Is Israel Spearheading Global Fight Against Terrorists? – OpEd
When Hamas launched attack against Israel on 7th October, 2024, Israel was caught unaware and unprepared. In the attack, around 1200 people in Israel lost their lives and around 250 people were taken as hostage by Hamas. It was an unprovoked attack. This attack can justifiably be termed as act of terrorism, though Hamas claims that it was justified from their viewpoint.
Under the circumstances, Israel was left with no alternative other than counter attacking Hamas and war is continuing now, with Israel determined to ensure that such terrorist attacks will not happen again on its soil. Now, Hezbullah has also joined the fight against Israel, with Iran also entering the war against Israel.
All said and done, the fact is that this ongoing war was started by a terrorist attack against Israel and was not started by Israel.
In recent years, several terrorist attacks have taken place in different countries including the September 11 attack in the USA, when 2996 people lost their lives, and the November 26 attack in Mumbai in India when 174 people lost their lives. In all such cases of terrorist attacks, it was a defensive war against the terrorists by the affected countries. While a few terrorists lost their lives, those who were responsible for launching the terrorist attacks have almost gone scot-free.
Now, Israel is reacting to the October 7 attack in a different way and it is involved in offensive counter attack against the terrorists.
Earlier, LTTE terrorists carried out several attacks in Sri Lanka for many years and finally the Sri Lankan government launched an offensive counter attack that eliminated the LTTE terrorists for all practical purposes. When that war ended, it was seen that thousands of people had lost their lives in SriLanka, including innocent people, the terrorists, as well as Sri Lankan army personnel. However, western countries found fault with the Sri Lankan government for making the counter attack against terrorists and called it as human rights violation. Now, the United Nations Human Rights Commission is accusing the Sri Lankan government for its offensive action against terrorists, instead of appreciating that the Sri Lankan government was only protecting its territorial integrity, just as Israel is doing now.
In such circumstances, one cannot but miss the fact that the reaction of Western countries to the offensive action by Sri Lankan government against the terrorists has been different from its stand about Israel's offensive act against the terrorists.
India is one of the countries facing several terrorist attacks in Kashmir region, and India too is taking defensive action against the terrorists, instead of attacking the base from which the terrorists are operating outside India. Some sections of people are accusing India of human rights violations in Kashmir, whereas the ground reality is that India has to protect its territorial integrity by fighting against the terrorists, who have killed hundreds of innocent people in Kashmir.
When Hamas attacked Israel and Israel counter attacked against the terrorists, there were several demonstrations in different countries against the counter action of Israel. These protesters have totally ignored the terrorist acts of Hamas on October 7.
In any case, today, it appears that Israel has substantial world opinion in its favour, particularly amongst the discerning observers, who recognize that it is really carrying out a war against terrorists.
There is a worldwide opinion that terrorism has to be putdown at any cost and many were wondering who would bell the cat. Perhaps, there is an impression gaining ground that Israel is spearheading the global fight against terrorists now.
Finally, one cannot ignore the fact that those who indulge in acts of terrorism claim that they have a justifiable reason and sometimes they call themselves as liberators. However, the world view is that whatever the cause, no group should involve itself in acts of terrorism to achieve their cause, whatever it may be.