Indian journalist, political analyst, and activist Kanchan Gupta has written a great piece in the Daily Mail about Israeli President Reuven Riblin’s recent trip to India.
In it, he sees the importance of the relationship between the two countries, and he implores India to reciprocate Israel’s almost one-sided gestures.
With bonus ripping of BDS!
If Muslim dislike of America, imagined or real, was the reason that kept Obama away from Agra and the Taj Mahal, it should have surely stopped Israel’s President Reuven Rivlin from even considering a visit to the city.
It would be silly to believe, or even suggest, that India’s Muslims are comfortable with the idea of Israel.
They aren’t, and they are not alone. The usual suspects, a gaggle of far Left extremists and Marxists, issued a statement condemning Rivlin’s visit to India.
The statement hilariously demanded that India should join the ‘Boycott, Divest, Sanction’ movement against Israel – a movement which has little to do with Palestinian aspirations and is really about anti-Semitism.
But Rivlin did visit Agra and he did get himself photographed, along with his wife, in front of the Taj Mahal.
The mellow winter sunlight added a certain grace and dignity to the picture.
What added poignancy was his comment after visiting the Taj Mahal: “A beautiful place where you can see that ‘love is as strong as death’.”
To quote from the Song of Solomon that appears in the Tanakh, or Hebrew Bible, while appreciating the beauty of an Islamic tomb would require both courage and innocence.
Or, we could say, it needed chutzpah and Rivlin showed he was not lacking in it. That was only one of the many surprises of this visit by an Israeli dignitary.
The other notable surprise was Rivlin’s visit to Teen Murti to pay homage to Indian soldiers who fought for and fell at Haifa.
Most Indians would not know the history of the Teen Murti monument; the Israelis do.
History tells us that during World War I, Haifa was captured by the British 15th Imperial Cavalry Brigade comprising regiments of the Hyderabad, Mysore and Jodhpur Lancers, represented by the three bronze statues at Teen Murti.
Much as Lutyens’s Delhi would want it, Teen Murti is not about Jawaharlal Nehru.
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A lot has been achieved in this quarter century despite India being hesitant about walking the full distance.
Israel, on the other hand, has given unquestioningly.
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There’s a slow shift happening with India abstaining from voting against Israel at UNESCO, but that needs to become the norm.
Read the whole thing.
