By Mohd. Ismail Khan, TwoCircles.net,
Hyderabad: With loud slogans against occupation of Palestine by Israel members of students’ Islamic Organization of India (SIO), Hyderabad assembled at Indira Park on Sunday evening to show solidarity with the people of Palestine, and particularly people of Gaza. The whole area in and around Indira Park protest ground echoed with the slogans ‘Israel down down’ and ‘People of Palestine we are with you’. The program started with one mile long march to show moral support to the global march to Jerusalem 2012.
A huge public meeting started with the recitation of holy Quran, then the president of Movement for Peace and Justice, and leader of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind Hamed Mohd Khan gave the welcome speech. He condemned the attitude of media towards the issue of Palestine. He said “when an infant child get stuck in a bore well hole whole media telecast it for 24 hours and make it a sensation, but I fail to understand when thousands of innocent children in Palestine are getting killed in cold blood no one is even talking about it”.
He even condemned all the organizations and nation states which are showing double standards on the issue of palatine. “The silence of UNO against the genocide of Palestinians is questionable. Indian government is leaving behind the policy of Mahatma Gandhi and moving in a very dangerous phase. The friendship with Israel is not going to benefit India in any way,” he said, and demanded Government of India “to formulate its foreign policy based on equality and Justice if they really accept Gandhi ji as the father of this nation.”
The meeting was addressed by many prominent speakers, all of them stressed that the issue of Palestine is not an issue of religion or a region but it is an issue of humanity. Many of them even warned the whole world about the threat Israel is showing by planning the map of greater Israel. All of those speakers condemned Israeli barbarism and the silence of the world on this sensitive issue.
Former editor of Tehelka Ajit Sahi and social activist, columnist Muttu Krishnan also shared their views in the protest meeting, both are going to join the march to Jerusalem in Jordan.
Muttu Krishnan told the gathering that when he arrived in Gaza last year, the image which he had in his mind regarding Gaza was tarnished. By praising the life style and courage of people of Gaza, he said, “Gaza and the people of Gaza in spite all of those barbaric restrictions put on them are the freest people in the world, I thought I went there to help them but in reality they taught me how to live the life to its extent.”
Ajit sahi started his speech by praising the people of Gaza and their resistance. He said it is not the whole Jews of Israel who are oppressing the people of Palestine but it is the government of Israel. He said, “As the Indian Government do not represent whole of the Indian population, in the same way the Israeli Government do not represent the whole Jews of Israel. There are many Jews who are fighting against the human rights violation in Palestine.” He told the audience his experience in South Africa where he participated in a Palestine tribunal and got the chance to meet as many as 15 Israeli Jews human rights activists who were fighting the human rights violation cases by Israeli government against the Palestinians.
He even compared Israeli government with right wing Hindu groups like RSS and VHP. “Israel is as Jewish as much as RSS is Hindu, Israel represents Judaism as much as RSS represents Hinduism, I am a Hindu and I know Hinduism does not have place to accommodate the ideology of RSS, and I am not represented by RSS.”
By ending his speech he said that he will convey the support of people of Hyderabad to the people of Palestine.
Ending the public meeting SIO demanded government of India to close down Israeli embassy in Bombay and in New Delhi, and to cut off its relations with Israel till Israel lifts the siege of Gaza and recognizes Palestine as independent nation. It even demanded the government of India to not just become a mere spectator in the issue of Palestine, rather pressurize Israeli government to end its imperialistic rule over an independent sovereign state.