India and Israel Against Islamic Terror

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India and Israel
Against Islamic Terror
Old Nations-New Leaders
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India and Israel
Against Islamic Terror
Old Nations- New Leaders
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Brigadier B.N. Sharma
Manas Publications
NewDelhi-110002 (INDIA)
. /^ A n
/VtANAS PUBLICATIONS
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© Brigadier B.N. Sharma

First Published 2004
ISBN 81-7049-169-X
No part of this publication can be reproduced, photocopied, translated,

etc., in any form whatsoever, without prior written permission of the

publisher.
The views expressed in this book are those of the author and not

necessarily of the publisher. The publisher is not responsible for the views

of the author and authenticity of the data, in any way whatsoever.
Typeset at
Manas Publications
Printed in India at
Nice Printing Press
and Published by Mrs Suman Lata for
Manas Publications, 4858, Prahlad Street,
24, Ansari Road, Darya Canj,
New Delhi - 110 002 (INDIA)
Introduction
c<
Empires have risen, prospered, declined and fell into oblivion,

states and countries came into being and disappeared. The sands

of history trickled down the hour glass of time as hordes of

restless nomads from lands of scanty came from nowhere and

destroyed mighty empires, cultures and civilizations, softened by

affluence of agrarian existence. These same conquerors after

settling down were in turn invaded by fresh waves of the more

virile nomads, and the cycle of history continued. But amidst the

cataclysms of recorded history only two cultures and civilizations

endured. Down the fifteen millennia of known human

development and ten millennia of recorded history, two but

only two cultures, the most ancient of them survived the

onslaughts of sword and destruction and still retain a large part

of their original form and essence, Hinduism and Judaism. Strictly

speaking, most major religions of the world have lived but the

same cannot be said about the cultures and civilizations. The

present inheritors of other cultures hardly remember their

ancestry and their ancient and original cultural forms. A European

does not have to look back very far, the two Americas still less,

barely half a millennium, Africans with the exception of Egypt,

even less. But even the present inhabitants of the land of Nile,
INDIA AND ISRAEL
Akkad, Sumeria and even Iran do not remember their roots of

origin. Ask an Iraqi or a Syrian about Sargon of Akkad, Assyrian

war chariots, or an Egyptian about the Medianites. They shall

look puzzled. But the Jew would remember the story of Abel

and Cain, Abraham, Moses and Joshua and the kingdoms of

Israel and Judea. A Hindu would with equal ease quote the

trinity of his principal God and the panthean of gods and

goddesses, the lays of ancient epics, Puranas, the story of

Ramayan and Mahabharat, the rituals of marriage that are dateless

and the shlokas to be recited at various occasions. The two

people most attached to their past and their land who derive

inspiration from their old cultures even today are the Hindus

and the Jews. It is not entirely fortuitous that these happen to

be the oldest religions and cultures of recorded history. Both

religions are to an extent inward looking, seek fulfillment in the

elevation of the soul and direct communion with their maker

Jehovah or Brahma. Both feel bounden to follow their

commandments, strive for purity of being, rather than adhere

to mere rituals and outward forms of worship. Distortions have

indeed crept in with time, as in all other religions, by a shifting

of emphasis from essence to form, but by and large the wise

and the learned of each of these two religions are fully aware

of the original essence of their culture and religion.
Zionism is as old as the concept of Zion in the Jewish mind.

Stress on Cod, His creation of man as an instrument for ushering

in the Kingdom of God on this land, the sanctity of land as such

and the Holy land, the land of the Book in particular with

Jerusalem at its heart. The Hindu thought goes back to God, the

one Brahma, the eternal, timeless, formless, creator and creation

itself and enjoins upon man to reach Him through his deeds on

thic land; be of and one with this earth (Dharati/Thal) and reach

perfection through spiritual and material actions and means.

More special is the emphasis on God, man and the land. Zion

and the land of Zion compares with Brahma and Bharat. The

striving for perfection and God’s Kingdom on Earth by a Jew

matches the striving for spiritual perfection and salvation by a
INTRODUCTION
Hindu. The term Hindu here is used in a generic sense denoting

the believer in the oldest thought, call it religion, which is Sanatan

(eternal and unchanging), popularly called Sanatan Dharm. The

jew receives God’s commandment and dictates through various

prophets from Abraham to Moses. In the Hindu thought the

wisdom of Vedas, their commentary in Upanishads and the

Lord’s message through sages and saints and the Rishis of yore

continues till He incarnates Himself as Lord Krishna, and at the

battle field of Kurukshetra, He preaches in the Bhagwad Gita His

Last gospel and Message to mankind.
Both people produced great prophets, sages and saints, kings

and ^DatfToTs and established a secular kingdom of repute. Both

had to face invaders who tried to destroy their carefully nurtured

culture and civilization. In the case of Jews they passed through

conquests, pogroms and Diaspora and still, Phoenix-like rose

from the ashes of their past again and again. The Jews could

never live permanently on their land and were homeless for

long periods in history. But in India land was not lost. However,

the invaders slaughtered, converted and ruled but could not

snuff out the spirit of the ten millennia old culture. The land was

the same but kingdoms appeared, and reappeared, people

suffered privations and slavery but the spirit of Bharat endured.

Both in the case of India and Israel, it can truly be said that what

is amazing is not how both civilizations were constantly attacked

and suffered, but how inspite of heavy odds they retained their

identity, the spirit of their culture and essence of their spirituality.
To quote Dr. K.M. Munshi, ”Generation after generation,

during their school or college career, were told about the

successive foreign invasions of the country, but little about how

we resisted them_an’d less about our victories. They were taught

to decry the Hindu social system; but they were not told how

this system came into existence as a synthesis of political, social,

economic and cultural forces; how it developed in the people

the tenacity to survive catastrophic changes for millennia; how

it protected life and culture in times of difficulty by its conservative

strength and in favourable time developed an elasticity which
INDIA AND ISRAEL
made ordered progress possible; and how its vitality enabled the

national culture to adjust its central ideas to new conditions.”

Jews and Hindus clung to their past and culture. Both looked

to their Cod and took up arms to resist invaders and suffered

and died fighting. But those that remained carried the torch and

the struggle, and simply refused to be wiped out of existence.

Israel and its heart Jerusalem were attached by scores of tribes

and nationalities, who ruled for a while and then were thrown

into the dustbin of history. But Israel endures. Likewise India

was invaded by the Creeks, Huns, Shakas, Mongols, Moslems,

Turks, Afghans, Moghuls and the British, but India, that is Bharat,

survives.
Pa_st is Jhe mother of present and a foundation for the

future. Nations that have achieved eminence in history have

imbibed pride in their past. India and Israel are the two leading

nations which not only take pride in the knowledge of their

past, but without being retrogressive use this impulse to propel

them forward to achieve new levels of excellence. The people

who take pride in their antiquity and pedigree are naturally

more advantaged in their future achievements. Indians and

Israelies could rightly be proud of their glorious past and are

better placed to build their future. As someone has so wisely put

it-”Past must act as a spring-board, not a hammock.” Equally

wise Capt. Liddel Hart, the profoundest military writer of our

age, has put it very succinctly-”Come to the point but do not

camp on it”. Thus it behoves Indians not to live permanently on

their past glory, but to act in the present to achieve a glorious
futnrp
future.
There are certain striking similarities between these two

ancient civilizations. Their antiquity being the first and foremost

which gives them depth, maturity and an immanence, all their

own. This inevitably gives these people a strength to forbear and

a detachment from immediacy of events and immunity against

temporary reverses. They have imbibed the wisdom that the

times change and history inflicts it’s cruel nemesis on upstart

prophets and those who believe that every thing can be changed
INTRODUCTION
merely by the power of the sword. That sound ideas are more

important than catchy slogans; that substance outlives the shine

and that the struggle of a people does not merely lie in the

might of its armies but it stays deeper in its steeled determination

to resist wrongs and injustice and that ultimately it is the strength

of character that endures and prevails.
Both ”Hindutva” or the essence of Hinduism which is not a

straight jacketed religion, and ’Zionism’ have fostered strengths

and released forces that have not been defeated, howsoever

overwhelming the odds. And they will survive till the last syllable

of recorded time. Both believe in abjuring violence as far as

possible, b’Jt enjoin upon their people to take up arms for what

is right and stand up and fight when forced by oppressors. In

the history of the Chosen people time and again their Lord God

speaks to the prophets, judges, kings, and the leaders to smite

the hand that spoils the holy land and Jewish shrirfes or oppresses

its people. In Hindu lore Lord Krishna commands Arjun to pick

up the gauntlet thrown by Kauravas and wage a Dharm Yudh

in the cause of justice and righteousness. Both religions believe

in the universality of human values and brotherhood of man

”Vasudhaiv Kutumbakam”. Very few know that Judaism in its

original form like Hinduism was not exclusivistic but all embracing,

calling man to rise to the level of Cod’s best creation. Both

embrace all shades of opinion and permit dissent; both believe

in cosmic eiernity and enjoin a very high moral code. The rituals

are unimportant, the spirit is all. In some religions even as they

were born, the emphasis on outward form was all important,

such as the postures at prayers, the direction to face, the number

°’ prayers a day, and even inanities and details of everyday life,

’heir’s was a total system, holistic and rigid, where not a line

could be erased nor a new word added.
Both nations suffered invasions and oppressions; the Hindus
lnvasions, forcible conversions, destruction of their temples,
slaughter and devastation. So did the Jews suffer the sword, the
estruction of their shrines, forcible conversions, devastation of
eir land, pillage, slavery and above all pogroms, that have
shaken the conscience of the world.
10 INDIA AND ISRAEL
Many triangulation marks of great events on the geodetic

map of history have disappeared in the sands of time, but two

enduring edifices exist, India and Israel. They shall continue to

exist on this planet and these two civilizations are destined to

lead.
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Contents
Introduction 5
Parti

From lewish Genesis to the Beginning of Modern Era
1.< Outline of Historiography 15
j) History of Israel 18
Section 1: People of the Book 1 8
Section 2: Jesus and Thereafter 52
3. The Awakening 76
4. The Foundations of Anti-Semitism 84
5. The Chosen People 92

J>. The History of Pogroms 97

^2> The Genesis of Zionism 101
8. Heroes of Israel 106
12 INDIA AND ISRAEL
Part II
From Diaspora to the Establishment of a lewish Home
9.L-Jews in America 113
10. ^Judaism and Justice 130
11. The Struggle and the Homecoming 139

,12. Making of a Nation State 166
13. Intifada and After 177
14. Archaeology, Science and Thought 186
Part in
India: Past and Present
15. A Critique of Indian History 199
16. Truth about Hinduism 228
17. Ancient Indian Civilization 246
18. The Fall from Grace 278
Part IV
The Future
19. Civilizational Fault lines 299
20. The Reckoning 326
21. Apocalypse 338
Bibliography 341
Index 345
PART - 1
From Jewish Genesis To The Beginning Of Modern Era
~~7
T ; /

\
1
Outline of Historiography
There are several ways of looking at history, each under a different

paradigm. The first is the ”unhistoric” or ”Henry Ford” way who

declared history to be bunk and a confusion of dates, names

and battles with little to learn. We shall reject this approach for

obvious reasons.
The next one is one of ”political interpretation”, looking as

it does, on dynasties, kings and battles in a chronological order,

the type which is taught in schools. Yet another way is the

geographical one in which the land and the climate determine

human character and social institutions through physical

environments. In the case of the Jews, as for the Hindus, this

approach is not tenable, since the Jews, just like the Hindus,

have survived in almost every climate without losing their ethnicity

and cultural identity. This can be seen in today’s Israel where

people from all over the world have coajgsced into one

homogeneous entity, just like the Hindus in different parts of

this Sub-continent have retained their cultural roots.
A different way of viewing history is the economic or Marxian

model, where all events are determined by the way the goods

j*re produced, and the perpetual clash of social classes is

historically ordained, till the state withers away and a Utopia

Pr?yails. The other method is the one founded by Prof. Sigmund
16 INDIA AND ISRAEL CHAPTER 1
Freud in the early twentieth century, holding that all events are

the result of suppression of man’s unconscious hostilities. The

primary determinant in this psychoanalytic process is the libido,

unbridled sex, murder, violence, incest and sadism. It is only

after man overcomes these impulses that he can achieve creative

thinking and civilised impulses.
The next is the philosophical way. Its chief proponents were

the German philosopher George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, the

Prussian philosopher-historian, Oswald Spengler, and the British

historian Arnold Toynbee. This method views history as a series

of isolated events in some semblance of continuity with each

civilization following a predictable pattern which is like the

development of a man from infancy to old age and death.

According to this view, the life of a civilization depends upon the

ideas and ideals by which it lives. Spengler suggests that the

civilizations pass through the youth of its spring, mature to the

summer of their achievements, reaching the apex of their

intellectual pinnacle in the autumn, and finally decline into the

winter and die. In contrast, Toynbee’s theory holds that civilizations

evolve from a lower to a higher form as long as it responds

correctly to the challenges it faces. Somehow, history of the Jews

and the Hindus does not fit either into the Spengler or Toynbee

system.
Another view is that of the cult of personality, holding forth

that great individuals shape history, quoting Washington as the

architect of the American Revolution, Robespierre of the French

and Lenin of the Russian Revolution.
The last approach to history is the religious one in its oldest

and newest concept. The Bible for the Jews and the Vedas and

Indian epics such as Ramayana and Mahabharata for Hindus

have moulded their character and history, emerging out of a

struggle between good and evil, morality and immorality. Jewish

history mainly has been written from this viewpoint. With rapid

strides in science and development of the scientific temper, these

”existential theologians” are in disrepute. Thus the circle is

complete with God as the maker of history and human effort

of viewing history as a series of events, a philosophical one as
r;1 ER 1 OUTLINE or HISTORIOGRAPHY 17
series of purposive events, the economic one with its productive

methods as the prime force, the psychological one based on

unconscious drives, the theory of ”great man” as the centre

niece, and the master of his historic destiny and finally back to

Cod as the centre of all. To our chronology of events we shall

add colours of most of the viewpoints as appropriate.
It would be a Herculean task to condense within the confines

of these pages, the history of these two civilizations. What is

attempted here is to trace out the physical contours of

development of these cultures and nations through historical

records, objectively studied to bring out the essence of these two

most ancient human societies. A brief record of kings, battles

and ever-changing shape of political state is essential to put this

study in the right perspective. Since the book is addressed to

both the western and Indian readers, due emphasis is needed

to be given to both the histories. However, Indian history and

Hindu thought is much more vast and diffused, deriving as it

does from innumerable sources. Though few in number, and

described in what is properly called written historiographic texts

and sources, these texts serve as a useful guide to understand

our civilizational history. The history of Israel on the other hand

is basically confined to definitive sources in the Bible and later

research and commentaries, and is easier to describe. Its

uniqueness is less known to the Christian world. Thus Judaic

history would occupy a larger coverage than our own which, it

is hoped, is better known to Indian public.
The Jewish history has been described first, serving as it

does, a reference matrix to Indian history that follows thereafter.

Further our history is well-known to Indian readers. What is

aimed in this book is only to highlight those aspects of our

civilizational history which are not commonly known to western

readers by choice or prejudice and even our own people

nurtured on western media sharing the same prejudices. The

western ignorance about Zion, the Jew and the Judaic history is

matched only by a similar ignorance by Indians of our own

history and culture.