The Bharatiya Janata Party’s Palestine policy is different from other major political parties in India, though there’s no change in the Indian State’s approach towards the Palestinians, says Husam Zomlot, a senior foreign policy adviser to President Mahmoud Abbas.
Speaking to a journalists at Ramallah’s Moevenpick hotel recently, Dr. Zomlot, who’s Palestine’s Ambassador at Large, expressed hope that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Palestine when he comes to the region.
Asked what would be the Palestinian response if Mr. Modi goes only to Israel, he said it would be a “blunder”.
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“India is India. It’s a big country which the world is looking up to. It’s an emerging power whose foreign policy has historically been aligned with justice. We just hope the same policy to continue,” he said.
He said the calls made by international forums that both Israel and Palestine should abjure violence do not reflect the reality on the ground. “There’s no symmetry between the two sides. On the one side you have an occupying force with most advanced weapons. And on the other side, there’s an oppressed people with no means of resistance at all.”
Asked whether Palestinians throwing stones at Israeli police and troops is helping the Palestinian cause, he said: “We would have used F16 if we had them. But we don’t. What only we have are these stones and that's what our kids are doing.”
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His comments come at a time when Israeli-Palestinian tensions are again flaring up. Over the past two weeks, Palestinians carried out knife attacks against Israeli soldiers and civilians and several of the assailants were shot down. At Israeli checkpoints in Ramallah, students gather and throw stones at soldiers.
“Aren’t our kids making mistakes? Of course, they are. Should their violence be justified? Not at all. But one has to look at the whole situation. They are hopeless people frustrated by the occupation. They can’t even move freely and in their own territories. Secondly, if they commit violence, the law of the land should deal with them. Not the Israeli police. What they (Israelis) are doing is just killing our children,” said the ambassador.
Earlier this week, President Abbas made same accusations against Israel. In a televised address, he said Israel and its settlers are “terrorizing our people, homes, holy places” and “executive our boys in cold blood”.
Asked why there’s no unity among the different Palestinian groups despite their claim of fighting for a common cause, Dr. Zomlot played down the divisions within the Hamas and the Palestine Liberation Prganisation (PLO). “There are differences, but not in the scale it appears in world media. It’s an Israeli propaganda. We have a unity government here. And Hamas will soon join the PLO.”
Parts of the West Bank are controlled by the PLO, while the Gaza strip is under Hamas’s rule. The ambassador was also asked whether the PLO is allowed in Gaza. He said: “No. There are still divisions. But we’re sorting out major problems so that the Palestinian people could stand together for its national cause.”