The Great Bong on the difference between the Indian and the Israeli approach to provocation:

“As someone primarily interested in sub-continental politics, what is most interesting for me however, more than the role of Turkey, is the difference between India and Israel in their reactions to provocation, being in similar boats—– — democratic countries with strong militaries, surrounded by antagonistic countries on many sides, eager to provoke them to conflict over disputed territories.

Let us consider a hypothetical situation. Pakistan has been taken over by the Taliban who publicly declare their intention to wipe out India. Just to show they mean business, they send over a few rockets to this side. Then on international waters India sees a ship coming towards Karachi, sent by an organization that specializes in sending Jihadi fighters and lethal arms and ammunition. It however claims to be on a peaceful mission. Now what would India do then?

In actuality if this happened, India would be able to do nothing because it would not even know that such a ship existed in the first place. I mean we have no idea even as to who is in our waters, as evidenced on 26/11, such is the state of our intelligence. But even assuming we did, I am pretty sure that we would let the ship pass, deciding it to be too troublesome to do anything.

Consider another situation. During the Kargil war, the Pakistani forces were getting re-enforcements  through Pakistani territory enabling them to dig in deeper and inflict further damage to Indian forces. The war would be much easier to fight for India if we made a foray into Pakistani territory and cut off supply lines. But we never did that and instead took the resultant damage in terms of loss of life.

How would Israel have reacted in this situation? Would they, like India, have cared for world opinion given that the world was silent on Pakistani aggression (because Pakistani fighters were not in uniform) but were ready, fangs bared, to jump on India should it step on Pakistani soil, even though in a purely defensive action?

We know the answer. They would not have cared even a bit.

This is because Israel and India approach the same problem from totally different directions. For Israel, an Israeli life and particularly that of a soldier is a non-negotiable. They pretty much prefer to show the middle finger to the UN and to everyone else in the world rather than put a single Israeli’s life in jeopardy. For that they are prepared to hit international law and conventions for a six—-raid ships on the high seas, go into enemy territory to kidnap suspected terrorists, throw a missile or three. If they were fighting Kargil, they would have just said “If one soldier’s life can be saved by going into Pakistani space, we are going in. Let the world hate us for it. They will perhaps hate us anyways”. Of course Israel can afford to be so gung-ho and aggressive because USA has always had its back, no matter what they do, including indefensible crimes against humanity like the Sabra and Shatila masscare.

In India, however an Indian life is expendable. We do not care. More so if it is an Army man. There are not many countries in the world where, when a battalion of paramilitary forces is wiped out, there will be intellectuals, feted by the press, congratulating their murderers while most citizens stay more concerned about IPL than that small incident. For us, death of our citizens is not a non-negotiable. Public opinion and perceived correctness is more a concern. Hence we adopt a more hands-off approach—taking action just when the pin on the grenade lands at our feet. Again unlike Israel, we have no powerful backers and so one misstep ,we know, we will have the whole world with their boots on our necks. So you cannot blame India also for being perennially on the back foot.

The emotional reaction in India, typically after a terrorist attack, is often a cry of— “India should be more like Israel”. But should it? Let us go back to the flotilla. A number of Israeli military men go onto the deck. Should they have? Perhaps yes. Perhaps no.

Once they do enter, they are attacked by small weapons. The protesters who were “Death to Jews” to the cameras are probably repeating that when they see actual Jews. One of the Israeli forces is hurled from the railing. The commanding officer sees his men at risk and following the dictum “One Israeli life is too much” gives the order to use lethal force. There are many ways to deal with violent crowds, especially when you yourself aren’t exactly on solid legal ground. Shooting them down isn’t really the only way. However it is the most vengeful.  And it is the one which sends the “Dont mess with us” message the best.

This aggressiveness of the Israeli often admired is however also their Achilles heel. It makes them deadly predictable. You see many of those men did not mind getting killed (As one says on the video—there are two happy endings—-Gaza or martyrdom) as long as it was for the cause. If not this flotilla then there would have been a more provocative flotilla down the line. And the Israelis, given the way they are, would fall for the bait sooner or later. They fell for it sooner.

The Turkish government reacted with well-rehearsed fury, getting the applause of the Arab world and their citizens. Which is exactly what they too wanted. The world attention now goes right back to the siege of Gaza. Protests take place everywhere. The UN passes resolutions of condemnation. Passions against Israel are stoked. Unlike other years, the US president, with the Nobel Prize in advance, is very wary of world opinion and so the US support is much more muted than the past.

In short, Israel has screwed itself. Badly. Simply because of its predictable, unreasonable macho-ness. [sic]

Maybe, from a purely strategic point of view, being “spineless” once in a while isnt such a bad thing after all.

We Indians however take it to another predictable extreme.

That is, of course, our problem.”