How Israeli PR Sells Gaza Slaughter

July 17, 2014

A favorite line of Official Washington goes: “Perception is reality!” — a misguided notion that makes the U.S. mainstream media particularly vulnerable to “perception management.” And no one does that better than the Israelis when justifying the slaughter of Palestinians, as Danny Schechter notes.

By Danny Schechter

There is an art of war and there is an art to selling war – to one’s own people and to the world at large.

Israel is a master on both tracks. When we speak of the “only democracy” in the Middle East, it is often forgotten, perhaps deliberately, that the country is run by a War or “Security” Cabinet. It is, and has been, in effect, a military regime with as many powerful religious fanatics as its Iranian nemesis.

                                                                                

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

Since proclaiming its “independence” in 1948, it has remained dependent on a large, now over $3 billion per annum and counting,” foreign aid” payment from the United States, far, far MORE than many poor countries that desperately need that aid but don’t get it.

Supplementing this subsidy, Israel has its own advanced military industrial and technology complex upgrading and customizing weaponry in military and aerospace industries.

Its current escalating war on Gaza is only the latest, following on the heels of seven “recognized” wars, two Palestinian intifadas, many reprisal operations and countless covert operations including interventions and assassinations.

Its capacity to punish and its willingness to use advanced weapons in areas dense with civilians like Gaza is terrifying – and it is so by design. The United States may have used “shock and awe” in Iraq to launch its war there, but Israel has routinized it with 2,360 air strikes in its 2008-2009  “Cast Lead” campaign  in Gaza alone. So far there has been well over l,000 sorties in this latest bloody blitzkrieg. Is it any surprise that of all its military branches it is the Air Force that is dominated the most by extremists and West Bank settlers.

And, in all of its conflicts, Tel Aviv invents and then seizes a constantly reinforced “moral” high ground, immediately positioning itself as a victim and defending its actions as DEFENSIVE. That view is then relentlessly streamed 24/7 to the public by lobby groups, PR firms and government agencies to and through a well-orchestrated network of political allies and supporters worldwide.

This is not new, says Israeli historian Ilan Pappe: “The Israeli propaganda machine attempts again and again to narrate its policies as out of context and turns the pretext it found for every new wave of destruction into the main justification for another spree of indiscriminate slaughter in the killing fields of Palestine.”

As in all of its conflicts, propaganda operations designed to win over the press and public opinion, enjoy as much priority as its military operations. Today, military-led units and student groups/cyber armies attempt to dominate the on-line discourse about the war, repeatedly emphasizing  prefabricated, market-tested message points, like blaming Gaza for rejecting a cease-fire that it is repeatedly claimed Israel supported.

In these propaganda dispatches, there is little or no mention of the human slaughter borne by the Palestinians, the lack of proportionality in the casualties and the alternative approaches that might resolve the crisis (and the underlying injustices).

The major U.S. media seems to embrace the Israeli narrative without question or without independent reporting or analysis, much less critically.

Here’s Bloomberg News: “Israel Renews Gaza Bombing After Hamas Rejects Truce Plan.” Here’s the Washington Post: “While Israel Held Its Fire, Hamas  did not.” On and on, around the clock.

In many of these accounts, Hamas is described only as “militants,” not a party or elected government. The perennial message: Israel is being reasonable, while Hamas is irresponsible and even wants the death of its own people. It’s always all their fault! You never hear what Hamas is saying – or trying to say – except in selected snippets of overheated rhetoric used to demonize them.

Israel has moved beyond PR to PM, or “perception management.” Inside Israel, Neve Gordin says the situation is worse, with repeated calls for MORE military escalation amid neo-genocidal demands for a final solution as in “destroy them all, once and for all.”

In a piece on “Israel’s War Echo Chamber,” he writes: “the public debate today is not whether or not to stop the air strikes but rather whether or not to deploy ground forces. In an opinion column, Channel 2′s military correspondent Ronnie Daniel claimed that only ‘a ground operation will extract a heavy enough price from Hamas’ in order to ensure a longer period of peace for Israel. The following day Channel 2′s anchor pondered: ‘We wanted Hamas to fall on its knees and so far this has not happened’; and Daniel responded, ‘So far it’s not happening, and the conclusion, in my opinion, is that it has not received enough.’”

Amira Hess, the gutsy Israeli correspondent for Ha’aretz, explains: “Both sides (Hamas and Israel) say they are firing in self-defense. We know that war is a continuation of politics by other means. Israel’s policy is clear (if not to consumers of Israeli media): Cut Gaza off even more, thwart any possibility of Palestinian unity and divert attention from the accelerating colonialist drive in the West Bank.

“And Hamas? It wants to boost its standing as a resistance movement after the blows it took as a governing movement. Maybe it really thinks it can change the Palestinian leadership’s entire strategy vis-a-vis the Israeli occupation. Maybe it wants the world (and the Arab states) to awaken from its slumber.

“Still, with all due respect to Clausewitz, rational calculations are not the only explanation. Let’s not forget the missile envy — whose is bigger, longer, more impressive and reaches farther? The boys play with their toys and we’ve gotten used to calling it policy.”

In all of this swamp of hawkish sludge, what do we make of an alternative explanation embraced by critical writers who follow these events most knowledgably – when we hear from them at all. Here’s a peace activist, Richard Silverstein:

“Let’s talk about the faux ceasefire. Really a fraudulent ceasefire. Egypt’s ceasefire with no one. My Israeli source, who was consulted as part of the negotiations, tells me that this was not, in reality, an Egyptian proposal. It was, in fact, an Israeli proposal presented in the guise of an Egyptian proposal. Israel wrote the ceasefire protocol. The Egyptians rubber-stamped it and put it out under their letterhead as if it was their own.

“Jodi Rudoren typically called the ceasefire ‘one-sided,’ meaning Israel honored it and Hamas didn’t.  But it was ‘one-sided’ in a way she hadn’t considered. Only one-side prepared the ceasefire and essentially presented it to itself and accepted it. The other side wasn’t consulted.

“The contents of the ceasefire proposal were a fraud as well. They promised and delivered nothing. They only called for a cessation of hostilities on the part of Israel and Hamas. The same document has been signed in the past only to see Israel violate it almost as soon as the ink was dry. There were no provisions for easing the Israeli siege. No provision to open the border with Egypt. Most importantly, the ceasefire didn’t address any underlying issues between the parties. It was a guarantor for resuming hostilities at the earliest possible opportunity: these wars have come at two-year intervals over the past six years. The next one will be in 2016, if not sooner.”

The Israel newspaper, Haaretz, reported that neither Hamas’ military nor political wings were consulted. So, if this is not a charade, what is? The goal was not to engage Hamas in a peace process, but to create a one-sided media narrative as a pretext and ultimatum for more war. It turns out that Tony Blair, the former pro-Iraq War British Prime Minister, and representative of the so-called “quartet,” arranged the phone call between Israeli and Egyptian officials.

This does not mean that eventually there won’t be negotiations of some kind between the warring parties. Christiane Amanpour spoke with a former Israeli intelligence  chief on CNN. He called for negotiations with Hamas.

“Hamas is a very bad option, undoubtedly. But there are worse options than Hamas,” Efraim Halevy, former Mossad chief, said.

“And we already know what some of them might be, especially one of them: the ISIS – which is operating now in the northern Iraq and central Iraq – has its tentacles in the Gaza Strip too.”

Halevy said that just as in Europe, ISIS is recruiting in Gaza. It is “inconvenient politically,” Halevy said, for both Israel and Hamas to admit that they negotiate. But the truth, he said, is that they have already been doing it for years:

“We have coined a new method of diplomacy in the twenty-first century: we don’t meet with them, we don’t talk to them, but we listen to them. Each one listens to the other side. Somehow in the end an understanding is crafted. …

“We have had several rounds with Hamas in recent years, and the previous rounds ended up in agreements … arrangements, as it was called – ‘arrangements,’ not even agreements.”’

Who knows if such an “arrangement” may be possible now, as it seems clear that Hamas has many rockets yet to fire into Israel.The countries most heavily propagandized by Israel are blindly supportive, but that is not the case uniformly around the world. Israeli fanaticism slowly but surely erodes global support for its posture.

Right now, thanks to bullish TV news programming, war has become a form of militainmentfor Israeli spectators. The Atlantic’s Debra Kamin reports from the Golan Heights: “People come here every day to see the show,” says Marom, 54, a retired Israel defense Forces colonel who now works in the tourism industry and regularly brings groups to this point to gaze down on Syria’s bloodletting. “For people visiting the area, it’s interesting. They feel that they are a part of it. They can go home and tell their friends, ‘I was on the border and I saw a battle.’”

Kamin continues: “High above a valley in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, Israeli tourists have a panoramic view of this strategically important location, which is also known as the Gateway to Damascus. Tour groups, fresh from jaunts to the area’s wineries, cherry markets, and artisanal chocolate shops, stop here by the dozens each day armed with binoculars and cameras, eager for a glimpse of smoke and even carnage.”

Has this what we’ve come to? Sadly, yes,

Newsdissector  Danny Schechter blogs at Newsdissector.net and edits Mediachannel.org. He made the film “Weapons of Mass Deception” about media coverage in Iraq, and wrote two books about media misrepresentations there. Comments to dissector@mediachannel.org

The searing hypocrisy of the West

                                                                               

 By Susan Abulhawa

Jul 1, 2014 02:36 AM ,  

The bodies of three Israeli settlers who went missing on June 12th were found in a hastily dug shallow grave in Halhul, north of Hebron.

Since the teens went missing from Gush Etzion, a Jewish-only colony in the West Bank,Israel has besieged the 4 million Palestinians who already live under its thumb, storming through towns, ransacking homes and civil institutions, conducting night raids on families, stealing property, kidnapping, injuring, and killing. Warplanes were dispatched to bomb Gaza, again and repeatedly, destroying more homes and institutions and carrying out extrajudicial executions. Thus far, over 570 Palestinians have been kidnapped and imprisoned, most notably a Samer Issawi, the Palestinian who went on a 266-day hunger strike in protest of a previous arbitrary detention. At least 10 Palestinians have been killed, including at least three children, a pregnant woman, and a mentally ill man. Hundreds have been injured, thousands terrorized. Universities and social welfare organizations were ransacked, shut down, their computers and equipment destroyed or stolen, and both private and public documents confiscated from civil institutions. This wonton thuggery is official state policy conducted by its military and does not include the violence to persons and properties perpetuated by paramilitary Israeli settlers, whose persistent attacks against Palestinian civilians have also escalated in the past weeks. And now that the settlers are confirmed dead, Israel has vowed to exact revenge. Naftali Bennet, Economy Minister said, "There is no mercy for the murderers of children. This is the time for action, not words."

Although no Palestinian faction has claimed responsibility for the abduction, and most, including Hamas, deny any involvement, Benjamin Netanyahu is adamant that Hamas is responsible. The United Nations requested that Israel provide evidence to support their contention, but no evidence has been forthcoming, casting doubt on Israel’s claims, particularly in light of its public ire over the recent unification of Palestinian factions and President Obama’s acceptance of the new Palestinian unity.

In the West, headlines over pictures of the three Israeli settler teens referred to Israel's reign of terror over Palestine as a "manhunt" and "military sweep." Portraits of innocent young Israeli lives rged from news outlets and the voices of their parents are featured in the fullness of their anguish. The US, EU, UK, UN, Canada and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) condemned the kidnapping and called for their immediate and unconditional release. Upon discovery of the bodies, there has been an outpouring of condemnation and condolences.

President Obama said, "As a father, I cannot imagine the indescribable pain that the parents of these teenage boys are experiencing. The United States condemns in the strongest possible terms this senseless act of terror against innocent youth."

Although hundreds of Palestinian children are kidnapped, brutalized or killed by Israel, including several in the past two weeks, there is rarely, if ever, such a reaction from the world.

Just prior to the disappearance of the Israeli settler teens, the murder of two Palestinian teens was caught on a local surveillance camera. Ample evidence, including the recovered bullets and a CNN camera filming an Israeli sharpshooter pulling the trigger at the precise moment one of the boys was shot indicated that they were killed in cold blood by Israeli soldiers. There were no condemnations or calls for justice for these teens by world leaders or internationaal institutions, no solidarity with their grieving parents, nor mention of the more than 250 Palestinian children, kidnapped from their beds or on their way to school, who continue to languish in Israeli jails without charge or trial, physically and psychologically tortured. This is to say nothing of the barbaric siege of Gaza, or the decades of ongoing theft, evictions, assaults on education, confiscation of land, demolition of homes, color coded permit system, arbitrary imprisonment, restriction of movement, checkpoints, extrajudicial executions, torture, and denials at every turn squeezing Palestinians into isolated ghettos.

None of that seemingly matters.

It does not matter that no one knows who murdered the Israeli teens. It seems the entire country is calling for Palestinian blood, reminiscent of American southern lynching rallies that went after black men whenever a white person turned up dead. Nor does it matter that these Israeli teens were settlers living in illegal Jewish-only colonies that were built on land stolen by the state mostly from Palestinian owners from the village of el-Khader. A huge portion of the settlers there are Americans, mostly from New York, like one of the murdered teens, who exercise Jewish privilege to hold dual citizenship; to have an extra country no matter where they're from, one in their own homeland and one in ours, at the same time that the indigenous Palestinians fester in refugee camps, occupied ghettos, or boundless exile.

Palestinian children are assaulted or murdered every day and barely do their lives register in western press. While Palestinian mothers are frequently blamed when Israel kills their children, accused of sending them to die or neglecting to keep them athome away from Israeli snipers, no one questions Rachel Frankel, the mother of one of the murdered settlers. She is not asked to comment on the fact that one of the missing settlers is a soldier who likely participated in the oppression of his Palestinian neighbors. No one asks why she would move her family from the United States to live in a segregated, supremacist colony established on land confiscated from the native non-Jewish owners. Certainly no one dares accuse her of therefore putting her children in harms way.

No mothr should have endure the murder of her child. No mother or father. That does not only apply to Jewish parents. The lives of our children are no less precious and their loss are no less shattering and spiritually unhinging. But there is a terrible disparity in the value of life here in the eyes of the state and the world, where Palestinian life is cheap and disposable, but Jewish life is sacrosanct.

This exceptionalism and supremacy of Jewish life is a fundamental underpinning of the state of Israel. It pervades their every law and protocol, and is matched only by their apparent contempt and disregard for Palestinian life. Whether through laws that favor Jews for employment and educational opportunities, or laws that allow the exclusion of non-Jews from buying or renting among Jews, or endless military orders that limit the movement, water consumption, food access, education, marriage possibilities, and economic independence, or these periodic upending of Palestinian civil society, life for non-Jews ultimately conforms to the religious edict issued by Dov Lior, Chief Rabbi of Hebron and Kiryat Arba, saying "a thousand non-Jewish lives are not worth a Jew's fingernail."

Israeli violence of the past few weeks is generally accepted and expected. And the terror we know they will unleash on our people will be, as it always is, cloaked in the legitimacy of uniforms and technological death machines. Israeli violence, no matter how vulgar, is inevitably couched as a heroic, ironic violence that western media frames as “response,” as if Palestinian resistance itself were not a response to Israeli oppression. When the ICRC was asked to issue a similar call for the immediate and unconditional release of the hundreds of Palestinian children held in Israeli jails (which is also in contravention of international humanitarian law), the ICRC refused, indicating there’s a difference between the isolated abduction of Israeli teens and the routine abduction, torture, isolation, and imprisonment of Palestinian children.

When our children throw rocks at heavily armed Israeli tanks and jeeps rolling through our streets, we are contemptible parents who should be bear responsibility for the murder of our children if they are shot by Israeli soldiers or settlers. When we refuse to capitulate completely, we are “not partners for peace,” and deserve to have more land confiscated from us for the exclusive use of Jews. When we take up arms and fight back, kidnap a soldier, we are terrorists of the extreme kind who have no one to blame but ourselves as Israel subjects the entire Palestinian population to punitive collective punishment. When we engage in peaceful protests, we are rioters who deserve the live fire they send our way. When we debate, write, and boycott, we are anti-Semites who should be silenced, deported, marginalized, or prosecuted.

What should we do, then? Palestine is quite literally being wiped off the map by a state that openly upholds Jewish supremacy and Jewish privilege. Our people continue to be robbed of home and heritage, pushed to the margins of humanity, blamed for our own miserable fate. We are a traumatized, principally unarmed, native society being destroyed and erased by one of the most powerful militaries in the world.

Rachel Frankel went to the UN to plead for their support, saying “it is wrong to take children, innocent boys or girls, and use them as instruments of any struggle. It is cruel…I wish to ask: Doesn’t every child have the right to come home safely from school?” Do those sentiments apply to Palestinian children, too? Here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and here are video examples of the abduction of Palestinian children from their homes at night and on their way to and from school.

But none of that matters either. Does it? It matters that three Israeli Jews were killed. It doesn’t matter who did it or what the circumstances were, the entire Palestinian population will be made to suffer, more than they already are

Susan Abulhawa is a Palestinian writer and the author of the international bestselling novel, Mornings in Jenin (Bloomsbury 2010). She is also the founder of Playgrounds for Palestine, an NGO for children.

Dom gets a gallery, his painting a home

Note: The article was published in the Times of India and the picture in Raj Bhavan Goa website. They are published here courtesy of both

Alexandre Moniz Barbosa,TNN | Mar 7, 2014, 03.35 AM IST

Hon'ble Governor Mr. Bharat Vir Wanchoo at the Opening of the Dom Martin Art Gallery and the Exhibition of Paintings on March 08, 2014.

PANAJI: Another Goan artist will receive his due recognition in his homeland this weekend. The art panels that adorned the casket holding the sacred relics of St Francis Xavier at the 1974 exposition are back in Goa, and on Saturday they will be on exhibition at the new Dom Martin Art Gallery, named after the artist himself, at the Goa Chitra Museum, Benaulim.

Artist Dom Martin, a brilliant artist who has always avoided publicity, sees this as a blessing. "Artists have the historical misfortune of being overlooked in their homeland, and the homeland awakens only after their artist is finally illuminated through the auspicious of a foreign sky, and the art buying then takes on a ravenous spin. In my instance, I feel blessed and gratified that my homeland has and continues to acknowledge my art even though I haven't sold a single painting since 1978," Martin told TOI in an email interview from California, USA, where he is based.

The gallery was conceived by Goa Chitra curator Victor Hugo Gomes as a gesture of gratitude to Martin when the artist donated to the museum 71 of his works, which had been locked up for years in his Porvorim flat and some of whose frames had been attacked by white ants. "When he bequeathed me these works I got a shock and I didn't know how to thank him. I was building an art gallery at that time and so I decided to name it after Dom," Gomes said.

In the coming months, the gallery will host art classes in Dom's name. While the 1974 exposition panels will be on view this Saturday, the other works of art donated by Dom to Goa Chitra will be exhibited later this year in three phases.

The eight 1974 exposition panels were not part of the bequest and were with Martin in California, until he dispatched these to Goa too. "The panels were priceless to me from a sentimental standpoint, being that they were symbolically embodied to the saint's sacred body during the 1974 exposition. From that perspective it was difficult (parting with them). However, they will be presently showcased in a much more prestigious place at Goa Chitra. They would otherwise be stashed in my desk drawer," Martin said.

Recalling how he worked on the panels 40 years back, Martin said that three days before the exposition he received a postcard from the then Rector of the Basilica of Bom Jesus asking him to come to the basilica. There he was asked to "come forth with something more powerful to showcase" the 1974 exposition.

"Overwhelmed with the prospect of producing something of this importance at such short notice, I left the basilica but not before striking a deal with the Saint: 'Provide me with the inspiration and I'll come through'," Martin said. What emerged were the panels depicting the life of the Saint.

Martin's art is not new to Goa. Since 1972, some of his works have been on permanent display at the Basilica of Bom Jesus and the art gallery in the same church. "Having my works now on display at the Dom Martin Art Galley at Goa Chakra, gives it a broader scope and a new impetus," Martin said.

Martin is known more in Goa for his philanthropy. The Vincent Xavier Verodiano Award he instituted in memory of his father has been recognizing the achievements of Goans since the year 1991. "The award originated upon my father's demise from a modest sum of money he bequeathed me. The corpus fund has since been supplemented from my personal contributions," Martin said.

Explaining the objective of the award Martin said, "The criteria of most awards is to scramble around, striving to crown the already renowned with further glory. The Verodiano Award differs in that its objective is not to further affirm those individuals (or societies, institutions or organizations), who have already found recognition in the field of art, music, literature, science, medicine, or humanities, but to recognize the potential of those who have not, and these who, for want of recognition might not otherwise be able to develop their talents and abilities for the benefit of posterity, or for the wellbeing of mankind," Martin said.

The inaugural exhibition at the Dom Martin Art Gallery, to be inaugurated by governor Bharat Vir Wanchoo, will be of paintings created last month during the International Art Residency, 2014, held at Goa Chitra.

About Dom Martin

Dom Martin is a renowned artist whose paintings adorn the Basilica of Bom Jesus in Old Goa, a poet who has penned gut-wrenching poetry, and a visionary who has created prophetic images. His books include Co-Existence: Humanity's Wailing Wall (2006), Genocide: The New Order of Imperialism (2008) and his latest, a volume of poetry, NAKBLINKA: The Cleansing of Co-Existence. It deals with the brutal attack on Gaza by Israel and is a step beyond other books on the subject.

Some opinions on him:

Mairead McGuire, Nobel Peace Laureate,1976: The poetry of Dom Martin cries out for an end to the infliction of cruelty and death upon the oppressed peoples of the world…… his metaphors call us to a deeper awareness, as Beings, of the tragedy and suffering that is the result of our unwillingness to coexist peacefully with one another. His truth-telling and honesty herald new hope of peaceful coexistence for all inhabitants of our undivided planet.

Dr. Luis Gaspar da Silva, Poet, Statesman: His seriousness is undoubtedly, one of the greatest -- if not the greatest -- ethos of his art. The man lives and reacts through what is true, or to whatever appears to him to be true, and what he executes is his truth. Hence, the intense reality of an expression of art which it appears to me is not very common ….Dom Martin has a special technique of expressing whatever lies deepest in the human soul, and what is more important, of the terrible and eternal problem of our presence as human beings in this vale of tears.

Dr. James J. Zogby, President, Arab American Institute: I am struck by (his) words and illustrations. I appreciate (his) focus on the human element, beyond the game of finger-pointing and blame that so often takes precedent.

How Clean Is the “Clean Chit” to Modi

Note; This article is published here courtesy of Bhindy Bazaar. For original article go to: 

http://bhindibazaar.asia/how-clean-is-the-clean-chit-to-modi/

By Kenan Malik

To pave the way for BJP leader Lal Krishna Advani’s national prime ministerial ambitions, the trail of blood which followed his Rath Yatra in 1989 and his signal contribution to the movement to violently pull down the Babri Masjid in 1992 were sought to be substantially erased from public memory by a systematic campaign of his re-invention as a moderate statesman. A similar exercise is feverishly under way to whitewash the hawkish and violent past of the BJP’s new prime ministerial hopeful Narendra Modi. Except for his core Hindu nationalist constituency, he is being reinvented as the messiah of market growth.

But the erasure of Mr Modi’s role in the brutal communal massacre of 2002 in Gujarat is even harder to accomplish. This is partly because until his meteoric rise on the national stage, he was proud rather than apologetic about the carnage which was accomplished during his stewardship. He led a ‘gaurav yatra’ or ‘procession of pride’ in the aftermath of the carnage which swept him to power. In his speeches then and over many years, he often taunted the Muslim people for their large families, and alleged their role in violence, terror and sympathy in Pakistan. He alluded to his own ‘chhapan chhaati’ or chest of 58 inches, suggesting his exceptional manly courage in taming the ‘enemy within’. He resolutely refused to express regret for the carnage, until again when propelled on the national stage, when he awkwardly said that if the car he was riding in (but not driving) ran over even a puppy, he would feel anguished.

Given his own discourse until recently of barely suppressed triumphalism surrounding the carnage of 2002, his transition to secular statesmanship required an exceptionally wilful flight of fancy among those who support him. Leaders of industry like Ratan Tata, the Ambani brothers and Sunil Mittal applaud his leadership for market growth, rejecting the idea that his national ambitions are disqualified by his alleged role in one of the most brutal communal massacres after Independence. They counsel that we should focus on the ‘big picture’ of growth, as though the violent suppression of minorities is a minor blemish. Many European ambassadors are lining up at his door in the hope of participating in Gujarat’s growth story. All of them need a fig-leaf to cover the nakedness of their choices.

This fig-leaf came with the closure report filed by the Supreme Court appointed SIT (Special Investigation Team) which absolved Narendra Modi of any role in the carnage, concluding there was no ‘prosecutable evidence’ against the Chief Minister. These findings were endorsed by the ‘clean-chit’ given the lower court which heard Zakia Jafri’s petition of April 15, 2013 alleging a high-level conspiracy to manipulate the Godhra tragedy to organise and fuel the carnage which followed. The first name among the 59 accused in Zakia Jafri’s petition was of Chief Minister Narendra Modi. Zakia’s lawyer Mihir Desai argued in the court that the political head of the State, the Home Ministry and the administration were in full knowledge of and allowed the ‘build-up of aggressive and communal sentiments, violent mobilisation, including carrying of arms, and a general outpouring against the minority community…’ Relying on documents collected by the SIT itself, Zakia’s petition attempted to establish that there was a conspiracy at the senior-most levels of the state administration not just to generate hatred against Muslims, but also to target Muslim people and their property and religious places and ‘aid and abet this process by acts and omissions of persons liable under law to act otherwise.’

How much does the SIT’s closure report and the lower court’s ‘clean chit’ for Mr Modi really free him from any taint of the Gujarat carnage? At best, these suggest that there is not irrefutable evidence that the Chief Minister actually directed the slaughter of Muslims be allowed to continue, giving free rein to enraged ‘Hindus’ to violently vent their rage. The SIT chose not to give credence to the statements of one serving and one retired police officer. But Manoj Mitta in his carefully researched new book ‘The Fiction of Fact-Finding: Modi and Godhra’, demonstrates that the SIT treated its influential first accused with kid gloves, never registering an FIR against him, nor pinning him down on a number of questions such as his public statement on 27 Feb 2012 that the train burning in Godhra was a pre-planned inhuman collective violent act of terrorism’, a claim which has not been borne out in the courts, and which fuelled public anger in the acts of mass revenge against Muslims which followed. It likewise did not question him about his claim that he first heard about the Gulbarg apartments massacre in which Ehsan Jafri lost his life at 8 in the evening of 28 Feb 2002, many hours after the slaughter, even though he was closely monitoring the events at the Circuit House Annexe just a few kilometres away from the Gulbarg apartments.

Senior advocate Raju Ramachandran, amicus curie appointed by the Supreme Court to investigate allegations of Narendra Modi’s complicity in the Gujarat riots, also disagreed with the conclusions of the SIT. His opinion reported to the Supreme Court is that ‘the offences which can be made out against Shri Modi, at this prima facie stage’ include ‘promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion and acts prejudicial to (the) maintenance of harmony.’ He believes also that there were grounds not to dismiss the version of suspended police officer Sanjiv Bhatt out of hand by the SIT, that on February 27, 2002, hours after 58 passengers were set on fire in a train near the Godhra station, Mr Modi held a meeting at his residence with senior police officers and told them that Hindus should be allowed to ‘vent their anger.’ He states: ‘I disagree with the conclusion of the SIT that Shri Bhatt should be disbelieved at this stage itself. On the other hand, I am of the view that Shri Bhatt needs to be put through the test of cross-examination, as do the others who deny his presence’.

Mr Ramachandran also points to evidence that two senior ministers were placed in police control rooms on February 28, as the riots raged in Ahmedabad and across the state. The SIT did not find evidence that they interfered with the police’s independent functioning, but ‘There is the possibility that the very presence of these two ministers had a dampening effect on the senior police officials.’ He concludes, ‘While there is no direct material to show how and when the message of the Chief Minister was conveyed to the two ministers, the very presence of political personalities unconnected with the Home Portfolio at the Police Control Rooms is circumstantial evidence of the Chief Minister directing, requesting or allowing them to be present.’

Chief Minister Modi’s appointment of MLA Maya Kodnani as his Minister for Women and Child Welfare after she was charged with leading the mob which brutally killed more than a 100 people, including women and children, in Naroda Patiya, further suggests his active complicity and endorsement of the carnage. Maya Kodnani was subsequently convicted and punished with imprisonment for life for the mass hate crimes.

However, the guilt of Mr Modi in the carnage of 2002 should not hinge in the end on proving beyond doubt that he directed police officers to allow Hindus to ‘vent their anger’, or that his Ministers were obeying his commands by interfering in independent police functioning or leading murderous mobs. The fact that the carnage continued for not just days but weeks should be evidence of the criminal complicity of senior state authorities in the carnage, coupled with his intemperate statements and the parading of bodies of people killed in the train which further inflamed public anger. Similar guilt should be attached to those who allowed other communal carnages to continue, whether on the streets of Delhi in 1984 and Mumbai in 1992-93 or the killing fields of Nellie in 1983 and Bhagalpur in 1989.

The ‘clean chit’ given to Mr Modi is at best a technical clearance in the absence of cast-iron evidence that he actively and explicitly directed the carnage, although even this absolving of his direct guilt is disputed by experts. But there can be no doubt of his grave culpability for inflaming sectarian passions by holding Muslims guilty for an offence without evidence, and for the openly partisan actions of his government which facilitated the continuance of the murderous carnage for many dark days in 2002.

Kenan Malik is a writer, lecturer and broadcaster, and the author of “From Fatwa to Jihad: The Rushdie Affair and Its Aftermath.”