Gaza pullout: will history repeat itself?

Submitted by N.S. Rajaram (India), Aug 16, 2005 at 23:37

Sir:

In going through with the Gaza pullout, Israeli Government seem to have learnt nothing from history. India is one of Israel's closest allies and is faced with similar problems. Nearly 60 years ago, it committed also a similar blunder and is still paying for it.

In 1946, the Congress party of Jawaharlal Nehru won the election promising that his party would never agree to the partition of India. But within a year, buckling under Muslim League threats, his party agreed to the Partition. This resulted in a holocaust.

As one of his cabinet ministers (K.M. Munshi) put it: "We agreed to the partition hoping to avoid civil war, but we got both-- partition and the civil war." Nor did the Muslim problem disappear.

I hate to think that this history will be repeated in Israel, which can ill afford it.

Sincerely,
N.S. Rajaram

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