Israel demands release of hostages taken by Hamas / X/@MeiravEShahar

I am a Hindu American who at one time in the 60’s sympathized with Palestinians and still do because it can be argued that they lost some of their land in 1949 after UN General Assembly had passed resolution 181 to split the land between the Jews and the Arabs. I still remember December 1961 liberation of Goa by India which was until then a Portuguese colony. President Nasser of Egypt became an overnight sensation in India as he blocked the Portuguese Navy to enter the Suez Canal. I was his fan!

But times have changed! Issac and Ishmael are long gone and the dispute between the Jews and the Arabs as to who is the historical owner of the land can never be settled. They have to move on and look at the future and not dwell in the past.

I do have a question for all these protestors who are shouting “From River to the Sea, Palestine will be free.” Have you heard of a young lady by the name of Girija Tickoo, a Hindu from Kashmir. In June of 1990, five operatives of JKLF (Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front, fancy name for a terrorist organization) kidnapped her from a bus, gang-raped her and cut her body into two pieces by a saw, in front of a crowd of other radicals, while she was alive! Imagine that! Her crime: She was a Hindu, and that is it. Just a librarian and a teacher. No different than what Hamas has done to more than 1400 Israeli civilians when it attacked Israel on Oct 7, 2023.

Whereas Radical Islam is a relatively new phenomenon to the west, less than 50 years old, India has faced the ugly face of this form of Islam for the last 800 years. There is not enough space in this article to name all the brutality of radical Islam against Hindus, but raping of Hindu women, cutting off the heads of Hindu babies, and torturing and killing innocent Hindu civilians has been welcomed and celebrated by regimes like Hamas for a long time. It is well known that the Bahamani Sultans of 14th century that ruled India, had a quota for their armies, they had to bring a minimum of 100,000 Hindu heads warehoused in such a way that the Sultans could see and count the number themselves. Their crime: Being Hindus.

Most Palestinians and for that matter most Muslims are peace loving people but they let a small minority of the brutally radical elements in their society control the actions of all.  

In light of Hamas attack on Israel civilians on October 7th, 2023, this year Diwali takes another level of importance.

Diwali is a celebration of Good over Evil, and light over darkness. Purushotam Ram, the greatest among men,  Prince of Ayodhya worshipped by 1.5 billion Hindus, Sikhs, Jains and Buddhists all over the world as the incarnation of God, killed the Evil King Ravana. Ravana was a demon, who we call Rakshasha, who wanted to kill all living beings that were good.

So, first there was Al Qaeda, then came ISIS who prided themselves for cutting of human heads, and now comes Hamas, who in their minds did better than ISIS, they chopped off the heads of Jewish babies, and raped their women and then killed them. 21st century Rakshasha! No different than the five JKLF operatives sawing off the body of Girija Tickoo in half and Bahamani Sultans who demanded 100,000 Hindu heads each year.

Israel Defense Forces, IDF, is engaged in a very important mission: kill the Hamas Ravana. Most of the world including majority of the protestors would eventually thank IDF for getting rid of 21st century Rakshashas.  

On this sacred function of Diwali, I want the Jewish community and the nation of Israel to know that 1.5 billion Hindus are with the Jewish people and Israel. We are grateful to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the IDF to carry out the pledge of eliminating the Ravana of Hamas at the risk of their lives.

On the other hand, I urge all these Palestine sympathizers to focus on the real enemy, the Hamas. Not all the citizens of Lanka ruled by Ravana, not even all his brothers condoned the Rakshasha behavior of Ravana. I leave you with one last thought: Wouldn’t it have been wiser for Hamas to spend the last 16 years to build schools, hospitals, manufacturing plants and other infrastructure rather than build 300 miles of tunnels to attack Israel. Learn from India, you can either follow the path of Prime Minister Modi for development of all, achieve the rare moon landing and be on a path to become the 3rd largest economy in the world or follow the Pakistani rulers who concentrated on training terrorists like Hamas and go broke in the process. It is your choice!

 

The author is a Chicago-based Indian-American industrialist, retired chairman and CEO of AVG Advanced Technologies and founder of the Republican Hindu Coalition