US based journalist says India and Israel use similar tactics in occupied territories

New York: Azad Essa, a senior reporter for Middle East Eye based in New York City has said that India and Israel have grown increasingly closer as partners and allies, so much so that they are using similar tactics in occupied territories– Jammu and Kashmir and Palestine.

Azad Essa in a video message said that disputed territory of Jammu and Kashmir dates back to 1947 and Palestine 1948. He said that both Israel and India committed ethnic cleansing in Palestine and Jammu and Kashmir respectively.

Azad Essa said that since 1947 and 1948, both India and Israel have been engaged in settler colonial projects in Kashmir and Palestine. While explaining the ideologies of the two countries, he said that India’s Hindutva and Israel’s Zionism are posing an existential threat to Kashmiris and Palestinians. He said that both Indian and Israeli armies are using similar tactics to annihilate Kashmiris and Palestinians.

“For both Israel and India, and Zionism and Hindutva, controlling Palestine and Kashmir are existential questions,” Essa said.

The reporter said that both call themselves democracies but the fact is media persons are targeted both in Kashmir and Palestine. He went on to add that both India and Israel inflict collective punishment on Kashmiris and Palestinians, and both are also similar in refusing the dead bodies of the martyrs.

They both adopt similar tactics when seizing lands, displacing people, criminalising dissent, muzzling journalists, and controlling people’s movements, argues Middle East Eye journalist Azad Essa.

“However, whereas Israel wants to erase Palestinians and Palestine, India has for decades used assimilation as a tactic to control Kashmir. Now it is a lot more open to erasing Kashmiris.”

Azad Essa has also worked for Al Jazeera English between 2010-2018 covering southern and central Africa for the network.