On October 7, Hamas carried out a surprise attack on Israel, which included firing thousands of rockets, infiltrating armed terrorists into Israeli territory, and taking hostages. The attack resulted in the deaths of at least 1,300 Israelis and the injury of thousands of others. Israeli forces responded to the attack, leading to airstrikes on the operational headquarters of Hamas and a possible ground invasion of Gaza by the IDF with Palestinian casualties growing every day.
The objectives of the Hamas attacks were to end what they consider Israeli violations, secure the release of Palestinian prisoners, and advance the goal of establishing a Palestinian state. Hamas may seek a prisoner swap deal with Israel. However, Hamas does not have a clear roadmap for moving forward on establishing a state and cannot do so separately from the Palestinian Authority in the occupied West Bank
The international community, including Western nations, condemned the Hamas attack and expressed solidarity with Israel. The United States unequivocally condemned the attacks and expressed condolences for the Israeli lives lost. European leaders and the Indian government as well condemned the attack and voiced support for Israel’s right to defend itself against such heinous attacks. Moreover, the attack by Hamas on October 7 has had significant regional and international implications. It shattered Israel’s image of military superiority and invulnerability, and it has been widely celebrated on social media and in the streets beyond the Arab world. The attack has also prompted discussions on managing or ending the conflict between Israel and Hamas.
What has been different this time though as been the increasingly visible Arab and Muslim voices showing support for Israel, condolences for the loss of lives in Israel and of those of other nationalities as well. The same voices are also condemning the Arab world’s apathy towards the Palestinians and the anti-Semitism prevalent among Muslims for centuries. These rational voices are demanding why there are no protests unequivocally condemning the brutal Hamas attacks, taking of hostages, and parading the captives on the streets of Gaza. As video after video emerges about the last moments of those killed by flung grenades in bunkers, firing on cars and stabbings of entire families in the various Israeli kibbutzim, testimonies of the survivors of the music festival, and the accounts of relatives of the hostages, Arab and Muslim voices are asking to condemn the terrorism in the name of Islam.
Much body cam footage from the Hamas terrorists has come to light in which they are jubilantly shooting or kidnapping Israelis and who they think are Jews while shouting Allahu-Akbar — a cry which has come to symbolise a war cry because every jihadi, be it on the streets of a European city or in ISIS controlled territory or the Taliban infested regions utters it before exploding himself. Kashmiris too are familiar with the usage of Islamic religious symbolism and slogans before suicide missions, the latest one in 2019 being Adil Dar, the Pulwama suicide bomber.
Having survived an Islamic jihad sponsored by Pakistan for over three decades in Kashmir, it was painful to see the misery of octogenarian elders, sage relatives, community leaders, and rational peers bowing their heads down as news reports would come in of another suicide bombing, another stabbing, another massacre, another honour killing, another communal clash, another blasphemy accused lynched in the name of the Prophet. They struggled to make us understand how this was not Islam, how the Prophet himself would have been ashamed of these gatekeepers, how much it pained them to see this under the name of their revered God/Allah.
They went out of their ways to select verses from the scriptures and point out interpretations that were more humane and in tune with modern realities than the medieval times they had been revealed in. We, youngsters on our part explained the powerlessness to protest this “hijacking” of Islam’s core message and take out rallies with Not-in-my-Name themes. It was difficult to explain leftist, wokeism, agenda activists and disinformation to a generation still living in a time without the dependence on social media and the Internet. They failed to understand that the same terrorists had built ecosystems, cancel culture and an omerta of silence around dissenters with fatal consequences and why the rational voices had such low visible numbers — what are generally called as the ‘silent majority’.
Today, their first outrage is why aren’t Muslims demanding the return of hostages first? They pronounce the deeds of Hamas as sinful — terrorising families and separating them from their loved ones. They outrageously demand in their trusted circles of influence and their living rooms and on the prayer mats, “Who kidnaps babies and autistic children?”, even as they pray for their safe return. Uppermost is the refrain, ‘this is not the rule of warfare that early Muslims were taught’, citing the famous anecdote of Imam Ali fighting a one-to-one battle with his ideological opponent. When the enemy in a duel with Hazrat Ali’s sword Zulfiqar, the two bladed sword, spat on him, Ali stepped back and ended the duel, with the words,” Earlier it was for Islam, if I continue now, it will be personal and that is not what this is about”, pointing to the Muslim armies and the Quraish armies facing each other.
We, who witnessed the Islamic jihad sponsored by Pakistan for over three decades, who learnt about this never-ending thirst for victory over the infidel which has been going on for centuries, understood early on that bringing a gun to the negotiating table (terrorism) never works and will never end in a victory. Sapiens, the human species have always been at war with each other over territory, resources, power, etc. The modern period saw the destruction of entire countries at a massive scale and what humans were capable of doing to each other like the Holocaust concentration camps, the Holodomor Ukrainian holocaust, the Gulags of the Soviet Union, the Bengal famine orchestrated by the British Empire and the video recorded atrocities of ISIS.
So, it is a modern achievement to be able to come together at negotiating tables to talk and discuss the resentments and grievances and use diplomatic channels to sort out conflicts. So many have been solved over the years, after prolonged fighting and killings and maiming. But the pattern in all the conflicts has been, that any side picking up arms and terrorising an entire population never gets public opinion in their favour. Despite the media publicity of groups like the ISIS, Taliban, Al-Qaeda, the morality police of the Iranian IRGC or Hamas, radical political Islam has proven to have failed in the 20th and 21st centuries. It gives no answers to the lives of ordinary Muslims, it hasn’t been able to solve their problems or develop their lives to comfortable levels which can be found in many progressive societies in the West and in the Indian subcontinent, if the noted French author Olivier Roy is to be believed.
So, the proper thing this Friday would be to take out protest rallies and scream Not-in-the-Name of Islam and demand the release of hostages for hostilities to end. The elders in the Muslim community who quietly grieve over what Islam has become and the increasing number of rational sane voices from the Arab and Muslim world are hoping for their numbers to reach a tipping point and overturn the bad name that Islam has got over the decades since 9/11.
The author is a writer and an educationist from Srinagar. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.
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