Hamas, LTTE and West’s Hypocrisy

Goshaka

The war in the Gaza Strip has reignited the issues that have been conveniently kept buried by the world leaders. The US and even Germany have had on a number of occasions pestered the Sri Lankan Government to conduct the peace negotiations with terrorists.

They often blamed our Government for not observing the Ceasefire Agreement, and the President for declaring war against the terrorists.

Today they are speaking with forked tongues. According to these leaders, who seem to be patrons of human rights, peace and what not, Israel is free to defend itself by invading the Gaza strip and killing civilians.

The latest is the killing of 40 civilians who had been given protection by UN agencies in a school. The co-ordinator of the school had been given to the Israeli army. When they killed innocent civilians including many children and women, the reaction was putrid.

The Israeli government spokesman said that there was a technical hitch and thereafter quickly defended their position stating that rockets had been fired from that position. This was place secured by UN officials and none had admitted that any rockets were fired from there.

This is the philosophy of the Western leaders. It is only we that have to face the brunt of this utterly hypocritical situation in fighting the deadliest terrorist organisation in the world.

When Eelam terrorists fight and unleash terror on civilians, creating havoc and causing damage to the property of the Sri Lankan people, re-inventing and re-introducing the suicide bomber and its methodology to destroy civilians, most Western Governments still fail to identify those terror tactics and condemn them.

The Western media refuses to identify the LTTE as a terrorist group; they have a post-script with all the carnage committed by the LTTE stating that they are fighting to liberate the Tamil people and establish the State of Eelam within the confines of Sri Lankan territory.

However, when Israel invades the Gaza Strip, which is a foreign territory, in clear violation of all international laws, the US Government very quickly acts in preventing a resolution being passed in the UN Security Council.

There is a strange philosophy, according to the US Ambassador in New York, Israel is a Sovereign State, with defined boundaries, and a member State of the United Nations, who has the right to self-defence.

This right, according to this strange interpretation of international law, permits Israel to invade another country and bomb targets, on the basis that those places are being used by the terrorists to attack Israel.

When the entire European Union, together with the US Ambassador, condemns the death of civilians caused by the aerial bombings on identified terrorist targets in Sri Lanka, the principles that apply to Israel do not apply here.

The NGOs make a huge noise about the exhibition of photographs of civilians killed by such aerial attacks, though the Government has repeatedly said that those civilians have been placed in a safe house used for the purpose of training by the LTTE.

But, when Israel drops its bombs, killing hundreds of civilians, on the basis that the targeted places have been used by the Hamas terrorists as warehouses for armaments, it is defended by the Diplomats supporting the cause of Israel.

Therefore, under this strange logic, Israel is permitted to bomb schools, mosques, hospitals and civilian dwellings. The excuse is that Hamas has stored its rockets and rocket launchers in all these places to shell Israel.

Israel is hence permitted to kill any amount of civilians, with the US unhesitatingly supporting it.

Media personnel and the workers of the International Organisations have been evacuated and not permitted to enter the Gaza Strip for nearly eight months, amidst a tremendous humanitarian crisis, with some nations stating it amounts to a genocide. Yet, all of this is permitted on the logic that Hamas is answerable for the crisis, not the Israeli Government.

When the Governor of New York visited Israel and a journalist questioned him about the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip and about the action he proposed to take to prevent an escalation of violence, he said: “you should ask that question from Hamas and not from Israel.”

However, a completely different logic complies when Sri Lanka wages a war to eliminate terrorism in the country, causing minimum casualties and only bombing those areas infested with terrorists and when waging a war on its own soil without invading foreign territory.

Allegations of civil rights violations and even genocide are attributed to the Sri Lankan Government.

I have not seen any foreign Government openly stating that Sri Lanka is a sovereign State which is a member of the UN with the right to self-defence and is therefore justified in attacking to eliminate terrorism within Sri Lanka and not in another country.

I wonder what the reaction of the Western powers would be if, in the early 1980s, when the Indian Government was training the terrorists on their own soil, the Sri Lankan Air Force attacked India’s terrorist camps? The strange hypocritical stand taken by the Western powers has created so much anger against Israel.

Even Germany, who advocated peace at any cost, negotiated by sacrificing its sovereignty, took the side of the US, and stated that Israel had the right to defend itself.