Damn straight! Tell it like it is!

What does this idiot want? Dialogue with the the murderers? If only India were as forceful and resolute as Israel.

I favor strong military strikes. RAW knows where the terrorist camps are. Thanks to Israeli technology, India can finish the jihadis and tell Pakistan where to shove it.

Shanti,

I’d earlier blogged about a similar nonsense by Nayar in the Indian Express where he had expressed similar views. He suffers from an overdose of colonial hangover plus Nehruvian politics/policies.

Our man seems to be enamoured by the Arab world not realizing that he is deliberately shutting his eyes to one of the main participants in the Islamic axis of evil—Saudi Arabia—yes, the same nation as you have rightly pointed out—that refuses to grant citizenship/equal opportunity to Palestinans.

>>But it does not realise that it has tried to solve political problems through the military.

In my opinion, Israel is just about exerting pressure, just to keep the jihadis on their toes. If it had adopted “peaceful” means like our folks in Kashmir, it would’ve been wiped out long ago.

Moron Nayar should retire. It’s high time.

Absolutely agree, Sandeep - people like Nayar only serve as “useful idiots” to publicize and espouse the agenda of India’s enemies.

I am surprised. Kuldip Nayar used to be a very articulate and a clear headed writer. What’s happened to him? This article is an exercise in supreme inconsistency. Its extremely difficult to conclude what his position is in the middle-east crisis.

What is it about the Arab world that India is supposed to be careful with?

_What would our friends in the Arab world, particularly Palestine, infer? _

Who cares dude? Or if such a hands-off policy is a foreign policy nightmare I don’t see a reason why we need to pander to the Arabs at the cost of the Jews. I mean why this biased approach? What is it about the history of Arabs that we should always keep them in good humor?

This is a policy which is directly opposed to the sensitivities of the Arab nations. The reason for Arab anger was that Israel was planted in their midst despite their opposition. Still they could have been mollified if an independent state of Palestine was founded.

This is arrogance at its finest. When Britain yielded control of the Ottoman Empire there was nothing to demarcate one territory from the other — that is, atleast before the 1947 war. Israel was planted? Is it a goddamn sapling? Why the hell should the Arabs be mollified anyway?

He makes some good points in a few places like the fact that India should’ve remained equidistant instead of tilting too much on either side. Elsewhere when he ponders what would’ve happened if Palestine like India followed a non-violent means of struggling for independance it made me really think if Israel’s response would’ve been a lot better than how it is now. Plus it is definitely true that Israel continues to build settlements in occupied territories and also doesn’t give any indications of dismantling them.

But the overall tenor of the article leaves a lot to be desired. It implicitly convicts Israel for being brutally aggressive while at the same time turning a blind eye on GODDAMN MURDERERS like Hamas, Islamic Jihad by simply saying “its not our kind of politics”. What kind of double standard is this? Maybe Israel should just go ahead and marginalize Arafat. Here is a man who has converted terrorism to a fine political art and these arm-chair critics can only think of how Ariel Sharon is an impatient puppy. The arrogance is mind-numbing.

You got that right, Dilip - I agree I was really heartened by the throwaway sentences about the Palestinian violence and such, but that was what they were, really - they seemed like they were in there so he could claim some semblance of objectivity, since they don’t seem to have influenced his conclusions in anyway.

Nayar, Bidwai& Co. is facing competition

http://www.glamsham.com/movies/scoops/03/sep/09pinjar.asp

Note the following line

Today I feel so close to the people in Pakistan.

LOL, JK - I think they are moving to a different target audience ;)

Nayar also forgets that India never had much stock in the Middle East, tolerated only because of its large population of “dhimmi”, hopefully to be converted, or put to the sword, whatever… Not to mention providing the bulk of the slave labor that passes as the “expatriate workforce”, doing everything from cleaning toilets to running their oil refineries.

You cannot lose what you never had.

Absolutely right, Suman!

Based on anecdotal evidence (from friends, blogs and the comments/ feedback on their articles), Messrs Nayar (and Bidwai, for that matter) aren’t exactly too popular. Is this an accurate representation of their popularity with the desi reading public? And if so, why do editors continue to publish this sort of pabulum?

>>And if so, why do editors continue to publish this sort of pabulum?

Prashant,

Lots of reasons:

1. Force of habit—because X has a “respectable” reputation for writing “unbiased” articles over the years, every nonsense he/she dishes out today is automatically deemed of high calibre.

2. Political Correctness-less said the better

3. Secularism—Most of the mainstream Indian English press is of this brand. Hence anything that supports/endorses their style of “reporting” finds publication.

4. None to check them—the popularity point you mentioned can be found only in weblogs like this who care a damn about political correctness or “secularism” or any such labelling. If Shanti for instance, sent this weblog entry to one of these newspapers to the “letters to the editor” column, I’m 100% certain that it wouldn’t be published.

Does that answer your question, Prashant?:confused:

Guys, you are forgeting the vast foreign direct investment that the Arabs make in India.

Which sectors you ask?
Terrorism.

beneficiaries?
Well of course, the Hizbul, Jaish and the Lashkar!! You think that tinpot military state called Pakistan could fund this endless stream of weapons and ammunition into Kashmir? Nah, they are all dinars.

I think it is in light of this vast FDI that some people would want us to keep the Arabs in good humour. :mad:

I lived in Kuwait for over a decade at a time when Palestinians enjoyed a safe home away from home there. But Palestine suffered from a terribly erroneous lapse of judgement during the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990 by taking sides with Iraq because they believed that only Saddam Hussein had the guts and missiles to attack Israel (which he did). That changed the way the Arab World viewed Palestinians. Today, they are refugees in Kuwait and will never be fully respected by the Kuwaitis. Yet, Kuwait goes half the length by giving aid to Palestine… because of their need to choose lesser of two evils.