Bharat Rakshak

India has abstained from voting on a UN General Assembly draft resolution put forward by the US that would have condemned the activities of Hamas and other militant groups in Gaza.

The resolution 'Activities of Hamas and other militant groups in Gaza' got 87 votes in favour, 58 against with 32 abstentions.

The resolution failed to be adopted Thursday as it could not garner two-thirds support in the General Assembly.

India abstains from voting on UN resolution condemning Israel ..

NEW DELHI: India abstained, along with 14 other countries, voting on a resolution at the UN Human Rights Council condemning Israel for violence in Gaza. The resolution was passed with 23 countries voting for the resolution and sight countries against.

In a previous age, India would have been among the countries voting for such a resolution and against Israel. It is a measure of the changing relations between India and Israel that India has abstained. In addition, India has a big grouse against the UN HRC itself for its stand on Kashmir.

On March 19, Israel’s acting foreign minister, Israel Katz wrote to foreign minister Sushma Swaraj asking for India’s support “given the significant relationship and friendship between our countries and the outrageous bias of this report”. Israel believes the so-called “Accountability” resolution said the Council pronounced judgment against Israel without instituting a commission of inquiry as promised, instead condemned Israel for “disproportionate use of force.”

According to the Israel foreign minister, the HRC resolution “absolves Hamas of responsibility”. “The report ignored the publicly stated purpose of the events — to storm and breach Israel’s border — and does not give any consideration to the possibility that a mob which includes Hamas militants would storm and attack the 70000 Israeli civilians living in towns and communities adjacent to the Gaza border.

He added that the UNHRC ignored the fact that eight months of violent riots, weapons, and infiltration attempts by militants were available for documentation, yet only two incidents were felt to be hostile to Israel.

The other countries to abstain were UK, Japan, Italy, Denmark, Iceland and Nepal. Hungary, the Czech Republic, Australia, Austria, Brazil etc.

IDF braces for confrontation with Hamas following direct hit on home
Two additional brigades deployed to the south, limited call-up of reservists after seven civilians wounded by rocket strike early Monday morning.
By Anna Ahronheim, JERUSALEM POST STAFF
March 25, 2019 17:31

Israel has deployed two infantry and armored brigades to southern Israel and has begun a limited call up for reservists in the intelligence and air defense corps following rocket fire on central Israel Monday morning, the IDF said.

According to IDF Brig.-Gen. Ronen Manelis, the locally produced rocket was fired from Hamas operatives from a Hamas military post in Rafiah in the southern part of the Strip and had a range of 120 kilometers.

Manelis, who refused to answer if the rocket was fired accidentally or deliberately, said that it was serious incident and that Israel is holding Hamas responsible.

“The launch was carried out by Hamas from one of the group’s launchpads. We see Hamas as responsible for everything that happens in Gaza,” Manelis said on a call with reporters.

Following the incident, IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Aviv Kochavi held a situational assessment with the the head of Military Intelligence Commander Maj.-Gen. Tamir Hyman, Commander of the Israeli Air Force Maj.-Gen. Amikam Norkin, the Head of the Southern Command Maj.-Gen. Herzi Halevi and other senior officers.

While there has been no changes in guidelines to Israel’s homefront, "the IDF is improving its readiness for a variety of scenarios," Manelis said. "This is a serious incident of a direct hit on a house in central Israel and follows a series of incidents. The deployment is also offensive, not just reactive."

The two additional brigades sent to bolster the IDF’s Gaza Division with some 1,000 soldiers, had been conducting training exercises but were cut short due to the heightened tensions.

Hamas officials have said that the rocket which struck a home in central Israel injuring seven civilians was fired from the Gaza Strip by mistake, Israeli media reported. Nevertheless Hamas leaders went underground and Hamas personnel were evacuated from positions across the coastal enclave in anticipation of a strong Israeli response.

Meanwhile Islamic Jihad leader Ziad Nahaleh warned Israel against any retaliatory strikes, saying "we warn the enemy against any aggression on the Gaza Strip. Its leaders must understand that we will respond strongly to any aggression.”

Seven people were injured Monday morning the rocket launched from the Gaza Strip struck a private home in central Israel, the third long-range rocket fired from the Hamas-run enclave in two weeks.

The attack triggered Code Red incoming rocket sirens at around 5:20 a.m. throughout the Sharon and Emek Hefer regions and a loud explosion was heard after the rocket struck the home in the community of Mishmeret north of Kfar Saba.

The strike set off a fire in the home, destroying it completely. Another 30 homes were said to be damaged by the attack.

Magen David Adom rescue services said that seven people, including two children and an infant, were treated for wounds and evacuated to Meir Hospital.

Of those injured, a woman in her 60s was in moderate condition suffering from blast injuries, minor burns and shrapnel wounds and a woman in her 30s was in moderate condition with shrapnel injuries. Two men aged 60 and 30 as well as a girl aged 12, a 3 year-old boy and a 18 month-old infant, were lightly injured.

Several neighbors are being treated for shock and four dogs were found dead on site.

The Israeli military said that it had identified the launch of one rocket from the Gaza Strip, some 100 kilometers away from where it struck. The Iron Dome missile defense system had not been activated.

Following the attack Israel decided to close the Erez and Kerem Shalom border crossings as well as well reduce the permitted fishing area off the coast of the Gaza Strip until further notice.

The IDF has also closed a number of roads and areas including the Black Arrow site close to the Gaza border following a security assessment. The military has also halted any agricultural work in fields near the border fence and all schools in the Eshkol regional council ended early.

All public events scheduled to take place on Monday in the southern city of Ashkelon were also canceled,including a soccer game between local team Hapoel Ashkelon and Hapoel Ramat Hasharon.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is in Washington, held a telephone consultation with IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Aviv Kochavi,the head of the Shin Bet (Israel security agency) Nadav Argaman, National Security Council Director Meir Ben-Shabbat and other senior security officials

"I spoke to the IDF Chief of Staff, head of the Shin Bet and head of Intelligence and that he sees this as a criminal act against the State of Israel,” he said, adding that he has cut his trip to the US short and return to “manage our operations up close.”

Netanyahu is set to meet with US President Donald Trump and will return to Israel after his meeting. He has cancelled his speech at the AIPAC Policy Conference.

Benny Gantz, the Head of the Blue and White Party and Netanyahu’s main opponent, called on Netanyahu to deal with the crisis and not his personal issues.

He tweeted that "those who do not respond with force and instead [pay] Hamas, dismiss attacks on the citizens of the south, and scorn the attack on Tel Aviv, now get rockets in the Hasharon region."

"Will he now, as well, be satisfied with Hamas's claim of an error or will he finally focus on the security of the citizens of the state and not on his legal issues?" Gantz continued. "I wish the wounded a speedy recovery."

Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nachshon tweeted, "This is a deliberate and dangerous act of aggression by Palestinian terrorists, encouraged no doubt by the complacency of @UNHumanRights . We will not allow this!"

MK Avi Dichter, the chairman of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee said that Israel wouldn’t hesitate to go to war with Gaza following the attack, even if it would delay the upcoming elections.

“The political echelon won’t hesitate to order an operation in Gaza, even at the cost of delaying elections,” Dichter said in an interview with Army Radio.

The rocket attack came 10 days after two rockets were fired at Tel Aviv by Hamas, the first time since the 2014 war. One of the rockets struck an open area in the city of Holon just south of Israel’s financial capital. The Israeli army retaliated by striking some 100 targets across the Hamas-run coastal enclave.

The army said that the rockets were likely fired towards Tel Aviv by mistake.

Aditya_V wrote:120Km rocket is clearly supplied by someone and not fired from garbage truck, it must be Bigger than Smerch, at Best Hamas could have done some assembly at Gaza strip.

J-80: This rocket, also produced locally, is named after Hamas military wing commander Ahmed Jabari, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike on his car in 2012, setting off an eight-day war. Israel reportedly believes the rocket that hit central Israel on Monday was this model and blamed Hamas.

MeshaVishwas wrote:

Aditya_V wrote:120Km rocket is clearly supplied by someone and not fired from garbage truck, it must be Bigger than Smerch, at Best Hamas could have done some assembly at Gaza strip.

Not implying that that was the launch platform. Just a picture that shows how resourceful Hamas terrorists are.
And no, the J80 is allegedly locally manufactured

J-80: This rocket, also produced locally, is named after Hamas military wing commander Ahmed Jabari, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike on his car in 2012, setting off an eight-day war. Israel reportedly believes the rocket that hit central Israel on Monday was this model and blamed Hamas.

https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2019/0 ... apons.html

Throughout, Hayoun weaves established historical scholarship with his family’s personal history to give context to their experiences, especially as their Jewish Arab world begins to fragment. He shows how French and British colonial schools impacted Jewish children by teaching them to identify with the colonizer rather than their immediate communities. He also discusses the Universal Israelite Alliance headquartered in France, whose mission was to “civilize” Jewish Arabs by removing their Arabness. The Israelite Alliance perceived Jewish Arabs as primitive and, horrifyingly to them, indistinguishable from the Muslims. Thus, the Alliance schools sought to Europeanize their students, emphasizing how the Jewish Arab community was beneficial to their colonizing mission. Because Jewish Arabs had “Oriental physiognomies,” they naturally possessed a “talent for assimilation,” which could be used to colonize their Muslim counterparts across North Africa. The external exploitation of indigenous Jewish Arab communities would continue with Zionism—Hayoun provides an alarming overview of Zionist efforts to sow dissension and encourage Jewish Arab outmigration from Egypt and Iraq to the new state of Israel.

Hayoun critically engages with Zionism and the creation of the Israeli state as manifestations of colonialism and white supremacy, and as a derivation of French and British colonial projects (239). He argues that Zionism built off the work of the French colonial Israelite Alliance prior to 1948 through its efforts to construct a separate identity for Jewish Arabs and sow antagonism between them and their Muslim and Christian Arab counterparts. According to Hayoun, Zionism—invented by a German Jew to resolve a European problem— “simply redirected Jewish Arab attentions away from France and toward Palestine” (202). The concept of a single Jewish people was not “intuitive” to Jewish Arabs, for whom their identities as Tunisian, Egyptian or Arab generally were as important. Even in the elite circles of wealthy North African Jews who flirted with the idea of Zionism, theirs was a “Zionism without realization”—they offered verbal support for Zionism but had no intention of ever moving out of their homelands.

Oscar’s family, however, were compelled to leave Egypt and immigrate to Israel, renouncing their Egyptian citizenship, as a result of the growing hostility and prejudice many Jewish Arabs faced in their home countries following Israel’s establishment in 1948. But upon arriving in Israel they continued to face hostility and prejudice of another type—widespread views from the highest levels of the European Ashkenazi Zionist and Israeli establishment that Jewish Arabs were inferior and uncivilized, as well as not truly Jewish. Oscar’s sister-in-law was embarrassed to be identified as North African and his father-in-law had difficulty finding work for subsistence as a result of discriminatory attitudes and policies. In this context, Oscar left Israel as quickly as he could, living in France before moving on to the US, while still providing money and support to the family in Israel.

Hayoun highlights how they preferred the Arab synagogue to the Ashkenazi one in Los Angeles, and maintained their cultural practices and sense of indigeneity. To them, their Judaism was the real Judaism. Hayoun’s grandfather often bristled at the way Ashkenazim carried themselves with a sense of superiority. Hayoun writes:

“Judaism had originated, Oscar would remind us angrily, in the Middle East, not in Germany or Russia. In Egypt, Oscar resented the presence of Jewish refugees from Eastern and Central European nations, largely because they cloistered themselves off and viewed North African and Middle Eastern Jews…Even if the Jewish Egyptians were wealthier and better educated, by Oscar’s estimation, the Jewish Europeans never welcomed them in their circles” (205-206).

He had more in common with the Moroccan congregation at his synagogue than Ashkenazi friends who would claim things like Jewish Arabs “could be clever, but never intelligent.” He had more allegiance to Arabs around Los Angeles than to a Jewish state whose prime minister would make jokes about his Mizrahi temper.

From a political science perspective, Hayoun’s family history corroborates important findings in contemporary research on ethnic identity, such as David Laitin’s argument in his 2007 Nations, States, and Violence that identities are not primordial, but rather constructed. While the constructed nature of identities is not an original point, Laitin goes further by outlining the process through which identities shift. He argues that ethnic identity emerges as a result of group dynamics: As certain groups find that it is in their best interest to speak a specific language, engage in a different economy and become absorbed by particular institutions, people may begin to make the linguistic switch, and identify with another culture or identity. When a critical mass of people make this choice, then ethnic identities at the group level begin to shift as well.

Hayoun’s discussion of Amazigh versus Arab identity, as well as the impact of colonial education at the start of the twentieth century, provides support for this approach. Hayoun notes that although his family’s immediate history and culture is Arab, they most likely descended from Amazigh communities that were Jewish before the Arab and Islamic invasions. He outlines the origin story of Dihiya, the North African queen of Amazigh and Jewish oral histories, and asks the question: “Does the contemporary North African call the Amazigh our ancestor? Or does the North African call the Arab invader our ancestor? Or was a new people forged from a generation’s violence?” (209). No matter the reality of what occurred following the seventh century Muslim invasions, we know that some crucial mass of indigenous North Africans adopted the Arab language and Arabness as a culture, and engaged in the institutions of the new empire which ruled them. Over time, the Arabs and the Amazigh in North Africa became largely intertwined—in culture, language, and also genealogy, though not without contestation.

In the early twentieth century, however, Hayoun’s grandparents and their generation took on the French and English language in order to access greater economic opportunity and class prestige. The Israelite Alliance in particular was able to shift the self-perception of Jewish Arabs. Jewish Arabs had been fully integrated into society, to the point that the Alliance itself bemoaned their barbarity. There were very few discernable differences between them and their Muslim countrymen and cultural markers were replicated in both Muslim and Jewish homes. But in the span of a few generations, the Alliance and colonial institutions were able to subvert the Jewish Arab’s perception of him/herself. For the first time, one could be Tunisian and Jewish, but not Arab and Jewish—even though Tunisia itself was an Arab country and even though Jewish Arabs did indeed speak Arabic (as Hayoun’s grandmother Daida at one point explains, exasperated at her grandson’s insistence that they might be Arab).

Don’t let the lack of any formal Israeli response to US President Donald Trump’s dramatic reversal of policy and decision to remove US troops from northern Syria fool you: Jerusalem is deeply, deeply concerned about this step.

Not because it will suddenly impact Israel’s ability to take action in Syria when it desires to halt Iranian attempts to entrench itself there – though it could make that marginally more difficult – but because it drives home the idea that Israel really can only rely on itself.

What this is driving home to the country’s strategic planners is that while the US under a very friendly administration will support Israel at the United Nations; while it will offer assistance with aid for weapons; and while it will give it moral backing and defend it against international pressure – when it comes to the use of force, Israel must be willing and ready to defend itself, by itself.

Ironically, Trump’s abandonment of the Kurds comes just a month after he mentioned the possibility of signing some kind of a mutual defense pact with Israel.

While many of the country’s strategic thinkers did not take that too seriously, debating whether indeed such a pact would have merit, Trump’s actions – abandoning the Kurds to the “tender mercies” of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, as former National Security Council head Eran Lerman put it – will be taken very seriously.

The security pact is words; the withdrawal of the US troops are actions. In this region, decisions are taken based on how various key players act, not what they say.

For instance, not long ago there was a significant school of thought here that argued that Israel need not take any action against the Iranian nuclear threat, because – when push comes to shove – Jerusalem could count on the US to do the work.

US actions in the region by the last two administrations – both Democrat and Republican – have shown that this worldview is not based on reality. There has not been any US action over the last few years to support this theory.

This school of thought based itself on the long-held idea that in the Middle East, there were things that the Americans would simply take care of.

That may have been true once, but not lately. The Saudi and now Kurdish experience shouts: “Maybe yes, maybe no, but Israel cannot rely on this.”

Lerman, now the vice president of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security (JISS), said that no one “in their right mind in the region” today would rely on the Americans, and this is something that could very well push various actors into the waiting arms of the Iranians.

Calling Trump’s step a “moral outrage,” Lerman said that one possible consequence of the move might be to chase the Kurds – in their battle with the Turks – over to the side of the Assad regime and its Iranian backers.

This would have serious consequences for Israel, he said, because it would remove the last barrier in northern Syria preventing a land bridge – a contiguous supply route – running from Iran through Iraq and Syria into Lebanon and ports on the Mediterranean Sea.

To Be an Arab in Israel fills a long-neglected gap in the study of Israel and the contemporary Arab world. Whether for ideological reasons or otherwise, both Israeli and Arab writers have yet to seriously consider Israel's significant minority of non-Jewish citizens, whose existence challenges common assumptions regarding Israel's exclusively Jewish character.

Arabs have been a presence at all levels of the Israeli government since the foundation of the state. Laurence Louër begins her history in the 1980s when the Israeli political system began to take the Arab nationalist parties into account for the political negotiations over coalition building. Political parties-especially Labour-sought the votes of Arab citizens by making unusual promises such as ownership and access to land.

The continuing rise of nationalist sentiments among Palestinians, however, threw the relationship between the Jewish state and the Arab minority into chaos. But as Louër demonstrates, "Palestinization" did not prompt the Arab citizens of Israel to set aside their Israeli citizenship. Rather, Israel's Arabs have sought to insert themselves into Israeli society while simultaneously celebrating their difference, and these efforts have led to a confrontation between two conceptions of society and two visions of Israel.

Louër's fascinating book embraces the complexity of this history, revealing the surprising collusions and compromises that have led to alliances between Arab nationalists and Israeli authorities. She also addresses the current role of Israel's Arab elites, who have been educated at Hebrew-speaking universities, and the continuing absorption of militant Islamists into Israel's bureaucracy.

To Be an Arab in Israel is a discerning treatment of an enigmatic, little known, but nevertheless highly influential people. Their effect on the balance of power in the Middle East seems destined to grow in the twenty-first century.

Netanyahu's son apologises after his tweet offends Indians
https://www.wionews.com/world/netanyahu ... ans-316471
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's eldest son Yair has apologised to Hindus after he faced flak from some Indians who found one of his tweets to be "quite offensive".

On Sunday, the 29-year-old Yair, who is very active on social media and often defends his father's policies, posted a picture of the Hindu goddess Durga, with the face of Liat Ben Ari, the prosecutor in his father's corruption cases, superimposed over the goddess' face. Her many arms were also raised giving the middle finger.

"I've tweeted a meme from a satirical page, criticising political figures in Israel. I didn't realise the meme also portrayed an image connected to the majestic Hindu faith. As soon as I realised it from comments of our Indian friends, I have removed the tweet. I apologise," Yair said in a tweet.

Israel and India have agreed to form a task force that will build a 10-year cooperation plan to identify new areas in defense cooperation between the two countries.

According to the report, the top three customers of Israeli arms were India (45% of the total amount), Azerbaijan (17%), and Vietnam (8.5%). Weapons sales to India have consistently totaled over $1 billion per year.

In September, India purchased four Heron MK II from Israel Aerospace Industries in a deal worth some $200 million as part of the country’s plans to upgrade the military amid its ongoing border strife with China.

The Indian Air Force already operates more than 180 Israeli-made UAVs, including IAI-made Searchers and 68 unarmed Heron 1s, for surveillance and intelligence gathering, as well as a fleet of IAI-produced Harpy UAVs, which carry a high-explosive warhead and self-destructs to take out targets such as radar stations.

Last year the Indian cabinet approved an order of two Phalcon AWACs from Israel in a deal reportedly about $1b. that had been in the works for the past few years.

Mounted on a Russian Ilyushin-76 heavy-lift aircraft the system has Active Electronic Steering Array (AESA), L-Band radar with 360° coverage and can detect and track incoming aircraft, cruise missiles and drones before ground-based radars.

The first three Phalcon AWACS were obtained by the Indian Air Force in 2009 after a $1.1b. deal was signed between India, Israel, and Russia in 2004.
The two countries have also signed contracts to manufacture and supply BARAK 8/MRSAM missile kits for the Indian Army and Air Force.

The MR-SAM system, jointly developed by India’s Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) in close collaboration with Israel's Israel Aircraft Industry, is a land-based configuration of the long-range surface-to-air missile (LRSAM) or Barak-8 naval air defense system.

Able to shoot down enemy aircraft at a range of 50 to 70 km., it will help to protect India from enemy aircraft and will replace the country’s aging air defense systems.

Colonel Hassan Sayyad Khodaei, a senior member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), was shot dead outside his home in Tehran on Sunday, 22nd May 2022. Khodaei, a member of the shadowy Quds Force of IRGC, was killed in his car, a Kia Pride, outside his home by 2 unidentified people on a motorcycle.

Following his assassination, Israeli media has shared that he was the alleged mastermind behind a car bombing targeting an Israeli diplomat in the Indian capital New Delhi back in 2012.

...

Back in 2012, a motorcycle rider came from behind and attached a bomb to an Israeli diplomat’s car in New Delhi. 4 people were injured in the blast that followed including the diplomat who was named Tal Yehoshua Koren. She was on her way to pick up her children from school when the blast was orchestrated. The attack took place near the official Prime Minister’s residence in India.

Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu inched towards reclaiming power Wednesday after projected election results showed a majority government was within reach for the veteran right-winger, though the outlook could shift as ballots are counted.

If the exit polls hold, it would mark a dramatic comeback for Netanyahu, Israel's longest-serving premier, whose Likud party could be poised to form a coalition with its ultra-Orthodox Jewish allies and a rising extreme-right.

Prem Kumar wrote:https://swarajyamag.com/news-brief/expl ... ial-system

Looks like the entire SC is left-leaning and effectively acts as the Opposition Party, strikes down laws based on criteria like "reasonableness" and indulges in overreach. Hmm, where have we seen this before?

The surprising part are the protests. Do their milords actually have a following or is this their Khan Market gang + astroturfed NGOs protesting?