Interfaith Strength

Newt Brings Real Approach To Middle East Peace Efforts

Originally published on Brietbart: Big Peace, December 14, 2011

Dr. Richard Benkin

Republican Presidential candidate and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich made international headlines last week when he referred to “an invented Palestinian people.” He also made it clear that Hamas and Fatah both show “an enormous desire to destroy Israel.” Palestinian Authority (PA) officials immediately condemned the remarks with the always talkative Saeb Erakat claiming that they will “be the ammunitions and weapons of the Bin Ladens and the extremists for a long, long time.” Fellow GOP Presidential hopeful, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, another strong supporter of Israel, admitted that Gingrich was correct but that saying so was “incendiary.”

Romney was correct on both counts, but it is not at all clear that Gingrich’s incendiary words would burn up anything other than an already failed and misnomered peace process.

The last war between Israel and the Arab states was in 1973 after which the Arabs fundamentally changed their strategy. Tired of one humiliating defeat after another, they replaced military bravado with terrorist groups like Yassir Arafat’s Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). Not coincidentally, that was the same year Arabs began flexing their collective petro-power with an embargo that wrung landscape changing concessions from Europe. Not many years later, after introducing airline hijackings and other terrorist attacks to Europeans, Arafat and the “Palestinians” emerged as darlings of the soft left and those looking for a chance to recharge their anti-Semitism, which had gone out of style after World War II.

It worked. They found it more palatable to oppose an Israeli “occupation” of Palestinian land (Israel bad) than it did the previous Arab call to “drive the Jews into the sea” (Israel good). Its incarnation today is a peace process based on the assumption creating a Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza will satisfy Arab demands. Unfortunately, that’s wrong and the Arabs have told them so time and again. The Palestine National Charter of 1964 specifically says that the entirety of British mandate “Palestine” is an “indivisible territorial unit,” and it rejects any notion of “sovereignty over the West Bank in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, on the Gaza Strip.” It did not call for Jordan and Egypt to relinquish these territories but did call for Israel’s destruction multiple times. Nowhere in that or any other Arab document does it say that a Palestinian state confined to those areas will end the conflict with Israel. Back to Gingrich, the charter does mention a “Palestinian Arab people” but defines it solely in terms of 1947 residency; it does not mention cultural or other characteristics of a “Palestinian people.” Yet, it waxes poetically numerous times about the cultural and spiritual “Arab nation,” and these residents of “Palestine” as a component.

The peace process has failed because it is based on a lie. Its western advocates either know that or their advocacy is based on a desperate and forlorn wish to rid themselves of the problem regardless of consequences to others. If they have any doubts about that, they should ask themselves if there was peace in the Middle East prior to 1967 when the so-called occupation began. While the other Republican candidates agreed with Gingrich’s assessment, it is otherwise politically incorrect to do so. Worse, maintaining the fiction actually harms chances for a settlement because its greatest goal is temporary appeasement, not at all unlike the 1938 Munich Agreement with Adolf Hitler. Based on the same misconception that the issue is territorial demands, it only delayed war and made it more deadly. As deadly as the Oslo agreements have been, continued adherence to this phony peace process is far more so.

In October 2011, I attended the American Jewish Committee’s (AJC) National Board of Governors in Chicago. The dinner was followed by a panel on the Middle East that featured a number of credentialed and respected authorities. Audience questions followed their presentations. Many challenged the speakers to explain the lack of progress by the process to which they clung, following which I asked, “A peace process is only relevant if it leads to peace and not a mere cessation of hostilities….And I can tell you from first-hand experience that the signs do not point toward peace. Given the fact that by your own admission, you have been at this for a generation — and where has that brought us — and that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results, do you think it is time to scrap the very notion of a peace process and instead focus on pragmatic options that the parties can take that would qualify them at some point to engage in a real peace process?”

The panel uncomfortably avoided answering, a fact not lost on the other attendees (or at least one panel member) who loved the question. We can understand the panel’s reluctance to answer because the question forced a discussion that upsets the very notion of their commitment to a failed process and demands creative thought over knee-jerk, politically-driven ruts. But of all the people who expressed solidarity with my proposal not one had publicly questioned the assumption that a Palestinian state will bring peace. Newt Gingrich has now done that and in doing so has increased the potential for a realistic approach to the Middle East by rejecting the false and appeasing assumptions that drive current efforts. Whether he is the eventual nominee or not, it is up to us to keep it as part of the foreign policy discussion going forward and follow his challenge to “stop lying about the Middle East.”

Of Course, It’s About “Fairness” 

Originally published in the New English Review, December 11, 2011

Dr. Richard Benkin

If I hear President Obama or his supporters tell me one more time that raising taxes on the “rich” is only a matter of “fairness,” it is quite possible that my head will explode. As it turns out, you see, I could very well be what they call rich; not that any real people who know me would agree. Moreover, even if I do fall into that category, it is not at all clear that having some bureaucrat take from me and give to someone they, in their convoluted logic, deem more worthy has anything to do with fairness. You see, I’m like most people they call rich in that I didn’t start out that way. In fact, I had a lot of tough years; years of hard work; years of personal and family sacrifice. I’m not complaining, mind you, but I don’t need some bureaucrat or ideologue telling me to give my own and my family’s hard-earned cash to other people simply because they refuse to do the same. That’s not only unfair, it’s also not right.

Perhaps as a technique to save my sanity, perhaps as a genuine part of debate, I find myself responding to advocates of “fairness” by asking them two questions. The first is:  What do you mean by rich? How much money makes someone rich, and does that change with factors like location, moral and other obligations, family size, and so forth. And who will make those determinations and adjudicate appeals? For Pete’s sake, I usually cry out in frustration with their non-answers, just tell me who’s rich. The other question is: What’s someone’s fair share? Being a homeowner in Cook County, Illinois, I spend a lot more time working for the government than I do for my family. How much more would I have to pay in order to be doing what’s “fair”? And when frustration overtakes me again, I plead, “In the name of all that is good and right, just tell me how you define my fair share.”

Well, since I never get any answers to these questions, I came up with my own “fair tax.” First, everyone would have to file a statement of their income by a certain date. The almighty government would then calculate what percentage of the GDP that income represents and notify each citizen (oh-oh, am I forgetting anyone?) that their tax liability is a percent of some large pool. I think it should be the federal budget—assuming, of course, that we eventually have a president willing to pass one—and the notification would include the dollar amount each person must remit by a certain date. It’s simple, and I really like several things about it. First, everyone pays something no matter how little they make. We all have skin in the game. Second, it insures a balanced budget—no messy Capitol Hill battles driven by political considerations rather than what’s best for the American people. Third, it means that every time Congressmen or Senators vote for increased spending, they’re taking money out of their own pockets—and their relatives’.  Imagine the phone calls from family: “Hey, it’s your brother. Don’t vote for that bill, you’d be costing me $500 that I need to pay your niece’s college tuition.”

Of course, there’s downside. If I know that making more will increase my percentage of the federal budget, there could be times when I opt to forego the additional work, additional spending, additional hiring—the additional innovation—and stay pat. It also makes me dependent on a government with discipline in its spending habits, a thought that should give everyone of us sleepless nights. And it confirms the principle of our lives being in the hands of a cabal of self-interested men and women, most of who could not last five minutes in our employ.

But at least it’s some definition, since the purveyors of “fairness” refuse to supply any.

Will Israel Attack Iran?

Originally published on International Analyst Network, November 13, 2011

Dr. Richard Benkin

The last couple weeks have seen a great deal of speculation about Israel preparing for an attack on Iran’s nuclear installations.  This sort of speculation occurs regularly, but what makes this round of chatter different from previous ones is the involvement of European governments, especially Italy and the United Kingdom. Within the past few days, Israel’s Debka file, suggested that Germany has now sent an Air Force contingent to Sardinia in preparation for the strike.  Moreover, the rumors began surfacing shortly before the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) issued a report confirming that Iran’s nuclear program is designed to produce weapons and not just “peaceful nuclear power,” which it consistently claims to be its only goal.  This, too, is a change.  Previously, especially under Mohamed ElBaradei, the IAEA was very timid about angering the Iranian mullahs and tended to champion their disingenuous denials.  But its changed position has removed the major public justification for inaction, even though few people with any understanding of the process accepted the mullahs’ cynical denials anyway.  Simply this will make that ruse more difficult to maintain.  How serious might things be?  Even China is now asking Tehran to lay its nuclear ambitious aside.

My own Israeli sources have explained why the Europeans might have shifted their public stance and why that is important.  According to at least three individuals, who have spoken to me on a guaranty of anonymity, experts there consider Iran’s nuclear program more of a threat to Europe than to Israel.  Over the last several years, Israel has continued to upgrade its missile shield, especially against the sort of weapons that Iran might use to carry a nuclear payload (this as opposed to the less sophisticated rockets from Gaza that have made headlines again).  These sources tell me that the shield is perhaps 90 percent or more effective and that the Jewish State has a pretty good chance of intercepting most or all of what Iran could try to deliver.  Moreover, they say, the best Iran could come up with in the near future is a dirty or low yield bomb; probably uranium-based from its Natanz facility.  (A uranium-based device would be far less potent that a plutonium-based bomb.)  None of my Israeli sources dismiss the threat.  Even if one Iranian low-yield bomb made it to, say, the center of Tel Aviv, the loss of life would be horrific (perhaps 100,000 fatalities); and they note that protecting the Israeli people is their most important and morally mandated job.  The device would cause mass casualties, likely shut down if not take out nearby Ben Gurion airport, and cause other national disruptions; but it would not be an existential knock-out to Israel.  Israel’s massive and justified response on Iran would, however, be an existential blow to the Islamic Republic.  And the Iranians know it.

While Israel has been strengthening its missile defenses, the Europeans, under Barack Obama’s direction and it own unilateral actions, have been dismantling or just not building theirs.  Several European capitals are within range of the new Iranian missiles, and the Iranians have good reason to believe that Europe would not launch the same sort of devastating counter attack (1) for fear of domestic unrest by their Muslim populations; and (2) because they would be easily constrained if any Iranian attack were attributed to “rogue” generals or “radical terrorists.”  Geography also makes Europe a more likely target.  Given Israel’s missile defense system, the Iranians would have to throw everything they have at the Jewish State, and the slightest miscalculation easily could drop a payload on Jerusalem and al Aqsa Mosque or the Palestinian Authority’s capital of Ramallah. 

The European involvement in high level meetings (London) and training exercises (over Sardinia) could indicate that they finally realize what the Israelis have long known; and that their willingness to sacrifice Israel is is no different than their hopes of placating Hitler and Stalin by giving them the Czechs.  It is also possible that the activity is meant to send a message to Iran—and to those countries that heretofore have been willing to allow the Iranians nuclear weapons capability via de facto inaction:  that real and serious consequences will come sooner rather than later.  Whether the military preparations are real or hard-nosed diplomacy, the United States should be the key player in this drama because of its military capability, traditional defense of freedom, decades-long tolerance of Iranian attacks on its people and interests, and its international leadership role.  Unfortunately, that does not seem to be the case.

While there have been rumors of US involvement from sources as diverse as Iran, the Israeli right (Debkafile) and the European left (Britain’s Guardian); the recent exchange between Obama and French President Nicolas Sarkozy might indicate otherwise.  Obama's own history of inaction during Iran's "Green Revolution," and the fact that he has yet to declare his policy of "engagement" on Iran a failure also suggests otherwise.  One senior US military leader, in fact, told CNN that the administration is not even confident anymore that the Israelis would give the US advance notice of an attack on Iran.  Given the Obama administration’s continued talk of diplomacy and sanctions and its general hostility toward Israel, can we blame them?  Thus, in what could be the most important military action of the decade, the Obama administration is at best—at best—‘leading from behind’ and at worst acting as an obstacle to action, still counseling negotiation and sanctions.  At the end of the day, however Obama might be forced to place the US in the same sort of support role it took in Libya— or risk alienating the Jewish and pro-Israel vote in an election year by abandoning Israel in its time of need.

What Islam Can Do

Originally published on Good vs Evil, November 1, 2011

Dr. Richard Benkin

I am trying to stop the elimination of Bangladesh’s Hindus.  In 1947 after the Indian Subcontinent’s partition, Hindus represented almost one third of East Pakistan’s population.  When East Pakistan became Bangladesh in 1971, they were less than a fifth; 30 years later less than one in ten; and by several reliable estimates, perhaps fewer than eight percent today.  During that time, regardless of the party in power—BNP, Awami League, Caretaker, Military—a regular flood of reports documenting anti-Hindu atrocities flowed like a river from Bangladesh.  No one whose outrage could have stopped them ever expressed any; no government has prosecuted the victimizers; no religious leaders have called these actions un-Islamic—which they clearly are—and done so again and again when the atrocities continued.  Where is the voice of Islam?

Several years ago, some Israelis set up a shrine at the gravesite of Baruch Goldstein.  Goldstein was the Brooklyn dentist who walked into a mosque in Hevron one day in 1994 and started shooting.  Before he was subdued and beaten to death, he killed 29 worshippers.  Do you know what happened to that shrine?  The Israeli government destroyed it, arrested the people behind it, and passed a law outlawing shrines to terrorists like Goldstein.  Jewish religious leaders from the most observant to the most liberal all condemned Goldstein at the time of his terrorist attack and his followers when they tried to honor him with a shrine.  No one told us to understand his anger or think about his “noble” motives.  They just condemned it.

If you go to Israel or drive around any of the Jewish neighborhoods in Brooklyn, looking for a street or anything else named in his honor; you will not find any.  If you scan television programs or newspapers in Israel looking for any that call Goldstein a “martyr,” you again will be disappointed.  There are none, and there will be none for him or any other terrorist.  Moreover, both Israel and the United States are nations that allow free speech and expression, even if it is critical of their governments.  Yet, you will not find literature demonizing the Arabs or Muslims as “sons of apes and pigs” or citing holy verses that supposedly tell good Jews to kill them.

So why do we see terrorists praised as martyrs in the Muslim world?  What makes that even more frustrating is that I know a lot of individual Muslims who find these terrorist attacks contrary to their basic values and understanding of their faith.  The closest we have seen to a real and unequivocal rejection of these terrorists came from the Islamic community of Mumbai.  After the terrorist attack in their city on 26 November 2008, Mumbai’s Muslim community refused an Islamic burial to those terrorists killed in the attack.  There was no “understanding” of their anger; no equivocation about what others might have done.  It was a clear statement that these terrorists had disqualified themselves from the support of the Islamic community.

So, I ask my Muslim brothers and sisters why we continue to cry out in vain for Muslim religious and lay leaders to condemn the terrorists in their midst and refuse them even a crumb of ideological justification.  While I will not sit at the table with those who say that Islam itself is evil, I do acknowledge (as I suspect you do) that the preponderance of terror attacks involving those who claim to be acting in the name of Islam—and who are not utterly and unequivocally condemned by Muslim religious and lay leaders—have caused many people to associate that faith with those actions.  So, I ask my Muslim brothers and sisters why Muslim religious and lay leaders continue to refuse to take this simple action, which should strengthen the shared bonds of all people of faith.

US Mideast Influence Plummets Under Obama

Originally published on Brietbart: Big Peace, October 28, 2011

Dr. Richard Benkin

To the extent that foreign policy will figure in the 2012 Presidential election, conventional wisdom thinkers are likely correct in predicting some Democrat success in reversing the perception that theirs is the party of weakness. They already are touting the killing of enemies like Osama Bin Laden, Anwar al-Awlaki, and Muammar Gadaffi, and taking credit for “ending” the Iraq war as evidence of that. But while their talking points might win them some votes, they do not reflect the sorry state of US foreign policy under President Barack Obama and the disastrous course on which it is taking us, starting with the Middle East.

Hope and change comes to the Middle East?

Despite Obama’s toadying 2009 Cairo speech– misinformed and misguided, influence in the region has ebbed, and Obama’s love for Palestinian Arabs has gone unrequited. The most recent evidence of that was their decision to ignore his objections and press forward with their statehood gambit at the UN. And why not? When Obama warned them of “repercussions” if they did not withdraw their anti-Israel settlement resolution in the Security Council in February, they did not, and there were none. There was talk of sanctions if they formed a unity government with Hamas; and their leaders told the US to take their aid and shove it. The unity government came to pass, but the sanctions did not.

Similarly, Obama’s embrace of the so-called Arab Spring has done nothing to prevent it from turning into a blustery autumn. If anything, subsequent events have exposed declining US influence with the amorphous groups behind it. Libya’s new leaders have steadfastly refused US requests to extradite Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the mass murdering mastermind behind the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988. In 2009, he was released on false pretenses and hailed as a hero on his return to Gaddafi’s Libya. Yet, even after dropping the bomb that killed the Libyan dictator, the US does not have enough influence with the beneficiaries for them to stop protecting this killer of 189 Americans. In Egypt, an even more dangerous failure, Obama unceremonious dumped longtime ally Hosni Mubarak. Our thanks so far from those Obama supported has been increasing anti-American sentiment, tacit support for terrorists in the Sinai, and a likely Muslim Brotherhood victory in November’s parliamentary elections. Egypt-Israel tensions are increasing after Egyptian-tolerated terror attacks and Israel’s response to them, and the sacking of Israel’s Cairo embassy by Obama’s new friends. As a result, the Israel-Egypt peace treaty, which has made another full-scale Mideast war virtually impossible for three and a half decades, is at risk.

The Saudis were furious at Obama’s treatment of Mubarak and issued a rare rebuke of US policy by condemning “foreign influence” in Egyptian affairs. Those angry Saudis had been working closely with Mubarak’s Egypt (and clandestinely with Israel) to counter growing Iranian influence in the Middle East. With that bulwark now gone, Iran is widely expected to flex its muscles in Iraq once the US leaves under another Obama initiative that Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT) saidit “was a statement of failure, not success [and] puts at greater risk all that so many Americans and Iraqis fought, sacrificed and… gave their lives to achieve.” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned Iran not to “miscalculate,” but the Iranians seem as concerned as they were when putting down the 2009-2010 popular rebels, which Obama shamefully delivered into the mullahs’ hands.

Turkey, once a reliable ally, has moved squarely into the Islamist and pro-Iran camp since Obama took office; so much so that it refused US offers of aid (but not Iran’s) after a recent earthquake. It has given Iran access to the various and sundry military hardware it received courtesy of the US taxpayers, which Ahmedinejad and Company can now pick apart to simulate or counter. After a UN report rebuffed Turkey’s manufactured snit over Israel’s self defense against its pro-Hamas “flotilla,” the Turks responded by expelling the Israeli ambassador and formally downgrading in the two countries’ relations. There was not even a peep about that strategic disaster from Obama. In fact, several sources tell us that his minions put “intense pressure” on Israel, not Turkey. Obama urged Israel to genuflect and accede to Turkey’s demand for an apology—despite a pro-Israel report from an anti-Israel world body. More evidence of waning US influence.

The President’s failed outreach and flaccid sanctions have only enabled Iran to move closer to its goal of nuclear weapons. Contrary to the administration’s claims that the Iranian regime is “isolated,” its power and prestige has transcended the Sunni-Shiite divide. Sunni Hamas (and soon Egypt?) has become its client, and Shiite Hezbollah has taken the reins of government in Lebanon. Iran’s ally and longtime US antagonist, Syria, is the one Arab country where Obama has not supported a dictator’s ouster since, after all, as Clinton told us in March, strongman, Bashir Assad, is a “reformer.” Assad responded to that ridiculous justification for inaction by recently expelling the US ambassador

And what of our good friend Israel? It is clear enough, as Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said, that Obama has “thrown Israel under the bus.” Worse than Obama’s betrayal of our one reliable ally in the region, however, are the consequences of it. To the extent that there was a real peace process in the region—a highly dubious notion—Obama has single-handedly killed it. His hectoring of Israel has not given it any reason to take those dangerous and one-way “risks for peace.” With Clinton—of ‘Assad is a reformer’ fame—little more than an Obama lapdog, the entire administration regularly blames the lack of a peace deal on Israeli “settlements,” while ignoring Arab cries for genocide. Then they seem dumbfounded when the Israelis opt for security over suicide and build nonetheless. (If Israeli homes on the West Bank were really the problem, there would have been peace prior to 1967. More reality ignored by this administration.)

I recently heard an administration spokesperson assert that Obama’s policies have “won back” friends and prestige for the US overseas; prestige, she claimed, that was lost by former President George W. Bush. Unfortunately for everyone, her assertions do not stand up to facts. The upshot of Obama’s foreign policy in the Middle East has been:

• Increasing influence by an Iran on the brink of achieving its goal of nuclear weapons.
• Damaged relations with the Saudis, whose new heir apparent, Nayef bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud, is more likely to fashion a Saudi Arabia that is even more retrograde as opposed to being closer to the United States.
• Less influence in Libya than we had when Gaddafi was in charge.
• An Egypt ripe for a Muslim Brotherhood takeover that openly persecutes Christians and is about to rip up its peace treaty with Israel, making a full-scale Mideast war likelier than any time since it was signed.
• Hezbollah running Lebanon.
• Iranian ally Syria running amuck with impunity.
• An Islamist Turkey, openly flaunting its pro-Iranian and anti-US credentials.
• And our close friend, Israel, sensing enough betrayal to ignore Obama’s pressure for it to return to what its former Foreign Minister Abba Eban called the “Auschwitz borders.”

Quite an accomplishment: undoing the work of generations in less than three years.

The Bangladeshi Hindus and What we can do to Save Them

Address to Jagriti by Dr. Richard L. Benkin

Cerritos, California

October 2, 2010

Bangladesh’s Hindu population is dying. This is not opinion or the ravings of an ideologue: It is a fact. At the time of India’s partition in 1948, they made up a little less than a third of East Pakistan’s population. When East Pakistan became Bangladesh in 1971, Hindus were less than a fifth; thirty years later, less than one in ten; and reliable estimates put the Hindu population at less than eight percent today. Professor Sachi Dastidar of the State University of New York estimates that over 40 million Hindus are missing from the Bangladeshi census.[1]  Still having trouble wondering where this is going? Take a look at Pakistan where Hindus are down to one percent or Kashmir where they are almost gone. Take a look at the future of Bangladesh’s Hindus if we do not act.

Just to be clear, other Bangladeshi minorities are in distress, including the Amadiyya, Chakmas, and others, but my focus is the Bangladeshi Hindus for several reasons.  First, I am only one person and—as much as I wish I could—I am unable to take on every worthy human rights cause.  Second, Hindus are much more numerous than the other minorities, so there are many more people at risk.  Third, there are implications for India that are not there for the others, which makes this a more dangerous situation, while not more worthy of our attention.

That Bangladeshi Hindus are disappearing is one irrefutable fact.  Want another?  For years, we have received report after report documenting anti-Hindu incidents there; “incidents” including murder, gang rape, assault, forced conversion to Islam, child abduction, land grabs, and religious desecration. And while Bangladeshi officials might object that the perpetrators were non-state actors, government culpability rests, at the very least, on the fact that it pursues very few of these cases and punishes even fewer perpetrators. Their excuses have not stopped the killing. In fact, successive Bangladeshi governments—whether the openly Islamist BNP, the civilian or military caretaker, or the supposedly pro-minority Awami League—all have been passive bystanders, failing—or refusing—to exercise their sovereign responsibility to protect the life and security of all their citizens; and thus they have sent radical Islamists and common citizens alike a clear message that these acts can be undertaken with impunity.[2]

And yet, in this topsy-turvy world, it is WE who have to prove that there is something wrong. One would expect justice to demand that the BANGLADESHIS explain why they should not be charged with complicity in eliminating an entire people numbering in the tens of millions. That very presumption should tell us why we cannot rest until WE stop this atrocity—completely and forever!

Perhaps that is due in large part to the second irrefutable fact.  With all the documented incidents, with all the murders, rapes, and government tolerated attacks still going on, we have seen nothing about it in the mainstream media—which leads me to a question I ask a lot.  “Are my sources that much better than CNN’s?”  To be sure, many reports are exaggerated or contain inaccurate information—an occupational hazard in chasing down human rights violations.  But at the same time, my own sources on the ground often visit the scene of alleged atrocities and report back what can be verified and in some cases what cannot.  So, again, I ask “Are my resources that much better than CNN’s?”  Until CNNs of this world, or for that matter The Times of India stop their studied ignorance of this ongoing human rights travesty, governments in Bangladesh and elsewhere will deem that they can engage in these things without anyone caring. 

Why governments and not the radicals?  Because I have spoken with hundreds of Bangladeshi Hindu refugees living in largely illicit colonies throughout North and Northeast India. In describing the attacks that forced them to leave their ancestral homes, they made it very clear that their attackers were not necessarily radicals, but neighbors; common, everyday Muslims; not radicals or “bad” people. They also reported with near unanimity that when they went to the police and other officials for help, they were advised to drop the subject and “get out of Bangladesh.” In 2009, I interviewed a family that crossed into India only 22 days earlier. They told me about an uncle being killed, the father beaten, and their small farm invaded by a large number of “neighbors.” I also looked into the eyes of their 14-year-old daughter as she talked about being gang raped. Who did it? Not al Qaeda or even Jammat; but simply Muslims who lived in the area and knew they could have their way with the family, seize their land, and get away with it.[3]

And that is chilling because history has shown that the most “successful” cases of genocide and ethnic cleansing occur when a small cadre of true believers incites average citizens to engage in heinous acts against a targeted minority that they otherwise would not dream of committing. There might be no Gestapo or Janjaweed in Bangladesh, but its Hindu community is facing a similar process of destruction at the hands of the Bangladeshi majority.

In fact, it is even worse; because albeit too late, the civilized world eventually heard the cries coming out of Nazi Europe, Rwanda, and Darfur. As difficult as it was getting to that point, it is even more difficult getting the world to see an atrocity without concentration camps that has been going on for decades. When was the last time Amnesty International protested this; or the UN Human Rights Commission; or anyone else? What about the United States, or India? Never; and it is our responsibility to make sure they do. Because if we do not, no one else will, count on it, and we will see an end to the Bangladeshi Hindus in our lifetime!

So, how do we do it? First, recognize that the mere fact that our cause is just does not mean people will support us. They have not so far, and nothing lately has indicated that is changing. We have to change things ourselves. Second, understand that justice will not come because people finally “see the light,” but as the result of many small victories that make it impossible for the world to continue ignoring what we know is happening to the Hindus of Bangladesh. That means with all due respect that we do not need to hear from groups and individuals—me included—about how hard they have worked for this cause. Let us not confuse effort with results. Human lives hang in the balance! Whatever they have done, it has not stopped the murders, rapes, and expulsions; it has not stopped the progressive de-Hinduizationof East Bengal and Islamization of West Bengal. We have to move forward with a new dynamic—one that is practical and action-oriented; and one that demands commitment from each of us.  As an American, I look first to my own country.

The Bangladeshis have at least four pressure points the United States can push: trade, economic cooperation, UN peacekeeping troops, and its image as a democratic and moderate Islamic nation. Let me give you two quick examples of what I mean. I was in Dhaka during the 2007 coup. Most people think it occurred because of unrest over the BNP’s rigging the elections; but that is not what happened. There was a lot of street violence when I arrived there, and every western democracy was calling for the elections to be postponed; but the military had no intention of moving until someone got the UN to weigh in and threaten to review Bangladesh’s participation in peacekeeping missions. Bangladesh contributes more UN peacekeeping troops than any other country—almost 11,000 at this moment, just a little more than Pakistan.me[4]  Besides losing the receipts vital to their economy if the program is cancelled, the very thought of 11,000 young, angry, unemployed, and armed men is enough to scare the pants off anyone—even enough to cause a coup. If anything, Bangladesh is more vulnerable now.

In another case, Bangladesh’s notorious Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) abducted a colleague of mine in Dhaka—and we know that RAB’s abductees often have a habit of “disappearing.” So, I called the Bangladeshi ambassador to remind him that I helped stop several attempts at awarding Bangladesh tariff relief and would do so again, then added that if my colleague was not released unharmed and soon, “there will be a shit storm that you cannot even imagine.” But, you see, right after that I called several Capitol Hill offices that have supported this cause and within the next 45 minutes, the embassy received angry inquiries from at least six of them, including some with responsibility for trade and appropriations. Needless to say, my colleague was freed unharmed after, as he told me, “higher ups” called the RAB commander.

Understand; this is not about me but about a good plan and organization and what they can do. In both instances, material interest not justice convinced the Bangladeshis to act, and if it worked then, it will work now to save Bangladesh’s Hindus.

Our problem is we lack focus.  People come to events like this, get excited, but leave not knowing quite what to do.  Here are examples of what each of us can do:

Support my efforts for Congressional hold hearings on the ethnic cleansing of Bangladesh’s Hindus. We have several interested parties and at least one verbal okay; but the key will be calling our representatives and Senators after the new Congress takes office in January.  If you can help, and even better, if you can be part of a call chain, give me your contact information. 

Using the same methods, help us continue to block attempts to award Bangladesh tariff relief or other trade benefits until that country observes decent human rights standards—and if any of you know the Bangladeshis, this time talk is not enough.   We have been doing this successfully for over five years, but it only takes one lapse for these victims to lose one of the most important tools for putting an end to the atrocities.  The same methods can be successful in other areas like appropriations. Congressman Mark Kirk, now running for the US Senate from Illinois, inserted conditional language that can be used at any time to turn up the heat on Bangladesh.

Ask candidates for Congress and the Senate if they will support these efforts and cast your vote accordingly.  This is big now, and it will be bigger in two years.

And engage Bangladesh. The Bangladeshis are not bad people; their actions are not ideological.  Their leaders face the same—often competing—pressures that others do.  They can be part of the solution and not part of the problem.  But it will never happen if (1) we write them off as evil or (2) give them what they want from us without being tough on matters like this.

There is something else everyone can do. Last year, I helped found a human rights organization, Forcefield. Unlike Amnesty International and the rest, it is not “agenda-driven.” That is, we are not tied to any leftist ideology, network of supporters, or “flavor of the week” issues. And we specifically are NOT anti-Israel. We are recognized by the governments of the United States and India; and unlike the others, we are committed to stop the ethnic cleansing of Hindus in Bangladesh and hopefully help persecuted minorities from Kashmir, Pakistan, and elsewhere by bringing this to the world’s attention.

Our efforts include my human rights missions to South Asia; a documentary about the Bangladeshi Hindus that we expect to be a call for action; and an online newspaper to bring Americans and others solid information about what is happening in South Asia. We have various professionals ready to participate, victims ready to testify, and correspondents standing by in the key areas of India to bring Americans news that CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News never cover; news I never see it in my morning Chicago Tribune, the Washington Post or the New York Times; even though it is about the international jihad that threatens us all.

We need funds to do these things.  Donations are fully tax-deductable, and our credentials are available for inspection. There are envelopes in the back for donations, as well as forms for credit card donations. You can also help through our web site, http://www.forcefieldnow.org, and click the “Donate” button. Every penny you give will help stop the atrocities we know are happening.

Joseph Stalin[5] is said to have remarked, “One death is a tragedy, a million deaths a statistic.” That 14-year-old rape victim—that child—I met was no statistic, and God help us if we make her one!

[1] Population statistics taken from the census of Pakistan (1948), and Bangladesh (1974 and 2001). Also see Dastidar, Sachi G.; Empire’s Last Casualty: Indian Subcontinent’s Vanishing Hindu and other Minorities. (Kolkata: Firma KLM Private Limited, 2008.

[2] See for example, incidents in the monthly newsletter of the Bangladesh Hindu, Buddhist, Christian Unity Council available at http://www.bhbcuc-usa.org/index.html. The Hindu American Foundation has documented these atrocities in successive annual reports, entitled Hindus in South Asia and the Diaspora: A Survey of Human Rights [followed by a specific year]; copyright Hindu American Foundation. For instance, 2007, pages 5-21; 2008, pages 3-15. They also are available at the Hindu American Foundation web site, http://www.hafsite.org. Global Human Rights Defence investigates and reports on human rights violations against Bangladeshi Hindus at http://ghrd.org. Click “countries” and then “Bangladesh.” The first and third organizations have also worked with me in providing evidence of anti-Hindu activities in Bangladesh.

[3] This information came from recorded and unrecorded interviews I had with Bangladeshi Hindu refugees, living in mostly illegal colonies in the Indian states of West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, and Uttarakhan, from 2008-2010. The 14-year old rape victim related the story to me in an encampment in North Dinajpur near the Bangladesh border in March 2009.

[4] Figures come from the United Nations itself, Contributors to United Nations Peacekeeping Operations, and the August figures can be found at http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/contributors/2010/aug10_1.pdf.

[5] Elizabeth Knowles, editor, Oxford Dictionary of Modern Quotations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 301. Attributed to Joseph Stalin.

Displaced Bengali Hindus find US sympathizer

(Originally published 21, February in The Sentinal)

SILCHAR, Feb 21: With a firm determination to highlight the pathetic plight of the displaced Bengali Hindus in the international arena, Dr Richard L Benkin, founder of Forcefield of Interfaith Strength, a Washington-based human rights organization along with Sydney-based human rights activist Miriam Jones visited Silchar and border district Karimganj to have a first hand account of the Bengali Hindus who had been compelled to leave Bangladesh by the Islamic fundamentalist. Dr Benkin and Jones visited Dohalia, a village in Karimganj bordering Bangladesh on Saturday. However, their mission could not be termed as successful, as a local companion said that none of the displaced Hindus want to admit that they had actually shifted from Bangladesh fearing that this might hamper their chance of getting Indian citizenship. However, Dr Benkin found a Hindu Bengali in Karimganj who had shifted to India four years back.

Later talking to The Sentinel over telephone from Karimganj, Dr Benkin, who had been working on the displaced Bengali Hindus, said, it was a pity that the international media and human right organizations were completely in the dark about the hardship these Bengali Hindus had been going through for decades.

Dr Benkin had, for several years, been travelling around West Bengal in an effort to gather evidence about the plight of Bangladeshi Hindus and to bring that evidence to human rights supporters in the United States Congress and Senate. Benkin said, subsequently he came to know about Assam where the State Government had began issuing orders of eviction to many of these Hindus, all victims of Islamic atrocities. Dr Benkin was surprised to note that the Assam Government had not issued any such orders to the growing number of Muslims in the State. Benkin maintained that these infiltrators were attempting to replicate the demographic shift in Assam as in West Bengal.

At this juncture, Benkin came into contact with Protection Forum for Bengali Hindus of Assam which held a seminar on December 4, 2010 in Guwahati to formulate a resolution asking the State to provide citizenship to the displaced Hindus. Eeresh Bhattacharjee of the Forum told The Sentinel from Guwahati that Dr Benkin had assured them that he would mould public opinion in the US for the displaced Bengali Hindus otherwise India’s bid to attain permanent chair in the UN Security Council would be challenged.

Dr Rajdip Roy, son of former MLA late Bimalangshu Roy, met Benkin on Sunday and apprised him about the plight of the displaced Bengali Hindus. Benkin, who left for Kolkata on Sunday en route to Dhaka, said he would come back to Barak Valley within a year to assess the situation. He would then submit a report on the displaced Bengali Hindus to the UN.

Oppression of Hindus in Bangladesh raised at US Capitol

(Originally published 29, July 2011 in NewsGram)

Washington DC, July 28: Congressman Robert Dold (Republican Representative from Illinois District 10) raised the issue of atrocities and oppression of Hindu minorities in Bangladesh at the US Capitol today. Dold raised the issue at the floor of the United States House of Representatives. The latter is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.

Congressman Robert Dold made a short speech on the House floor in favor of HR440, sponsored by Rep. Frank Wolf, a bill that establishes an ambassador-level “special envoy” for religious freedom and human rights in the Middle East and South Central Asia.

Newsgram spoke to Dr Richard Benkin from Chicago who has been working to get people to recognize the ethnic cleansing of Hindus in Bangladesh. Benkin says that one of the biggest impediments to that recognition is the tendency toward burying the issue under words about “minorities” and “extremists.” Benkin says that  per his knowledge, this is the first time that the issue of suffering of Hindus in Bangladesh has so clearly been raised on the floor of the US House of Representatives.

Before India Can Deserve A UNSC Seat…

Originally published in Folks Magazine, October 6, 2011

Dr. Richard Benkin

There are so many reasons why India should be a permanent member of the UN Security Council, equipped with the same veto power enjoyed by the current batch of permanent members:  the United States, United Kingdom, France, Russia, and China.  India is not, as some are fond of saying, an “emerging giant”; it is a giant—economically as well as militarily.  It is also home to more than one out of every six people on the planet, boasts the second, fourth, and eighth most populous cities on earth (Delhi, Mumbai, and Kolkatarespectively),and by 2030 is estimated to overtake China as the world’s largest country.

If India expects more than lip service from the United States, however (which is so far all that it has gotten from the Obama Administration), it will have to re-think its foreign policy into one that is not driven by domestic political calculations.  Israel is a great example.  The world over has touted the extremely tight relationship between the two countries, yet on critical UN votes, India consistently casts anti-Israel votes.  The current Palestinian Authority (PA) gambit is but the latest example.

Shortly after the Palestinians announced that they would go to the Security Council for a resolution of statehood, India announced that it would vote in favor of their move—even though it has been clear that the effort will do more to delay Middle East peace than advance it or bring about a functioning Palestinian state.  Indian officials have maintained its position, reaffirming it strenuously seemingly every chance they get.  Similarly, when the Goldstone Report on the 2009 Gaza War was brought before the United Nations for approval or disapproval last year, India unhesitatingly voted in favor of it.  India cast that vote despite the fact that the report was discredited almost from the beginning and eventually disavowed by its director and namesake as “skewed against Israel” from its initial mandate forward.  Does this mean that India must be a “good little boy” if it wants US support for a permanent Security Council seat?  No, it does not.  India, like any sovereign nation, has the responsibility to determine its own foreign policy, but Indian leaders must ask themselves why in the world would the United States support bringing in another veto toting country with a history of casting critical votes that are opposed not only to American foreign policy principles but even against the interests of its own people.

Greater security, economic, and other relations between India and the United States is indeed a strong possibility after the 2012 Presidential election, as both Republican frontrunners have come out for them (along with less cooperation with Pakistan) as basic to their overall worldview.  Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney has been a strong advocate of that position for years.  In a recent debate, Texas governor Rick Perry did not even have to be prompted on the matter.  When asked what he would do if Pakistan lost control of its nuclear weapons, he responded immediately that stronger US ties with India are the key to US ability to affect events in the region.  Both men advance strong economic and foreign policy reasons for stronger ties with India.  With the US Presidential election still 13 months away, anything can happen to affect the results.  At this point, however, President Barack Obama’s chances of being returned to office appear to be fading with each passing day—which means a potential re-orientation of US foreign policy.  Will US-India cooperation be based on this century’s realities, or will they be mired in outdated and discredited ideologies of the last one?

How discredited?  Less than a year ago, Indian President Pratibha Devisingh Patil publicly supported Syria President Bashir Assad and his country’s claims in its dispute with Israel over the Golan Heights.  Since that time, Assad’s time and attention has been taken up with his ruthless oppression of democratic forces in his country that so far has claimed over 2,000 lives.  Moreover, while it was highly inappropriate for Patil to inject herself into the bi-lateral dispute, it probably represented little more than her toadying approach to foreign relations rather, old alliances, and fear of jeopardizing trade and foreign receipts from the Gulf States.  Should “fear” drive the foreign policy of a nation that towers over all others with its permanent Security Council seat?

Indian officials tend to justify their anti-Israel votes with reference to their “traditional” support for a Palestinian state—which probably reached its zenith when India voted in favor of the infamous UN “Zionism is racism” resolution—a resolution so embarrassing, politicized, and openly anti-Jewish (as opposed to pro anything) that the UN rescinded it 16 years later, and no one has had the temerity to raise the issue since.  India, by the way, was one of only six nations not formally communist or having a Muslim majority that voted for the resolution.  So much for the past; what about the present and the future?  Israel has now supplanted Russia as India’s major arms partner, and has provided the latter with sophisticated military and intelligence hardware.  India has become young Israelis’ favorite tourist destination, only part of the more extensive bonds being formed by the two peoples.  And the two nations share existential strategic interests.  After 26/11, Israel provided India with extensive intelligence on the jihadi attackers and their keepers in Pakistan; not a rupee came from the holders of the world’s petrodollars.  Israel provided aid to the victims and condemned the act as terrorism.  While top Arab leaders formally condemned the attacks, there was quite a different reaction on the popular side.  Al Jazeera hosted a forum to surfers wishing to identify with the terrorists in Mumbai, with almost unanimous support for the attacks and identification with the attackers.  Hamas, now part of the Palestinian “unity” government that the current UN resolution would advance, did the same without posting a single comment in opposition to the attacks.

The question facing Indian leaders is whether they will recognize that the interests of its people lay with the United States and Israel—which like India are major targets of international jihadis—or will they remain tied to discredited ideologies of a bygone era that not only fail on all fronts to help the Indian people in any tangible way but rather strengthen the forces of anti-Indian jihad arrayed against them?

Can we call it ‘Awakening’ if we ignore our Brothers’ Suffering?

Address to Chicago Dharmajagruti Sabha by Dr. Richard Benkin, Grayslake, IL August 27, 2011

Shravan Krushna Chaturdashi, Kaliyug Varsha 5113

Those of you who were around in the 1980s will remember that back then, you could not pass a synagogue without seeing a large banner proclaiming, “Save Soviet Jewry.”  Our people were being persecuted in the Soviet Union, whose leaders wanted to eradicate their Jewish religion and identity.  A few, like Natan Sharansky who later became an Israeli Cabinet Minister, got some attention, but most suffered silently.  The American Jewish community saw their persecuted brothers and sisters and recognized their obligation to save them.  Moreover, it acted on that obligation.

We lobbied Washington and our local officials; prevailed upon other religious bodies to recognize the atrocity and let Washington know their position.  

Average Jews who you might see at the office or in the supermarket—people just like you—went to Russia at their own expense to smuggle in religious books and other Jewish artifacts at considerable peril to themselves.  Jewish children reaching their Bar and Bat Mitzvah were “twinned” with Soviet children who did not have the freedom to celebrate this most important rite of passage; we did it for them.  And before it was over, we helped get 1.2 million Jews out of that communist hell.   It strengthened our identity, and every Jewish child who was part of that effort never forgot it or their own sense of Jewishness.  We also realized that we could in fact stand strong for our people, that the only thing that could stop us is ourselves.

The Bangladeshi Hindus can be your Soviet Jews.

Since 1947, 49 million Hindus in Bangladesh have gone missing, according the State University of New York’s Sachi Dastidar.  Hindus were almost a third of East Pakistan’s population then but had been reduced to under a fifth by the time East Pakistan became Bangladesh in 1971.  Thirty years later, they were less than one in ten, and by reliable estimates, they are less than eight percent today.  In all that time, what have we heard from those entities that should have defended them:  the UN, Amnesty International, and the rest?  Nothing.  It seems that their incessant prattle about human rights does not apply to Hindus.

But I do not care about their actions—or inaction. Their history is one of moral cowardice anyway; of focusing on what is politically correct and what brings them cash; of responding to real human rights tragedies only when the body bags are piled too high to ignore.  If we wait for them, we can expect their continued silence until the day they awake to a Hindu-less Bangladesh; and then they will say, ‘How could this have happened?’ and, ‘We never knew.’  If our brothers and sisters are to escape the regular murders, rapes, legalized land grabs, Mandir destruction, and more, we will be the ones to save them.

Did the so-called civilized world help Hindus in Afghanistan, Pakistan, or Kashmir?  What makes us think they will save Hindus in Bangladesh?  There are only two options open to us, and each of us here must decide:  Will I act to stop the atrocities or be complicit in them.

First, the bad news:  we do not have a lot of time. The numbers alone tell us that; and there is more.

Charge Number One: 

Government-tolerated atrocities continue unabated. Some people naively assumed the current Awami League government would change things; it has not.  During its first year in power, major anti-Hindu attacks occurred at the rate of at least one per week.  I say “at least” because while there were dozens more reported, I was able to directly verify that many.  All of them were serious, involved Hindu victims and Muslim victimizers; and in every case, the government refused to take action.  They included a three-day anti-Hindu pogrom in the Bangladeshi capital of Dhaka—right behind a police station; the abduction and forced conversion of a 20-year-old Hindu college student—that police call “voluntary,” even though the kidnappers needed to fire guns during the abduction; and the gang rape and forced conversion of a 14-year-old girl whose victimizers continue threatening her family with police connivance.

There was no let-up during its second year in power, when for instance, there were seven major, confirmed attacks in a 25 day period during March and April.  And it is still happening.  As recently as last month in Dinajpur, an area I know well and from which many Hindus flee the country, another Hindu child was abducted and forcibly converted to Islam; the police will not intervene.

This is a regular and deliberate attack on the Hindu gene pool, occurring at least monthly; an attack that turns Hindu girls into “baby machines” for Islam.  Bangladeshi authorities are complicit in this crime and their involvement critical to it.  Their refusal to prosecute gives Islamists and others a green light.  Plus, they refuse to help recover these Hindu girls, no matter how much the families plead.  Our time for pleading is over !

Charge Number Two: 

This spring, the Bangladeshi Supreme Court questioned several constitutional amendments, including the infamous Eighth, which substituted Islam for Bengali ethnicity as the basis for Bangladesh nationality.  It made Islam the country’s official religion, and placed it in a legally favored position.  The court directed the government to submit replacements to an Awami-controlled parliament, which it did—for every amendment but the Eighth.  The Awami League thus proclaimed its intention to continue delegitimizing non-Muslims in Bangladesh and laugh at those who believed its promises that it would do otherwise.  Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me?  It did the same thing almost immediately during its tenure by ignoring a Supreme Court ruling that deliberately opened the door for the new government to void Bangladesh’s Vested Property Act; a law responsible for the forced transfer of millions of acres from Hindus to Muslims and the economic engine driving this train of ethnic cleansing.  Our time for ignoring is over !

Charge Number Three: 

Earlier this year, I was asked to meet with a Bangladeshi cabinet minister at the Prime Minister’s behest.  The minister told me how much they were willing to do for help in making material improvements to the country that would secure the Awami League’s re-election.  The conversation was moving along smoothly until I said to him:  “You know, we’re going to have to do something about the persecution of Hindus in your country.”  He nervously assured me that there was no problem for Hindus in Bangladesh; but I told him I knew otherwise and that we would have to deal with the matter—and with actions, not words.  Since then, we have had some ongoing contact, but the Bangladeshi government has thus far chosen to forego those benefits rather than stop oppressing Hindus.  Our time for tolerating empty words is over !

Charge Number Four: 

And please listen closely because this one is on us.  It already has spread to India.  While the Hindu population has dropped in East Bengal, the Muslim population has begun to outstrip it in West Bengal.  Those who claim that it is merely a matter of demographics and not something indicative of jihad should have accompanied me to Deganga earlier this year where I met with victims of a well-documented Muslim attack on the Hindu community.  Since the attack, many Hindus have left the area; the ones who remain are thinking about it.  Wives cannot go to the market unaccompanied; children cannot walk to school alone.  And I heard similar tales from frightened Hindus in Howrah, saw desecrated Mandirs in North 24 Parganas, and spoke with a woman whose daughter was abducted from the village of Norit.  Nor is it limited to West Bengal.  In Meerut, I arrived six days after a Hindu community leader was burned to death by jihadi activists who have become more brazen not two hours from New Delhi.

The ethnic cleansing of the Bangladeshi Hindus is a terrible atrocity by itself; but it is also a test of our own resolve.  What we do about it will determine how far our enemies will go and if we eventually have to battle them on Route 41 because we did not stop them in Dhaka or Deganga.  Our time for action is now!

And it has already started.

Do you remember my earlier words?  “Since 1947, 49 million Hindus in Bangladesh have gone missing.”  They are not really mine.  Those are the words with which Congressman Robert Dold from Illinois, who is represented at this Dharma Sabha today, began a speech from the floor of the United States Congress on July 28, 2011 that changed our struggle forever.  Instead of speaking in general terms about “minorities” or “extremists,” Congressman Dold addressed this issue of anti-Hindu persecution in Bangladesh specifically and forcefully; and he cited it as a reason for US action. That had never been done before in the US Congress.

Why is this particularly important?  It is important because our opponents—both those who are perpetrating these atrocities and those who are deliberately ignoring them—have kept this issue off the human rights agenda and distracted us with their own, politically motivated ones.  They want to fool us into believing that there is no persecution of Hindus in Bangladesh so it can continue under the radar; to keep us from putting the issue of anti-Hindu ethnic cleansing front and center so people have to deal with it; hence, the generalities about minorities (not Hindus per se) and extremists (not the “good people” running Bangladesh).  Thanks to Congressman Dold, that is over.  The genie is out of the bottle; the toothpaste is out of the tube; the persecution of Hindus in Bangladesh is part of the United States Congressional Record.

Moreover, Congressman Dold made that speech in support of a bill introduced by Congressman Frank Wolf of Virginia, long time co-chair of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission in the US House, which we now have reason to hope will address the issue of the Bangladeshi Hindus.  The fact that Wolf was at Dold’s side when he made that speech is no coincidence.  Now, here is where your action can be vital.

The bill, HR440, called for the appointment of a “Special Envoy to Promote Religious Freedom of Religious Minorities in the Near East and South Central Asia.”  It passed with overwhelming bi-partisan support and now rests with the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, which is scheduled to meet next month to discuss the legislation before it.  We need everyone to call their Senators, especially if they are on the Foreign Relations committee.  If they are, call and urge that they co-sponsor S1245, support it in the Foreign Relations Committee, and make sure it is discussed at the committee’s next meeting.  If they are not on the committee, urge them to co-sponsor the bill, which is being sponsored by Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri and co-sponsored by senators from both parties.

Emphasize the importance of the United States taking a lead in helping the victims of religious persecution through the Special Envoy that the bill calls for.  If you wish to mention the Bangladeshi Hindus and my name, that would be great, too.  Please make contact by telephone or fax; other methods will not be effective.  There are handouts here with contact information for members of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and a web site where you can get the same information for Senators not on the committee.

Your action—and that of as many people as you can get—is more important than you might think.  Given its bi-partisan support, this bill almost certainly will pass; and that is a good thing.  But we also know that the wrong person in the position could end up focusing on one-sidedly false charges about Gujarat, Orissa, Palestinians, and the like, while ignoring real issues like the Bangladeshi Hindus.  Our best chance of preventing that is to play a prominent role early and even have some voice in who is appointed as Special Envoy.  ‘Impossible,’ you say; ‘out of our reach.’  Think again.  

With the nation focused on the economy, this is unfolding out of the public eye and will not attract the sort of attention it otherwise would.  We should fill that gap.  And why not?  We are voters, we are passionate, and we have a just cause.  We have an opportunity here that took a perfect storm of factors to present itself.  We cannot afford to waste it; more importantly, there is a young Hindu girl somewhere in South Asia who will be ripped from her family’s bosom and victimized in ways we cannot even imagine if we do.  As I said in a different context earlier:  the only thing that could stop us is ourselves.

This is but one of several initiatives made possible in part by Congressman Dold’s speech, and I want to mention one more.  Yesterday, I was part of the initial meeting of Congressman Dold’s Human Rights Advisory Council.  Our enemies are counting on the fact that we Americans are going to let these human rights issues fall through the cracks because we are so focused on the economy; they believe we no longer have any stomach for the fight.  Well, they are wrong.  And through organizations like Congressman Dold’s Human Rights Advisory Council, we are going to make sure our enemies get a rude awakening if they believe we will sit by while they continue raping children and destroying temples.  Armenians, Assyrians, Baha’I, Jews, and Koreans, and I sat with the Congressman and made that pledge—to ourselves, to one another, and to the people who brought each of us to the table.

My friends, we are beginning to build a coalition among many people who are committed to helping one another’s causes, to saving the victims and not letting them be ignored; and all in the name of what is right.  Regardless of what anyone does, as long as there is life in my body, I will continue fighting—alone if necessary—to save the Hindus of Bangladesh; but our chance of success is much greater if others join that fight; which means taking action and supporting these initiatives.  For those who have or will, I offer my humble thanks.  Those do not will have to figure out how to explain their complicity to their children, their grandchildren, and most of all to themselves.

Let me end with one more bit of motivation, if any is needed. In 2009, I interviewed a Bangladeshi Hindu family that crossed into India only 22 days earlier. They told me about an uncle being killed, the father beaten, and their tiny farm invaded by a large number of Muslims. I also looked into the eyes of their 14-year-old daughter as she talked about being gang raped. Who did it? Not al Qaeda; but simply Muslims who lived in the area and knew they could have their way with the family, seize their land, and get away with it.

Joseph Stalin is said to have remarked, “One death is a tragedy, a million deaths a statistic.” That 14-year-old rape victim—that child I met—was no statistic, and God help us if we make

When did we lose the moral high ground—and how can we get it back?

Address by Dr. Richard L. Benkin To Overseas Friends of Bharatiya Janata Party, Rolling Meadows, IL July 23, 2011

July 23, 2011

[Note:  The actual presentation deviated from the prepared text in order and emphasis; but the message remained.]

For the last several years, I have been urging a US-India-Israel alliance as humanity’s last hope to defeat the 21st century’s equivalent of the last century’s worst totalitarianisms:  Radical Islam.  One key to that alliance is the growing relationship between Israel and India.  The nations have grown so close that it is hard to imagine that they did not even have formal relations only 20 years ago.  But despite the tremendous amount of military, security, intelligence, business, and cultural cooperation, something remains amiss under the reigning Congress government.  Here are some examples.

In 2009, India voted “yea” on a United Nations resolution that endorsed the now-discredited Goldstone Report that charged Israel with war crimes.  The report is so biased that even Richard Goldstone himself has disavowed it.  Israel knew the vote reflected Indian politics; specifically, politicians’ fear of alienating the Muslim vote.  Thus, it said it was “disappointed” by the Indian action, but left it at that.

In 2010, Indian President Pratibha Devisingh Patil publicly supported Syria’s claims in its dispute with Israel over the Golan Heights; Syria, a nation that even the Arab-toadying left now condemns.  It was the height of impropriety for Patil to inject herself into the bi-lateral dispute.  It represented little more than her craven approach to foreign relations and reflected her party’s fear of jeopardizing its foreign receipts from the Gulf States.  Thus, Israel’s response was muted.

In 2011, I was addressing students on several Indian campuses when a colleague approached me.  He said that the government had replaced academic administrators with political ones; and that his new bosses have banned classes and subjects that openly offer students information that does not cast Israel as a villain.  Other university colleagues have reported similar actions.

We can debate the forces that allow us to “understand” these actions, but they are not how a friend and ally behave.  As long as they exist, they are obstacles to the grand alliance that is our best hope.  I am not ready to cast the current government as the villain in all this, but I do know that the BJP can cast itself as the hero by going back to the principles that gave birth to it.  Here is what I mean.

In February 2010, I had a private talk with the great L K Advani that lasted about 40 minutes.  We talked about my work to save the Bangladeshi Hindus, and I told him about the evidence of ethnic cleansing I saw with my own eyes.  He was touched by their plight and said to me, ’The Congress government tells us that there is no problem for Hindus in Bangladesh now.  If this is not true, the people should be told.’  I agreed, and we decided to work together; and, as we agreed I would, I sent him more evidence once I returned to the United States.  But nothing ever happened:  no exposure of the reality for Hindus in Bangladesh; no efforts to tell the people the truth.  I am not so presumptuous to believe that a man like Advaniji has nothing better to do than to wait for words of wisdom from me; nor would I question his sincerity; but the incident did make me wonder.

When I returned to India this February, the country was ablaze with fiery talk about scams and massive corruption by government and Congress Party higher ups.  One incident that stood out for a lot of people involved the Gandhi family.  Dr. Subramanian Swami accused them of squirreling away a great deal of Indian money in European banks, something he would not do without strong evidence.  Predictably, the current leader of that family, Sonia Gandhi, angrily denied the charge.  When she did, do you remember how Advaniji responded?   Did he recognize his opponent’s weakness and keep up the heat; press the Right’s advantage, as he has done so many times?  No.  He issued a cloying public apology that retreated before her insubstantial denial and promised to drop the issue.  It disappointed every conservative and potential conservative voter I know.

That, too made me wonder; and the more I thought about it, the more I realized that it was not just the BJP.  It has happened to conservative parties in the United States, Europe, and elsewhere.  Look at what happened in Israel less than six years ago when the Lion of Israel’s right, Ariel Sharon, threw his conservative party over the side to form a coalition of weakness and preside over a disastrous withdrawal from Gaza.

When did we conservatives lose the moral high ground?  Or better still, when did we give it away.  Conservatives are supposed to stand for something; so much so, that our opponents keep telling us to ‘go with the times’ and stop clinging to our principles.  But conservatives will not do that.  We continue to believe in the promise of the individual, not government; in strong families and religion as the bedrocks of any society; and principles of right and wrong that we do not abandon when they become inconvenient.  We also stand up to the truly evil forces in the world, from communists to Islamists.  When did that change, and can we get it back?

In the late 1970s and 1980s, people rebelled against the leftward direction their governments took in the prior decades.  Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher returned their nations to conservative principles.  The Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc of communist countries fell to popular revolt.  In places like India and Israel, conservatives unseated leftist parties that had ruled since independence.  They won by standing on principle and by delivering the moral governance they promised.

After a time, however, conservatives realized:  they liked being in power.  As a consequence—just like the politicians they defeated—many became so concerned with how to hold on to it that they forgot what brought them to power in the first place.  Politics became more important than principles.  To get those almighty votes, many conservatives became “moderates,” and expended their greatest stock of energy trying to show people how un-conservative they were.  Moderate soon became little more than code for “left-light.”

I spend enough time in India and with Indians to hear the same things you do.  People are angry with the Congress Party:  with its corruption at home and its weakness abroad.  But as angry as they are with Congress, they are even angrier with the BJP.  Why?  Because they knew what they were getting with the Left, but they thought the Right stood for something and now wonder if there is any difference between the two parties.

The BJP has a chance to retake the high ground and stand for something again:  for strength; for victory over Naxalites and jihadis; for defending Hindus from their Islamist neighbors; for principle over politics.  They can set a clear social ethic that will be the end of the anti-Israel toadying mentioned above and drive that grand alliance.  It takes only one spark to light that great conflagration, and the Bangladeshi Hindus can be that spark.

Bangladesh’s Hindu community is dying.  That is not opinion or “Islamaphobia.”  It’s a fact.  At the time of India’s partition in 1947, they were almost a third of East Pakistan’s population.  When East Pakistan became Bangladesh in 1971, they were less than a fifth; 30 years later less than a tenth; and according to reliable estimates, under eight percent today.  If anyone still wonders where this is headed, look at Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Kashmir where once robust Hindu communities have been all but eliminated.  Glimpse the future for Hindus in Bangladesh if we do not act; for while we receive almost daily reports of rapes, murders, Mandir destruction, and Bangladeshi government complicity; the rest of the world—including India and the United States—remains silent.

Saving the Bangladeshi Hindus is a moral imperative, and a pure human rights issue that no decent human being can oppose once forced to recognize the truth.  For the BJP to lead this fight would emphasize the party’s fidelity to its essential principle to defend Hindus and Hinduism.  It also appeals to Jews; we know what it is like to be the victims of that persecution, and we share the same enemy today.  Stop trying to be like our pseudo-secular opponents and admit that the perpetrators are Muslims, both radical and moderate, and part of international jihad.  Is our fear of being called “communal” more important than stopping the daily atrocities faced by Bangladeshi Hindus?  Standing resolutely on this basic issue of human decency would cast the BJP—and India—as leaders in a coalition of peoples, all of whom face the same threat; as the party that can further India’s strategic relationships with countries that stand against the tide of radical Islam.

This would answer the voters’ question about what distinguishes the two parties.  And it is all connected.  I want you to look at the different ways India and Israel have responded to the leftist push by US President Barack Obama.  He treats India as a pet, offering kind words and occasional attention, but selling India old military hardware and offering other crumbs.  And what does the Indian government do?  They lap it up as if it were gold and fall all over one another to say thank you. Looking at Israel, Obama has tried from Day One to undermine Israel’s Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and substitute a more compliant, left-leaning government.  But Netanyahu refused to play ball.  He stuck to his conservative positions and even gave the US president a stern lecture about why his statement that Israel should return the pre-1967 armistice lines was not going to happen.  Despite the worst vilification by a hostile media, the domestic and international Left, and a heavy-handed Obama; he is stronger today than ever.  Netanyahu satisfied a hunger among Israelis to defend their nation and values; the same hunger exists among Indians.  I was in Phlibit in 2009 when hundreds of thousands of Hindus lined the road as Varun Gandhi returned to defy the government’s pseudo-secularism.  The Left responded to his stirring defense of Hindus by non-stop screeds and vilifiction.  But they did not count on the people, who not only cheered him in great numbers but also gave him a landslide victory in the midst of an otherwise disastrous showing by the BJP.

The BJP’s opportunity is ripening as we move toward raising this issue in Washington.  Congressman Bob Dold and I are finishing a letter that will circulate to a select group of lawmakers and be used to drive Congressional hearings and eventually other actions in support of the Bangladeshi Hindus.  It has been a long time coming and will end the ability of people to close their eyes and pretend it is not happening.  The BJP can then take Advaniji’s advice and tell the people the truth about their brethren’s oppression at the hands of the Muslim majority.  The offer I made to Advaniji still stands:  to provide the evidence and passion needed for this effort.  Convince your colleagues to join those of us who have fought this battle virtually alone and who now have supporters in Washington.

Do we need any more motivation?  Just in case, try this.  In 2009, I met with a Hindu family in West Bengal that had crossed over from Bangladesh just 22 days earlier.  They told me about the father being beaten, an uncle being murdered, and about how a gang of local Muslims invaded their small family farm and threw them off.  The police would not defend their rights so they fled to India.  I remember looking into the eyes of the family’s 14-year-old daughter as she told me about being gang raped by Muslims.  That little girl makes the imperative of standing up for these people more of a moral imperative.

Joseph Stalin is said to have remarked, “One death is a tragedy, a million deaths a statistic.” That 14-year-old rape victim—that child—was no statistic.  God help us if we make her one.

Thank you.

Another Foreign Policy Disaster and New South Asia Power Dynamics

Originally published on Breitbart: Big Peace, July 21, 2011

Dr Richard Benkin

President Obama’s accelerated “drawdown” of US troops in Afghanistan will, at the very least, create a power vacuum; and the list of candidates to fill it is not encouraging. No serious analyst believes the government of Hamid Karzai will get the job done, as it lacks both popular support and the necessary resources. Moreover, despite all our efforts at nation building, there is no “Afghan people” but rather a collection of Pashtuns, Tajiks, and others living in territories controlled by hetmen and drug lords.

The Taliban continue operating in force as evidenced by ongoing attacks and a recent jailbreak that freed almost 500 terrorists. Obama’s call to negotiate with its “moderates”whatever that means, has enhanced its chances of returning to power. Iran shares an 800 mile border with Afghanistan and is making noise about protecting the Shiite Hazara in this Sunni Muslim country. (Can anyone say Sudeten Germans?) It could take over Afghanistan’s heartland, while a fawning international community hails it as a human rights defender. China also borders Afghanistan, and its meddling in the region is growing. It effectively annexed Kashmir’s northeast using the same rationale as it did to grab Tibet and took a “great leap forward” in regional ties with last year’s Sino-Pakistan nuclear pact. It has been wooing Karzai, recently feting him like a king in Beijing, and has expanded its economic base by, as one example, developing a major copper field in Afghanistan’s Logar province.

Pakistan remains a major candidate to take power, especially with the American government’s penchant to tolerate Pakistani duplicity. Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger called the Pak-Afghan connection “organic,” and the US withdrawal could render their mutual nothing more than a formality like the one separating Syria and Lebanon.

Given those multiple nightmare scenarios, it is perplexing that the Obama administration continues to ignore the one regional power whose interests are not inimical to ours: India. Our foreign policy interests coincide; it is the only effective counterweight against otherwise unchecked Chinese expansionism; it has the requisite economic, military, and intelligence capability; and the specter of increased Indian influence in the region scares the pants off the Pakistanis and might get them to behave. China’s Afghanistan venture is also part of its strategy to encircle India.

Incredibly, rather than recognizing the threat to our common interests and partnering with India to stop it, “the Obama administration is practically rolling out an Afghan red carpet for China,” according to a respected Asian affairs analyst out of Singapore. Obama also looked the other way when, according to Matthew Rosenberg of the Wall Street Journal, Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani lobbied Karzai “against building a long-term strategic partnership with the U.S., urging him instead to look to Pakistan—and its Chinese ally—for help in striking a peace deal with the Taliban.”

There are several things the United States can and should do, starting with an intensive diplomatic effort to engage India instead of China to further American interests, not Chinese. With over 100,000 troops in Afghanistan, the US still has enough gravitas to influence events in the country. The best place to change direction and use that weight is Bamiyam, Wardak, and Parwan provinces, where Indians are bidding for the right to extract iron ore from the enormous Hagijak mine; but the 15 Indian companies have a problem their competitors do not: how to transport the extracted minerals through 400 miles of Pakistani territory. The US can help. While we can expect Pakistan to balk at letting Indian goods (and security forces) cross its territory, we should not expect it to stop its ally—and financial benefactor—the United States. Private US firms could contract to provide the services that will enable Indian companies to prevail and keep that mineral wealth from falling into Chinese hands.

The Hajigak mine project is only the most obvious point where the India-US relationship can provide a strong presence in Afghanistan to stave off an impending foreign policy disaster. While the details will vary, this is the sort of initiative the Obama administration should be making now to protect our interests, strengthen a strategic relationship with the one free nation in the region, and counter China’s economic imperialism and its growing strategic alliance in the Muslim world. The clock is ticking, and America’s ability to influence events will last only so long as we do. Once out of the region, the US will be powerless to stop Islamist or Chinese expansion to the detriment of our interests—unless we have an ally in place that shares them.

Hindus Decide:  Save your Brethren or let them Die

Dr. Richard L. Benkin, Address to Telugu Association of North America (TANA) Santa Clara, CA July 2, 2011

Namaskar.  Shphodim.

Last month, I was in conversation about a book I wrote on Bangladesh’s ethnic cleansing of its Hindu population.  The person with whom I spoke was very taken by the material; so taken that she wanted to help make sure people got word of this atrocity.  She knows the American publishing and book buying world very well and said that all the elements were there for a successful project; all the elements except one.  And remember this person is a friend, an ally, one of the “good guys,” someone who does care and wants to help.  She said, ‘I just don’t see people getting real excited over a bunch of Hindus being killed.’  Think about that for a moment.  It should make everyone in this room furious; and if it does not make you furious, you better ask yourself why because three things hit me—a non-Hindu—immediately.

My first thought was, ‘Shame on us if that’s who we are.’  Is this another example in which the so-called civilized world would prefer to wring its hands over body bags piled too high to ignore—as it did in Nazi Europe, Rwanda, and countless other places—rather than prevent the atrocity?  The second was that those of us who do understand what is happening have a moral obligation to take effective action to stop it, whatever that means; or we are as complicit in the crime as anyone else.  And the third was this:  Hindus better not count on anyone else helping them, no matter how much they prattle on about things like “justice” or “human rights.”  Those supposed arbiters of right and wrong might apply these concepts to Egyptian and Libyan protesters or warp them beyond recognition so they can prop up those Arab terrorists they call “Palestinian”; but they will not apply them to Hindus in Bangladesh—or for that matter, Hindus in Pakistan, Hindus in Kashmir, Hindus in Malaysia, or Hindus anywhere else, including if it comes to it, Hindus in Andhra Pradesh.

So when considering this weekend’s events, I asked myself if it was going to be another one of those gatherings where the attendees shake their fists and complain about how unfair things are—or one where we actually accomplish something.  Despite the preponderance of the former over the latter, we are on the cusp of a new dawn where real accomplishment is possible.  It will start here in the United States, and it must begin with us; or else we will have frittered away a golden opportunity to change the trajectory of history and in the process sit by while a lot of innocent people die.

We have a great tradition here in which groups of Americans can petition our government and take concerted action, and I want to give you an example of that from my own Jewish community.  Those of you who were around in the 1980s will remember that back then, you could not pass a synagogue that did not have a large banner proclaiming, “Save Soviet Jewry.”  Our people were being persecuted horribly in the Soviet Union as part of the Communists’ attempt to eradicate their Jewish religion and Jewish identity.  A few, like Natan Sharansky who later became an Israeli Cabinet Minister, garnered some attention, but most suffered without fanfare.  The American Jewish community saw their persecuted brothers and sisters and recognized the obligation to save them.  Moreover, it acted on that obligation.

We lobbied Washington and our local officials; prevailed upon other religious bodies to recognize the atrocity and let Washington know their position.  Average Jews who you might see at the office or in the supermarket—people just like you—went to Russia at their own expense to smuggle religious books and other Jewish artifacts at considerable peril to themselves.  After all, this was the mighty Soviet Union.

Jewish children reaching their Bar and Bat Mitzvah rite of passage were “twinned” with children in the Soviet Union who did not have the freedom to celebrate their own; so we did it for them.  Younger children in religious schools corresponded with pen pals their own age from the USSR and gave them hope.  And before it was over, we helped get 1.2 million Jews out of that communist hell.   It strengthened our own identity, and every Jewish child who was part of that effort never forgot it or their own sense of Jewishness; and it helped us realize that we could in fact stand strong for our people, that the only thing stopping us was ourselves.

The Bangladeshi Hindus can be your Soviet Jewry.  It is an issue of human decency; an issue that transcends partisan politics and speaks to those values that are basic for all Americans.  It can galvanize American Hindus to take pride in their Hinduism and help support a resurgent Hindu youth.  Will we act?

Two years ago, I stood before you to talk about the Bangladeshi Hindus.  Let me list for you everything that Sheikh Hasina and the Bangladeshi government has done to protect their Hindu citizens since then:

[about 10 seconds of silence]

That’s right, nothing, zip, bupkis. That same “list,” moreover, contains everything the United Nations has done for them, everything Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have done; every word of protest uttered by the governments of India and the United States.  It seems my friend is right:  Nobody gets excited over the killing of Hindus.

The facts warrant a different reaction.  In fact, the numbers are so compelling they cry out for an explanation.  At the time of India’s partition in 1947, Hindus made up a little less than a third of East Pakistan’s population. When East Pakistan became Bangladesh in 1971, they were less than a fifth; thirty years later, less than one in ten; and reliable estimates put the Hindu population at less than eight percent today.  Professor Sachi Dastidar of the State University of New York estimates that over 49 million Hindus are missing from Bangladesh.  Still having trouble wondering where this is going? Take a look at Pakistan where Hindus are down to one percent or Kashmir where they are almost gone.  Take a look at the future of Bangladesh’s Hindus if we do not act.

This is not opinion or “Islamaphobia.”  These are facts!  Want another?  For years, we have received report after report documenting anti-Hindu incidents there; incidents including murder, gang rape, assault, forced conversion to Islam, child abduction, land grabs, and religious desecration.  And while Bangladeshi officials might object that the perpetrators were non-state actors, government culpability rests, at the very least, on the fact that it pursues very few of these cases and punishes even fewer perpetrators.  And that’s our key.  Unfortunately, minorities are attacked pretty much everywhere.  The critical question is when it happens, does the majority population have a problem with it; and the best measure of that is what the government does in reaction.  When Hindu students were attacked in Australia, the government went after the perpetrators with a vengeance.  In the United States, crimes against any minority are considered just that, crimes; and the state will punish you to the fullest extent of the law; but not in Bangladesh.

Here’s another irrefutable fact.  While this information pours out of Bangladesh with numbing ferocity, it does not do so through the mainstream media—here, India, or anywhere else.  Thus, people are often shocked and sometimes dubious when I present the facts to them.  Many wonder out loud how something so horrible could be kept hidden; how our own CIA or India’s RAW could not know about it—were it actually true.  They often ask me why, if this is so dire have we read nothing about it in our major papers or watched it on CNN or Fox.  ‘Why,’ they ask, ‘hasn’t Amnesty International taken it up,’ or most damning, ‘Why have Hindus themselves said nothing?’

This means that anything we present has to be verified with certainty; if we present information that turns out to be untrue or exaggerated it will sink our efforts.  We can expect the Bangladeshi government and even the US State Department to challenge it; and expect the recognized human rights industry to dismiss it.  Both parties have an interest to do so, for if we are correct, Amnesty International and the others will be asked why they missed or ignored the situation.  The Obama Administration and the rest of the international talking heads have maintained as an article of faith that the December 2008 election of Sheikh Hasina and the Awami League ushered in a new era for Bangladesh.  They will point out that it ended almost two years of military-backed rule; and the government before that, , included the Islamist Jamaat in its coalition.  Moreover, they will say, the left-center Awami League has always claimed to be Bangladesh’s “pro-minority” party, and these outside groups with no real knowledge of Bangladesh swallow that line.  So, it is in their interest to maintain that fiction.

And they are not the only ones.  In January 2009, I was asked to address a coalition of Bangladeshi Hindu organizations about how they might respond to the Awami League victory.  My advice was to press their advantage since Hindus helped Awami to victory.  The last thing they should do, I said, was to “fall asleep.  That would be a critical mistake.”  Some agreed, but the prevailing sentiment among the organization leaders was fear of angering the new government. “Give them time,” they said, to which I replied, “This attitude of passivity and ‘let's give them a chance’; how well has that worked for the minorities in the past?  Not well.  We are sitting by while people are being killed and tortured!  So, yes, we must give them some time—but not much or we will see that their words are nothing more than words.”  And that is exactly all they turned out to be.

During the first year of the Awami League’s rule, there were major anti-Hindu attacks at the rate of at least one per week.  I say “at least” because you will recall that our allegations will be held to a higher standard than most.  Out of the flood of reported incidents, those were the ones I personally verified—either through my own missions to South Asia or through Indian and Bangladeshi Hindus who investigated and verified the allegations for me.  All of these attacks were serious, involved Hindu victims and Muslim victimizers; and in every case, the government refused to take action against known perpetrators.  Police and government officials actually took part in some and led a cover up of others.  And in none of them, did the police help recover Hindu women or children who were abducted, likely raped, and forcibly converted to Islam.  And I re-confirmed the facts as recently as this spring, so the government’s support for anti-Hindu action lasts long after the crimes themselves.  Here are three examples.

•        For three days in March and April, 2009, an anti-Hindu pogrom raged in the Sutrapur section of the Bangladeshi capital.  It occurred right behind a police station and involved arson, beatings, and the deliberate destruction of a Hindu Temple.  Many were hospitalized, and dozens still remain homeless. Not only are the perpetrators free of prosecution, but they actually were awarded some of the land they invaded.  Officials including the Dhaka Chief of Police and an Awami League Member of Parliament warned local human rights groups to stop inquiring about it.

•        On June 13, 2009, 20-year-old Hindu college student Koli Goswami was abducted from her bed in the middle of the night.  Muslim men broke into the family home and brandished firearms when confronted by family members.  Police refuse to pursue a case, calling it a “love affair,” despite admitted evidence of violence and a struggle.  They claim that Koli has “voluntarily” converted to Islam and threaten family members and human rights groups while keeping them from interviewing the young woman.  Koli Goswami has not been seen since the night she was taken.

•        At 10am on February 26, 2009, two men abducted 14 year old Tanusree Roy and raped her multiple times.  Although the distraught father has filed official reports of the incident, authorities have refused to help recover his child or prosecute the known perpetrators.  The latter continue to threaten Tanusree’s father if he does not drop the matter.  Human rights activists report that the girl has been forcibly converted to Islam and kept incommunicado for the past two years.

There was no let-up during the Awami League’s second year in office.  In one 25 day period between March 12 and April 6, 2010, for instance, there were seven major, confirmed attacks.

All we get from the Bangladeshis are words.  Like actors reading from a script, they repeat the same hollow denials—the same party line I got when I raised the issue with a Bangladeshi Cabinet Minister in Dhaka earlier this year.  He might have parroted the usual denials, but his nervous ticks, obvious discomfort, and averted glance told quite a different story.  (I also recall how several years ago, a Bangladeshi general tried to convince me that their Vested Property Act was actually instituted as a device to protect Hindus, although when I pressed him he could not explain how that could work.)  And how many times are we going to hear their empty promises to repeal “anti-minority laws.”  Sheikh Hasina made that very promise to visiting NATO commander Gerard Valin on May 1, 2009, thereby admitting that her country in fact has anti-minority laws on the books.  In the long standing tradition of Bangladeshi leaders, she went no further than those words and the discriminatory laws remain.  Yet, no nation or international body seems to have a problem with that.

What message does that send to anyone who covets a Hindu family’s small farm—or their daughter?  And what message are we sending them—and our own children—if we look the other way while it happens?

There is something else.  Some of you might be thinking, ‘Perhaps that is all true, but my family is from Andhra Pradesh where we have our own problems.  This is about Bengalis.’  And that plays right into the hands of those who wish to destroy us.  Were the bombs that went off on 26/11 harmful only to some?  Did they discriminate between Telugu and Bengali?  Did the killers ask people if they were from Kashmir or Gujurat before firing?  And if they destroy the Hindus in Bangladesh and Kashmir, will they then say, ‘it is enough’ and urge their fellow jihadis to leave Andhra Pradesh in peace?  No, no, no, and no again.  If we fail to unite, we will be easy pickings for our enemies—who have put aside their own ancient divisions for the sake of jihad.

So, instead of treating you to a litany of more atrocities, I want to identify one simple thing we all can do from our secure positions in the United States.   Everyone can decide today whether to do something simple and save lives or watch another rerun of House or Law and Order while the murders and rapes continue.

To get things started, we have to make people aware of the problem.  Despite the flood of emails and consistent documentation successive in Hindu American Foundation reports, few people here are aware of this atrocity or how it threatens them, and we have to fix that.  Human rights atrocities generally proceed when governments believe they can commit them without anyone noticing—or caring—which is what we have here.  For Bangladesh, that means that it incurs no cost if it allows its Hindus to be eradicated; that is, their leaders have pointed out the domestic political concerns if they take action, but they have none if they let things remain as they are.  We have to make it cost more for them not to change.

The US is Bangladesh’s third largest trading partner, and we have given Bangladesh over $5.5 billion in aid.  For years, Bangladeshi governments—regardless of party—have wanted a free trade agreement with the United States or at least a reduction in tariffs on their goods.  You might call it their holy grail.  That is a tremendous amount of leverage we can exercise if we have the will to do so, and it will take a concerted and relentless effort to get our elected officials to use it.

I am currently working with a Member of Congress on a letter that addresses this issue.  It will ask the US to re-consider its policies and use all of that leverage to save the 15 million Bangladeshi Hindus.  Because at this point, the actual letter is unfinished and needs final approval, I cannot divulge the Member’s name or the specific contents; but the initiative is real and his support genuine.  Once it is complete—hopefully during the summer—we will look for other Members of Congress to sign it before sending it to Secretary of State Clinton.  Do we expect that this letter will lead the US government to all of a sudden revamp its entire foreign policy?  No, but remember the intent:  to shine light on an atrocity that is allowed to proceed because it does so in the dark.

Hopefully, the administration will take a serious look at the issue; but whether it does so or not, the letter will provide the basis for further action:  Congressional hearings, which are already in the works; confronting the Bangladeshis; and from there action on trade and tariffs.  It will take this issue to a new level, and everyone in this room can and should have a role in making it happen because success is premised on getting a range of Congressmen and Congresswomen to sign it.  When you came in, you were given a piece of paper to fill out with contact information and questions to determine who your Congressional Representative is.  Everyone here who votes can help get that elected official’s signature on the letter and support for the actions we take subsequently to stop this carnage.  Please pass in the papers.  Now, can each of you do that one small thing?  Is there anyone here who can’t?

That’s good, because Congressman Mike Pence (R-IN) once said that any Member of Congress who gets ten phone calls on an issue will sit up and take notice, call staff meetings about it, and probably support their constituents’ position; but whether it is ten, two, or a hundred, the principle is the same.  Using these papers, I will identify Members of Congress whom you can call and we can go to for support.  When we are ready to circulate the letter, I will contact each of you and ask you to make that call.  Moreover, each of you knows other citizens who can make the same call.  Urge them to do it—even if they live in the same house as you; so long as they are eligible to vote in the next election.  My associate, Prasad Yalamanchi will help with that, but today he and I will be getting information from people and groups that can get things done.

There is something else we can do, and it refers to something that is happening now.  Last month, Bangladesh’s Supreme Court ruled against some constitutional amendments instituted during two military dictatorships in the 1970s and 1980s,  and it asked the government to submit replacements for ratification in the Awami-dominated parliament.  So what did this oh-so-progressive and freedom-loving Awami League do?  It submitted new laws that outlawed military governments and religiously-based parties; but it left intact one of the most significant amendments that came under the Court’s scrutiny:  the Eighth, which made Islam the official state religion and essential to the character of all that flows from Bangladeshi law.  It is an amendment that Hindus and others say makes them second-class citizens in their own country.  Every law they have to follow begins with “in the name of Allah the beneficent.”  Madrassas (Islamic schools) are given a favored position by their government and often receive public support, even those preaching radical Islam.  This is not the action of a government that really wants to protect its minority citizens, but rather one closer to Iran.  It is certainly not the action of a “moderate Muslim nation,” which is how Bangladesh tries to portray itself.

Has there been even one phone call from President Obama or Secretary of State Clinton to Bangladesh, challenging the government on this or other anti-minority actions?  Has anyone reminded Sheikh Hasina of her still unfulfilled promises to end official minority discrimination in Bangladesh—and how she has an opportunity with this constitutional change to prove that she and her party are not shams?  The answer to all those questions is the same:  “No.”  I ask my esteemed colleagues at the Hindu American Foundation to work with me now to prevail upon Congress and the Administration to address this matter with Bangladesh while there is still time to fix things.  It will also tell us if these people deserve our votes next year.

Let me put it to you this way.  If there was a similar situation involving Muslims somewhere in the world, what do you think the American Muslim community would do?  How vocal would organizations like Council on American-Islamic Relations be?  What about Jewish organizations or Evangelical Christians for their co-religionists?  Do Hindus have fewer rights than they do?  Does the American Constitution say ‘everyone except Hindus’?  No; the only thing stopping us is ourselves.  For this effort to succeed, we do not need the entire 2.5 million Hindus in the United States to act.  But we do need a core group of individuals who care more about the lives of their oppressed brethren than being thought impolite.  And it starts here; it starts today.  From this effort, we can make the issue of anti-Hindu oppression a US concern.  Each of you can do this one thing, and possibly save the lives of millions of people.

Once we find success in this quarter, we can expand in any direction we wish; tackle any anti-Hindu human rights issues we want—those in Pakistan, Kashmir, Malaysia, Fiji, or anywhere else.  In the lead up to the November 2010 vote, some of us in the Chicago area helped organize community members in support of certain candidates who will support us.  As a result, some people are beginning to see the Hindu community as a constituency that cannot be ignored; whose concerns cannot be dismissed.  And it will stay that way only so long as we continue to exert whatever advantage we have and deny our support to those lawmakers who do not care about those issues important to us, who do not care if Hindus are being killed and raped in Bangladesh.  We have a critical election coming up in 16 months, and the papers you filled out today will be added to others to help elect lawmakers who will stand with us and not let our brothers and sisters in Bangladesh or anywhere else be persecuted with impunity.

Whatever we do, however, it all ultimately depends on you.  Some of us who are dedicated to saving the Bangladeshi Hindus can lead, can organize, can take on a certain amount of the burden; but our efforts will come to little if people see that the rest of the community does not care enough to stand up and say so.  The Congressional letter will be our first test.

And just in case you are wondering whether why you should take this tiny step, please allow me this one last piece of motivation.  In 2009, I interviewed a Bangladeshi Hindu family that crossed into India only 22 days earlier. They told me about an uncle being killed, the father beaten, and their tiny farm invaded by a large number of Muslims. I also looked into the eyes of their 14-year-old daughter as she talked about being gang raped. Who did it? Not al Qaeda or Jammat; but simply Muslims who lived in the area and knew they could have their way with the family, seize their land, and get away with it.

Joseph Stalin is said to have remarked, “One death is a tragedy, a million deaths a statistic.” That 14-year-old rape victim—that child—I met was no statistic, and God help us if we make her one.

Thank you.

India as Solution to Afghan Power Vacuum

Originally published on NewsGram.com, June 1, 2001

Dr. Richard Benkin

Americans of all ages and political stripes were in the streets on May 1 cheering, waving the flag, and chanting “USA, USA!”  They were out all night—some of them mere children when the September 11th terror attacks changed our nation forever—to celebrate the killing of the man behind those attacks:  Osama Bin Laden.  At a time of bitter partisanship, no one saw this as anything but an American victory — an operation that began under President George W. Bush and culminated under President Barack Obama.  That night, Americans sorely needed a sign that US greatness is not a thing of the past, and Bin Laden’s killing provided one.  The euphoria has subsided, however, replaced with the realization that the death of even this terrible man does not mean the death of radical Islam or any of the groups dedicated to its triumph and our demise.  Al Qaeda, the Taliban, the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, Hezbollah, Lashkar e taiba, and myriad other terror groups continue to murder innocents.

Aside from the inevitable political jockeying that followed, the subject that continues to occupy Americans in the wake of the Bin Laden killing is Pakistan and the nature of our relationship with that country.  On the one hand, Americans cannot believe that Bin Laden could have lived for years in a large compound less than 60 miles (100 kilometres) from its capital of Islamabad and 800 yards (700 meters) from the Pakistan Military Academy without Pakistani officials knowing about it; and many now ask how Pakistan can call itself an ally.  Its officials object to the US operation, and its citizens hold mass demonstrations protesting Bin Laden’s killing—even though neither objected to Bin Laden’s mass murder of Americans.  Nor do they find it necessary to show the same “understanding” they so glibly demand of us.  Diplomats and other insiders left and right, however, acknowledge Pakistani duplicity while tolerating it as necessary for effectively prosecuting the war in Afghanistan; as an Obama spokesperson recently said, in Pakistan, “you have to accept what you find.”

But reality demands more from us; much more.  We had better get it right—and soon because American troops will begin quitting Afghanistan in two months, creating a power vacuum as they do.  The notion that the Afghan government of Hamid Karzai can fill the void is not a sustainable position.  The regime lacks the physical and financial resources to maintain security in the country as well as the hearts and minds of the Afghan peoples.  With the Karzai government out of contention, the list of possible alternatives is not encouraging.

The Taliban could return to power, even though the US objective was to prevent that and not to get Bin Laden.  The Islamist group still operates in force throughout much of the country, a fact they displayed just days before Bin Laden’s death with a major prison break that freed almost 500 Taliban fighters and with the deadliest attack on Americans in over six years.  Iran, which shares an almost 1000 kilometer border with Afghanistan, is another candidate.  Afghanistan remains a nation of ethnic groups and tribes, the third largest of which is the Hazara, an overwhelmingly Shi’ite group living in the center of this Sunni Muslim country.  The persecution they faced under the Taliban has not stopped with the current regime.  Taliban insurgents attack them, clerics and fatwas demonize them, and the constitution allows it, according to the US Commission on International Religious Freedom and others.  As the world’s leading Shi’ite nation, Iran could fashion itself as their protectors and take effective power in Afghanistan’s heartland—all while being hailed as a human rights defender.  Neither should it be forgotten that China borders Afghanistan, and its meddling in the region is growing.  It effectively annexed Kashmir’s northeast using the same rationale as it did to grab Tibet and took a “great leap forward” in regional ties with last year’s Sino-Pakistan nuclear pact.  The Chinese are increasingly active diplomatically with the Karzai government and have expanded their economic base by, to take one example, developing a major copper field in Afghanistan’s Logar province.

The Taliban could return to power, even though the US objective was to prevent that and not to get Bin Laden.  The Islamist group still operates in force throughout much of the country, a fact they displayed just days before Bin Laden’s death with a major prison break that freed almost 500 Taliban fighters and with the deadliest attack on Americans in over six years.  Iran, which shares an almost 1000 kilometer border with Afghanistan, is another candidate.  Afghanistan remains a nation of ethnic groups and tribes, the third largest of which is the Hazara, an overwhelmingly Shi’ite group living in the center of this Sunni Muslim country.  The persecution they faced under the Taliban has not stopped with the current regime.  Taliban insurgents attack them, clerics and fatwas demonize them, and the constitution allows it, according to the US Commission on International Religious Freedom and others.  As the world’s leading Shi’ite nation, Iran could fashion itself as their protectors and take effective power in Afghanistan’s heartland—all while being hailed as a human rights defender.  Neither should it be forgotten that China borders Afghanistan, and its meddling in the region is growing.  It effectively annexed Kashmir’s northeast using the same rationale as it did to grab Tibet and took a “great leap forward” in regional ties with last year’s Sino-Pakistan nuclear pact.  The Chinese are increasingly active diplomatically with the Karzai government and have expanded their economic base by, to take one example, developing a major copper field in Afghanistan’s Logar province.

As a titular US ally, Pakistan remains the major candidate to take power, especially with the American government’s penchant to tolerate Pakistani duplicity.   Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger recently referred to the “organic connection” between it and Afghanistan, whose Islamist insurgents have worked cooperatively with their Pakistani counterparts and found supporters in its military and its intelligence service, which has made the US list of terrorist organizations.  Might the US withdrawal render the border between an Islamist Pakistan and an Islamist Afghanistan nothing more than a formality along the lines of that which separates Syria and Lebanon?

Given those multiple nightmare scenarios, it is perplexing that the Obama administration continues to ignore the one regional power whose interests are not inimical to those of the United States:  India.  The administration and its spokesperson’s fatalism must be replaced by a new paradigm that recognizes the free world’s long term interests and the strengths we can use to leverage them.  India fits that bill for at least four basic reasons:  its foreign policy interests and those of the United States coincide; it is the only effective counterweight against otherwise unchecked Chinese expansionism; the one thing that scares the pants off the Pakistanis and might get them to behave is the specter of increased Indian influence in the region; and India has the economic, military, and intelligence capability to carry it out effectively.

Like the United States and Israel, India is at the top of the Islamists’ list of hated targets.  Indians have faced a near unbroken terror onslaught by Islamist and Maoist insurgents, who have ideological and other ties with Pakistan and China respectively.  In May 2010, representatives of both met in the South India city of Kerala and formally united “to fight against the common enemy.”  Their actions have included highly visible terror attacks in major cities like Mumbai and Pune, abduction of public officials for ransom, and coordinated attacks on military bases like the one not far from where I was in 2010.  A regular diet of individual, Islamist-inspired crimes quietly plagues much of the country, as well.  In the Indian town of Meerut, for instance, only 65 kilometers (40 miles) from New Delhi, residents report frequent attacks by a growing Islamic presence, including the murder of a Hindu community leader only five days prior to my 2011 visit.  In 2007, television journalist Madhuri Singh uncovered the imposition of Sharia law in Mundogarhi (also situated close to the Indian capital), which persists despite the government’s efforts to retake legal control that followed her revelations.  India, unlike Pakistan, has not seen major demonstrations protesting Bin Laden’s death, and its intelligence services actually fights on our side in combating terrorism.

Like the United States and Israel, India is at the top of the Islamists’ list of hated targets.  Indians have faced a near unbroken terror onslaught by Islamist and Maoist insurgents, who have ideological and other ties with Pakistan and China respectively.  In May 2010, representatives of both met in the South India city of Kerala and formally united “to fight against the common enemy.”  Their actions have included highly visible terror attacks in major cities like Mumbai and Pune, abduction of public officials for ransom, and coordinated attacks on military bases like the one not far from where I was in 2010.  A regular diet of individual, Islamist-inspired crimes quietly plagues much of the country, as well.  In the Indian town of Meerut, for instance, only 65 kilometers (40 miles) from New Delhi, residents report frequent attacks by a growing Islamic presence, including the murder of a Hindu community leader only five days prior to my 2011 visit.  In 2007, television journalist Madhuri Singh uncovered the imposition of Sharia law in Mundogarhi (also situated close to the Indian capital), which persists despite the government’s efforts to retake legal control that followed her revelations.  India, unlike Pakistan, has not seen major demonstrations protesting Bin Laden’s death, and its intelligence services actually fights on our side in combating terrorism.

As critical as stopping a resurgent Taliban and its allies is to both the United States and India, putting an effective halt to Chinese expansion in the region is equally so.  In March, the Chinese hosted Karzai in Beijing where he was treated to closed-door meetings with China’s highest officials.  This “charm offensive,” as Tim Sullivan of the American Enterprise Institute/Center for Defense Studies calls it, resulted in “agreements on expanding economic cooperation, ensuring favorable tariffs on Afghan exports, and creating scholarships for technical training programs across a range of critical fields: commerce, communications, education, health, economics, and counternarcotics.”  Not only is this designed to garner greater Chinese control over South Asia and its considerable resources, but it is also part of China’s greater strategy to encircle India; a strategy that has included major efforts in Pakistan and Bangladesh (both with strong Islamist elements), and Nepal (which is communist ruled).  Incredibly, rather than recognizing the threat to our common interests and partnering with India to stop it, “the Obama administration is practically rolling out an Afghan red carpet for China,” according to a respected Asian affairs analyst out of Singapore.

It is all connected.  On April 16, according to Matthew Rosenberg, writing in the Wall Street Journal, “Pakistan is lobbying Afghanistan’s president against building a long-term strategic partnership with the U.S., urging him instead to look to Pakistan—and its Chinese ally—for help in striking a peace deal with the Taliban and rebuilding the economy, Afghan officials say.”  The article goes on to note that the effort came not from some rogue official but from Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani himself.  Does that sound like the words of an ally—no matter how Pakistan apologists try to spin it?

There are several things the United States can and should do—now, while we still have a strong presence in the region—starting with an intensive diplomatic effort to engage India instead of China to further American interests, not Chinese.  With over 100,000 troops in Afghanistan, the US still has the gravitas to influence events in the country; and the best place to change direction and use that weight is in Bamiyam, Wardak, and Parwan provinces.  India is among several countries bidding for right to extract iron ore from the enormous Hagijak mine.  Fifteen of the 22 companies bidding on the mine are Indian, but India has two problems its Chinese competitors do not:  security with the mine located near the Afghan-Pakistan border and transporting the minerals through hostile territory once they extract them; and both can be solved in the same way that also will address some other issues.  The transport problem is less than 400 miles of Pakistan that separates Afghanistan from India’s Punjab state.  Now, whereas we can expect Pakistan to balk at letting Indian goods (and security forces) cross their territory, we should not expect them to stop their ally—and financial benefactor—the United States.  The security and transport problems likely will keep the Indians from getting the contract and consequently hand that mineral wealth to the Chinese:  India loses and so does the United States.  But changing the Indian bid to a joint venture with US transport and security could be enough to overcome that.  Moreover, the US anticipates some presence in Afghanistan after major troop withdrawals, and groups that help develop the nation’s mineral wealth and infrastructure would be welcomed by the government in Kabul.

The Hagijak mine project is only the most obvious point at which the India-US relationship can begin to provide a strong presence in Afghanistan that can help stave off an impending foreign policy disaster.  While the details will vary, this is the sort of initiative the Obama administration should be making now to protect our interests, strengthen a strategic relationship with the one free nation in the region, and counters China’s economic imperialism and its growing strategic alliance in the Muslim world.  Hagijak and Afghanistan are only the beginning of what could be gained from such an alliance.  In a conversation last year in Chicago, former Indian cabinet minister Dr. Swami Subramanian (an expert on regional economic and political forces) laid out a plan that would transfer a major source of Chinese economic power to the US and India.

For this effort to succeed, the United States and India would have to recast their relationship as one of mutual respect between two great and independent powers.  Gone would be US animosity toward India for its almost knee-jerk support for every UN measure that conforms to the outdated leftist philosophy of the its “non-aligned movement”; gone would be Indian animosity for US supporting Pakistan; and gone is the almost craven political correctness with which both current governments approach foreign policy, and especially the Muslim world and Islamic threat.  The current regime in India, as well as its counterpart in the United States is guilty of appeasing terrorist entities (and terror-supporting nations) and of looking the other way when their immediate targets are not their own citizens; for example, India’s UN support for the pro-Hamas Goldstone report and America’s refusal to support Indian efforts against Lashkar e Taibe and the ISI.

How soon do we have to turn on a dime or face yet more denigration of America’s international profile?  On May 10, Rajiv Chandrasekaran reported in The Washington Post that the Obama administration was “seeking to use the killing of Osama bin Laden to accelerate a negotiated settlement with the Taliban and hasten the end of the Afghanistan war.”  A negotiated settlement with the Taliban! The clock is ticking, and America’s ability to influence events in the country exists only to the extent that we are there.  Once out of the region, the US will be powerless to stop Islamist or Chinese expansion to the detriment of our interests—unless we have an ally in place that shares them.

What’s Wrong with Obama’s Israel Speech?

Originally published in the New English Review, May 21, 2011

Dr. Richard Benkin

Okay, we have heard it again and again since President Barack Obama’s May 19 speech on the Middle East.  The President’s backers keep telling us that he added nothing new when in that speech he said that a Mideast peace agreement would be based on the 1967 Israeli borders with “mutually agreed land swaps.”  This, they told us, has been the position of virtually everyone involved in peace negotiations and certainly of US presidents going back to Jimmie Carter. Contrary to what their scrambling apologetics are trying to cover, Obama’s speech moved the needle on US Mideast policy further towards a pro-Palestinian tilt than those who voted for him in 2008 ever imagined.

While Obama’s apologists claim his 1967 border statement added no new substance, we know that in negotiations, especially those involving international brinksmanship and especially in the Middle East, nuance and impression are substantive. If other presidents had the same starting point to a peace deal (and that is not entirely clear­), they did not say so. Because Obama did, he sent a clear signal that the ’67 borders were the gold standard for any peace deal. It is not unlike the settlement issue. For 15 years, Palestinian leaders continued to negotiate with Israel while building went on unchecked. It only became an issue for talks when Obama made it one. As Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said, “President Obama stated in Cairo that Israel must stop all construction activities in the settlements. Could we demand less than that?”

So too, with the 1967 borders, that no matter how people now parse Obama’s words, the notion of the 67 borders as the basis for a peace agreement is clearly implanted in the international mind. Another Obama gaffe, of course, is that they are not and never were borders recognized by anyone. The so-called borders are merely armistice lines drawn for a temporary truce based on troop positions after several Arab states attempted to destroy the newborn Jewish State in 1948. After Obama met with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Abbas called “on Obama to further press Israel to accept a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders,” according to Al Jazeera. No matter how Obama parses his words, the idea has now become part of the Middle East narrative.

The caveat about land swaps is also an empty one because it requires them to be “mutually agreed upon,” which simply will not happen. Without the swaps, Israel is left a mere eight miles wide at one point, which makes it impossible to prevent “militants” from sitting on the border and shooting ever more sophisticated rockets at airplanes trying to land at Ben Gurion airport. The only solution is for Israel to retain a large chunk of the Jordan Valley to its East. Does Obama believe the Arabs would agree to give up the heartland of their Palestine? And when that does not happen, we can be sure Obama and the talking heads at the UN will tell Israel it has no choice but to accept what the late Abba Eban called “Auschwitz borders.”  The Arabs have no incentive to agree to any such swaps.

But that is not all Obama changed. In 2004, the United States gave Israel written assurances that it “is strongly committed to Israel's security and well-being as a Jewish state….and the settling of Palestinian refugees [in a Palestinian state], rather than in Israel.”  On the basis of that and other assurances, Israel unilaterally withdrew from the entire Gaza Strip.  But now, Obama has reneged on them by saying that the refugee issue remains to be resolved. Nor did he even mention the US position on the issue. Yet, every Palestinian leader from the most moderate to the most radical has said they would not give up their alleged right of return, calling it “sacred.” Hamas’s number two man said it in 2006; Fatah and the PLO also said it could not be relinquished. Less than a week before Obama’s speech, Abbas himself said that they “'will never neglect the ‘right of return’ for Palestinians to their original home.”  The day after Obama’s speech, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, speaking about the matter, told Obama, “Palestinian refugees cannot come to Israel... It's not going to happen.”  The refugee issue is a red herring for two reasons. First, there are an equal or greater number of Jewish refugees who fled Arab lands, making the entire matter a wash. Second, opening the floodgates of millions of Palestinian Arabs is suicide for Israel as Israel.  But considering the new realities Obama just created, Israel likely will be told it has no choice but to accept them by the same advocates for its Auschwitz borders.

On June 4, 2008, candidate Barack Obama told the American Israel Political Action Committee (AIPAC), “Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided.” It was not the last time he made the same promise to Jewish and other voters concerned about his anti-Israel associations and other mattersIn his recent speech, however, Obama threw that into the same “wrenching” and unresolved issue category as the Palestinian right of return. Less than three years after he won their votes, however, Obama is making it clear just how disingenuous and worthless his promises are. As we approach the 2012 contest, US voters will undoubtedly ponder that. Remember how President George H. W. Bush was done in partly because he went back on this campaign pledge: “Read my lips. No new taxes.”

There are other issues. While continuing to characterize the inclusion of Hamas in the PA as “troubling,” Obama implicitly rejected the advice of his own peace partners—the so-called Quartet of the US, UN, EU, and Russia—which demanded three steps by Hamas if they were to become legitimate parties to any negotiations: recognizing Israel’s right to a secure existence; renouncing terrorism; and agreeing to abide by previous Israel-Palestinian compacts. Here, too, Obama has lowered the bar, refusing even to allude to his partner’s assessment. He also seems to have forgotten that the 1967 borders would require Israel to withdraw from the Golan Heights, which it captured from the Syrians who used it to fire upon peaceful Israeli civilians for decades. Yet, he did not even mention Syria.

Hamas, Jerusalem, refugees, and borders: It seems that the only thing Barack Obama accomplished with his speech was to alienate, 70 percent or more of the American people who have continually expressed solidarity with Israel.

Another Obama Foreign Policy Disaster

Originally published in Canada Free Press, May 17, 2011

Dr. Richard Benkin

Americans of all ages and political stripes were in the streets on May 1 cheering, waving the flag, and chanting “USA, USA!”  They were out all night—some of them mere children when the September 11th terror attacks changed our nation forever—to celebrate the killing of the man behind those attacks:  Osama Bin Laden.  At a time of bitter partisanship, no one saw this as anything but an American victory—an operation that began under President George W. Bush and culminated under President Barack Obama.

That night, Americans sorely needed a sign that US greatness is not a thing of the past, and Bin Laden’s killing provided one.  The euphoria has subsided, however, replaced with the realization that the death of even this terrible man does not mean the death of radical Islam or any of the groups dedicated to its triumph and our demise.  Al Qaeda, the Taliban, the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, Hezbollah, Lashkar e taiba, and myriad other terror groups continue to murder innocents.

Aside from the inevitable political jockeying that followed, the subject that continues to occupy Americans in the wake of the Bin Laden killing is Pakistan and the nature of our relationship with that country.  On the one hand, Americans cannot believe that Bin Laden could have lived for years in a large compound less than 60 miles (100 kilometers) from its capital of Islamabad and 800 yards (700 meters) from the Pakistan Military Academy without Pakistani officials knowing about it; and many now ask how Pakistan can call itself an ally.  Its officials object to the US operation, and its citizens hold mass demonstrations protesting Bin Laden’s killing—even though neither objected to Bin Laden’s mass murder of Americans.  Nor do they find it necessary to show the same “understanding” they so glibly demand of us.  Diplomats and other insiders left and right, however, acknowledge Pakistani duplicity while tolerating it as necessary for effectively prosecuting the war in Afghanistan; as an Obama spokesperson recently said, in Pakistan, “you have to accept what you find.”

Afghanistan

But reality demands more from us; much more.  We had better get it right—and soon because American troops will begin quitting Afghanistan in two months, creating a power vacuum as they do.  The notion that the Afghan government of Hamid Karzai can fill the void is not a sustainable position.  The regime lacks the physical and financial resources to maintain security in the country as well as the hearts and minds of the Afghan peoples.  With the Karzai government out of contention, the list of possible alternatives is not encouraging.

The Taliban could return to power, even though the US objective was to prevent that and not to get Bin Laden.  The Islamist group still operates in force throughout much of the country, a fact they displayed just days before Bin Laden’s death with a major prison break that freed almost 500 Taliban fighters and with the deadliest attack on Americans in over six years.  Iran, which shares an almost 1000 kilometer border with Afghanistan, is another candidate.  Afghanistan remains a nation of ethnic groups and tribes, the third largest of which is the Hazara, an overwhelmingly Shi’ite group living in the center of this Sunni Muslim country.  The persecution they faced under the Taliban has not stopped with the current regime.  Taliban insurgents attack them, clerics and fatwas demonize them, and the constitution allows it, according to the US Commission on International Religious Freedom and others.  As the world’s leading Shi’ite nation, Iran could fashion itself as their protectors and take effective power in Afghanistan’s heartland—all while being hailed as a human rights defender.  Neither should it be forgotten that China borders Afghanistan, and its meddling in the region is growing.  It effectively annexed Kashmir’s northeast using the same rationale as it did to grab Tibet and took a “great leap forward” in regional ties with last year’s Sino-Pakistan nuclear pact.  The Chinese are increasingly active diplomatically with the Karzai government and have expanded their economic base by, to take one example, developing a major copper field in Afghanistan’s Logar province.

As a titular US ally, Pakistan remains the major candidate to take power, especially with the American government’s penchant to tolerate Pakistani duplicity.  Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger recently referred to the “organic connection” between it and Afghanistan, whose Islamist insurgents have worked cooperatively with their Pakistani counterparts and found supporters in its military and its intelligence service, which has made the US list of terrorist organizations.  Might the US withdrawal render the border between an Islamist Pakistan and an Islamist Afghanistan nothing more than a formality along the lines of that which separates Syria and Lebanon?

India

Given those multiple nightmare scenarios, it is perplexing that the Obama administration continues to ignore the one regional power whose interests are not inimical to those of the United States:  India.  The administration and its spokesperson’s fatalism must be replaced by a new paradigm that recognizes the free world’s long term interests and the strengths we can use to leverage them.  India fits that bill for at least four basic reasons:  its foreign policy interests and those of the United States coincide; it is the only effective counterweight against otherwise unchecked Chinese expansionism; the one thing that scares the pants off the Pakistanis and might get them to behave is the specter of increased Indian influence in the region; and India has the economic, military, and intelligence capability to carry it out effectively.

Like the United States and Israel, India is at the top of the Islamists’ list of hated targets.  Indians have faced a near unbroken terror onslaught by Islamist and Maoist insurgents, who have ideological and other ties with Pakistan and China respectively.  In May 2010, representatives of both met in the South India city of Kerala and formally united “to fight against the common enemy.”  Their actions have included highly visible terror attacks in major cities like Mumbai and Pune, abduction of public officials for ransom, and coordinated attacks on military bases like the one not far from where I was in 2010.  A regular diet of individual, Islamist-inspired crimes quietly plagues much of the country, as well.  In the Indian town of Meerut, for instance, only 65 kilometers (40 miles) from New Delhi, residents report frequent attacks by a growing Islamic presence, including the murder of a Hindu community leader only five days prior to my 2011 visit.  In 2007, television journalist Madhuri Singh uncovered the imposition of Sharia law in Mundogarhi (also situated close to the Indian capital), which persists despite the government’s efforts to retake legal control that followed her revelations.  India, unlike Pakistan, has not seen major demonstrations protesting Bin Laden’s death, and its intelligence services actually fights on our side in combating terrorism.

As critical as stopping a resurgent Taliban and its allies is to both the United States and India, putting an effective halt to Chinese expansion in the region is equally so.  In March, the Chinese hosted Karzai in Beijing where he was treated to closed-door meetings with China’s highest officials.  This “charm offensive,” as Tim Sullivan of the American Enterprise Institute/Center for Defense Studies calls it, resulted in “agreements on expanding economic cooperation, ensuring favorable tariffs on Afghan exports, and creating scholarships for technical training programs across a range of critical fields: commerce, communications, education, health, economics, and counternarcotics.”  Not only is this designed to garner greater Chinese control over South Asia and its considerable resources, but it is also part of China’s greater strategy to encircle India; a strategy that has included major efforts in Pakistan and Bangladesh (both with strong Islamist elements), and Nepal (which is communist ruled).  Incredibly, rather than recognizing the threat to our common interests and partnering with India to stop it, “the Obama administration is practically rolling out an Afghan red carpet for China,” according to a respected Asian affairs analyst out of Singapore.

It is all connected.  On April 16, according to Matthew Rosenberg, writing in the Wall Street Journal, “Pakistan is lobbying Afghanistan’s president against building a long-term strategic partnership with the U.S., urging him instead to look to Pakistan—and its Chinese ally—for help in striking a peace deal with the Taliban and rebuilding the economy, Afghan officials say.”  The article goes on to note that the effort came not from some rogue official but from Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani himself.  Does that sound like the words of an ally—no matter how Pakistan apologists try to spin it?

There are several things the United States can and should do—now, while we still have a strong presence in the region—starting with an intensive diplomatic effort to engage India instead of China to further American interests, not Chinese.  With over 100,000 troops in Afghanistan, the US still has the gravitas to influence events in the country; and the best place to change direction and use that weight is in Bamiyam, Wardak, and Parwan provinces.  India is among several countries bidding for right to extract iron ore from the enormous Hagijak mine.  Fifteen of the 22 companies bidding on the mine are Indian, but India has two problems its Chinese competitors do not:  security with the mine located near the Afghan-Pakistan border and transporting the minerals through hostile territory once they extract them; and both can be solved in the same way that also will address some other issues.  The transport problem is less than 400 miles of Pakistan that separates Afghanistan from India’s Punjab state.  Now, whereas we can expect Pakistan to balk at letting Indian goods (and security forces) cross their territory, we should not expect them to stop their ally—and financial benefactor—the United States.  The security and transport problems likely will keep the Indians from getting the contract and consequently hand that mineral wealth to the Chinese:  India loses and so does the United States.  But changing the Indian bid to a joint venture with US transport and security could be enough to overcome that.  Moreover, the US anticipates some presence in Afghanistan after major troop withdrawals, and groups that help develop the nation’s mineral wealth and infrastructure would be welcomed by the government in Kabul. 

The Hagijak mine project is only the most obvious point at which the India-US relationship can begin to provide a strong presence in Afghanistan that can help stave off an impending foreign policy disaster.  While the details will vary, this is the sort of initiative the Obama administration should be making now to protect our interests, strengthen a strategic relationship with the one free nation in the region, and counters China’s economic imperialism and its growing strategic alliance in the Muslim world.  Hagijak and Afghanistan are only the beginning of what could be gained from such an alliance.  In a conversation last year in Chicago, former Indian cabinet minister Dr. Swami Subramanian (an expert on regional economic and political forces) laid out a plan that would transfer a major source of Chinese economic power to the US and India.

For this effort to succeed, the United States and India would have to recast their relationship as one of mutual respect between two great and independent powers.  Gone would be US animosity toward India for its almost knee-jerk support for every UN measure that conforms to the outdated leftist philosophy of the its “non-aligned movement”; gone would be Indian animosity for US supporting Pakistan; and gone is the almost craven political correctness with which both current governments approach foreign policy, and especially the Muslim world and Islamic threat.  The current regime in India, as well as its counterpart in the United States is guilty of appeasing terrorist entities (and terror-supporting nations) and of looking the other way when their immediate targets are not their own citizens; for example, India’s UN support for the pro-Hamas Goldstone report and America’s refusal to support Indian efforts against Lashkar e Taibe and the ISI.

How soon do we have to turn on a dime or face yet more denigration of America’s international profile?  On May 10, Rajiv Chandrasekaran reported in The Washington Post that the Obama administration was “seeking to use the killing of Osama bin Laden to accelerate a negotiated settlement with the Taliban and hasten the end of the Afghanistan war.”  A negotiated settlement with the Taliban!  The clock is ticking, and America’s ability to influence events in the country exists only to the extent that we are there.  Once out of the region, the US will be powerless to stop Islamist or Chinese expansion to the detriment of our interests—unless we have an ally in place that shares them.

A QUIET CASE OF ETHNIC CLEANSING: SAVING THE BANGLADESHI HINDUS

Originally published on the Research Institute for European and American studies, May 2, 2011

Dr. Richard Benkin

Bangladesh’s Hindu population is dying. That is not opinion; it is a fact.  At the time of India’s partition (1947), they were just under one in three East Pakistanis.  When East Pakistan became Bangladesh (1971), they were under one in five; thirty years later less than one in ten; and according to some estimates, under eight percent today.  Professor Sachi Dastidar of the State University of New York, using demographic and other methods, calculates that well over 49 million of them are missing (Dastidar, 2008).(1) During that same period, regular reports of anti-Hindu atrocities have poured out of Bangladesh.  They have not slowed even with the landslide election of the self-styled “pro-minority” Awami League government at the end of 2008.  Serious anti-Hindu actions occurred at the rate of almost one a week in 2009; and they have continued without let up in 2010 and 2011.(2)   This puts every one of Bangladesh’s remaining 13-15,000,000 Hindus at risk.  Yet, while these numbers dwarf those of the worst cases of genocide and ethnic cleansing (e.g., Nazi Holocaust, Rwanda, Bosnia, Darfur), no major human rights organization, international body, or individual nation has highlighted this quiet case of ethnic cleansing or even raised it as a matter for investigation.

Through on-site investigation in South Asia’s refugee camps, universities, and along its open borders, among other venues, this author sometimes in conjunction with local activists has verified numerous atrocities.  While current and past Bangladeshi governments take pains to note that the perpetrators were not government agents, they have been complicit nonetheless because they prosecute few and punish even fewer.  Moreover, while they are driven by radical ideology, perpetrators are “average” Muslims, and that makes this especially chilling.  For history shows that the most successful cases of genocide occur when a cadre of true believers incites average citizens to engage in heinous acts against a targeted minority; acts they otherwise would not dream of committing. There might be no Gestapo or Janjaweed in Bangladesh, but its Hindu community is facing a similar process of destruction at the hands of the Bangladeshi majority.

In 2009, I interviewed a family that crossed into India from the northern Bangladeshi district of Dinajpur only 22 days earlier. They told me about an uncle being killed, the father beaten, and their small farm invaded by a large number of “neighbors.” I also looked into the eyes of their 14-year-old daughter as she talked about being gang raped. Who did it? Not al Qaeda; but simply Muslims who lived in the area and knew they could have their way with the family, seize their land, and get away with it.  I have spoken with hundreds of other Bangladeshi Hindu refugees whose stories are essentially the same.  Victims who went to Bangladeshi authorities for help were told to drop their complaints and leave the country; some were threatened or actually harmed for their entreaties.  Discouraged at that unchanging response, other victims did not even try to engage them.(3)

Not long after that 2009 encounter, what can be described as nothing less than an anti-Hindu pogrom occurred in the Sutrapur section of the Bangladeshi capital, Dhaka, on March 30, April 17, and April 29.

A community of approximately 400 Hindus was reportedly going about its business when “hundreds of Muslims” suddenly descended on them and demanded they quit the homes where they and their families had lived for the past 150 years. Witnesses also report that police watched passively while attackers beat residents and destroyed a Hindu temple (Benkin, 2009).

At first, the Bangladeshi Government denied that any such thing even happened, but sources of the reports were highly credible, which prompted our own two-month investigation that confirmed something terrible did occur.  While the pogrom did not leave all 400 Hindus homeless, as initially alleged, it dispossessed many, quite a few of whom remain so. Eventually, the government admitted that Hindus were beaten and some religious desecration occurred; but it still denied that this amounted to a specifically anti-Hindu attack.  Yet, our investigation confirmed that police were present during them and that the area attacked was located directly behind a police station; the desecrated temple was only about 18 meters from it.  Police refused to launch a case against the perpetrators, who made no effort to hide their identities, even though at least three crimes were committed:  arson (they also burned down several homes); battery; and destruction of religious property.  Several groups lodged formal protests, including Global Human Rights Defence of The Hague (GHRD), one of those highly credible sources.  According to GHRD Human Rights Officer Jenny Lundstrom, they even brought the matter to Dhaka’s Metropolitan Police Commissioner, but he “refused to take any action against the perpetrators of crime.”  Awami League MP Shuranjit Sengupta refused to respond to another group’s entreaties (Benkin, 2009).

Police justified the Sutrapur action with reference to Bangladesh’s Vested Property Act (VPA).  The VPA is a re-named version of a Pakistani law (Enemy Property Act).  In 1974, the new Bangladeshi government was completing its review of the Pakistani laws that once governed its people.  Its challenge was to incorporate as much of that legal system as possible into their new one, while eliminating those not in keeping with the democratic principles that animated its revolution.  Pakistan’s Enemy Property Act would seem to be a prima facie case of a law that would not become part of the new Bangladesh.  The Pakistanis passed the Enemy Property Act as an open act of retaliation against its Hindu population after its humiliating defeat in its 1965 war with India.  Instead of scrapping the law, however, the Bangladeshis simply renamed it.  The VPA empowers the government of Bangladesh to declare minority property as “vested” on the flimsiest of pretexts and re-distribute it to Muslims.  The pretext is alleging that the property owner no longer resides in Bangladesh (according to the law is no longer a “permanent” resident).  This has created an industry whereby these defenseless minorities (i.e., not defended in fact by local, state or, national authorities), and especially Hindus, are attacked, driven off their land, declared non-resident, and then the land is seized and taken over, as pre-arranged, by the perpetrators.  The VPA has become a tremendous source of patronage and political reward; part of the nation’s notorious corruption gravy train.  It has in this way also become the economic engine that powers this quiet case of ethnic cleansing (Bhowmik, 1998; Bhowmik, 2008; Benkin, 2008; Trivedi, 2007; Mohaiemen, 2008).

The Awami League has condemned the law and promised to do something about it; but never has.(4) One explanation is that the distribution of Hindu properties, obtained with the authority of the VPA, has become indispensible for any major political party in Bangladesh.  Professor Abul Barkat of Dhaka University has carried out the most extensive and authoritative studies of the VPA.  In several works between 1996 and 2008, he noted that all parties benefitted from the VPA, and that the critical factor determining who got what was political power, not ideology or principle.  For instance, when the Awami League’s hated rival Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) was in control, its minions received 45 percent of the VPA spoils.  When the Awami League was in control, its minions received 44 percent.  The Islamist Jamaat e-Islami party’s share changed very little from one Awami control (five percent) to BNP control (eight percent), even though the latter is associated with anti-Hindu activity and even brought Jamaat into its 2001-2006 ruling coalition (Barkat, et. al., 1997; Barkat, et. al., 2008).

Perhaps because there are no concentration camps or killing fields and because the destruction of the Bangladeshi Hindus has been occurring slowly but steadily over decades, it has been especially difficult to get people to recognize it.  We have, however, a unique but narrow window of opportunity to do something about it, and both Europe and the United States can play a vital role.  Although Bangladesh’s current Awami League government has been unable or unwilling take any effective action to stop this atrocity, the destruction of Bangladesh’s non-Muslim minorities does not comport with the party’s philosophy or seem to be part of the future Bangladesh it envisions.  The Awami League is less comfortable with it than was its predecessor and political rival BNP, which even included an openly Islamist party in its ruling coalition.  Bangladesh is a nation beset by problems and challenges.  It is the only nation that appears among the world’s ten most populous and its ten most densely populated.  Its 150 million people face constant privation, especially in areas of infrastructure:  consistent and reliable electricity, clean water, good roads, and so forth; not to mention its needs in areas like agriculture, energy development, and market development.  Helping Bangladesh make progress in those areas would help counter the influence of radical Islamist groups, which have been gaining ground there steadily for the past two decades—in particular because they have offered people basic services that governments have been unable to provide (Karlekar, 2005; Brunei Times, 2010).  The Awami League’s re-election in 2014 is also in the West’s interest as the government has at least made some progress in working cooperatively with India on controlling terrorist infiltration and internally in reining in radical Islamist groups.  It offers a much better chance of keeping this nation out of the Islamist camp than any of its major rivals do.

Europe and the United States can help Bangladesh (and not incidentally the Awami League) with aid in these areas but also have the leverage to demand effective action by the Bangladeshi government to end its tacit approval of the ethnic cleansing of its Hindu citizens.  In exchange for this extensive help for the nation of Bangladesh, Europe and the United States would be justified in demanding that the Bangladeshi government:  (1) effectively prosecute credible accusations of the sort of anti-Hindu actions described in this article; (2) effectively prosecute those government officials who do not do so whether out of corruption or bigotry; (3) repeal the VPA immediately and return seized property to its rightful owners or compensate them for it.  Thus far, the greatest impediment preventing governments from taking these actions has been fear of political reprisal; the VPA having been a major source of patronage and corruption using the proceeds from Hindu property seized under Bangladeshi law—an amount, according to Barkat equal to $55 Billion (Barkat, et. al.,  2008).

Europe and the United States often claim the mantle of defenders of human rights victims.  Most recently, in March 2011, they engaged in military action against Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya expressly on that basis.  In 1991, they used the same justification for NATO’s military actions in Bosnia.  While military action is not necessarily needed to save the Bangladeshi Hindus, what is needed is the same outrage over their ethnic cleansing and the same commitment to take strong action in their defense.  Unlike the other two examples, this one does not include a government that would be their adversary; but instead, one that can be a partner in ending this atrocity.  Rather than threatening military action, Europe and the United States can offer technical and other assistance, but—and this is critical—only in exchange for concrete actions, not words alone.  Within months after her election, Sheikh Hasina told a visiting French dignitary that her government would repeal all of Bangladesh’s anti-minority laws; that has not happened (Daily Star, 2009).  We have the example of the Potemkin village Vested Property Return Act of 2001, which sounded good but failed to help the Bangladeshi Hindus.  Without requiring specific actions before providing the benefits, promises of help to stop the ethnic cleansing of Bangladesh’s Hindus will never be realized in fact.

What a deal:  concrete help for a nation that needs it in exchange for concrete actions to save a people whose victimization demands it.

Footnotes:

1. Population statistics are taken from the census of Pakistan (1948), and Bangladesh (1974 and 2001).  Former Indian cabinet minister, Dr. Swami Subramanian, is among those offering current estimates to this author.  In February 2011, however, Bangladeshi cabinet minister H. T. Iman told this author that he believed the proportion of Hindus in Bangladesh was again on the rise.

2. Working with people on the ground in South Asia, we investigated hundreds of reported incidents but included in this tally only those that:  were specifically anti-Hindu; were independently verified and passed our own standards for verification; occurred since the installation of the Awami League government; occurred with impunity from the Bangladeshi government.  Thus, the incidents cited were less than half of those reported.  Additionally, reports of similar incidents continue to come out of Bangladesh.  Sources include:  Global Human Rights Defence, Bangladesh Minority Watch, Bangladesh Hindu Christian Buddhist Unity Council, Asian Human Rights Commission, multiple local newspapers, and direct testimony of the victims.

3. These interviews took place in several Indian states including West Bengal, Assam, Uttar Pradesh, and Uttarakhand.  The interview with the family and their 14-year-old daughter took place on March 23, 2009, amid a small group of huts in the West Bengal district of Uttar Dinajpur.

4. Just before its last term of office expired in 2001, the Awami League passed the Vested Property Return Act, which was intended to repeal the VPA.  It never was implemented, however, during subsequent governments; and neither is the current Awami League government implementing that repeal.  Moreover, the Awami League has been criticized for passing a law on the eve of their exit from power, knowing it had little or no chance of being implemented, after refusing to repeal the VPA during any time over the previous five years when it had the same power to do so.  Today, the VPA is in force as much as it ever was.

List of References

Barkat, A, ed (1997) An Inquiry into Causes and Consequences of Deprivation of Hindu Minorities in Bangladesh through the Vested Property Act (Dhaka: Academic Press and Publishers).

Barkat, A.; Uz Zaman S.; Khan, M.; Poddar, A.; Hoque, S; & Uddin, M. (2008) Deprivation of Hindu Minority in Bangladesh : Living With Vested Property (New Delhi: Vedams eBooks).

Benkin, R. (2008) A Quiet Case of Ethnic Cleansing, Hindu Voice (Mumbai), November.

Benkin, R. (2009) A terrifying existence, The Daily Pioneer, July 21, 2009, available online at:  file:///C:/Users/Drrbenkin/Documents/Interfaith/Pogrom.html.

Bhowmik, N. (1998) Repeal Enemy (Vested) Property Act for National Interest, Daily Star (Dhaka), November 29, 1998, available online at: http://www.drishtipat.org/HRLaw/vested2.htm

Bhowmik, S. (2008) Vested Property Act a tale of injustice, Daily Star (Dhaka) Law and our Rights, July 5, 2008, available online at:  http://www.interfaithstrength.com/images/VPA1.htm.

Brunei Times (2010) Bangladesh shuts down 3,000 charities. The Brunei Times, April 16, 2010, available online at:  http://www.bt.com.bn/news-asia/2010/04/06/bangladesh-shuts-down-3-000-charities.

Daily Star (2009) Govt to ensure minority rights, CHT peace treaty: PM, Daily Star (Dhaka), April 30, 2009.

Dastidar, S. (2008) Empire’s Last Casualty: Indian Subcontinent’s Vanishing Hindu and other Minorities(Kolkata: Firma KLM Private Limited).

Karlekar, H. (2005) Bangladesh The Next Afghanistan? (New Delhi: Sage Publications India).

Mohaiemen, N. (2008) Citizens, not enemies, Daily Star (Dhaka), December 12, 2008, available online at:  file:///C:/Users/Drrbenkin/Documents/Interfaith/VPA2.htm.

Trivedi, R. (2007) The legacy of enemy turned vested property act in Bangladesh, Asian Tribune, May 29, 2007, available online at:  http://www.asiantribune.com/index.php?q=node/5925.

On Accepting Village Proclamation Commemorating Days of Remembrance 2011

Dr. Richard L. Benkin At Village of Mount Prospect, Illinois Meeting April 19, 2011

My grandparents immigrated here from Eastern Europe early in the last century.  Like most immigrants, they did not have enough money to all get on an ocean liner together and come here.  So, they would scrape together enough cash to send over one family member, then try to scrape together enough to send over other family members one by one.  My maternal grandmother, who was from Poland, was the first to come here in her family.  Unfortunately, they were a poor lot, so they ran out of time and never got anyone else to the United States—which meant that this entire part of my family was wiped out in the Holocaust.

My grandmother believed then that she had no family—other than the one she raised.  Then in 1962, she received a letter—from her younger brother.  Like so many others, my Uncle Mendel had been marched out of his town along with his family, friends, neighbors, his rabbi, the butcher down the street, and every other Jew in the town; lined up in front of a ravine, and shot by the Nazis.  For some reason, though, that bullet did not kill him; and for yet some other reason, the Nazis did not finish him off, shooting anyone in that ditch who they thought might be alive, which was their common practice.  So, he laid there among the dead bodies of his wife and children—a horror so great I cannot even imagine—but he laid there for hours pretending to be dead until he thought it was safe to move; which he did and he escaped, wandering Europe for the rest of the war years, winding up in a DP camp, and on a boat to Israel; which is where he was when he wrote to his big sister, Molly, my grandmother.  Eventually, he too came here with his new family; and I don’t think anyone was happier to be an American.

When people try to deny what happened back then, I think of my Uncle Mendel and the other survivors in my family; as well as the millions of others—Jews and non-Jews—who did not survive.  So, at this time when Holocaust denial is rampant, some of it unfortunately even in our own great country, I am proud that Mount Prospect—my Mount Prospect—stands against those who would murder the victims a second time by blotting out their memories.  And as I continue my fight against yet another Holocaust transpiring even as we stand here tonight in South Asia; I will take with me—into the refugee camps, along the porous borders, in the forests and elsewhere—as an inspiration—the support, the strength, and the moral courage of Mayor Wilks and Mount Prospect, Illinois:  my home.

Thank you.

“Never Again!”

Temples and Saris unto Mosques and Burquas

Originally published on NewsGram.com, April 3, 2011

Dr. Richard Benkin

Jihad has come to India and, yet, the Obama administration along with State Department will tell you that it is nothing more than “isolated acts by individuals”. The government New Delhi is willing to go on record to suggest that you are “stirring up anti-Muslim sentiment.” The mainstream media will question as to how you can say that when we are hearing nothing about it from them. But it is real, and it is happening now. How do I know?! Well, that’s because I have seen it all through my very own eyes. The Obama administration’s studied denial will find us caught as flat-footed in India as we were in Lebanon, Egypt, Libya, and elsewhere. The only difference being: India is an economic and military giant, with nuclear weapons, and could be a cornerstone of any effective fight against radical Islam.

For several years now I have been fiercely vocal about the progressive radicalization of Bangladesh along with its nationals. Although it is the only country that ranks among the ten most populous and the ten most densely populated, as well as being the second largest Muslim-majority nation, events there do not capture people’s imagination. When you talk about India in the same context, however, people take notice. The thought of an Islamist dominated India scares the heck out of them and should. While our own strategic thinkers concentrate on internecine struggles in the Middle East, their obliviousness to the significance of an [Islamist India] has enabled our enemies to further their agenda.

I have spent many years journey along India’s 2545 mile-long border with Bangladesh, besides witnessing the impact Bangladesh’s radicalization has had on its giant neighbor to the west. Amitabh Tripathi, who has been fighting against what he calls his country’s “soft policies,” noted that Bangladesh’s Muslims “are not radicalized but their institutions are.” That radicalization and a level of corruption on both sides of the border that makes my fellow Chicagoans look like amateurs has already produced demographic change in many strategic areas of India.

It also has given Muslim activists carte blanche throughout the entire country. The process is deliberate, has been going on for decades, and should send us a terrible warning signal, not only because of what it bodes for India, but also because of what sort of future the Obama administration’s soft policies and tolerance for an open border to our south mean for the United States.

Each year in districts like Uttar Dinajpur and North and South 24 Parganas directly across from the Islamic state, my colleagues and I find that more and more villages which once had mixed Hindu-Muslim populations are now all Muslim or Muslim-dominated. Gone are the roadside temples characteristic of places where Hindus practice their faith openly; gone are the sights of Hindu women dressed in their colorful saris and other vestments. They have been replaced by mosques and burqas.

Each year in districts like Uttar Dinajpur and North and South 24 Parganas directly across from the Islamic state, my colleagues and I find that more and more villages which once had mixed Hindu-Muslim populations are now all Muslim or Muslim-dominated. Gone are the roadside temples characteristic of places where Hindus practice their faith openly; gone are the sights of Hindu women dressed in their colorful saris and other vestments. They have been replaced by mosques and burqas. Last year, Tripathi and I met with Bimal Praminik, Director of the Kolkata-based Centre for Research in Indo-Bangladesh Relations and arguably the foremost authority on these population changes. He is convinced that this population shift is a deliberate and an integral element the jihad that threatens all of us: “Bangladeshi infiltration with Pakistani ideas… trying to ‘Pakistanize’ the entire region,” he said adding that that the dominant culture for South Asian Muslims has become more “Arabic,” than South Asian.

In 1947 when the British left, they partitioned the Indian subcontinent into Hindu and Muslim states. West Bengal went to “Hindu” India, and East Bengal (now Bangladesh) became part of Muslim Pakistan. While Hindu and Muslim majorities respectively, remains, exhaustive studies by Pramanik and others hold out little hope that things will continue that way.

During the second half of the 20th century, the Muslim proportion of West Bengal’s population rose by 25 percent and its Hindu population declined by nine, a process that has continued into the 21st. At the same time, Bangladesh’s Hindu population dropped from almost a third to nine percent. The process has not been pretty and has involved murder, gang rape, abduction of women and children, forced conversion to Islam, and legalized thievery of ancestral Hindu lands under Bangladesh’s anti-Hindu Vested Property Act. And now it is happening in India.

During the second half of the 20th century, the Muslim proportion of West Bengal’s population rose by 25 percent and its Hindu population declined by nine, a process that has continued into the 21st. At the same time, Bangladesh’s Hindu population dropped from almost a third to nine percent. The process has not been pretty and has involved murder, gang rape, abduction of women and children, forced conversion to Islam, and legalized thievery of ancestral Hindu lands under Bangladesh’s anti-Hindu Vested Property Act. And now it is happening in India.

Between 1981 and 1991, Muslim population growth in West Bengal actually exceeded its growth in Bangladesh. The South Asia Research Society concluded that Hindus have been fleeing Islamist persecution in East Bengal since the partition; but that since Bangladesh’s emergence as an independent nation in 1971, “there has been large scale voluntary infiltration of Bangladeshi Muslims…to West Bengal and other parts of India” as well. The actual Muslim population growth exceeded Indian government projections that were based on demographic factors (fertility and mortality), internal migration, and the influx of Hindu refugees; thus, there had to be another element driving the change. Pramanik identifies it as “illegal immigration from across the border.” Islamist plans have been so detailed and longstanding that since 1951 the Muslim growth rate exceeded that of Hindus in each individual district of West Bengal.

One elderly woman in the Howrah district told us how Muslims are taking over her property piece by piece. She even showed us a wall with a star and crescent on it that local Muslims built to identify it as dar al Islam. In another village, residents showed us the remains of a Hindu temple that Muslims recently destroyed after urinating on its holy objects. Most poignant was the testimony of a crestfallen mother whose 22-year-old daughter was abducted weeks ago by local Muslims. Abduction of Hindu women and girls in the name of Islam has been common in Bangladesh for years and is a key element in jihad: eliminating females of childbearing years from the gene pool and forcing them to “produce” Muslim offspring instead.

Statistics might be the “smoking gun,” but jihad’s impact is far more powerful in the testimony of individual non-Muslim residents who are its victims. One elderly woman in the Howrah district told us how Muslims are taking over her property piece by piece. She even showed us a wall with a star and crescent on it that local Muslims built to identify it as dar al Islam. In another village, residents showed us the remains of a Hindu temple that Muslims recently destroyed after urinating on its holy objects. Most poignant was the testimony of a crestfallen mother whose 22-year-old daughter was abducted weeks ago by local Muslims. Abduction of Hindu women and girls in the name of Islam has been common in Bangladesh for years and is a key element in jihad: eliminating females of childbearing years from the gene pool and forcing them to “produce” Muslim offspring instead. It is now happening in India, according to victimized parents who told me about it in India’s North and Northeast.

Residents of Deganga, only 40 kilometers from the West Bengal capital of Kolkata, lived through an anti-Hindu pogrom last September. The pogrom started — as these things are wont to do these days — with a fabricated land dispute in which Muslims claimed a wooded area off the region’s main road that Hindus own and on which sits a Hindu shrine that is considered very sacred. As the 2010 Islamic observance of Iftar came to an end, a large group of Muslims attempted to seize the land until local Hindus stopped them. It was then that they started attacking Hindu households and shops indiscriminately, forcing many to flee the area with little more than the clothes on their backs.

I returned to Deganga last month to find that while many homes and shops have been rebuilt, a sense of security by Hindus in their ancestral land has not. Most of the residents spoke about leaving the area; others talked about being fearful of attack, their children unable to attend school, and Hindu women being harassed whenever they go to the market or other places in the area. Many of them showed us charred pieces of their former residences; in other cases we were able to see signs of it bleeding through a new coat of paint. Hindu women and girls showed us where they hid during the attack to avoid being raped or abducted and made concubines; a fate that likely has befallen the missing 22-year old daughter of the mother above.

In every single one of these cases, local authorities have refused to take action. In fact, during the Deganga pogrom, they arrested the community’s wealthiest Hindu on the false charge of firing on the jihadis. In the past, this official inaction has been purchased; but it is also a product of the alliance between Islamists and Communists in India. That alliance was announced publicly at a meeting in the south Indian state of Kerala; and it has been policy for West Bengal’s three-decade old communist government. Wherever we spoke with these villagers, Muslim neighbors would gather menacingly in an attempt to intimidate our informants. In some cases, they attacked after we left — again with no action by the authorities.

In every single one of these cases, local authorities have refused to take action. In fact, during the Deganga pogrom, they arrested the community’s wealthiest Hindu on the false charge of firing on the jihadis. In the past, this official inaction has been purchased; but it is also a product of the alliance between Islamists and Communists in India. That alliance was announced publicly at a meeting in the south Indian state of Kerala; and it has been policy for West Bengal’s three-decade old communist government. Wherever we spoke with these villagers, Muslim neighbors would gather menacingly in an attempt to intimidate our informants. In some cases, they attacked after we left — again with no action by the authorities.

In Meerut northeast of New Delhi and far from Deganga, the population of this once Hindu-dominated town is now split down the middle between Hindus and Muslims; and the Hindus are living in fear. Just five days ago before my arrival, a Hindu was burned to death and shortly before that a community leader was targeted and killed. These actions are becoming more common in this substantial-sized town with no police re-action; and according to residents and activists, it is only a matter of time before things explode.

Our State Department will STILL like you to believe that there is no jihad in India. They will hew the official line that the liberal Awami League government in Bangladesh has put an end to anti-Hindu actions there. A similarly weak government in New Delhi will parrot the same platitudes. Yet, their false palliatives bring no comfort to the scores of victims who have told us their stories; or the many others now unable to do so.

They cannot explain away major terrorist attacks in India’s largest cities like Mumbai, Pune, in New Delhi, and elsewhere. They cannot explain how insurgents can regularly kidnap minor officials and receive their ransom (usually release of prisoners, cash, and government forbearance from counter terrorist action) every time they do. If the Obama administration and its left-wing counterparts in India do not replace their studied ignorance with effective action, we will be as “surprised” over what becomes of India as we were with Iran, Egypt, and a host of other nations. Imagine what an Islamist India would mean for us.

Columnist, Dr. Richard Benkin, is an independent human rights activist who has been part of efforts to correct injustices worldwide.

Norit:  India’s Shame

Originally published on Canada Free Press, March 28, 2011

Dr. Richard Benkin

The plight of the Bangladeshi Hindus originally drew me to West Bengal, and their deteriorating situation keeps me coming back to areas where I can meet with the victims in their semi-licit and semi-safe havens.  Unfortunately, throughout much of India’s fourth most populous state, even Hindus native to the country cannot expect basic legal protections from police and other authorities.  While some have offered various explanations for this injustice, we shall let them argue over that and not let political wrangling divert us from the heart of the matter:  real people whose victimization and lack of protection trump any political justifications, theoretical arguments, and disingenuous defenses raised in an attempt to deny the reality.

Last September, there was an anti-Hindu riot not far from the West Bengal capital of Kolkata.  Marauding Muslims destroyed Hindu shops and homes in Deganga and contrary to initial reports, molested several women.  Their immediate aim was to force a longstanding Hindu temple off land they determined to seize for their mosque; but as West Bengal political leader Tathagata Roy noted, their real objective was “to cleanse the area of Hindus [and] totally Islamize the area.”  I visited Deganga five months after the violence and observed that the rioters were achieving that goal.  The remaining Hindu residents told us that many of their co-religionists had already fled, and most of them were contemplating the same course of action.  Unchecked violence from Muslims was bad enough, local and state authorities’ refusal to stop it left them alienated and defenseless.  At the riots’ outbreak, government forces deployed along the main road, but when the criminals reacted by attacking errant homes and villages in the interior, the troops did not follow.  That allowed the Muslim rioters to savage Hindu communities with impunity.  By the time of my fact-finding mission, Hindus had rebuilt most the demolished brick structures but not the sense of security they once had.  They fear going to market or school, and women in particular are subjected to incessant harassment.  Numerous requests to the authorities for protection have gone unanswered.

Not far from Deganga lies the less accessible village of Norit, close enough to the Kolkata for local and State authorities to protect its Hindu residents—if they want to do so.  Certainly, if I could get there, they can; and I did, making my way to Norit in the late afternoon on February 17, 2011 accompanied by Tapan Ghosh and Animitra Chakraborty of Hindu Samhati, a Hindu advocacy group, and by my fellow Forcefield board members, Miriam Guttman-Jones and Amitabh Tripathi.  For what seemed like hours, we heard testimony after testimony of anti-Hindu attacks and the government’s passive complicity.  “It seems as if everyone has a story to tell,” I remarked.  These anti-Hindu attacks have become more frequent over the last two years along with a “tremendous rise in Islamic fundamentalism” and aggressive block voting by Muslims.

Up until two years ago, villagers told us, Hindu children had been able to play soccer, cricket, and other games unmolested in a field on the village outskirts.  Now, however, when they attempt to play, neighboring Muslim men converge on them and attack.  This normally happens when most adult Hindu men are away working and the mothers are left to defend their children.  Making no distinction for age or gender, however, the men beat, bite, and attack them with bamboo sticks or lathis.  Many women who described this also showed us the consequent wounds and permanent disabilities, many of which were treated in area hospitals.  Police intervened in one case but charged both communities with violence and told them to “live in peace”; drawing a false moral equivalency between attackers and defenders.  Nice sentiment, but difficult to realize when one party gets to attack the others’ children with impunity.

Two elderly women in the village described being beaten while only observing the fray from well outside it.  One showed us how the attackers broke her spine, kicking her repeatedly while she was on the ground.  The other testified to being thrown into a pond and then beaten some more.  Another woman claimed to have been dragged by her hair and beaten severely about the head.  She spent over a week in the hospital and still suffers constant pain.  The testimony went on for some time painting a very clear picture of a village where the residents live in fear of attack and official inaction.  Several spoke about home invasions and attempted abduction of women and children.  The most poignant testimony came from the mother and uncle of 21-year-old Matamata Dutta, who was abducted more than five weeks prior to our visit.  It would be difficult for anyone with even a modicum of empathy to remain unmoved as her mother described the girl’s abduction.  The real story, however, is how others apparently can.

Matamat’s family filed a formal complaint with the police who have refused to start a case or help the mother recover her daughter.  They turned to Hindu Samhati.  Tapan Ghosh personally delivered a formal report of the incident to the district administration in Howrah and also reported it to the West Bengal Human Rights Commission.  Neither one responded.  In fact, the family reports being threatened with serious consequences whenever in desperation they go to the local police station to plead their case.  Local Muslims are now threatening to abduct “more Hindu girls,” knowing they can do so with impunity.  Unfortunately, Matamata’s case is not a unique one.  The abduction of Hindu girls and women of childbearing age has been common in Bangladesh for decades.  That we are seeing them in West Bengal now substantiates claims that jihad has crossed the border into India.  These abductions deliberately reduce the Hindu gene pool and contribute to a demographic cleansing of non-Muslim populations.  At the very least, we should wonder why the authorities refuse even to investigate thus very serious matter seriously and demand that they do so, even though the miscreants now have a six week head start.

INDIAN STUDENTS OVERCOMING ANTI-ISRAEL BIAS

Originally published on the Scholars For Peace In the Middle East website, March 11, 2011

Dr. Richard Benkin

I have been coming to South Asia steadily for five years and have addressed various student groups and universities on each trip. During my most recent visit in February, however, something happened-or more accurately did not happen-that represented a watershed for our continuing efforts with Indian youth.

For two days, I addressed students at Delhi University and a more general group of journalism students at an unaffiliated site in New Delhi. For two days, we discussed a wide range of subjects and talked about the students’ and the young journalists’ roles in shaping the future not only of their nation but that of the entire world, given India’s growing importance. As always, the students were engaged, and I had to field some tough questions challenging US actions in South Asia ranging from our support for Pakistan to our actions in Afghanistan. My Australian colleague Miriam Guttman-Jones had to explain the severe attacks on Indian students last year Down Under. Yet, for the first time since I have been addressing Indian youth, there was not a single question that criticized Israel or supported “Palestinian rights.”

To understand the significance of this, one must look beyond the (justified) hype about the new Israel-India alliance; because as real as that is, its significance has not penetrated Indian society comprehensively. This is due in part to complex international relations and in part due to domestic Indian politics. Support for the Arab and later the Palestinian cause has been an article of faith for the Gandhi-Nehru dynasty and most in their almost perpetually ruling Congress Party. For many, that includes viewing Israel as an arm of the “imperialist west.”[1] (Recall that India voted to ratify the Goldstone Report, and its President Pratibha Devisingh Patil publicly supported Syria’s claims in its dispute with Israel over the Golan Heights.[2] ) Thus, Indians have been feted to an almost uninterrupted demonization of Israel from the quarters one might expect to see it. The mainstream media has an almost knee-jerk response to any news item on the Middle East, condemning Israel and uncritically accepting the Arab position-even if that position is ultimately contrary to Indian interests. An editorial in The Hindu about Israel’s 2009 war against terrorists in Gaza was typical. It claimed Israel “massacred 40 Palestinians” (factually incorrect and inflammatory by intent) and accused Israel of a “potential war crime” (never proven and a well-worn anti-Israel talking point). In the midst of its screed, The Hindu never once mentioned the unprovoked and indiscriminate Arab attacks on Israeli civilians that prompted Israel’s defensive action. Yet, this was little more than a month after the horrific terror attacks on Mumbai and a general cry for revenge among Indians; but the media never made the connection.[3] The Economic Times was guilty of the same hyperbole when it screeched that Israel’s 2010 attack on the terrorist-inspired and funded Gaza flotilla was “nothing short of an act of piracy, of state terrorism.”[4]

The anti-Israel sentiment that persists on Indian campuses frequently manifests itself in anti-Israel attacks when I speak there. Some try to disrupt my address; others try to turn its human rights agenda into and anti-Israel one. Elsewhere, Indian university students consistently report that many professors push the standard anti-Israel narrative as if it was objective truth; and while most campuses offer Arab or Islamic studies, they virulently reject any classes on Judaism, Jewish history, or Israel from other than an ideological and anti-Israel perspective.[5] But that is changing with an expanding disconnect between the elites’ anachronistic policies and a growing pro-Israel sentiment among the people. Amitabh Tripathi, founder of the South Asia Forum, has been working for years to help build a strong India-Israel relationship. He contends that India’s future is with Israel’s in a principled fight against a singular terrorist threat. He works almost exclusively with Indians under the age of 30 and believes that this realization is taking hold among the generation of Indians several decades removed from the old assumptions that drove Indian policy during the Cold War years. As one journalist for a major Indian news outlet told me, "there is something of a generation gap between the [established and generally older] editors and publishers" and today’s younger professionals.[6]The disconnect he and others told me, exists in part because of the fast pace at which realities and relationships have changed.

The key to maintaining that generational momentum, Tripathi told me in Delhi last month, is continued effort to counteract the one-sided information and perspectives otherwise available especially among students. He has helped students form numerous pro-Israel groups and galvanized students to engage in pro-Israel activism as something consistent with pro-Indian activism. One of these groups, which I addressed in 2010, is even thriving on the notorious hotbed of leftist and anti-Israel activism, Jawaharlal Nehru University. Student Union elections that same year at Delhi University (DU) reflected the strength of those efforts. Students of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, all of whom are associated with these pro-Israel groups, won three of four posts, including the presidency.[7] All of this has meant that DU students are empowered now as never before to be vocal with their pro-Israel views and the passion with which they tie them to India’s well-being. Thus, the “watershed” this year did not happen by chance.

The battle for free and unbiased information on India’s campuses is not over, however. One colleague of mine has to embed any discussion of Israel or even Judaism in larger discussions or face censorship and perhaps disciplinary action. While waiting for that to change, he continues to find legitimate ways to keep his students informed of current, and perhaps more important, historical events that shaped today’s Middle East. Despite that sort of political censorship on academic freedom, we continue to make steady progress. In large part, that is because of a real hunger among Indian students and faculty for news and information about Israel. Throughout the subcontinent, they pepper me with questions about Israeli technology and life in general, but the most frequent question is: “How has Israel defeated the terrorists arrayed against it, and how can India learn from their example?”[8] In 2008 class of more than two dozen journalism students at Lucknow University, only one openly supported the Arab cause. After a civil exchange of ideas and information, devoid of sloganeering, the student maintained his stance but expressed a desire for more information from varied sources: for principled debate over charges and counter-charges. Here, too, the key is organized efforts to expand the range of unbiased information available to students.

[1] Subhash Kapila, “India’s Payback Time to Israel, South Asia Analysis Group, Paper No. 442, April 10, 2002.

[2] See Samir Pradhan, “India’s Economic and Political Presence in the Gulf: A Gulf Perspective, in Gulf Research Center, India’s Growing Role in the Gulf Implications for the Region and the United States, 2009; pp. 15-39. Also, “Patil lauds role of Indian expatriates in development of India, UAE,” The Indian News, November 22, 2010.

[3] “Facing up to Gaza Truths, The Hindu, February 7, 2010.

[4] “Israel’s act of piracy,” The Economic Times, June 2, 2010.

[5] These and many other comments throughout the article came from personal experiences with students and faculty at several Indian campuses in the North and Northeast.

[6] Richard L. Benkin, “Indian Conservatives Struggle to Build Alternative Media,” American Thinker, May 31, 2008.

[7] “ABVP Wins Delhi University Elections 2010,” http://www.highereducationindia.com, September 4, 2010.

[8] The cited incidents occurred from 2008 through 2010 at several universities in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, and elsewhere.

Verdict on "Anti-Muslim Riot" Exposes Human Rights Bias

Originally published in the New English Review, March 10, 2011

Dr. Richard Benkin

When I tell people I do human rights work, they immediately assume I am some sort of leftist.  (Now, if people also know that I have a Ph.D. from an Ivy League University, live in Chicago, am a vegetarian, and am also Jewish; it seems impossible for me to be anything else.) Their assumption is wrong, however, as I like to characterize my work as “human rights from the right.” The assumption exists, however, because the left claims a monopoly on human rights work, has appropriated its language for its dubious purposes, considers conservatives the way our First Lady described the US as “downright mean”; and the media and other opinion makers promote those assumptions.  The self-styled human rights standard bearers Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the UN Human Rights Commission act on the belief that the United States is the “evil empire” and that Israel’s sole raison d’etre is to oppress Muslims. The human rights deception is not only false but destructive as well because it recognizes collective rights when asserting individual rights is the way to oppose oppression and pull out of abject poverty. It also self-servingly defines human rights activism in terms of handouts (read: redistribution) and anti-US, anti-Israel screeds. A verdict last month in an Indian courtroom on one of the left’s and Islam’s biggest human rights shibboleths, however, exposed this deception.

In 2002, Hindus in the Indian state of Gujarat attacked local Muslim communities, resulting in death and destruction. Now, to be clear and before people cry that my piece justifies the collective attacks, there can be no justification for deliberately targeting innocents, regardless of people’s anger or the events that sparked it. I will leave that sort of dubious morality to those who ignore Arab attacks on innocent Israelis in Sderot and elsewhere. What is also not justified, however, is the way the “usual suspects” have defined the actions as “Hindu extremism” and used it to throw rocks at every effort from the Indian Right. Their definition has now become “common knowledge” and another bit of evidence that seems to support the Muslim community’s attempt to paint itself as an international victim. The aforementioned verdict exposes that lie.

Gujarat, however, was not an anti-Muslim event, so much as it was an inter-communal event with blame enough for both Hindu and Muslim communities. In the left’s rants about the riots, it conveniently forgets to highlight the grisly event that sparked them: the crime of arson on a train of Hindus returning from a religious pilgrimage that also caused death and destruction. On February 21, 2011, an Indian court ruled that the arson was deliberate and the work of Muslim community leaders. Demonstrating that the court was not biased, it actually acquitted two-thirds of the defendants, convicting 31, ten of whom received a death sentence. Moreover, while it took nine years for India to admit that the inter-communal violence was the result of a planned event by Muslim leaders, while it long ago arrested others for their part in the riots that followed including a Member of Parliament and other prominent individuals. But it did not stop the left from demonizing Hindus and the Indian Right.

What’s the point?  After almost a decade of biased reporting, no verdict will remove from the public minds the false claim that Gujarat is evidence that Muslims do not enjoy equal rights in India; another screed that demonizes the Indian Right as deadly and bigoted. Just as Muslims, the left, and the uniformed still believe that Israelis killed Muhammad al-Dura and in the phantom Jenin massacre; even though both accusations have long ago been proven false.

Call them co-conspirators or  simply useful idiots, but through its blind adherence to ideology over people, those elements in the international human rights industry that are wedded to leftist ideology and the petrodollars that fund them have become an indispensible cog in the wheel of international jihad instead of representing the best in all of us.

What Do They Fear From Peter King?

Originally published in the American Thinker, March 9, 2011

Dr. Richard Benkin

I was educated as a social scientist; and as a social scientist, learned that if I wanted to understand a phenomenon and recognized a variable common to many examples of it, I would be remiss if I did not investigate it.  It would be foolhardy to claim that a supposed defense of Islam has not been common to many terrorist events or to claim that there is no such thing as radical Islam.  Now, if the political correctness crew wants to rename it something like "radicals-who-claim-they-represent-Islam-but-really-don't-and-certainly-cannot-be-used-to-call-all-Muslims-terrorists," they are welcome to do so; but for the sake of brevity, I will call it radical Islam, and they can consider it short for their mountain of PC qualifiers.

To hear a bevy of usual suspects tell it -- from the White House and Congressman Keith Ellison (D-MN) to hip hop mogul Russell Simmons -- Congressman Peter King (R-NY) should be outfitted with a white sheet and hood for daring to hold hearings on the threat of radical Muslims in the United States.  Ellison criticized King for singling out a religious minority.  Okay, well let's see.  When was the last time a Christian "terrorist" flew an airplane into a skyscraper, killing thousands?  Or how about an Irish one (since Ellison specifically warned us not to single out the Irish)?  When was the last time those big, bad Jews strapped on a suicide bomb vest and blew themselves up in a Pakistani shopping mall?  If Ellison and his PC compatriots want to offer us some balance by investigating the threat posed by Conservative Christians or Orthodox Jews, I suppose he can find a way to do it.  He certainly has a ready-made venue in MSNBC.  These were also the same people who claimed after 9/11 that our own actions caused the attacks by angering "Muslims."  Today, however, they find the very same linkage offensive -- a linkage they blithely made.

More to the point, however, is the question of what Ellison and the others have to fear from King -- who after all, as the Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee is being quite serious about carrying out his responsibilities.  In fact, we might consider him derelict in his duties if he did not investigate this threat after foiled plots over Detroit and in Times Square; not to mention plots like the Ft. Hood massacre that unfortunately was not stopped.  They claim that the hearings themselves create divisions among Americans; but judging from the reaction of most Americans to the proposed Ground Zero mosque, it appears that ship has already sailed.  Besides, they never chide the administration's purveyors of "identity politics" for doing that very thing.

Are they afraid that King's inquiry might turn up something ominous?  What if they found most American Muslims good people, but determined that their leaders have failed to uproot radical "charities" or mosques within their midst?  Perhaps the Obama White House fears that hearings might find that it is more concerned about political correctness than it is about protecting the homeland.  From their incessant opposition to such things, they seem to believe that admitting any modicum of terrorism in the name of Islam damns the entire community -- which I do not think has ever been King's position.  There was a German Fifth Column operating in the United States during World War II, but it did not mean that the German-American community was disloyal.  Somehow the PC brigade has a tough time with that intellectual operation.

Beyond that, we should understand that the left's head-in-the-sand policy is more than annoying; it's dangerous, and we have a case study that demonstrates it.  I just returned from an extended stay in India, a nation with the world's second largest Muslim population.  The government's rigid adherence to secularism has given rise to what many Indians call "pseudo-secularism":  a policy that in its fear of giving offense to the Muslim minority actually gives it preferential treatment instead.  For a while, this meant things like oddball allocation of funds.  For instance, I have been in India during two budget debates, which resulted in the government giving subsidies to Muslims going on hajj, but not a penny for the countless Hindu refugees from Islamic oppression living in abysmal conditions.  In fact, if you ever find yourself at New Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport, you might notice that the government built a special terminal to be used exclusively by Muslim pilgrims going on the annual pilgrimage noted above.

More recently, India's PC policy has given rise to far more sinister effects.  I have been going there for four years and have yet to be there when there was not a terrorist attack that resulted in the loss of innocent life.  Most westerners have heard about the 2002 anti-Muslim riots in Gujarat, but discussion of the arson (set by Muslims) that burned 59 Hindu pilgrims to death was out of bounds in the public arena.  Just last month, however, a court found that the arson was set deliberately by members of the Muslim community, acquitted about two thirds of the defendants, and sentenced another eleven to death.  While the deadly arson does not justify a general riot against the Muslim community, it shows that the entire incident was not a problem of "radical Hindus," as the left and apologists claim, but one of inter-community violence, which if confronted head-on back then might not have the strength it still does today.  It should be noted that the government long ago arrested those it accused of the riots-including a member of parliament -- but justice took nine years for the arson victims and their families.

Worse still, India's PC refusal to confront these issues has led to a situation in which, as I wrote recently, "Jihad has come to India."  There are uninvestigated and significant demographic shifts along India's open borders (another topic they -- and we -- do not wish to address) with Bangladesh, Nepal, and Pakistan, which has made formerly mixed Hindu-Muslim towns Hindu rein.  The numbers have been documented thoroughly, but the human impact of this policy is more dramatically seen in the faces of hundreds of Hindus I have interviewed as they talked about their fear, the inability of their women to move outside of the home without being harassed or worse, of their children being abducted and other attacks that the authorities do not prosecute for fear of angering the Muslim community or being called anti-Muslim.

Whether we call it Islamic terrorism or just plain terrorism (carried out by Allah-knows-whom), there is no question that the same process which now threatens the world's second largest country and a nuclear power to boot, is -- progressively -- finding its way to our shores.  Whether or not Congressman King is afforded the freedom of speech and free inquiry to hold effective hearings will signal to us whether we can expect to face the same PC-generated terror that India does.

Jihad Has Come to India

Originally published in the American Thinker, March 3, 2011

Dr. Richard Benkin

Jihad has come to India.  The Obama administration and the State Department will tell you that it is nothing more than isolated acts by individuals.  The government in New Delhi will say you are stirring up anti-Muslim sentiment.  The mainstream media will ask how you can say that when we are hearing nothing about it from them.  But it is real, and it is happening now.  I have seen it first-hand.  The Obama administration's studied denial will find us caught as flat-footed in India as we were in Lebanon, Egypt, Libya, and elsewhere.  The difference is that India is an economic and military giant, with nuclear weapons, and could be a cornerstone of any effective fight against radical Islam.

For several years, I have been talking about the progressive radicalization of Bangladesh.  Although it is the only country that ranks among the ten most populous and the ten most densely populated, as well as being the second largest Muslim-majority nation, events there do not capture people's imagination.  When you talk about India in the same context, however, people take notice.  The thought of an Islamist dominated India scares the heck out of them and should.  While our own strategic thinkers concentrate on internecine struggles in the Middle East, their obliviousness to the significance of an Islamist India has enabled our enemies to further their agenda.

I have spent several years along India's 2545 mile-long frontier with Bangladesh, and have seen the impact Bangladesh's radicalization has had on its giant neighbor to the west.  Amitabh Tripathi, who has been fighting against what he calls his country's "soft policies," noted that Bangladesh's Muslims "are not radicalized but their institutions are."  That radicalization and a level of corruption on both sides of the border that makes my fellow Chicagoans look like amateurs has already produced demographic change in many strategic areas of India.  It also has given Muslim activists carte blanche throughout the entire country.  The process is deliberate, has been going on for decades, and should send us a screaming warning signal, not only because of what it bodes for India, but also because of what sort of future the Obama administration's soft policies and tolerance for an open border to our south mean for the United States.

Each year in districts like Uttar Dinajpur and North and South 24 Parganas directly across from the Islamic state, my colleagues and I find that more and more villages which once had mixed Hindu-Muslim populations are now all Muslim or Muslim-dominated.  Gone are the roadside temples characteristic of places where Hindus practice their faith openly; gone are the sights of Hindu women dressed in their colorful saris and other vestments.  They have been replaced by mosques and burqas.  Last year, Tripathi and I met with Bimal Praminik, Director of the Kolkata-based Centre for Research in Indo-Bangladesh Relations and arguably the foremost authority on these population changes.  He is convinced that this population shift is a deliberate and an integral element the jihad that threatens all of us:  "Bangladeshi infiltration with Pakistani ideas... trying to 'Pakistanize' the entire region," he said adding that that the dominant culture for South Asian Muslims has become more "Arabic," than South Asian.

In 1947 when the British left, they partitioned the Indian subcontinent into Hindu and Muslim states.  West Bengal went to Hindu India, and East Bengal (now Bangladesh) became part of Pakistan.  While Hindu and Muslim majorities respectively, remain, exhaustive studies by Pramanik and others hold out little hope that things will continue that way.  During the second half of the 20th century, the Muslim proportion of West Bengal's population rose by 25 percent and its Hindu population declined by nine, a process that has continued into the 21st.  At the same time, Bangladesh's Hindu population dropped from almost a third to nine percent.  The process has not been pretty and has involved murder, gang rape, abduction of women and children, forced conversion to Islam, and legalized thievery of ancestral Hindu lands under Bangladesh's anti-Hindu Vested Property Act.  And now it is happening in India.

Between 1981 and 1991, Muslim population growth in West Bengal actually exceeded its growth in Bangladesh.  The South Asia Research Society concluded that Hindus have been fleeing Islamist persecution in East Bengal since the partition; but that since Bangladesh's emergence as an independent nation in 1971, "there has been large scale voluntary infiltration of Bangladeshi Muslims...to West Bengal and other parts of India" as well.  The actual Muslim population growth exceeded Indian government projections that were based on demographic factors (fertility and mortality), internal migration, and the influx of Hindu refugees; thus, there had to be another element driving the change.  Pramanik identifies it as "illegal immigration from across the border."  Islamist plans have been so detailed and longstanding that since 1951 the Muslim growth rate exceeded that of Hindus in each individual district of West Bengal.

Statistics might be the "smoking gun," but jihad's impact is far more powerful in the testimony of individual non-Muslim residents who are its victims.  One elderly woman in the Howrah district told us how Muslims are taking over her property piece by piece.  She even showed us a wall with a star and crescent on it that local Muslims built to identify it as dar al Islam.  In another village, residents showed us the remains of a Hindu temple that Muslims recently destroyed after urinating on its holy objects.  Most poignant was the testimony of a crestfallen mother whose 22-year-old daughter was abducted weeks ago by local Muslims.  Abduction of Hindu women and girls in the name of Islam has been common in Bangladesh for years and is a key element in jihad:  eliminating females of childbearing years from the gene pool and forcing them to "produce" Muslim offspring instead.  It is now happening in India, according to victimized parents who told me about it in India's North and Northeast.

Residents of Deganga, only 40 kilometers from the West Bengal capital of Kolkata, lived through an anti-Hindu pogrom last September.  The pogrom started -- as these things are wont to do these days -- with a fabricated land dispute in which Muslims claimed a wooded area off the region's main road that Hindus own and on which sits a Hindu shrine that is considered very sacred.  As the 2010 Islamic observance of Iftar came to an end, a large group of Muslims attempted to seize the land until local Hindus stopped them.  It was then that they started attacking Hindu households and shops indiscriminately, forcing many to flee the area with little more than the clothes on their backs. 

I returned to Deganga last month to find that while many homes and shops have been rebuilt, a sense of security by Hindus in their ancestral land has not.  Most of the residents spoke about leaving the area; others talked about being fearful of attack, their children unable to attend school, and Hindu women being harassed whenever they go to the market or other places in the area.  Many of them showed us charred pieces of their former residences; in other cases we were able to see signs of it bleeding through a new coat of paint.  Hindu women and girls showed us where they hid during the attack to avoid being raped or abducted and made concubines; a fate that likely has befallen the missing 22-year old daughter of the mother above.

In every single one of these cases, local authorities have refused to take action.  In fact, during the Deganga pogrom, they arrested the community's wealthiest Hindu on the false charge of firing on the jihadis.  In the past, this official inaction has been purchased; but it is also a product of the alliance between Islamists and Communists in India.  That alliance was announced publicly at a meeting in the south Indian state of Kerala; and it has been policy for West Bengal's three-decade old communist government.  Wherever we spoke with these villagers, Muslim neighbors would gather menacingly in an attempt to intimidate our informants.  In some cases, they attacked after we left -- again with no action by the authorities.

In Meerut northeast of New Delhi and far from Deganga, the population of this once Hindu-dominated town is now split down the middle between Hindus and Muslims; and the Hindus are living in fear.  Just five days ago before my arrival, a Hindu was burned to death and shortly before that a community leader was targeted and killed.  These actions are becoming more common in this substantial-sized town with no police re-action; and according to residents and activists, it is only a matter of time before things explode.

Our State Department will tell you that there is no jihad in India.  They will hew the official line that the liberal Awami League government in Bangladesh has put an end to anti-Hindu actions there.  A similarly weak government in New Delhi will parrot the same platitudes.   Yet, their false palliatives bring no comfort to the scores of victims who have told us their stories; or the many others now unable to do so.  

They cannot explain away major terrorist attacks in India's largest cities like Mumbai, Pune, in New Delhi, and elsewhere.  They cannot explain how insurgents can regularly kidnap minor officials and receive their ransom (usually release of prisoners, cash, and government forbearance from counter terrorist action) every time they do.  If the Obama administration and its left-wing counterparts in India do not replace their studied ignorance with effective action, we will be as "surprised" over what becomes of India as we were with Iran, Egypt, and a host of other nations.

Imagine what an Islamist India would mean for us.

Deganga Intifada – Update

Originally published in the New English Review, March 2011

Dr Richard Benkin

Last October, New English Review reported on three days of anti-Hindu violence by Muslims in the Deganga area of North 24 Parganas, only 40 kilometers from the West Bengal capital of Kolkata (“Deganga Intifada?” New English Review, October 2010).  While Indian papers continue to refer to the incident as a “riot” or “disturbances,” local activists insisted that it was nothing less than a planned pogrom carried out by Muslims against Hindus with the expressed purpose of driving them from the area.

The pogrom started—as these things are wont to do these days—with a fabricated land dispute; in this instance one in which Muslims claimed a wooded area off the region’s main road that Hindus own and on which sits a Hindu shrine that is considered very sacred.  As the 2010 Islamic observance of Iftar came to an end, a large group of Muslims attempted to seize the land until local Hindus stopped them. It was then that they started attacking Hindu households and shops indiscriminately. Most reports after the initial ones alleged extensive arson and property damage but no physical attacks or molestation of Hindu women, which have become regular features of these aktions. According to Tathagata Roy, a West Bengal political leader, “This was a well-thought-out, well-executed pogrom whose objective was to terrorize the Hindus no end…. The ultimate intention can only be to cleanse the area of Hindus with a view to totally Islamize the area.” I returned to the Daganga area in February to check on the people and the area and to see if Roy’s words were prophetic. They were.

The first home we stopped at foreshadowed what we would encounter pretty uniformly. The owner of the land, an elderly Hindu woman, spoke with us but was afraid to give her name for fear of reprisals (something repeated by our other informants in the area). Since the violence, her Muslim neighbors have become more aggressive, boldly encroaching on her small plot of land, which has been in the family for generations. Near the perimeter, in fact, they had erected a wall on which was painted a star and crescent to represent the fact that the land was now under Muslim control. Our witness said that her neighbors have made no secret of their intention to push her out of the region, and lamented that the authorities have been no help. She fears more violence. As we spoke, her Muslim neighbors congregated around the land and made a menacing show of watching the woman.

At the second home, we were greeted by a mother and her young daughter who told us that not more than two weeks prior, neighbors threw part of a cow carcass in their yard. This is not only a serious form of religious desecration for Hindus (and illegal in India), but it also has been used to intimidate them elsewhere, suggesting that they might be next. The authorities told her that they would not intervene and that she had to work it out with her Muslim neighbors; but according to Animitra Chakraborty of Hindu Samhati (a Hindu self-defense and renewal organization), “they were in no mood to talk.” As a result, the woman is seriously thinking of taking her daughter and moving out of the area.

The head of Hindu Samhati, Tapan Ghosh, took us to the sites of some of September’s excesses. As we stood on the main road, he pointed to a nearby market and told us that “all the Hindu shops were looted and then burned” to the ground; clearly a targeted and religiously based attack. Most shops were little more than sticks and fabric but others were made of brick. The Hindu community has rebuilt most of them as well as most of the damaged homes. One large house, however, remains damaged. Its owner, a leader of the Hindu community, was accused by the mob of firing on them and was taken away by authorities. He has not been seen since, and his wife and children have fled the area. Fear is growing among the Hindus living in Deganga. Many have already fled, and those still there expressed a great deal of trepidation, especially for the women. They fear going to school, to the market, and elsewhere. Most said they are ready to flee the area, and it seems that they need little more than another serious incident to pack up and leave.

Other families told us their valuables were looted and showed us where their homes were firebombed.  In some cases we saw the charred remains of furniture and evidence of the fire bleeding through freshly painted walls.  Several individuals said that reports alleging there were no physical assaults simply were not true. One man described being beaten, and at least two groups of women showed us where they fled to escape being molested. One elderly resident, a former schoolteacher told us that on the third day of the pogrom he observed a curious procession on a ridge across from his home: a long line of local Muslims carrying hand weapons including lakhis (long sticks that are commonly used in these attacks), machete-like knives, and other implements. What really grabbed his attention, however, was the fact that they were following a group of local police, which told him that any appeals to justice were going to be futile. Yet, his greatest disappointment, he said, was that up until recently, Hindus and Muslims lived peacefully with each other in the area. He is convinced that this change could not have happened randomly but is part of a planned effort to force Hindus from Deganga. Throughout his career, he said, he taught Hindus and Muslims alike—“good boys,” he said—and now some of those Muslim students are using those lessons to attack their Hindu counterparts.

For some time, I have been using figures from Bimal Pramanik, Director of the Kolkata-based Centre for Research in Indo-Bangladesh Relations that show a steady and deliberate effort to change Hindu-Muslim demographics in West Bengal. Between 1981 and 1991, Muslim population growth in West Bengal was nearly 35 percent compared to only 25 percent in Bangladesh; this while Hindus were dropping from almost one in five to nine percent in Bangladesh. It is far more powerful to listen to the real victims and look into their eyes as they talk about their fear. And as if we needed confirmation, disturbances started up again before we left the area; little more than shouting and shoving. But the next day, Muslims attacked Hindus in Deganga. As expected, local authorities took no action.

Jihad has come to India, and while Deganga seems to be the next area designated for ethnic cleansing, we have seen a similar (though quieter) process occur in small villages all along the 4095 kilometer border. Towns once dotted with small Hindu temples are now bereft of them as Hindu populations either flee or are destroyed.  Each year, I seem to ride through another village now Hindurein. While we in the West focus on internecine battles in North Africa and elsewhere in the Arab world, our enemies are quietly eroding the greatest bulwark against their expansionist aims. There are one and a half times the Muslims in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh than in the entire Arab world and Iran. The only question left to us is whether we will awaken to this danger before it is too late.

India-Israel Relations: The Imperative and the Challenge

Originally published in the FPRC Journal, 

(Dr. Richard Benkin is a human rights activist, author, and speaker.  Over the past five years, he has freed a journalist from imprisonment and torture in Bangladesh, forced Bangladesh's notorious RAB to release an abductee unharmed, halted an anti-Israel conference in Australia, and raised the issue of Bangladesh's ethnic cleansing of Hindus in Washington and other capitals; among other accomplishments.  In 2009, he received a verbal okay for hearings about the Bangladeshi Hindus from members of the United States government; and will be pursuing those hearings in 2011. In 2005, the United States Congress honored Dr. Benkin for his human rights work.

In 2009, Benkin helped found Forcefield, a human rights NGO, described as "non-agenda driven," in that it is informed by no particular ideology or anti-Israel or other bias in contrast with other human rights organizations.  Its first human rights case is that of Bangladesh’s Hindus.  Richard Benkin received his doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania and has since held a number of faculty and business positions in the United States.

He is currently writing a book about the destruction of Bangladesh’s Hindus, entitled A Quiet Case of Ethnic Cleansing. For detailed Bio.go to : http://interfaithstrength.com/RichardBio.htm)

I

t seems inconceivable that India and Israel lacked any sort of relationship for most of their relatively brief histories or that they only established full diplomatic ties the same year Israel and China did (1992).  Yet by 2003, Yuval Steinitz, then head of the Israeli Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Security Committee, said that the strategic alliance with India had become so important that it was “second only to [Israel’s] relations with the United States.” [1]  Today, the Israel-India relationship stands as one of the most important bi-lateral ties of the 21st century and arguably the most important in the fight against radical Islam.[2]  From their births at the end of World War II until the last decade of the 20th century, a number of factors prevented the two nations from joining hands; but three later developments forced that to change.

The first was the fall of the Soviet Union.  The Cold War and US-USSR relations dominated the international landscape, and nations were expected to hew the line favored by one or the other.  On the Middle East, the Americans and their allies were Israel’s major supporters; the Soviets and theirs its major antagonists.[3]  Although India was a leader of the so-called “non-aligned movement,” the movement’s members were in fact allies of the USSR; and that meant an unyielding pro-Arab position.[4]  The Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991 “changed international realities and caused most nations to take a new look at their strategic interests.”  India’s re-assessment forced a more dramatic change than did others.[5]

The second factor was the rise of radical Islam, and it left India and Israel uniquely bound to one another.  Both are democratic republics committed to religious freedom and opposed to becoming theocracies.  Yet, each is associated strongly with a particular faith.  For Israel, that faith is Judaism; for India, Hinduism.  Hindus and Jews share an historical experience of coercive attempts by Muslims to dominate their ancestral lands and force Islam on their members.  India and Israel have similar-sized Muslim minorities—between one sixth and one fifth of the citizenry—that are normally restive, often violent.[6]  Those violent elements, moreover, are able to find shelter within these two Muslim communities.   Both countries also face terrorist attacks by home grown and foreign Islamists, and both have fought defensive wars against countries claiming to carry the flag of Islam.  Islamists might call the United States the “great Satan,” but there likely are no two countries in the world that they are intent on destroying and turning into Muslim theocracies more than Israel and India.

The third factor follows from the second:  parochial disputes between the two countries and those who claim to represent Islam.  I have called Kashmir “India’s West Bank,” because many would sacrifice both territories on the altar of realpolitik in land-for-peace formulae that few believe will bring genuine peace.  As P. V. Indiresan noted:

Ostensibly, property disputes, in Palestine, Kashmir and elsewhere are the justification for Islamic terrorism. Will peace be established if Palestinians are given the territory they want and Kashmir is handed over to Pakistan? It is more than likely that such concessions will only whet the appetite of Islamic fundamentalists.[7]

Yet, the pressure to do both is growing.  Just as Judea and Samaria[8] once had large Jewish populations, Kashmir was once home to large numbers of Hindus and Sikhs.  Over time, those peoples were violently uprooted, allowing advocates for territories cleansed of all three to claim that their position only reflects the will of the people (now) living there; therefore, they claim, any nation calling itself democratic must support it.

The similarities do not end there.  The West Bank abuts Israel, is a terror hub, and is otherwise surrounded by a Muslim ummah that has shown no willingness to stop its elements with maximalist designs; the same for India-abutting Kashmir.  Moreover, both sets of terrorists have a penchant for hiding among local Muslim populations then, capitalizing on the collateral damage it insures, find allies to demand that the Indian army in Kashmir and the IDF in the West Bank be handcuffed in protecting their people from these deadly threats.[9]  As a result, political authorities in both countries have at times decided to exercise restraint even in the face of murderous attacks.

In this changed geo-political landscape the Israel-India relationship has blossomed in hitherto unseen ways; most obviously in the military and security fields, with special attention to the Islamist threat.  For almost a decade, Israel was India’s second largest defense supplier until 2009 when it became the largest.  This is more significant than at first blanch.  Russia (nee the Soviet Union) was previously India’s main supplier of military hardware and maintained that position even after it collapsed as an international superpower.  The Indian military was powered by Russian weapons and had hosted Russian military advisors and instructors for decades.  Its decline as a reliable supplier provided the major impetus for India to seek a new trading partner.

According to an unnamed Indian official, the “turning point… was the Al Qaida-aligned attack on Mumbai in November 2008.”  Despite undisputed evidence pointing to Pakistan as the source, India was unable to retaliate for the 150 people killed, which “highlighted India's weakness in air and naval surveillance.”  Turning to Israel to rectify the situation, India bought state-owned Israel Aerospace Industries’ EL/M-2083 radar system valued at $600 million.  It would “be deployed along the Pakistani border.”[10]  The Mumbai attack also made it clear that contemporary India has far more in common with Israel than with Russia.[11]  Israel and India have now moved beyond the earlier stage of one-way military trade to joint projects in developing both offensive and defensive weapons.

Beyond the military, many cultural points of similarity have emerged since the lid was taken off the India-Israel relationship.  India had replaced Turkey as the major Israeli tourist destination, even before the latter’s open move into the Islamist camp.  “That Israelis feel an instinctive affinity for India should perhaps not be surprising,” noted Martin Sherman, who added that India’s “history is virtually devoid of anti-Semitism.”[12]  That cannot be overestimated for Jews.  It seems that almost everywhere we travel, we find ourselves walking on territory that has been watered by the blood of our people; but not in India.  I observed this for myself in Rishikesh, the holy Indian city in the Himalayan foothills.  There large numbers of young Israelis have come to drink in the spirituality offered there and in the nearby city of Haridwar.

All is not well, however, partly due to complex international relations and partly due to domestic Indian politics.  For instance, in 2009, India voted “yea” on a United Nations resolution that endorsed the now-discredited Goldstone Report, which could result in indictments of Israeli leaders before the International Criminal Court.[13]  The vote reflected Indian political reality; viz., that politicians will be ever mindful of how their actions might alienate the country’s significant Muslim vote.  Thus, Israel said it was “disappointed” by the Indian action, but left it at that.  More recently, Indian President Pratibha Devisingh Patil publicly supported Syria’s claims in its dispute with Israel over the Golan Heights.  While it was highly inappropriate for Patil to inject herself into the bi-lateral dispute, it probably represented little more than her toadying approach to foreign relations rather than anything of substance.  It also reflects India’s traditional alliances and its officials’ fear of jeopardizing its extensive trade and foreign receipts from the Gulf States.[14]  Thus, Israel’s response was muted. 

Like its counterparts elsewhere, India’s mainstream has an almost knee-jerk response to any news item on the Middle East, condemning Israel and uncritically accepting the Arab position—even if that position is ultimately contrary to Indian interests.  An editorial in The Hindu about Israel’s 2009 war against terrorists in Gaza was typical.  It claimed Israel “massacred 40 Palestinians” (factually incorrect and inflammatory by intent) and accused Israel of a “potential war crime” (never proven and a well-worn anti-Israel talking point).  In the midst of its screed, The Hindu never once mentioned the unprovoked and indiscriminate Arab attacks on Israeli civilians that prompted Israel’s defensive action; nor did it connect those attacks to similar unprovoked attacks on Indian citizens to which the Indian government (like Israel) sometimes responds.[15]  The Economic Times was guilty of the same hyperbole when it screeched that Israel’s 2010 attack on the terrorist-inspired and funded Gaza flotilla was “nothing short of an act of piracy, of state terrorism.”  It also termed it “shameful” and “criminal” without ever mentioning the flotilla’s deliberate and offensive aims or its proven terror links.[16]

The prevailing anti-Israel sentiment on Indian campuses frequently manifests itself in anti-Israel attacks when I speak on campuses.  Those who are not trying to disrupt my address are trying to hijack its agenda to an anti-Israel one.  Elsewhere, Indian university students consistently report that many professors push the standard anti-Israel narrative as if it was objective truth; and while most campuses offer Arab or Islamic studies, they virulently reject any classes on Judaism, Jewish history, or Israel from other than an ideological and anti-Israel perspective.[17]

For these elites, their international counterparts rather than their fellow Indians comprise their reference group.  Their enforced political correctness serves overarching philosophies rather than the interests of their Indian nation.  Similarly, older line politicians see Europe as their reference group.  Many cling to an outdated Nehru-era philosophy that views Israel as an arm of the “imperialist west,” and ignores today’s imperialist power:  radical Islam.[18]

There are, however, signs of a growing disconnect between the elites’ anachronistic policies and a growing pro-Israel sentiment among the people.  Amitabh Tripathi, founder of the South Asia Forum, has been working for years to help build a strong India-Israel relationship.  He contends that India’s future is with Israel’s in a principles fight against a singular terrorist threat; and he believes that this realization is taking hold among the generation of Indians several decades removed from the old assumptions that drove Indian policy during the Cold War years.  As one journalist for a major Indian news outlet told me, "there is something of a generation gap between the [established and generally older] editors and publishers" and today’s younger professionals. [19]  The disconnect he and others told me, exists in part because of the fast pace at which realities and relationships have changed.

In 2008, I met with numerous Indian journalists who wanted to speak out against the prevailing position that is enforced in their newsrooms.  They offered me their candid opinions about the “media's leftist bias, the center-left government, and the severity of the Islamist threat facing their country.”[20]  They worked for major newspapers and broadcast channels; English and Hindi-language outlets; purely Indian companies, and some based internationally.  Many of them had shown no fear of dangerous situations if that is what it took to get a story.  Yet, to a man they said they "would surely be sacked" if their editors or colleagues heard those candid opinions.  Thus, we met in out of the way hotels, coffee shops, and other inconspicuous places, and they spoke on conditions of anonymity.  They said that for India’s very survival, it must enter into “a strong alliance with Israel and the United States” against the Islamist and communist terrorists” victimizing its citizens regularly.  They expressed frustration at the slow progress they see in that regard and attribute it to “vote bank politics.”

The key to maintaining that generational momentum is continued effort to counteract the restricted information and perspectives that would be available to large constituencies otherwise; and Tripathi has engaged in that sort of activism on at least two fronts.  He has expanded that effort to reach non-English speakers by starting Lokmanch, a Hindi-language web site that offers original and translated pieces on Israel, the struggle to defeat Islamist terror and extremism, US policy and President Barack Obama, and the need for a strong Israel-India relationship.  “The web site is only the first step,” he said.  “Small, local papers publish in huge numbers and they are not part of the mainstream media.  They are just as frustrated with things as we are.”  That has taken him across India to several villages and smaller localities where he has been able to make that wider range of information accessible to the new publics.  Others are engaged in similar efforts to broaden the information sources available to Indians.

Similarly, numerous pro-Israel groups have helped galvanized students.  Delhi University’s 2010 Student Union elections reflected the effort with students of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP, student wing of the right-leaning Bharatiya Janata Party) winnning three of four posts, including the presidency.[21]  Over the past several years, I have spoken to students and faculty at numerous Indian universities and found a consistent hunger on the part of students for information about Israel.   Students pepper me with questions about Israeli technology and life in general, but the most frequent question is:  “How has Israel defeated the terrorists arrayed against it, and how can India learn from their example.”[22]  In one 2008 class of more than two dozen journalism students, only one openly supported the Arab cause.  After a civil exchange of ideas and information, the student maintained his stance but expressed a desire for more information from varied sources:  for principled debate over charges and counter-charges.  Here, too, the key is organized efforts to expand the range of information available to students.

 No such effort would be successful, however, unless its substance was compelling.  Thus, ultimately strengthened relations with Israel depend on the actions of Israelis themselves.  In addition to the security assistance, military cooperation, and cultural ties noted above.  Israel has also provided grass roots development assistance.  For instance, since 2001, its Rural Development Organization, with the goal of empowering India’s rural poor, has produced schools, income generating projects, and environmental efforts, and trained locals to pursue the program without Israeli involvement.  It also sent emergency teams to help Indian victims of a major earthquake that year and provided aid to victims of other disasters natural and man-made.  Israel continues to maintain programs to improve medical care and agricultural technologies in rural India.

Over the years, I have shared public podiums and other venues with Israeli officials in India; and have been struck by their painstaking efforts to respect the reality of their hosts’ political and other predicaments.  In a world where most nations and entities either criticize India for the often ambiguous actions that result from domestic and international conflicts or attempt to take advantage of them; it might just be the genuine respect by Israelis that ultimately convinces Indian officialdom that their best interests lay in a strong India-Israel alliance.

India-Israel Relations:  The Imperative and the Challenge

(Originally Published in Foreign Policy Research Center, New Delhi, 2011 Questionnaire)

(Dr. Richard Benkin is a human rights activist, author, and speaker.  Over the past five years, he has freed a journalist from imprisonment and torture in Bangladesh, forced Bangladesh's notorious RAB to release an abductee unharmed, halted an anti-Israel conference in Australia, and raised the issue of Bangladesh's ethnic cleansing of Hindus in Washington and other capitals; among other accomplishments.  In 2009, he received a verbal okay for hearings about the Bangladeshi Hindus from members of the United States government; and will be pursuing those hearings in 2011. In 2005, the United States Congress honored Dr. Benkin for his human rights work.

In 2009, Benkin helped found Forcefield, a human rights NGO, described as "non-agenda driven," in that it is informed by no particular ideology or anti-Israel or other bias in contrast with other human rights organizations.  Its first human rights case is that of Bangladesh’s Hindus.  Richard Benkin received his doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania and has since held a number of faculty and business positions in the United States.

He is currently writing a book about the destruction of Bangladesh’s Hindus, entitled A Quiet Case of Ethnic Cleansing. For detailed Bio, go to: http://interfaithstrength.com/RichardBio.htm)

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

It seems inconceivable that India and Israel lacked any sort of relationship for most of their relatively brief histories or that they only established full diplomatic ties the same year Israel and China did (1992).  Yet by 2003, Yuval Steinitz, then head of the Israeli Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Security Committee, said that the strategic alliance with India had become so important that it was “second only to [Israel’s] relations with the United States.” 1  Today, the Israel-India relationship stands as one of the most important bi-lateral ties of the 21st century and arguably the most important in the fight against radical Islam.2  From their births at the end of World War II until the last decade of the 20th century, a number of factors prevented the two nations from joining hands; but three later developments forced that to change.

The first was the fall of the Soviet Union.  The Cold War and US-USSR relations dominated the international landscape, and nations were expected to hew the line favored by one or the other.  On the Middle East, the Americans and their allies were Israel’s major supporters; the Soviets and theirs its major antagonists.3  Although India was a leader of the so-called “non-aligned movement,” the movement’s members were in fact allies of the USSR; and that meant an unyielding pro-Arab position.4  The Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991 “changed international realities and caused most nations to take a new look at their strategic interests.” India’s re-assessment forced a more dramatic change than did others.5

The second factor was the rise of radical Islam, and it left India and Israel uniquely bound to one another.  Both are democratic republics committed to religious freedom and opposed to becoming theocracies.  Yet, each is associated strongly with a particular faith.  For Israel, that faith is Judaism; for India, Hinduism.  Hindus and Jews share an historical experience of coercive attempts by Muslims to dominate their ancestral lands and force Islam on their members.  India and Israel have similar-sized Muslim minorities—between one sixth and one fifth of the citizenry—that are normally restive, often violent.6  Those violent elements, moreover, are able to find shelter within these two Muslim communities.   Both countries also face terrorist attacks by home grown and foreign Islamists, and both have fought defensive wars against countries claiming to carry the flag of Islam.  Islamists might call the United States the “great Satan,” but there likely are no two countries in the world that they are intent on destroying and turning into Muslim theocracies more than Israel and India.

The third factor follows from the second:  parochial disputes between the two countries and those who claim to represent Islam.  I have called Kashmir “India’s West Bank,” because many would sacrifice both territories on the altar of realpolitik in land-for-peace formulae that few believe will bring genuine peace.  As P. V. Indiresan noted:

Ostensibly, property disputes, in Palestine, Kashmir and elsewhere are the justification for Islamic terrorism. Will peace be established if Palestinians are given the territory they want and Kashmir is handed over to Pakistan? It is more than likely that such concessions will only whet the appetite of Islamic fundamentalists.7

Yet, the pressure to do both is growing.  Just as Judea and Samaria8 once had large Jewish populations, Kashmir was once home to large numbers of Hindus and Sikhs.  Over time, those peoples were violently uprooted, allowing advocates for territories cleansed of all three to claim that their position only reflects the will of the people (now) living there; therefore, they claim, any nation calling itself democratic must support it.

The similarities do not end there.  The West Bank abuts Israel, is a terror hub, and is otherwise surrounded by a Muslim ummah that has shown no willingness to stop its elements with maximalist designs; the same for India-abutting Kashmir.  Moreover, both sets of terrorists have a penchant for hiding among local Muslim populations then, capitalizing on the collateral damage it insures, find allies to demand that the Indian army in Kashmir and the IDF in the West Bank be handcuffed in protecting their people from these deadly threats.9  As a result, political authorities in both countries have at times decided to exercise restraint even in the face of murderous attacks.

In this changed geo-political landscape the Israel-India relationship has blossomed in hitherto unseen ways; most obviously in the military and security fields, with special attention to the Islamist threat.  For almost a decade, Israel was India’s second largest defense supplier until 2009 when it became the largest.  This is more significant than at first blanch.  Russia (nee the Soviet Union) was previously India’s main supplier of military hardware and maintained that position even after it collapsed as an international superpower.  The Indian military was powered by Russian weapons and had hosted Russian military advisors and instructors for decades.  Its decline as a reliable supplier provided the major impetus for India to seek a new trading partner.

According to an unnamed Indian official, the “turning point… was the Al Qaida-aligned attack on Mumbai in November 2008.”  Despite undisputed evidence pointing to Pakistan as the source, India was unable to retaliate for the 150 people killed, which “highlighted India's weakness in air and naval surveillance.”  Turning to Israel to rectify the situation, India bought state-owned Israel Aerospace Industries’ EL/M-2083 radar system valued at $600 million.  It would “be deployed along the Pakistani border.”10  The Mumbai attack also made it clear that contemporary India has far more in common with Israel than with Russia.11  Israel and India have now moved beyond the earlier stage of one-way military trade to joint projects in developing both offensive and defensive weapons.

Beyond the military, many cultural points of similarity have emerged since the lid was taken off the India-Israel relationship.  India had replaced Turkey as the major Israeli tourist destination, even before the latter’s open move into the Islamist camp.  “That Israelis feel an instinctive affinity for India should perhaps not be surprising,” noted Martin Sherman, who added that India’s “history is virtually devoid of anti-Semitism.”12  That cannot be overestimated for Jews.  It seems that almost everywhere we travel, we find ourselves walking on territory that has been watered by the blood of our people; but not in India.  I observed this for myself in Rishikesh, the holy Indian city in the Himalayan foothills.  There large numbers of young Israelis have come to drink in the spirituality offered there and in the nearby city of Haridwar.

All is not well, however, partly due to complex international relations and partly due to domestic Indian politics.  For instance, in 2009, India voted “yea”  on a United Nations resolution that endorsed the now-discredited Goldstone Report, which could result in indictments of Israeli leaders before the International Criminal Court.13  The vote reflected Indian political reality; viz., that politicians will be ever mindful of how their actions might alienate the country’s significant Muslim vote.  Thus, Israel said it was “disappointed” by the Indian action, but left it at that.  More recently, Indian President Pratibha Devisingh Patil publicly supported Syria’s claims in its dispute with Israel over the Golan Heights.  While it was highly inappropriate for Patil to inject herself into the bi-lateral dispute, it probably represented little more than her toadying approach to foreign relations rather than anything of substance.  It also reflects India’s traditional alliances and its officials’ fear of jeopardizing its extensive trade and foreign receipts from the Gulf States.14  Thus, Israel’s response was muted.  

Like its counterparts elsewhere, India’s mainstream has an almost knee-jerk response to any news item on the Middle East, condemning Israel and uncritically accepting the Arab position—even if that position is ultimately contrary to Indian interests.  An editorial in The Hindu about Israel’s 2009 war against terrorists in Gaza was typical.  It claimed Israel “massacred 40 Palestinians” (factually incorrect and inflammatory by intent) and accused Israel of a “potential war crime” (never proven and a well-worn anti-Israel talking point).  In the midst of its screed, The Hindu never once mentioned the unprovoked and indiscriminate Arab attacks on Israeli civilians that prompted Israel’s defensive action; nor did it connect those attacks to similar unprovoked attacks on Indian citizens to which the Indian government (like Israel) sometimes responds.15  The Economic Times was guilty of the same hyperbole when it screeched that Israel’s 2010 attack on the terrorist-inspired and funded Gaza flotilla was “nothing short of an act of piracy, of state terrorism.” It also termed it “shameful” and “criminal” without ever mentioning the flotilla’s deliberate and offensive aims or its proven terror links.16

The prevailing anti-Israel sentiment on Indian campuses frequently manifests itself in anti-Israel attacks when I speak on campuses.  Those who are not trying to disrupt my address are trying to hijack its agenda to an anti-Israel one.  Elsewhere, Indian university students consistently report that many professors push the standard anti-Israel narrative as if it was objective truth; and while most campuses offer Arab or Islamic studies, they virulently reject any classes on Judaism, Jewish history, or Israel from other than an ideological and anti-Israel perspective.17

For these elites, their international counterparts rather than their fellow Indians comprise their reference group.  Their enforced political correctness serves overarching philosophies rather than the interests of their Indian nation.  Similarly, older line politicians see Europe as their reference group.  Many cling to an outdated Nehru-era philosophy that views Israel as an arm of the “imperialist west,” and ignores today’s imperialist power:  radical Islam.18

There are, however, signs of a growing disconnect between the elites’ anachronistic policies and a growing pro-Israel sentiment among the people.  Amitabh Tripathi, founder of the South Asia Forum, has been working for years to help build a strong India-Israel relationship.  He contends that India’s future is with Israel’s in a principles fight against a singular terrorist threat; and he believes that this realization is taking hold among the generation of Indians several decades removed from the old assumptions that drove Indian policy during the Cold War years.  As one journalist for a major Indian news outlet told me, "there is something of a generation gap between the [established and generally older] editors and publishers" and today’s younger professionals. 19  The disconnect he and others told me, exists in part because of the fast pace at which realities and relationships have changed.

In 2008, I met with numerous Indian journalists who wanted to speak out against the prevailing position that is enforced in their newsrooms.  They offered me their candid opinions about the “media's leftist bias, the center-left government, and the severity of the Islamist threat facing their country.”20  They worked for major newspapers and broadcast channels; English and Hindi-language outlets; purely Indian companies, and some based internationally.  Many of them had shown no fear of dangerous situations if that is what it took to get a story.  Yet, to a man they said they "would surely be sacked" if their editors or colleagues heard those candid opinions.  Thus, we met in out of the way hotels, coffee shops, and other inconspicuous places, and they spoke on conditions of anonymity.  They said that for India’s very survival, it must enter into “a strong alliance with Israel and the United States” against the Islamist and communist terrorists” victimizing its citizens regularly.  They expressed frustration at the slow progress they see in that regard and attribute it to “vote bank politics.”

The key to maintaining that generational momentum is continued effort to counteract the restricted information and perspectives that would be available to large constituencies otherwise; and Tripathi has engaged in that sort of activism on at least two fronts.  He has expanded that effort to reach non-English speakers by starting Lokmanch, a Hindi-language web site that offers original and translated pieces on Israel, the struggle to defeat Islamist terror and extremism, US policy and President Barack Obama, and the need for a strong Israel-India relationship.  “The web site is only the first step,” he said.  “Small, local papers publish in huge numbers and they are not part of the mainstream media.  They are just as frustrated with things as we are.” That has taken him across India to several villages and smaller localities where he has been able to make that wider range of information accessible to the new publics.  Others are engaged in similar efforts to broaden the information sources available to Indians.

Similarly, numerous pro-Israel groups have helped galvanized students.  Delhi University’s 2010 Student Union elections reflected the effort with students of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP, student wing of the right-leaning Bharatiya Janata Party) winnning three of four posts, including the presidency.21  Over the past several years, I have spoken to students and faculty at numerous Indian universities and found a consistent hunger on the part of students for information about Israel.   Students pepper me with questions about Israeli technology and life in general, but the most frequent question is:  “How has Israel defeated the terrorists arrayed against it, and how can India learn from their example.”22  In one 2008 class of more than two dozen journalism students, only one openly supported the Arab cause.  After a civil exchange of ideas and information, the student maintained his stance but expressed a desire for more information from varied sources:  for principled debate over charges and counter-charges.  Here, too, the key is organized efforts to expand the range of information available to students.

No such effort would be successful, however, unless its substance was compelling.  Thus, ultimately strengthened relations with Israel depend on the actions of Israelis themselves.  In addition to the security assistance, military cooperation, and cultural ties noted above.  Israel has also provided grass roots development assistance.  For instance, since 2001, its Rural Development Organization, with the goal of empowering India’s rural poor, has produced schools, income generating projects, and environmental efforts, and trained locals to pursue the program without Israeli involvement.  It also sent emergency teams to help Indian victims of a major earthquake that year and provided aid to victims of other disasters natural and man-made.  Israel continues to maintain programs to improve medical care and agricultural technologies in rural India.

Over the years, I have shared public podiums and other venues with Israeli officials in India; and have been struck by their painstaking efforts to respect the reality of their hosts’ political and other predicaments.  In a world where most nations and entities either criticize India for the often ambiguous actions that result from domestic and international conflicts or attempt to take advantage of them; it might just be the genuine respect by Israelis that ultimately convinces Indian officialdom that their best interests lay in a strong India-Israel alliance. 

Notes :

[1] Martin Sherman,India and Israel : Strategic Bedfellows,” Israpundit, November 9, 2010

.[2] Unless otherwise specified, “India ” and “Israel” refer to the two modern nation-states established in1947 and 1948 respectively. Ancient Israel and India had relations extending back at least 2500 years.

[3] The USSR voted in favor of the Jewish State’s creation, and Communist Czechoslovakia was Israel’s primary arms source in its 1948 War of Independence. Otherwise, however, the communist bloc took a hard anti-Israel stance, especially after the 1967 Six Day War.

[4] Richard L. Benkin, “An India-Israel-United States Alliance: The Last Great Hope for Humanity.” Arvind Ghosh Memorial Lecture, Chicago November 1, 2008 .Also see Richard L. Benkin, “Nehru, Obama, and U.S. Support for Pakistan ,” UPI Asia May 11, 2009

[5] Op. cit., India-Israel-United States Alliance.

[6] The population figures for Israel exclude the disputed territories. It includes pre-1967 Israel plus all of Jerusalem , which was restored as Israel’s capital in 1967. Jerusalem was divided for 19 years between 1948 and 1967 when Jordanian troops occupied the eastern part of the city. In comparison, Germany’s re-united capital, Berlin , was divided for 45 years between 1945 and 1990, but no one suggested that the division was somehow natural or right.

[7] P. V. Indiresan, Dealing with Terror,” The Hindu, September 15, 2001 (four days after 9/11).

[8] Judea and Samaria are the historical names for the territory today called “the West Bank ” The West Bank is a new name for these ancient lands. Jordan gave it that name to designate it as a Jordanian province after its troops captured it in 1948.

[9] Richard L. Benkin, “Op Ed Calling India Pariah State odd Choice for Israeli Publication,” South Asia Forum, October 14, 2010.

[10] “End of an era:Israel replaces Russia as India's top military supplier,” World Tribune,March 25, 2009 It should be noted that World Tribune is an independent outlet of seasoned professionals with a record of solid reporting on international events.

[11] While victimized by Islamist terrorists on the Chechnya issue, Russia has not been besieged as continuously as India and Israel; nor has it taken a firm stand against radical Islam, while Israel is arguably the leader in that fight.

[12] Martin Sherman, “Strategic Bedfellows,” Reform Judaism, Winter 2010/5771, p.46.

[13] The so-called Goldstone Report was the report on a UN investigation of the 2009 Gaza War. Most objective analysts (including the US Congress) and even some of its participants have noted the report’s anti-Israel bias.

[14] See Samir Pradhan, “India’s Economic and Political Presence in the Gulf: A Gulf Perspective, in Gulf Research Center, India’s Growing Role in the Gulf Implications for the Region and the United States, 2009; pp. 15-39. Also, “Patil lauds role of Indian expatriates in development of India , UAE,” The Indian News, November 22, 2010

[15] “Facing up to Gaza Truths, The Hindu, February 7, 2010.

[16] “Israel’s act of piracy,” The Economic Times, June 2, 2010.

[17] These comments came from personal experiences with students and faculty at several Indian campuses in the North and Northeast.

[18] Subhash Kapila, “India’s Payback Time to Israel, South Asia Analysis Group, Paper No. 442, April 10, 2002.

[19] Richard L. Benkin, “Indian Conservatives Struggle to Build Alternative Media,” American Thinker, May 31, 2008.

[20] Their comments and those which follow were made in personal conversations during 2008.

[21] “ABVP Wins Delhi University Elections 2010,” http://www.highereducationindia.com, September 4, 2010.

[22] The cited incidents occurred from 2008 through 2010 at several universities in Delhi and Uttar Pradesh.