New Delhi: Almost entire opposition staged walk out from the Upper House on Monday when the government rejected its demand of passing a resolution condemning Israel’s continued aggression in occupied Gaza strip. Minister for External Affairs Sushma Swaraj has asserted that India’s policy on Palestine issue will remain unchanged as she refused to take sides over the Gaza conflict. “There is absolutely no change in India’s policy towards Palestine, which is that we fully support the Palestinian cause while maintaining good relations with Israel”.
The opposition, which had stalled the House last week by pressing for a discussion on Israeli aggression, said they were unhappy as none of their demands were accepted by the government.
Opening the debate on the issue, Leader of Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad said that if the House had discussed the issue last week then it would have been the case that India was the first to react. Congress’ deputy leader Anand Sharma asked whether the issue of Palestine came during the bilateral talks with China and Russia on the sidelines of the BRICS summit. Taking the government to task, CPI-M leader Sitaram Yechury demanded that India should suspend its military purchases from Israel temporarily. All of the Opposition parties insisted that there should be a resolution condemning Israeli aggression. The opposition also wanted that India to raise the issue at the UN. However, the government, taking refuge under the Rule 176, said it did not allow for a resolution. Swaraj insisted that the rule under which the discussion took place did not permit resolution. Deputy Chairman P.J.Kurien said that the rule did not allow for a resolution but if there is a consensus in the House, then a resolution could be moved and adopted. The government refused, and the opposition staged a walk out.
Swaraj displayed a cool attitude as the short duration discussion on the Israeli attacks on civilians in the Gaza Strip of half-an-hour spread over two-and-half-hours, from noon till a little over three in the House. In reply to discussion, she said that it would have been better if the opposition had demanded a ceasefire and the end to the killings instead of demanding a resolution condemning Israel.
She tried hard to clear that the BJP-led NDA government was not dealing with foreign policy issues from a communal angle; however, she defended party members Amit Dalve and Tarun Vijaya who tried to scuttle the debate on Palestine by indulging in generalizations.
When Nationalist Congress Party’s Majid Memon quoted Sahir Ludhianvi’s poem on war, she said that she would go with the poet.
Countering the innuendo that the BJP-led NDA government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi would display majoritarian bias, the minister said the government got released 40 Indians who were in a Saudi prison, and they were all Muslims. “When an Indian was abroad in trouble, it is the Indian citizen and not his or her religion that mattered”.
That was the rhetorical part and it would have seemed that the government was using every ruse to avoid condemning Israel. She defended the government’s engagement with the issue as could be seen in the BRICS declaration which squarely condemned Israeli aggression, and she cited a statement issued by the Ministry of External Affairs which was critical of Israel’s disproportionate use of violence against civilians in Gaza. She further told the House that India contributes $20 million in aid to the Palestinian Authority and $ 1 million to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which works exclusively for Palestinian refugees.
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