the Jews in Palestine. I have no doubt that they are going about it in the wrong way. The Palestine of the Biblical conception is not a geographical tract. It is in their hearts. But if they must look to the Palestine of geography as their national home, it is wrong to enter it under the shadow of the British gun. A religious act cannot be performed with the aid of the bayonet or the bomb. They can settle in Palestine only by the goodwill of the Arabs. They should seek to convert the Arab heart. The same God rules the Arab heart who rules the Jewish heart. They can offer satyagraha in front of the Arabs and offer themselves to be shot or thrown into the Dead Sea without raising a little finger against them. They will find the world opinion in their favour in their religious aspiration. There are hundreds of ways of reasoning with the Arabs, if they will only discard the help of the British bayonet. As it is, they are co-shares with the British in despoiling a people who have done no wrong to them. I am not defending the Arab excesses. I wish they had chosen the way of non-violence in resisting what they rightly regarded as an unwarrantable encroachment upon their country. But according to the accepted canons of right and wrong, nothing can be said against the Arab resistance in the face of overwhelming odds. Harijan, 21 July 1946: Hitherto I have refrained practically from saying anything in public regarding the Jew-Arab controversy. I have done so for good reasons. That does not mean any want of interest in the question, but it does mean that I do not consider myself sufficiently equipped with knowledge for the purpose. For the some reason I have tried to evade many world events. Without airing my views on them, I have enough irons in the fire. But four lines of a newspaper column have done the trick and evoked a letter from a friend who has sent me a cutting which I would have missed but for the friend drawing my attention to it. It is true that I did say some such thing in the course of a long conversation with Mr. Louis Fischer on the subject. I do believe that the Jews have been cruelly wronged by the world. "Ghetto" is, so far as I am aware, the name given to Jewish locations in many parts of Europe. But for their heartless persecution, probably no question of return to Palestine would ever have arisen. The world should have been their home, if only for the sake of their distinguished contribution to it. But, in my opinion, they have erred grievously in seeking to impose themselves on Palestine with the aid of America and Britain and now with the aid of naked terrorism. Their citizenship of the world should have and would have made them honoured guests of any country. Their thrift, their varied talent, their great industry should have made them welcome anywhere. It is a blot on the Christian world that they have been singled out, owing to a wrong reading of the New Testament, for prejudice against them. "If an individual Jew does a wrong, the whole Jewish world is to blame for it." If an individual Jew like Einstein makes a great discovery or another composes unsurpassable music, the merit goes to the authors and not to the community to which they belong. No wonder that my sympathy goes out to the Jews in their unenviably sad plight. But one would have thought adversity would teach them lessons of peace. Why should they depend upon American money or British arms for forcing themselves on an unwelcome land? Why should they resort to terrorism to make good their forcible landing in Palestine? If they were to adopt the matchless weapon of non-violence whose use their best Prophets have taught and which Jesus the Jew who gladly wore the crown of thorns bequeathed to a groaning world, their case would be the world’s and I have no doubt that among the many things that the Jews have given to the world, this would be the best and the brightest. It is twice blessed. It will make them happy and rich in the true sense of the 227 word and it will be a soothing balm to the aching world. In the light of the offensive statements that you have just read, please compare it to Gandhi’s attitude towards the Hindus: In 1919 to back the Khilafat movement to restore the Uthmani Khilfate (Ottoman Empire): If the Hindus wish to cultivate eternal friendship with Mussalmans, they must perish with them in the attempt to vindicate the honour of Islam.228 227 ES Reddy, Gandhi, the Jews and Palestine, http://www.gandhiserve.org/information/writings_online/articles/gandhi_jews_palestine.html#Intervie w%20to%20The%20Daily%20Herald 228 Arvind Lavakare, Of Sabarmati secularism & non-violence, 16 April 2002, http://www.rediff.com/news/2002/apr/16arvind.htm But what about when this chimera of Hindu-Muslim unity collapsed leading to jihad (called by the insultingly neutral term of “communal riots”) against Hindus? His attitude to the atrocities committed by the Moplahs (Muslims of Malabar of Indian-Arab descent) explains it all. Hindus must take violence directed at them passively and quietly, including rape, murder and mutilation: [They are] brave God-fearing people who were fighting for what they consider as religion, 229 and in a manner which they consider as religious. Swami Shraddhananda was an activist with the Indian National Congress, and a leader with the Hindu reformist Arya Sama,j leader who had launched a campaign to bring back the converted into the Hindu fold. This included Muslims and roused the ire of Islamic leaders. Therefore, on December 23, 1926, he was shot four times in his sick bed by a Muslim youth, Abdul Rashid. Although hanged for that crime, Rashid was treated by the Muslim community as a martyr. In the Congress session in Guwahati, 1926, Gandhi responded: I have called Abdul Rashid a brother and I repeat it. I do not even regard him as guilty of Swami's murder. Guilty indeed are those who excited feeling of hatred against one another. In his post-prayer speech at Birla Mandir, New Delhi, on April 6, 1947, Gandhi said: Hindus should never be angry against the Muslims even if the latter might make up their 230 minds to undo even their existence. There were other instances when he asked Hindus to silently face humiliation, indignities, and even death at the hands of Islamic fundamentalist who had no respect for infidel kaffirs. Young India, 30 April 1931: As a satyagrahi I believe in the absolute efficacy of full surrender. Numerically the Hindus were in a minority, as a satyagrahi and a Hindu I should say that the Hindus would lose nothing in the long run by full surrender. To this argument a retort has thoughtlessly been made, Why then do you not advise India to surrender to the English? Give them the domination that I have not advised surrender to the bayonet. In the code of a satyagrahi there is no such thing as surrender to brute force. Or the surrender then is the surrender of suffering and not to the will of the wielder of the bayonet. A satyagrahi’s surrender has to come out of his strength, not out of weakness. The surrender advised by me is not of honour but of earthly goods. There is no loss of honour in surrendering seats and positions of emolument. There is loss of honour in haggling about them. The law of surrender and suffering is a universal law admitting of no exceptions. Young India, 12 March 1931: It would be a great things, a brave thing, for the Hindus to achieve act of self-denial. Young India, 2 July 1931: My implicit faith in nonviolence does mean yielding to minorities when they are really weak. The best way to weaken communalists is to yield to them. Resistance will only rouse their suspicion and strengthen their opposition. A satyagrahi resists when there is threat of force behind obstruction. I know that I do not carry the Congressmen in general with me in this what to me appears as very sensible and practical point of view. But if we Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, Pakistan or the Partition of India, Education Department of Maharashtra, Mumbia, 1990(originally 1945), p.158 230 Lavakare, op. cit. 229 are to come to Swaraj through nonviolent means, I know that this point of view will be 231 accepted. Is it any wonder that his views on the Holocaust of the Jews were so insulting, like this one from June 1946, in an interview with Louis Fischer: Hitler killed five million [sic] Jews. It is the greatest crime of our time. But the Jews should have offered themselves to the butcher's knife. They should have thrown themselves into the sea from cliffs…..It would have aroused the world and the people of Germany…. As it is they succumbed anyway in their millions.232 Jawaharlal Pandit Nehru India’s first prime minister in 1947, was an avowed anti-Hindu Marxist. When in power he introduced avowedly anti-Hindu policies mistakenly referred to as “secularism”. One can get a taste of his disdain for his own Hindu background, similar to the self-alienation of the “nonJewish Jews” like Trotsky, in some of this writings. 13 May 1932 on the Islamic invasions of India and destruction of Hindu places of worship: It is unfortunate that numerous beautiful monuments were destroyed in the north…But the fact that temples were used sometimes as citadels may explain why the Muslim invaders 233 destroyed them. In another letter of 1 June 1932, he shows crass dishonesty in totally ignored the ideological motives behind the invasions of Mahmud of Ghazni: Most Muslims adore him; most Hindus hate him. As a matter of fact he was hardly a religious man. He was a Mohammedan, of course, but that was by the way. Above everything he was a soldier, and a brilliant soldier. He came to India to conquer and loot, as soldiers unfortunately do, and he would have done so to whatever religion he might have belonged…..We must therefore not fall into the common error of considering Mahmud as anything more than a successful soldier…… You must remember that the contest was not between the Indo-Aryan civilization and the highly civilized Arab. The contest was between civilized but decadent India and the semicivilized and occasionally nomadic people from Central Asia who had themselves recently 234 been converted to Islam. On 23 June 1932, he said the Islamic invasions and genocide of Hindus in northern India, were necessary progress: Islam shook up India. It introduced vitality and an impulse for progress in a society which was becoming wholly unprogressive Hindu art, which had become decadent and morbid, and heavy with repetition and detail, undergoes a change in the north.235 Nehru also put his ideas on Jews and Zionism down in writing. 29 May 1933, on Palestine: Nirmal Kumar Bose, Selections from Gandhi, 1950, http://www.mkgandhi.org/sfgbook/index.htm Rabbi Stephen Pearce, Torah Offers Ethics, rules, so all is fair in love and war, September 2000, http://www.jewishsf.com/bk000901/torah.shtml 233 Jawaharlal Nehru, Glimpses of World History, Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Fund, New Delhi, 1982, p.127 234 Ibid., pp.155-7 235 Ibid., p.209 232 231 The people inhabiting it are predominantly Muslim Arabs, and they demand freedom and unity with their fellow-Arabs of Syria. But the British policy has created a special minority problem here – that of the Jews – and the Jews side with the British and oppose the freedom of Palestine, as they fear that would mean Arab rule…..On the Arab side are numbers, on the other side great financial resources and the world-wide organization of Jewry…… The Jews are a very remarkable people. Originally they were a small tribe, or several tribes, in Palestine, and their early story is told in the old Testament of the Bible. Rather conceited they were, thinking of themselves as the Chosen People, But this is a conceit in which nearly all people have indulged…… They [British] declared it was their intention to establish a “Jewish National Home” in Palestine. This declaration was made to win the good will of international Jewry, and this was important from the money point of view. I was welcomed by most Jews. But there was one little drawback, one not unimportant fact seems to have been overlooked. Palestine was not a wilderness, or an empty, uninhabited place. It was already somebody else’s home. So that this generous gesture of the British Government was really at the expense of the people who already lived in Palestine, and these people, including Arabs, nonArabs, Muslims, Christians, and , in fact, everybody who was not a Jew, protested vigorously at the declaration…… The Jewish population is already nearly a quarter of the Muslim population, and their economic power is far greater. They seem to look forward to the day when they will be the dominant community in Palestine. The Arabs tried to gain their co-operation in the struggle for national freedom and democratic government, but they rejected these advances. They have preferred to take sides with the foreign ruling Power, and have thus helped it to keep back freedom from the majority of the people. It is not surprising that this majority, comprising the Arabs, chiefly, and also the Christians, bitterly resent this attitude of the 236 Jews. 1953,letter to Home Minister Dr. Nailash Nath Katju:237 In practice the Hindu is certainly not tolerant and is more narrow-minded than almost any 238 person in any other country except the Jew. This was the man who was to dominate India’s political life immediately after independence until 1964. His ideas were sanctified for almost 30 years after that, and continue to poison the nation’s political and academic life to this day. If one wants to find out why India alienated Israeli goodwill for 45 years, this anti-Hindu, anti-Semitic and anti-democratic Nehruvian intransigence is without doubt one of the major causes. 236 237 Ibid., pp.762-5 Elst, Ayodhya and After, http://www.bharatvani.org/books/ayodhya/notes.htm#note284 238 Ibid., http://www.bharatvani.org/books/ayodhya/ch14.htm Conclusion From the writings of modern Hindu intellectuals, there have been serious attempts to understand why anti-Semitism evolved and continues to menace a supposedly civilised world. Space does not permit full examination of why, in many ways, anti-Hinduism has replaced anti-Semitism as the acceptable scapegoat ideology. So for this reason I collected statements form various individuals to demonstrate the disdain that hatemonger demagogues have always had for truly spiritual cultures and their followers, in this case Jewish and Hindu. In a largely secularised society this has been expressed in racial overtones, but the aggressive pseudospiritual source remains the well-spring which brought this ultra-ethnocentric monster into existence. There is also the attempt by certain figures to link both Hindu and Jewish political manifestations together as the greatest threat to humanity. In yet another perverse twist to the anti-Semitic mythology, the “Zionist-Hindutva” peril is constantly raked up. At the moment it is confined to certain Marxist and Pan-Islamic elements. However, with modern media and technology ideas travel fast, and if left unchallenged, this new Frankenstein will certainly find fertile ground elsewhere, and the dangers of it becoming accepted mainstream thought cannot be dismissed as just some remote possibility. The freedom to think, act and live as an individual, yet with responsibility to wider society, is something that is still quite recent in human history. For that reason it cannot be taken for granted, even in the west, which superior in many other respects, has lost much of its spiritual and indeed humanist values in the blind dash to unrepentant materialism. While not dismissing the benefits that have been brought about, nor even attempting to minimise the progress achieved, the mental vacuum left will be filled. If western civilisation is based upon the ancient Hellenic culture (classical Greece), then who will eventually win? Will it be the spirit of Athens or that of Sparta? To give it in plain language, will it be a free society which we choose, or one that is in essence, totalitarian? In answering this, one should not dismiss those ancient cultures which have survived all this, and carry the germ of something which has perennial relevance. This is the supposed secret of how Jews and Hindus have survived through thousands of years which have witnessed cosmetically greater civilisations and powerful peoples rise and then disappear into oblivion. The attack on Zionism and Hindutva is the political manifestation of what ancient Vedic rishis warned humanity about as they sat in deep meditation on the banks of the now dried up Saraswati river in Rajasthan: the clash between those forces which are Adharma (that which destroys) with that which is Dharma (that which sustains). Thinking which is pure Charvak (unapologetically materialist and unspiritual) will not rest until it has eliminated all that is Dharmic and spiritual. In fighting hate, especially that which is represented by seemingly unstoppable anti-Semitism and anti-Hinduism, one needs to understand that this is as much an issue of halting psychological as well as physical extermination. The big difference between western (allopathic) and Oriental, especially Ayurveda (Hindu) and Chinese, forms of healing are that the former tackles the disease once it manifests itself, and the latter attempts to get to the root cause, which is often different for each individual, even though the eventual outcome might be the same. It is increasingly being recognised that the Oriental approach, combined with its use of spiritual and psychological elements, may actually be better in the long-term. Without tackling the causes of the symptoms, rather than just applying medication to temporarily alleviate the sickness so that it provides a fake impression of actually no longer being a problem, the sickness only comes back with even greater vigour as it develops immunity to drugs that were thought to be invincible panacea for all ailments. As hate based on Adharma gets ever smarter, sophisticated and more deadly, it is necessary to apply the Ayurvedic approach to rooting out this human pestilence once and for all. 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