The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Israeli overreaction
Use of military might complicates the crisis

The extremist Palestinian organisation Hamas that rules the Gaza Strip has brought untold miseries to the 1.5 million people residing there. The Hamas had been attacking Israeli areas near Gaza with rockets after the ceasefire between the two sides ended abruptly a few days back. One or two Israelis died when they were hit by Hamas-fired rockets. But the thoughtless Hamas action, which though came because of Israel’s tormenting activities against the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza areas, created the situation Israel had been looking for. Thus, it launched a major army operation on Saturday, killing nearly 300 Palestinians since then. The Israeli drive, as it has announced, will continue till international uproar forces it to halt its show of military might against an impoverished people.

Israel is ruthless when it comes to killing Palestinians, as it has shown yet again. It is the least bothered about the international condemnation of its use of force on such a large scale. Israel knows that the demonstrations all over West Asia and calls for an end to the shelling of Gaza by the UN, the EU, China, Russia, Egypt and some other countries have no meaning so long as the US is on its side. The US is content with saying that “ We strongly condemn the repeated rocket and mortar attacks against Israel and hold the Hamas responsible for breaking the ceasefire and for the renewal of violence there.” Washington is not perturbed over the Israeli overreaction, which cannot be justified irrespective of what the Hamas has been doing for some time.

The truth is that both the US and Israel want to remind the Palestinians in Gaza that their fate cannot be better than what it is if they remain the supporters of the Hamas, which Washington has declared a terrorist organisation. The Hamas came to power in Gaza defeating the Fatah group led by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas a few years ago. This, however, cannot help establish peace in West Asia. Killing innocent people in the name of punishing uncooperative rulers will further complicate the crisis in that volatile region.

Pick and choose
HC order puts Arjun on the mat

THE Madras High Court order quashing the re-appointment of Chennai’s Indian Institute of Technology Director M.S. Ananth will embarrass Union Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh. In his ruling, Justice K. Chandru has cited various reasons while declaring his re-appointment null and void. The re-appointment violated the provisions of the IIT Act, 1961, which states that a director can be appointed only by the 35-member IIT Council which is the highest decision-making body. It has to be approved by the President who is the Visitor. Surprisingly, the HRD Ministry had re-appointed Mr Ananth by short-circuiting the time-tested procedure of inviting applications through advertisements in all the major newspapers.

Though the President had approved Mr Ananth’s re-appointment, Justice Chandru held that it didn’t stand the test of legal scrutiny because the President was not informed that the decision regarding the re-appointment was taken not by the IIT Council but by a “coterie” of the HRD Minister. The judge ruled, “the entire procedure has been perverted and a small coterie approved by the HRD Minister has been made responsible for the selection for an important post.” Moreover, the judge wondered how Mr Ananth, 62, was “nominated” when applications for the director’s post were generally sought from candidates below 57 years of age.

The judgement is bound to have serious implications for a few more IIT chiefs whose appointments were also made by the HRD Ministry and not approved by the IIT Council. In fact, this council did not meet during the last two years to deliberate on the appointment of the current IIT Directors of Kharagpur, Kanpur and Guwahati. The HRD Ministry may challenge the court order, but it will have to do a lot of explaining as to why it had circumvented the normal selection procedure. IITs are global brands and every effort should be made to encourage merit and promote their autonomy. Political interference in important appointments will be at the cost of the IITs’ image and reputation.

Thought for the Day

There is no stronger craving in the world than that of the rich for titles, except perhaps that of the titled for riches. — Hesketh Pearson

ARTICLE

Israeli retaliation
Peace the biggest casualty
by S. Nihal Singh

Next to Kurds, Palestinians are the orphans of the world, with everyone, including the Arab world, paying lip service to their cause while leaving them sequestered and occupied since 1967. In a measure, Palestinians have contributed to their own misfortune by dividing themselves into the Fatah and Hamas movements. The Gaza Strip is under the latter’s control and has been badgered and castigated by Israel and the West.

Essentially, Palestinians in Gaza live in a never-never land in a vast prison house controlled on land, in the sea and in the air by Israel. Israel lets in humanitarian aid in driblets when it feels like and otherwise closes it most of the time. The Hamas variety of Palestinians vent their frustration through firing crude Kassam rockets into Israel causing some damage, a lot of panic and rare deaths. A six-month ceasefire, shakily observed by the two sides, expired and was not renewed.

And the next lot of Palestinian rockets led to a massive series of air attacks by Israel’s F-16s, leaving more Palestinians dead than at any time since the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. The world’s reaction was predictable. The United States, Israel’s protector and mentor, had no word of criticism of Israel’s action, blaming the Hamas and calling for the ceasefire being restored and fully respected.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon referred to Israel’s disproportionate response to Kassam rockets calling for immediate halt to the escalating violence. The European Union called for a new ceasefire; Amr Moussa of the Arab League largely contented himself with describing the tragedy as a “major humanitarian crisis” while Syria was the only one to talk about “the barbaric Israeli aggression” in tow with Iran’s strong condemnation.

The Vatican contented itself with the Talmudic comment: “Hamas is a prisoner to a logic of hate, Israel to a logic of faith in force as the best response to hate”. Mahmoud Abbas of the Fatah faction condemned the attack, calling for restraint. But Khaled Meshal, the Hamas leader in exile in Damascus, called for a third intefada against Israel, despite the second uprising giving the handle to Israel to destroy Palestinian infrastructure and sequester Yasser Arafat in his battered headquarters until his death.

Why did Israel unsheathe its immense American-supplied firepower when it did? Two reasons come to mind. The Israeli general elections are due in February and the political parties are competing to demonstrate their macho culture. Second, the presidential transition is a period of partial paralysis in American policy making and an ideal time to act is during the fading days of the Bush presidency.

Where do Israel, Palestinians and the world go from here? No one will give second thoughts to the UN Security Council calling for an end to all violence in Gaza, including rocket attacks. In view of the hold Israel has on American foreign policy, the United Nations has never been a major player in the Israeli-Palestinian confrontation. It was a measure of American success in getting a carte blanche in pursuing its pro-Israel policies that it was instrumental in forming a Quartet of the European Union, the United Nations, Russia and itself whose job it has been to rubberstamp the US approach to Israel and the Palestinians.

Any number of United Nations representatives have publicised the dire plight of Palestinians in Gaza, the inhuman conditions in which they live and the arbitrary closures of entry and exit points, to little effect. Nor are leaders of the Fatah faction, coddled by Israel and the West for their own interests, getting anywhere near the promise of a two-state solution. Ironically, Israel’s Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, fighting corruption charges and serving in a caretaker capacity, only recently described the dire consequences of following traditional Israeli policies.

Israel, of course, has in place sufficient “facts on the ground” in terms of the expanding and proliferating illegal settlements on Palestinian land to spike the prospect of a viable Palestinian state. The nature of the debate is between those Israelis who see the writing on the wall and others – hardliners and the religious extremists – who are wedded to running an apartheid state far into the future. In the latter vision, a virtual one-state solution will be morphed into a negation of the ideal of a Jewish state.

Amr Moussa has called for a summit meeting of Arab leaders on the Israeli offensive on Gaza, but such a summit, as and when it is held, will do little to resolve the problem. There is a comprehensive Saudi peace initiative on the table with Israeli vacation of Palestinian and Syrian land coinciding with a new era in which the entire Arab world would recognise the state of Israel. Israeli leaders have nibbled on this plan on occasion without any intention of accepting it.

Mr Barack Obama, when he assumes office, will be a prisoner of an American political system that is influenced to a great extent by Israeli interests in relation to policies on the Middle-East and even the names of possible envoys being bandied about are greatly biased in favour of Israel, in addition to professing the Jewish faith. It is only when large sections of Israelis are convinced of the virtues of giving Palestinians a fair deal in the form of a viable state will the US and the rest of the world move towards giving Palestinians justice.

Traditionally, Israeli retaliation has been in the nature of taking a hundred Palestinian lives for one Israeli killed. But the proportion in the raids on Gaza has been more like one to 300. The world seems to have cheerfully accepted this asymmetry even as the post-1967 occupation of Palestinian lands and the Syrian Golan Heights continues. Some kind of calm will return to Gaza after the Strip has been subjected to further devastation and more deaths. But the end to Israeli air offensive and possible land incursions will not bring peace.

Peace is, indeed, a rare commodity in what America calls the Greater Middle- East. By hitting Gaza hard Israel has further complicated, rather than helped resolve, the seminal conflict of the region: the occupation of Palestinian land and the banishment of many Palestinians from it. Generations of Palestinians have been living as refugees in different parts of the Arab world. The world does not seem to care.

MIDDLE

Beneficial Clashes
by A.J. Philip

MY elder son was initially amused when I gifted him Samuel Phillips Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order on his birthday. As he was preparing for his Plus Two board examination, I told him to read it only after the examination was over.

He seemed to enjoy reading the book which was in the news at that time. The book was an enlarged version of an article the American political scientist wrote for Foreign Affairs under the headline Clash of Civilizations?

I once made the mistake of writing “foreign affairs” in the Yahoo search area and clicked on it to read the article. And to my utter horror, I reached a pornographic site from which I did not know how to come out.

And to make it worse, just then a lady colleague entered my cabin. I had to switch off the power supply to the computer to shut it down and save me from embarrassment. After that I never tried to download Prof Huntington’s original article in the magazine.

Instead, I waited for the publication of the book in India. I was one of the first to pick it up. Soon, newspapers and magazines were full of reviews and articles, mostly attacking his theory that post-Cold War conflict would most frequently and violently occur because of cultural, rather than ideological differences.

Those who rubbish him do not care to realise the religious nature of the war Osama bin Laden and others like him have been waging against countries like the US and India. This is what bin Laden said following 9/11: “This war is fundamentally religious… Following World War I, which ended more than 83 years ago, the whole Islamic world fell under the crusader banner - under the British, French and Italian governments”.

In other words, his grievance begins with the fall of the Caliphate on March 3, 1924, and not the creation of Israel or the Soviet attack on Afghanistan as many seem to believe.

It was my turn to be amused when my son, whose favourite authors included Enid Blyton and Sir Arthur Cone Doyle of Sherlock Holmes fame, started reading the Clash of Civilizations with great delight. I had no clue that he had made up his mind to do history honours at St. Stephen’s College.

At St. Stephen’s, good marks were not sufficient to get in as every candidate had to face an interview. I was more tensed than him when I drove him to the college.

At the interview, the discussion centred on his reading habits. When he said he had read Huntington’s book, Principal Anil Wilson and other interviewers tried to cross-examine him. As they admitted to him, they had not yet read the book. But that did not prevent them from asking many questions about Huntington’s theory and how, for instance, it failed to answer the Iran-Iraq war which was not exactly a clash of civilizations.

Since he had read the book thoroughly, he was able to answer all the questions. I felt thrilled when he told me about how the interview went. I told him that he should be thankful to Huntington’s book for his admission to the college.

I do not know whether my son remembers the interview or not but whenever I read about Clash of Civilizations, I remember how it helped him cross a threshold in his academic life. That is why I felt sad when I read the report about Prof Huntington’s death at Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts in the US on the eve of Christmas.

OPED

Terrorism and media
Mumbai attacks expose flaws in coverage
by Man Mohan

Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher once said that publicity is the oxygen of terrorism. The 60-hour live coverage of the November 26-29 terrorist attacks in Mumbai by television channels and the attackers’ attempt to talk to TV studios amidst gunfire showed that ‘public relations’ has now become a major terrorist weapon and they are using the media platform to fire it.

During terrorism attacks, the media, especially TV channels, sometimes go haywire while covering the attacks on the premise that they are doing it to protect society’s right to know.

To prevent the media from being inadvertently manipulated by terrorists — as one witnessed in the Mumbai attacks — India should go in for a centralised terrorist information response centre, suggest many global experts on terrorism.

This centre can assist the media in fulfilling its duty of covering incidents without compromising countre operations and hostage rescue attempts and without creating widespread fear in public. It can disseminate official updates on the situation and put in place a rapid reaction news pool for the electronic and print media.

The Indian Broadcasters Association has now set up self-regulatory guidelines following sharp criticism by public and government security agencies of a shrieking live coverage of the Mumbai attacks, which created fear and anger among the people; both not good for a multi-religious society.

The media has unwittingly become a useful weapon in the hands of terrorist groups. Hyped, unfocussed and loud-spot coverage by panting reporters of TV channels help in gunmen’s agenda: spreading fear, provoking a strong government reaction and hurting economy and tourism.

Across the continents, a public perception has emerged that the media is responsible to some extent for assisting ‘terrorism actors’ and amplifying their dirty acts.

Terrorism is now heading towards anonymity. If someone claims responsibility for attacks, it is under some fake name. Many terrorist groups are also shying away from making demands, as happened in the ‘war on Mumbai.’

This leads to all kinds of speculation in the media. The government’s terrorism information centre will help in ‘killing’ rumours. It can simulate government response and press coverage of mock terrorist acts.

The government and the media can work out guidelines on limiting information on anti-terrorist operations and on hostages like their nationality, number, social and economic status.

In Mumbai the terrorists deliberately selected public places as targets in a widespread area — hotels, a railway station, a hospital and a residential colony — as they knew that the attacks would be covered 24x7 for days, injecting fear among people and this would influence public opinion and impact government action.

In the financial capital of India, the terrorists could have chosen sensitive targets like the Bhabha Atomic Energy Centre, Western Naval Command’s establishments, naval ships in the Mazagaon Docks and ONGC’s Bombay High.

But these targets would not have served their purpose of ensuring ‘live coverage’ of human sufferings, bodies, burning windows and people going hysteric in fear and anger.

While the terrorist outfits understand clearly the dynamics of their operations, the media, particularly the TV channels, have not yet understood their role in such situations.

Terrorists want free publicity that they generally do not get. The media believe that ‘access to a terrorist’ is a hot story. An unedited interview is a treasured prize, such as the May 1997 CNN interview with Al-Qaida chief Mohammad Osama bin Laden.

Terrorist organisations want the media to give legitimacy to what they describe themselves as political groups fighting for a cause. They do so to attract religious fundamentalists and unemployed people to join their ranks easily, as seemed to be the case with the lone captured Pakistani terrorist, Azam Amir Kasab, in the Mumbai attacks.

More than their gruesome acts of killing and arson, the terrorists want the media to amplify panic to facilitate loss like destroying the economic and tourism potential so that people loose faith in their governments’ ability to protect them, and to make the authorities and people to overreact.

The terrorists succeeded in Mumbai as countrywide anger of people forced the Union Home Minister and the Maharashtra Chief Minister to quit. They also succeeded in creating a sharp division among people on religious lines. And they hit the bull’s eye by generating unprecedented tension between New Delhi and Islamabad.

During terrorist incidents, governments seek understanding, cooperation, restraint and loyalty from the media with the aim limit terrorist harm to society and to catch or kill the attackers.

The government also wants the media to support its actions, how ruthless they may seem to be at that time. To save their neck for intelligence failures, security agencies feed tailor-made information to the media. The authorities want the nation to be calm to save political heads from rolling.

The Mumbai terrorists were in touch with their controllers/guides in Pakistan, who were instructing them after watching the live coverage on Indian TV channels. The Indian Navy Chief later openly accused certain TV channels of affecting marine and NSG commandos’ anti-terrorist operations.

After incidents, the government expects the media to run stories of successful operations and keep quiet about the actins that went wrong. The internal security and intelligence agencies want the media to paint their good picture. In return, they indulge in select leakage of information to the media.

For the TV stations, the pressure to transmit real time ‘breaking news’ immediately to viewers in a competitive environment is very high. They want to present the story as dramatic as possible.

During the June 1985 TWA Flight 847 hijack crisis, ABC aired extensive interviews with both hijackers and hostages. A photo shoot was even staged of a pistol aimed at the pilot’s head.

Once the terrorism drama is over, the media faces a big challenge — how not to be deceived by ‘disinformation’ and ensure that it does not become ‘oxygen’ for terrorism acts.

Inside Pakistan
Benazir and Jinnah
by Syed Nooruzzaman

Benazir Bhutto, assassinated by terrorists on December 27 last year, has surpassed her father in popularity and respect after her demise. She occupies the second position after Mohammed Ali Jinnah in the pantheon of Pakistan’s past political leaders.

Today no one in Pakistan can gather courage to criticise her or her policies. According to Daily Times, “Opposition politicians preface their criticism of the PPP with a reverential reference to her. The mullahs who thought that a woman was outlawed by Islam to become leader of the country, too, make their ritual bow to her memory and the way she met her end in Rawalpindi. She is “Mohtarma Shaheed” to all Pakistanis across caste, class, colour and creed.”

In an editorial, Dawn said: “Internationally, she was one of the few Pakistanis who had instant name recognition; nationally, she was the leader of the only party that can genuinely claim countrywide support… Could there be another death that deserved to be investigated as fully and as thoroughly as hers? And yet, a government led by her own party —- with a PPP President, Prime Minister, Interior Adviser, Attorney-General and Law Minister —- has shown an astonishing lack of commitment to any investigation… Strangely, the government has even distanced itself from the trial of five men by an anti-terrorism court on charges of involvement in Ms Bhutto’s assassination.”

The government is waiting for the UN to do the job that could have been done by the Islamabad regime itself. Dawn rightly said: “By standing on the sidelines, the government is empowering the very forces that seek to destroy it.”

Taliban’s double-speak

The militants linked to the Taliban and Al-Qaida continue to cause death and destruction, particularly in the NWFP, despite the international uproar that they must be eliminated soon. The latest that they did was a suicide bomb attack at a school on Sunday, killing 36 persons, mostly school children, during the byelection for a provincial assembly seat. And they have claimed responsibility too, according to a Frontier Post report.

The two prominent militant groups active in the province are headed by Baitullah Mehsud of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan and Maulvi Fazlullah. They have their areas of influence which have been increasing day by day despite the Pakistan military’s claim of having launched a drive against them. Doubts are being expressed about the seriousness of the military campaign because there is no decline in the capacity of the extremists to create havoc wherever they want.

To create more confusion, the extremists have offered to fight alongside the Pakistan Army in an event of a war between India and Pakistan.

According to The News, the offer by both Mehsud and Fazlullah “may also reveal or confirm what many suspect — that there is an unholy alliance between the Taliban forces and the army, all in the name of creating ‘strategic depth’, and bolstering our (Pakistani) western flank. The thinking runs that the jihadi groups will provide manpower and support in the event of an Indian attack in the east; and that the mountains of the NWFP will serve as a rear fortress that is virtually impenetrable - a fortress manned by the jihadis.”

The paper, however, adds that the militants are experts in double-speak. They only deserve to be brought to justice for organising murders and destruction of property.

Neglected farming

Two-thirds of the Pakistanis are dependent on agriculture for their survival, yet farming remains a neglected area. Contrary to the situation in India where agricultural universities have been playing a major role in boosting crop yield, the few institutions that are there in Pakistan to undertake research are not functioning on the expected lines.

According to Business Recorder, “a major cause of decline in the agricultural sector, as in many other sectors, has been a lack of focus on research and development (R&D) despite hefty subsidies advanced by the government from time to time.”

There is another important factor. That is the “continued use of unscientific methods of cultivation practised by a majority of farmers, due essentially to the lethargy of the field personnel, who are supposed to provide on-farm guidance to them,” the Recorder points out.

There is tremendous scope for improving the performance of the agricultural sector. The land in most parts of Pakistan is fertile. There is tremendous scope for large-scale export of commodities like rice. An increase in farm production will also help in controlling terrorism, as most of the recruits of the terrorist outfits are from poor villages. But who bothers about the poor?

Delhi Durbar
Promising justice at doorstep

Every third village in India does not have potable water and road connectivity and every sixth village is yet to get electricity. But this does not prevent the UPA government from going ahead with a scheme to provide justice at the doorstep of villagers by setting up mobile courts to be known as Gram Nyayalayas.

A Bill for this purpose was approved by Parliament earlier this month. Besides magistrates knocking at the doors of litigants, another striking feature of the move is that justice will be rendered free of cost and litigants will not have to pay a single penny.

As many as 5,067 such courts will be set up— one in every block. Is it a case of the government’s misplaced priority? No, it may not be. For all of us know the success of the cell phone revolution that has equipped even maidservants and rickshaw-pullers and those in remote places with the now ubiquitous handset that rings in many tunes.

PC calling shots

P. Chidmabaram may have been shifted to Home after the Mumabi episode, he continues to function as a de facto Finance Minister with all files of the ministry going to him.

Minister of state Pawan Kumar Bansal is restricted to handling banking and administrative matters. Sources say when PC was FM the files would rarely go to Bansal for approval and the MoS was merely informed about the happenings in his department. Even the bureaucrats were reporting and getting approval from the FM.

However, the MoS is now making frequent public statements on economic matters. Recently, he said there was no proposal to ban futures trading in more commodities. Containing prices was still high on the government’s agenda was another statement made by the MoS. Earlier, he used to repeat whatever the FM was saying or direct the reporters to the FM.

Promoting Ejaz Ali

JD-U MP Ejaz Ali’s diatribe against the BJP has naturally caused heart-burns to the party and some embarrassment to the JD-U leaders too. But more than the saffron party and the JD-U, some media persons did not know where to look when Ali started attacking the BJP’s prime ministerial nominee, L.K. Advani, by advising the JD-U not to expect Muslim votes when Advani was leading the Lok Sabha poll campaign.

These media men, known for their proximity to the Advani camp, had assiduously worked on Ejaz Ali for years, promoting his Dalit-Muslim morcha in their publications with an eye on a share of the Muslim vote bank at the cost of RJD supremo Lalu Prasad.

And now that Ejaz Ali has entered the Rajya Sabha for six years, he has started bad-mouthing Advani. Lalu Prasad has a reason to chuckle.

Contributed by R. Sedhuraman, Bhagyashree Pande and Faraz Ahmed

Corrections and clarifications

In the article “Unity in diversity” on page 13 of December 21, the opening sentence should have read: “One of the salient features of Indian democracy and the Indian Constitution is that it assumes unitary character in diversity” and not as published. Similarly, the sixth para of this article should have begun thus: “In 1965, India again became the target of aggression by Pakistan”.

Errors that cropped up in the Quick Crossword in the December 22 issue are regretted.

The word furlough was wrongly spelt as furlow in the editorial “Man of dishonour” on December 9.

The item “IAS officer seeks bail” published in the Chandigarh Tribune on December 17 was repeated the next day.

Despite our earnest endeavour to keep The Tribune error-free, some errors do creep in at times. We are always eager to correct them.

We request our readers to write or e-mail to us whenever they find any error. We will carry corrections and clarifications, wherever necessary, every Tuesday.

Readers in such cases can write to Mr Amar Chandel, Deputy Editor, The Tribune, Chandigarh, with the word “Corrections” on the envelope. His e-mail ID is amarchandel@tribunemail.com.

H.K. Dua, Editor-in-Chief