Will India designate Hamas a terrorist organisation? Israel has asked India to go a step further in its fight against terrorism by proscribing the militant group as a terrorist outfit.
At a time when New Delhi is doing a fine balancing act in condemning all forms of terror as well as supporting humanitarian outreach towards Palestinians in Gaza—where the Hamas has a stranglehold and support base—the decision of whether or not to add Hamas to its long list of banned terrorist organisations like Al Qaeda, ISIS , Lashkar-e-Tayyiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed is a question that will be handled by the security brass taking into consideration national security interests.
Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Israel’s ambassador to India Naor Gilon said Israel would like India to declare Hamas as a terrorist organization.
On whether the issue has been taken up with the Indian government after the October 7 attack in Israel, Gilon said, “We spoke to the relevant authorities here. It is not the first time we are speaking about it. I think it is important because of the shared war on terror.”
He, however, added that it is not an issue where Israel is putting any pressure, but a dialogue that is continuing as part of a common concern in the counter terrorism efforts.
Asked if the Israel - Hamas war will escalate into a wider conflict in the Middle East region, Gilon said, “It is not a decision of Israel whether it will go into a wider conflict”.
“The focus is to destroy Hamas and get the hostages freed,” he said as ground offensive in Gaza remains a strong possibility.
Gilon expressed concern over Turkey’s support to Hamas and called it “very unfortunate”.
“There are two countries who are being very supportive in the region to Hamas, Turkey lately and Qatar being another one.”
The ambassador said the main concept which Israel failed to assess ahead of the Hamas terror attack was whether the Hamas political leadership had an interest in the well being of its own population.
The failure was in the approach of having the military go hand in hand with efforts to improve the conditions in Gaza where many of them came to work in Israel and created relative prosperity in Gaza before the attack, he said.
“I think that this was a mistaken concept because Hamas cares nothing about these elements. As I like to say, we went to sleep on Friday evening with Hamas as a neighbour, and we woke up Saturday morning with ISIS as the neighbour. So it became from a so called pragmatic terror organization controlling Gaza into a murderous, vicious terror organization that has nothing moderate,” Gilon said, adding that Israel is fighting a war of survival.
“It is a war of being able to survive in the Middle East. We live in a very tough neighbourhood, in the Middle East. If you are perceived as weak, your life is going to be miserable.”
But it is important to go beyond Israel in the global fight against terror, said Gilon who thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for being among the first world leaders to condemn the terror attack.
“India is a very important moral voice in the world and an an important country for us and with us.”
