What’s being ‘fortunate’ or ‘unfortunate’?
Usually words such as loss, tragic or unfortunate are used to express feelings when accidents or mishaps or natural disasters occur. May be even to describe when hundreds of people die in a train or bus accidents or something. But if the leaders of the nation use such words, it indicates things that happened were due to evil forces or something similar. Can a leader escape his responsibility by using that word?
Finally, and thankfully so, the PM has broken his silence on incidents of lynch mobs having claimed lives of 12 people in the country. All he has said is ‘it’s unfortunate’. Whose bad fortune was that? Of the PM, or the nation or that of the dead ones? He hasn’t made that clear in his speech.
Instead of speaking strongly against those people in lynch mobs who incited the hatred and caused the deaths, he has spoken against political parties that have been criticizing such incidents and blaming the government for it. He has called the political parties vested interests for wanting action against lynch mobs. And there is a reason and a pattern to his response. Instead of issuing a stern warning to attackers, he has ridiculed the parties that have spoken against this.
One does not understand whether mob violence increases owing to fortune or misfortune. But when the law implementation is done effectively, and the agencies work with due diligence, instances of crime and violence comes down.
When the whole system is weak, the unruly mobs go on a rampage. The police department works according to the stance government adopts against particular issues. Because, after all, the police department is part of the government itself!
Ever since Modi govt came to power, the rate of crime has increased in the country. UP government would soon be issuing lynch mobs an Id card and circumvent the democratic ideals the governments should work on. When this happens, how does one assume the incidents are merely ‘unfortunate’?
One can understand the govt pandering to these mobs, when you see how many members of the mobs have been arrested or being acted against. And this will explain why the incidents are on a rise in India. Who are they who get violent in groups? Are they common people who turn into flash mobs and get violent at the spur of the moment?
The PM surely knows they are not commoners. One clearly knows the party that brings pressure to let off the violent group member when they are arrested by cops. Cops killed a cow trader in Udupi and threw his body in a tribal settlement. Then they pretended to trace the body and said he had died of heart attack. After there was a widespread demand to investigate the death, the accused people and cops were held. The local goons who belong to Sangh Parivar were main accused in the case. Immediately after they were held, BJP MP and leader Shobha Karandlaje took to streets demanding for the release of these Sangh Parivar members. Does this not indicate that the mobs and party politics are hand in glove?
On one hand Modi says these lynch mobs are unfortunate. On the other, their own party members are defending these crimes. Who should be trusted? Another incident occurred in Jharkhand some time ago. People beat up a cow trader and cops arrested them. Eventually the culprits were released on bail and Union minister Jayant Sinha accorded them honour by garlanding them. One cannot dismiss this as ‘unfortunate’ and maintain silence. This is an encouragement to those who lynch. The minister should have been criticized or at least told some words of advice to not engage with such elements.
The word ‘unfortunate’ should have been used against incidents such as this one. But the PM chose not to speak at that time. Many instances are such that even cops are hand in glove with the culprits. The government has sponsored such acts by being party to it in some sense. Since BJP is the beneficiary of this violence, the country is indeed going through an unfortunate time.
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Netanyahu recommends his Cabinet approve Hezbollah cease-fire proposal
Beirut, Nov 26: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday that he would recommend his cabinet adopt a United States-brokered ceasefire agreement with Lebanon's Hezbollah, as Israeli warplanes struck across Lebanon, killing at least 23 people.
The Israeli military also issued a flurry of evacuation warnings — a sign it was aiming to inflict punishment on Hezbollah down to the final moments before any ceasefire takes hold. For the first time in the conflict, Israeli ground troops reached parts of Lebanon's Litani River, a focal point of the emerging deal.
In a televised statement, Netanyahu said he would present the ceasefire to Cabinet ministers later on Tuesday, setting the stage for an end to nearly 14 months of fighting.
Netanyahu said the vote was expected later Tuesday. It was not immediately clear when the ceasefire would go into effect, and the exact terms of the deal were not released. The deal does not affect Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza, which shows no signs of ending.
The evacuation warnings covered many areas, including parts of Beirut that previously have not been targeted. The warnings, coupled with fear that Israel was ratcheting up attacks before a ceasefire, sent residents fleeing. Traffic was gridlocked, and some cars had mattresses tied to them. Dozens of people, some wearing their pajamas, gathered in a central square, huddling under blankets or standing around fires as Israeli drones buzzed loudly overhead.
Hezbollah, meanwhile, kept up its rocket fire, triggering air raid sirens across northern Israel.
Lebanese officials have said Hezbollah also supports the deal. If approved by all sides, the deal would be a major step toward ending the Israel-Hezbollah war that has inflamed tensions across the region and raised fears of an even wider conflict between Israel and Hezbollah's patron, Iran.
The deal calls for a two-month initial halt in fighting and would require Hezbollah to end its armed presence in a broad swath of southern Lebanon, while Israeli troops would return to their side of the border. Thousands of Lebanese troops and UN peacekeepers would deploy in the south, and an international panel headed by the United States would monitor all sides' compliance.
But implementation remains a major question mark. Israel has demanded the right to act should Hezbollah violate its obligations. Lebanese officials have rejected writing that into the proposal. Israel's Defense Minister Israel Katz insisted on Tuesday that the military would strike Hezbollah if the U.N. peacekeeping force, known as UNIFIL, doesn't provide “effective enforcement” of the deal.
“If you don't act, we will act, and with great force,” Katz said, speaking with UN special envoy Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert.
The European Union's top diplomat, Josep Borrell, said Tuesday that Israel's security concerns had been addressed in the deal also brokered by France.
“There is not an excuse for not implementing a ceasefire. Otherwise, Lebanon will fall apart,” Borrell told reporters in Italy on the sidelines of a Group of Seven meeting. He said France would participate on the ceasefire implementation committee at Lebanon's request.
Bombardment of Beirut's southern suburbs continues
Even as Israeli, US, Lebanese and international officials have expressed growing optimism over a ceasefire, Israel has continued its campaign in Lebanon, which it says aims to cripple Hezbollah's military capabilities.
An Israeli strike on Tuesday levelled a residential building in the central Beirut district of Basta — the second time in recent days warplanes have hit the crowded area near the city's downtown. At least seven people were killed and 37 wounded, according to Lebanon's Health Ministry.
Three people were killed in a separate strike in Beirut and three in a strike on a Palestinian refugee camp in southern Lebanon. Lebanese state media said another 10 people were killed in the eastern Baalbek province. Israel says it targets Hezbollah fighters and their infrastructure.
Earlier, Israeli jets struck at least six buildings in Beirut's southern suburbs. One strike slammed near the country's only airport, sending plumes of smoke into the sky. The airport has continued to function despite its location on the Mediterranean coast next to the densely populated suburbs where many of Hezbollah's operations are based.
Israeli military spokesman Avichay Adraee issued evacuation warnings for 20 buildings in the suburbs, as well as a warning for the southern town of Naqoura where UNIFIL is headquartered.
UNIFIL spokesperson Andrea Tenenti told The Associated Press that peacekeepers will not evacuate.
Other strikes hit in the southern city of Tyre, where the Israeli military said it killed a local Hezbollah commander.
The Israeli military also said its ground troops clashed with Hezbollah forces and destroyed rocket launchers in the Slouqi area on the eastern end of the Litani River, a few kilometres from the Israeli border.
Previous ceasefire hopes were dashed
Under the ceasefire deal, Hezbollah would be required to move its forces north of the Litani, which in some places is about 30 kilometers (20 miles) north of the border.
A ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, the strongest Iranian-backed force in the region, would likely significantly calm regional tensions that have led to fears of a direct, all-out war between Israel and Iran. It's not clear how the ceasefire will affect the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. Hezbollah had long insisted that it would not agree to a ceasefire until the war in Gaza ends, but it dropped that condition.
Hezbollah began firing into northern Israel, saying it was showing support for the Palestinians, a day after Hamas carried out its Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel, triggering the Gaza war. Israel returned fire on Hezbollah, and the two sides have been exchanging barrages ever since.
Israel escalated its campaign of bombardment in mid-September and later sent troops into Lebanon, vowing to put an end to Hezbollah fire so tens of thousands of evacuated Israelis could return to their homes.
More than 3,760 people have been killed by Israeli fire in Lebanon the past 13 months, many of them civilians, according to Lebanese health officials. The bombardment has driven 1.2 million people from their homes. Israel says it has killed more than 2,000 Hezbollah members.
Hezbollah fire has forced some 50,000 Israelis to evacuate in the country's north, and its rockets have reached as far south in Israel as Tel Aviv. At least 75 people have been killed, more than half of them civilians. More than 50 Israeli soldiers have died in the ground offensive in Lebanon.
After previous hopes for a ceasefire were dashed, U.S. officials cautioned that negotiations were not yet complete and noted there could be last-minute hitches that delay or destroy an agreement.
“Nothing is done until everything is done,” White House national security spokesman John Kirby said.
While the ceasefire proposal is expected to be approved if Netanyahu brings it to a vote in his security Cabinet, one hard-line member, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, said he would oppose it. He said on X that a deal with Lebanon would be a “big mistake” and a “missed historic opportunity to eradicate Hezbollah.”
