Israel must eliminate the Hamas, end the monstrosity

Palestinian fighters from the armed wing of the military-political organisation Hamas near the border in the central Gaza Strip. (Photo: Getty Images)

No, no, some babies may have been killed, but it is untrue that they were beheaded. This is the argument that some people have been making. This is absolutely amazing. Amazing that innocent little children were murdered by Hamas terrorists and we actually have people arguing that no, they were not beheaded.

The 10 days after the Hamas attack have revealed the disgusting hypocrisy and moral bankruptcy of a lot of people. Babies are killed in cold blood and we are nitpicking about the method of killing? This is insane.

The Hamas attack and Israel’s response are not political issues. This is a moral issue. Discussions and research about who should own the land — Israel or Palestine — are fruitless. Both sides present their cases extremely well, to the extent that supporters for either side are randomly marked “leftist” or “right-wing”. That is not the point right now at all. A democratic nation is facing what can only be described as medieval terror. It is facing an enemy that is scornful or unaware of human progress.

It is interesting to see “progressive” left liberals in the West tying themselves up in knots trying to find ways to downplay or even justify the sheer monstrosity of what happened. Look for the “root causes”! As if any historical fact could justify burning babies alive. What has happened in Israel is not a political, ideological or any other -cal matter. It is a moral issue that does not even need to be discussed — we teach our children these things without ever knowing that we are teaching them, because these values are so core to being human, the way a normal person is.

There have been pro-Palestine rallies all across the West in the last few days, including occupying Times Square in New York and Trafalgar Square in London. Few have said: We want Palestine, but we condemn the killing of babies and grandmothers.

The men who plotted — it must have taken many months — and carried out this massacre do not deserve to be called human. The 9/11 bombers did not know any of the people they were killing when they flew into the Twin Towers — the victims were just anonymous men and women who happened to work there. The Hamas killers entered homes and filmed their torture. In some cases, they live-streamed the murder videos to the parents of the slaughtered people.

This depravity is not new. The ISIS beheaded people on live videos. Terrorists in Kashmir would sometimes take hours to commit unspeakable crimes and kill all the members of a family whose house they had barged into. We were spared the videos of these acts because smartphones had not been invented yet. There are depths which the human mind can plumb to that you or I lack the imagination to think of.

Of course, Israel will deliver heavy retribution. It has to. (It has dropped 6,000 bombs on Gaza Strip, cut off its food and electricity supply.) We can put this in context. The latest reports say that 1,300 people were killed by the Hamas. All were civilians. If one extrapolates this figure to India’s population, it is equivalent to 200,000 Indians — yes, 200,000 — killed in a terror attack. That is the scale of the horror in Israel.

Most of us, I think, would have memories of 26/11, as it played out on our TV screens. Most of us, I also hope, hang our heads in shame at the response of the Indian government to that atrocity. We literally did nothing, even though our defence forces pushed for air strikes on known militant-training camps in Pakistan directly involved in the strike.

When the Taj was finally retaken, the Maharashtra chief minister was the first civilian to enter the hotel. And he took along a two-bit film director, Ram Gopal Varma, with him. Varma apparently wanted to collect material and inspiration for possible films. How stupid and feckless can our politicians be?

No one would have bothered if Hamas attacked an Israeli army unit. That is par for the course. But the mass slaughter of civilians can and should never be forgiven. As an Indian who reveres the Bhagavad Gita, I want Israel to eliminate the Hamas, whose savage members do not deserve to live. In wars, there’s no room for any pity or compassion.