Israel is only a 'strategic partner'

• Modi must be aware, that in becoming the first Indian prime minister to visit Israel he was merely correcting a historical wrong. Israel is not our 'natural ally'. At best it could be our 'strategic partner'. See below the difference.

Natural allies are normally 'birds of the same feather', while strategic partners are often ‘strange bedfellows’. Natural allies share common political and cultural values—they may share common historical and cultural traditions; their societal values may be more or less similar; they may practice the same religion; and so on. Strategic partners may share none of these similarities. What makes two countries either natural allies or strategic partners is the common security challenge that they both face at a particular juncture in history and more importantly their decision to come together and pool their resources to deal with this challenge.

• David Ben Gurion, the founder of Israel, held a deep, resilient respect for India. He was fascinated by the India's ancient civilization, its inclusive culture, sought its friendship and recognition. He convinced Einstein to write the letter to Nehru, to carry the burden of the unrequited relationship. 
• Nehru rejected Israel's hand of friendship and cooperation, since he felt he couldn't afford to antagonize the Arabs given India's large Muslim population who had chosen to remain instead of migrating to Pakistan. And yet for all of India's efforts the Arab nations did not come to India's aid even once during its wars and conflicts. Israel did. 
• India recognized Israel in 1950 but without diplomatic relations.
• In 1968, when India established Research & Analysis Wing, then prime minister Indira Gandhi reached out to Israel's Mossad – to help train the fledgling service.
• Leave alone support, India has been betrayed by the Arab nations on Pakistan and Kashmir repeatedly. Be it the 1962 conflict with China, wars against Pakistan in 1965, 1971 and 1999 as well as during sanctions against India after nuclear tests, Israel has been the only nation to stand by us.
• Not withstanding our ties with Arab world, they had always supported Pakistan in backing Kashmir's "movement for self-determination".
• Modi’s “closeness” to Israel has blinded him to the report’s finding that 2,251 Palestinians were killed, over 1,600 wounded and some 5,00,000 displaced by the ruthless Israeli bombing of Gaza. The report says while Hamas did not use Palestinians as “human shields”, the Israelis did so using Palestinian children. 
• Today, Israel has so much to offer us apart from countering terrorist menace, in fields of water conservation, irrigation, innovations in agriculture, space technology, cyber-security, research and development in the fields of science, informational technology, startups, trade, commerce and defense collaboration.
• India's Israel policy has so far been unfair, myopic, perverted and hypocritical. This was a much-needed course-correction. However, a small country of 8.2 million can't be a model for a country with 1.3 billion with ethic and cultural diversity.
• Human right violations of Israel in Gaza and west Bank might become a head ache for India, which is so far a principled supporter of Palestine cause.
• It took one phone call from the Israeli prime minister for India to abandon seven decades of carefully cultivated relations with the Arabs in general, and the Palestinians in particular. This is a region which is host to nearly seven million Indian expatriate workers, whose remittances constitute the largest contribution to our foreign exchange earnings. It is also the region on which we depend for energy. In one fell blow, Modi has degraded us from being the best friend of the Arab world to its most doubtful supporter.
• If not handled deftly, our burgeoning relationship with Israel may be construed negatively by the Islamic nations.
• Finally 'strategic partnership' should be aimed at deriving mutual benefits without compromising the existing multilateral deep rooted relationships.
• Modi had earlier visited Israel in 2006 when he was the Chief Minister of Gujarat. 

Palestine belongs to the Arabs as England belongs to the English 
and France to the French .. Mahatma Gandhi
If someone comes to kill you, rise up and kill him first ... Shimon Peres

My View:

Making Israel as strategic partner and deriving benefits in upgrading defense and strike capabilities apart from improving know how which benefits the areas of agriculture, irrigation, security, trade and commerce etc is OK but it is all the more important to maintain equally good relationships with Islamic Nations in view of our long association despite hiccups, dependency on Arab nations for oil, millions of Indians employed in Gulf and billions of dollars they repatriate which helps us manage our trade deficits. Otherwise Modi will end up India deriving small benefits and bring our country face to face with gigantic issues. Foreign policy requires consistent principled behavior and farsightedness, which Modi lacks.

Police quizzes Isreali PM Netanyahu for suspected of graf

If our Prime Minister Modi has an iota of sincerity in his recent demonetization histrionics over eliminating black money, corruption etc, he should at once appoint Lokpal with purview including all political office bearers (including PM, President, Governor, CM, Ministers etc), officials, judiciary, businessmen and grant autonomy and teeth to RTI, CVC, CBI and ACB etc and then only people will believe him to some extent. Otherwise all his talk is just 'bakwas'.

While I am not Congress admirer either, it is pertinent to know that UID Aadhaar was Manmohan Singh's brain child to reduce black money and benami properties and RTI as well which gives citizen rights to know what is happening in corridors of power.

My View:
The framers of constitution Nehru, Rajendra Prasad, Patel Ambedkar thought that persons holding very high offices (President, PM etc) would be as good as them and they thought fit to exclude these office bearers so that they could focus on taking far reaching decisions with ease and without distraction. After 70 years the reality is opposite. Hence it is important for Modi to introduce and maintain transparency and accountability in public domain starting with himself (ironically he talked about these too much during demonetization days, while he did this quack advised demonetization in highly deplorable and autocratic way and landed the nation in turmoil), otherwise he will go down history as a biggest national traitor. My gut feeling is that he will not, because he is not as tall as he projects himself. He is simply a demagogue with insatiable desire for publicity.

World War II

Timeline
Chronological events of the Word War II between 1939-45, the deadliest conflict in human history with over 60 million fatalities ... more
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Axis Alliance
Axis Alliance partners were Germany, Italy, and Japan recognized German domination over most of continental Europe, Italian domination over the Mediterranean Sea, and Japanese domination over East Asia and the Pacific  with territorial expansion, military conquest, overthrow of the post-World War I international order, and destruction or neutralization of Soviet Communism as objectives... more
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Final Solution
The Nazis frequently used term “Final Solution” to refer to their plan to annihilate the Jewish people. The genocide, or mass destruction, of the Jews was the culmination of a decade of increasingly severe discriminatory measures. Under the rule of Adolf Hitler, the persecution and segregation of Jews was implemented in stages. After the Nazi party achieved power in Germany in 1933, its state-sponsored racism led to anti-Jewish legislation, economic boycotts, all of which aimed to systematically isolate Jews from society and drive them out of the country. In its entirety, the "Final Solution" called for the murder of all European Jews by gassing, shooting, and other means. Six million Jewish men, women, and children were killed during the Holocaust—two-thirds of the Jews living in Europe before World War II... more
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German Prewar Expansion
At the Lausanne Conference of 1932, Germany, Britain, and France agreed to the formal suspension of reparations payments imposed on the defeated countries after World War I. Hitler was determined to overturn the remaining military and territorial provisions of the treaty. However in violation, Germany annexed Austria on March 12, 1938. And on March 15, 1939, Hitler moved against the Czechoslovak state. A week later, on March 23, 1939, German troops suddenly occupied Lithuania. Hitler also raised territorial demands on Poland in the spring of 1939. Convinced that Hitler would not negotiate in good faith, Britain and France guaranteed the integrity of Polish territory against German aggression. With Hitler determined to attack Poland, Europe was on the brink of war in late summer 1939... more
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The Holocaust
The Holocaust was the state-sponsored, systematic persecution and annihilation of European Jewry by Nazi Germany and its collaborators, between 1933 and 1945. Jews were the primary victims - six million were murdered. Roma (Gypsies), disabled people and Poles were also targeted for destruction or decimation for racial, ethnic, or national reasons. Millions more, including homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, Soviet prisoners of war, and political dissidents also suffered grievous oppression and death under Nazi tyranny... more
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War in Depth
Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan unleashed World War II with the intention of establishing, by military conquest, a permanent dominance over Europe and Asia respectively. Germany and Japan formed an anti-Communist front aimed at the Soviet Union in 1936. That same year Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany formed the Axis alliance, shortly after Italy completed its brutal and successful conquest of Ethiopia. Japan had initiated its policy of military conquest by invading Chinese Manchuria in September 1931. Germany incorporated Austria and the Czech lands without having to resort to war in 1938 and 1939. With a pact of nonaggression, Germany secured the neutrality of the Soviet Union, ruled by dictator Joseph Stalin. Germany then invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, beginning World War II in Europe. The Soviet Union occupied and annexed eastern Poland in 1939. With German encouragement, the Soviet Union occupied the Baltic states in June 1940 and annexed them in August 1940. Italy entered the war on June 10, 1940, and invaded southern France on June 21. Dissatisfied with Italy's share in the spoils at the armistice negotiations, Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini attacked Greece in October 1940. On June 22, 1941, the Germans and their Axis partners (except Bulgaria) invaded the Soviet Union in direct violation of the German-Soviet Pact of August 1939. By the end of October 1941, German troops had advanced deep into the Soviet Union... more
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War in Europe
During World War II, Germany overran much of Europe using a new tactic called the "Blitzkrieg" (lightning war). Blitzkrieg involved the massing of planes, tanks, and artillery. These forces would break through enemy defenses along a narrow front. Air power prevented the enemy from closing the breach. German forces encircled opposing troops, forcing them to surrender. Using the Blitzkrieg tactic, Germany defeated Poland (attacked in September 1939), Denmark (April 1940), Norway (April 1940), Belgium (May 1940), the Netherlands (May 1940), Luxembourg (May 1940), France (May 1940), Yugoslavia (April 1941), and Greece (April 1941). Yet Germany did not defeat Great Britain, which was protected from ground attack by the English Channel. German forces attacked the Soviet Union in June 1941, pushing more than 600 miles to the gates of Moscow. A second German offensive in 1942 brought German soldiers to the shores of the Volga River and the city of Stalingrad. But the Soviet Union, together with Great Britain and the United States, which had entered the war against Germany in December 1941, turned the tide of battle against Germany. Nazi Germany surrendered in May 1945... more
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War in the Pacific
Japanese expansion in East Asia began in 1931 with the invasion of Manchuria and continued in 1937 with a brutal attack on China. Japan launched a surprise attack on the United States Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941. The attack severely damaged the American fleet and prevented serious American interference with Japanese military operations.The turning point in the Pacific war came with the American naval victory in the Battle of Midway in June 1942. The Japanese fleet sustained heavy losses and was turned back. On August 6, 1945, the United States Air Force dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Three days later, the United States dropped another atom bomb on the Japanese city of Nagasaki. Approximately 120,000 civilians died as a result of the two blasts. On August 8, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan and invaded Japanese-occupied Manchuria. Japan formally surrendered to the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union on September 2, 1945... more
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Nazi Persecution of Soviet Prisoners of War
The brutal treatment of Soviet POWs by the Germans violated every standard of warfare. About 3.3 million out of 5.7 million i.e. about 57% of those taken prisoner, were dead by the end of the war, second only to the Jews. In contrast of the 231,000 British and American prisoners held by the Germans during the war only about 8,300 i.e. 3.6% died in German custody... more
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Postwar Refugee Crisis and the Establishment of the State of Israel
Most Jewish survivors, who had survived concentration camps or had been in hiding, were unwilling to return to eastern Europe because of postwar antisemitism and the destruction of their communities during the Holocaust. Jewish Brigade Group, worked with former partisans to help organize the "escape", the exodus of 250,000 Jewish refugees across closed borders from inside Europe to the coast in an attempt to sail for Palestine. After the British began the withdrawal of their military forces from Palestine Zionist leaders moved to establish a modern Jewish state and on May 14, 1948 formation of the state of Israel was announced... more
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Adolf Eichmann
who killed five million Jews With boundless enthusiasm for his task and fanatical efficiency, Eichmann traveled throughout the Reich coordinating the Final Solution, insuring a steady supply of trainloads of Jews to the killing centers. In 1950, he fled to Argentina and lived under the assumed name for ten years until Israeli Mossad agents abducted him. He was found guilty on all counts, sentenced to death and hanged in 1962... more