Israel unable to spell out Gaza endgame

IN India, there has been a sense of vanity in certain circles, which believe that Israel has given us the model counter-terrorism (CT) strategy. No doubt, they are impressed by its unrelentingly muscular, tough and unforgiving approach. But the bald fact is that it does not get results. This was the lesson from the terrible October 7 terror strike by Hamas. You simply cannot pile on repression and destruction on people and expect that they will eventually reconcile with you.

Those who advocate the Israeli style need to introspect and ask themselves whether they would like to face the Israeli dilemma.

In fact, people would be better advised to look closer home at the Indian approach to CT, which has, since the 1950s, mixed tough military and police action with political negotiations. The result is that New Delhi has been uncommonly successful in dealing with separatism and the terrorism born from it. There was the Naga insurgency in the 1950s, which was addressed through a combination of military and political measures. The final agreement with the two remaining Naga groups is yet to be signed, but a ceasefire has been in place for the past quarter of a century.

Mizoram, which once had to be bombed by the Indian Air Force while fighting insurgency, recently had its ninth Assembly election; by all accounts, it has been a peaceful one and a new government is set to be formed.

The Punjab militancy was among the deadliest, featuring repeated acts of terrorism and the assassination of a Prime Minister. Yet, in the end, political negotiations and police action helped transform things. No matter what overseas supporters of Khalistan may say, they have very little traction in Punjab today.

Jammu & Kashmir’s trajectory has been somewhat different for both internal and external factors. Pakistan has expended a lot of effort and jihadi cannon fodder in keeping the separatist fire burning in Kashmir. Successive Union governments have achieved a considerable measure of success in dousing them. But the current situation, born out of a sense of overreach by a government which has many admirers of Israel, has set things back. By conflating separatism with terrorism, the government has made it difficult to negotiate with the Kashmiri separatist. So, it has taken recourse to a strategy of repression — for instance, seven Kashmiri students were arrested and booked under UAPA (Unlawful Activities Prevention Act) for raising pro-Pakistan slogans after India lost the cricket World Cup final (the charges under UAPA were later dropped).

Insofar as Islamist terrorism is concerned, things peaked in 2008 and attacks have been declining in number and intensity since then. Even Maoist violence has seen a downturn in recent years. Many of the major attacks in Kashmir are by proxy jihadis of Pakistan and there has been no letup there. Their main targets now are the security forces, not civilians. There has been a response through the so-called surgical strikes and the Balakot bombing, but India has not been able to establish effective deterrence against Pakistan on this count. This is evident, for example, from the recent encounter near the LoC in Rajouri district that claimed the lives of five Army personnel, including two Captains.

Combating terrorism and pushing for global action against it have been important elements of the Modi government’s diplomacy. The need to finish of terrorism figures in almost all joint statements and declarations the government takes up with other nations. Addressing the UN General Assembly soon after he came to power, Prime Minister Modi called for the adoption of a Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism (CCIT), which India had mooted in 1996.

The joint statement adopted following PM Modi’s visit to the US this summer had a strong section on condemning ‘global terrorism’ and all UN-listed groups — Al-Qaeda, Islamic State, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed and Hizbul Mujahideen — as well as the Pakistani proxy war. It reaffirmed the importance of working together on CT issues and welcomed the cooperation on “homeland security cooperation, including intelligence-sharing and law enforcement cooperation”.

However, the allegations that an Indian official sought the services of a person connected with narcotics smuggling to eliminate an American supporter of Khalistan threaten to undermine this initiative. While India has said that it is probing the allegations, the evidence presented so far suggests a plot to commit what are clearly acts of terrorism in the territory of a friendly democratic country.

Those who advocate the Israeli style need to introspect and ask themselves whether they would like to face the Israeli dilemma. Even as it proceeds to physically dismantle Gaza and kill thousands of people in its bid to root out Hamas, Israel has been unable to spell out its endgame in Gaza. Who will pick up the pieces after the shooting stops? Who will run Gaza? Recall that the Israelis left Gaza because they were unable to manage it in 2005. There is nothing to suggest that things will change. The Palestinians will be beaten and bruised, but in time they will recover and not surprisingly, they will be looking for revenge.

The real challenge is to break the cycle of violence and counter-violence. And this requires an imagination bigger than those of the professional security managers and intelligence officers. It also requires a measure of generosity. But above all, it requires political foresight of the kind that the present government of Israel does not possess. In fact, even as the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) continues its campaign to eliminate Hamas, Israeli extremists are working to further dispossess Palestinians of their homes and land in the West Bank.