Finally an argument that is not absurd

Submitted by Prashant, Jul 9, 2018 at 20:51

Dear Dr Pipes,
I am finally happy to hear an argument from your reader Debanjan Banerjee that is not absurd. Mr Banerjee hypothesizes that the Palestinians have not lost to Israel because 'they have nothing to lose in the process' and he goes on to say that '..by harshly punishing the Gazan people, Israel has destroyed the Gazans' fear of death.'.

Though Mr Banerjee is not absurd this time, he is still only partly correct. I agree with Mr Banerjee that Palestinians do not fear death but I disagree with him when he says that harsh punishment by Israel has destroyed Palestinian fear of death.

To the best of my knowledge Israel never punished Kashmiri people and a lot of Kashmiri people also do not have much fear of death. Mr Banerjee might say that Kashmiri people have been harshly punished by Indian security forces but that will also be wrong. Our ISIS friends in Syria, Talebani friends in Afghanistan, Al Qaeda friends in KSA, Boko haram brothers in Nigeria constitute other examples of people who have no fear of death and who have not been punished harshly in the recent times by any one. It is not just that. Muhammad Ghouri attacked India 13 times. He lost first 12 times but won the 13th time. It will be fair to conclude that Muhammad Ghouri also had no fear of death and unless you equate 12 foiled instances of aggressions to 'harsh punishments', I do not think Ghouri was harshly punished by Indians or any one else.

I will give Mr Banerjee an alternative line of thought. Would Mr Banerjee consider that a larger faction of Islamic people harbor a violence-prone culture. To these people killing and being killed for the sake of Islam is like a sacred service and it is due to this that many Islamic societies are more war-prone than non-Muslim societies. When a person dies in a war, he or she is not the only sufferer. In all cases of a young person's death tens of people around him suffer for many years. A young person's death starts a cycle of poverty, pain, illiteracy and exploitation in the lives of all affected people. I think this is what is going on in lots of Islamic societies for a very long time. The wounds that Mr Banerjee sees 'as harsh punishment by Israel' in many cases are self inflicted.

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