 Also families, that is a big thing as well. This I saw in Syria where in the Golan Heights, it's completely divided. There's one side of Syria and the other side is with Israel and families have been separated. So how do you communicate with each other? I saw them picking loudspeakers under the UN protection. And that's how you start speaking on the loudspeaker even in your family affairs. The marriage has taken place here, something happened, your child has gone to college. And then the other one from the opposite side under Israel will say something else and respond. And it's a very emotional kind of a meeting place. We are in this region, the North Eastern region, we have been through a lot of conflicts. We have seen those for almost 30 years now. Although the character of this conflict is different. But the sufferings are, I mean, all nonetheless, it's there. So I think my students and the audience, they will be able to relate to these human sufferings. It will resonate among them. I think so, because North East has got its own experience of conflict and violence. So you're already acquainted and sensitized to these kind of difficult social conditions. So I think you connect because of your own experience with people from elsewhere. Let's see if I am speaking to people in Bangalore would not be able to relate to it at all. And our idea is also the same. This is the idea. More often than not, we see these things as a military crisis or a crisis between two states, but we hardly see it as actually humanitarian crisis. And that's more important lens to look at the conflict rather than seeing it as a kind of a technical thing involving two states or two sides of military. So that's precisely the idea of having this kind of a talk. Okay, people have got coming in. We know this doing it. More curious because this is now time. So people will pour in. So we will have to admit. So within five minutes, it will be full. So yes, people are coming. It's already dark in Guwahati, isn't it? Yeah, almost. And also cloudy, raining. Jayanta, which part of Assam are you from? I am from a small town called Dhubri. It is near West Bengal border. Yeah, having a big bridge being built over there. Yeah, it's being planned. Dhubri Phulbari, I think that's the... Dhubri Phulbari, yes, Dhubri Phulbari. But I am here in Guwahati for the last almost 25 years now. Oh, okay. We have around 33 participants. It's coming up. Once VCCI joins, we can start. It will go up to 100. More than 100 actually. Because our students are now started coming in. I can see the research scholars. VCCI is coming. Yes. Andy, hi. Hi. Hello. Great to see you. Hi. Great, yeah. Great, great. Where are you now? I am in Delhi right now. Okay, Delhi. Okay. Nice. After so long. I know, I think last you used to make your visits to Moscow and keep coming to Delhi. Almost 30 years. 30 years. Christa would be joining probably. Is it? Oh, good. So I told him. Where is he? He is in... Sikkim, Sikkim. Sikkim, okay. Okay, great. So Sikkim Central University is in the Department of History. Excellent. So his son, I think I talked to him. Probably, both of them will be joining. I see. How old is he? Is he in college? He has already completed his PhD. Oh, my God. His PhD. He is a master in English. Amphil, then PhD. His only results are here. He is almost 30 now. Oh, God. Christa is married for last 30 years. Yes, I know. His son is not less than 28, 29. Right. Good. I remember when we got married. His son was three years old. I see. How many children do you have? I have two. I see. Okay. How old are they? Hey, Atul. You joining? Okay, okay. Okay, fine, fine, fine. Let's not be joining. I'll just talk to you. Oh, very good. He's just... So you... Now it is in the West Asia or in China still? I left China in last year. My assignment in January 2020. Okay. So these days I edit a website called indianarrative.com. Okay. Still with the Hindu group? No. Sorry? Still with the Hindu group? No, I left Hindu in... Okay, you left Hindu. July last year. You muted I think, yeah. Right. Should we start? Okay. Can we wait for two minutes? Two more minutes? Yeah, just two minutes. Yeah, just two minutes. We're not in a hurry now, Atul. No, it's fine, yeah. Okay. 7-7-15 is absolutely okay. We have problem in electricity. I believe it's also raining today in Guwahati. No, not everywhere. It's almost raining. I see. It's almost raining. I know, yeah. So you have to prepare with the alternate system, you know. Because no electricity means broadband doesn't work. Oh, yes. So I have to use the Google. That's... Can we start? Yeah. Okay. So a very good evening to everyone. On behalf of the Rupen Azureka School of Mass Communication, I take this opportunity to welcome you all to this evening's special talk on Israel-Palestine conflict. We're proud to have amongst us, Shri Atul Anijaji, an expert on conflict reporting for media. So before we listen to Shri Anijaji, we request our Honorable Vice Chancellor, Professor Kandarpur Das, and Chairman of this evening's event to initiate the dialogue. Sir, please. Okay. Good evening. It's a very special day for me because I'm meeting my old friend after so many years and meeting in a very unusual way in a virtual platform and will be sharing a session where he will be speaking. Now, this day reminded me to our old days in the university days when we used to discuss politics, our feelings, also with Israel and Palestine. So Palestine for us is not something new. We have been hearing and discussing since our day in the days in 1980s. And it's very special that after so many years we'll be discussing one topic which we used to discuss in our Tantin Havas in JNU campus. And today the discussion topic has been beautifully explained like Israel-Palestine conflicts, 9 p.m. from the field. So I believe we are not trying to pose a topic, something called like aggression by Israel or maybe the self-determination struggle by Hamas or Palestine people. The self-determination and the right of Palestinian people. So those are the issues definitely the real, but the tone of the today's discussion I think it's totally different aspects. We are talking about the snippets from the field. That itself says that we are actually going to experience those snippets from the West Asian in Israel and Palestine in the field. And we have amongst us a person who has been reporting from West Asia for the last so many years. I have read him in Frontline in Hindu. He's reporting from Beijing. He's reporting from Gaza. So I think we'll definitely feel something, you know, reporting from the ground, something like that. I think that our research scholars, students, faculty members are eagerly waiting to listen to somebody who has experienced those at the ground level. We do not want to theorize something. We do not want to make so many political discourse, but we basically want to hear actually somebody from the field. And here the most important thing is that in a war, as it is said, nobody wins a war. It's basically ultimately the people who lose this in the war. So the people, whether it is Israeli people, whether it is Palestinian people, it is suffering in the field. They become the victims of the snipers. And that is why I think it's very important to discuss about the snipers in the field. So I believe Atul has a long experience. He knows the area very well. He understands the conflict situation. He has been reporting in various conflict areas. So I think we'll be greatly benefited. Our research scholars, students, and the faculty members. And I normally also looking forward to listen to him. And since it's online platform, if you speak for a very long time, that's also when you start a discussion. And when the chairman starts a discussion, long comments, it's become very boring. I don't want to do that. And moreover, I don't want to stand between the snipers and Atul. Let him start. So let's listen to him. So I think before he starts speaking, I'll request our director from the School of Social Sciences, Joydeep Borwa, to introduce Atul Aneja to our listeners. Joydeep, please. Thank you, sir. Good evening, everyone. Honourable vice-sensor, Prof. Kondrapur Dasar, Prof. Jayanta Kumar Sharma, Director of Hupenazelka School of Mass Communication, esteemed colleagues, friends, and also other participants who have joined this special platform today. I have been given the task of introducing our speaker this evening. So let me admit that the idea of holding a talk on Israel-Palestine conflict came to our mind when the conflict really escalated during the first half of last, you know, early part of June. And I discussed this with Prof. Jayanta Kumar Sharma about the possibility of having such a talk at the earliest of our convenience. We were discussing that probably it is not only important to look at this conflict as between two countries or between two states, between two military forces, but it is more important to look at this crisis as a humanitarian crisis. It's a crisis of people. And to do that, we were looking for speakers. And then immediate name came to my mind was Otulda's name. I fondly called him Otulda because I know him for quite some time. And who comes directly from that theatre where the present crisis is actually unfolding. So it is an honor and privilege for me to introduce Otulda Anelza, who is a very senior, well-known journalist and commentator who specializes in geopolitics and international security with a special focus on China, Eurasia and West Asia. He received his Amphil in International Regulation from School of West Asian and African Studies, JNU Nivdali. And he has a very long, vast and very deep experience of reporting the different kind of conflict that is going on around the globe. He was a former strategic affairs editor of the Hindu newspaper very recently, last year. And he was also the associate editor for Hindu posted in China during 2014 to 2020. He was a West Asia corresponding for Hindu based in Bahrain and Dubai from 2002 to 2014. He extensively reported the Arab Spring from Cairo, Benghazi and Tunis specializing in conflict zones in 2003 and 2004. He has been a frequent visitor to Iran on several journalistic assignments since 1996. He also covered Kargilwar from Kashmir, the situation in Afghanistan as it appeared from Dusanbe and Kabul soon after 9-11 attacks. He has traveled extensively in all Central Asian republics on various journalistic assignments. And also he writes for a lot of media houses. I mean, not only primarily of course Hindu but other media houses like Jerusalem Post from Kenya, the Star, the Hans, India, India West, Manila Life and all other such places. Currently, he edits the indianarrative.com and news portal and he is also associated with Asian Vision Institute in Cambodia as an advisor. So we are very, very privileged and we are very honored to have him today to speak to us on this very special talk. And I welcome him from on behalf of the university and also my personal behalf. And it's great to have you and then we let's move and to hear from what will the itself. Thank you. Thank you so much Jaleep for your kind words and Kandy, it's been just fantastic seeing you though virtually but a lot of fond memories are triggered just by the visual and I wish we had time to go into that. But today we are looking at a very alarming situation which is developing in West Asia, especially because of the Israel-Palestinian conflict. I would briefly like to go into the historical aspects just to contextualize the present and then talk more about certain personal experiences which were there on the way. And I also remind people who are journalists of the future as to how to operate in a field environment in a conflict zone. So I'll just begin by saying the context in which this Israel-Palestinian conflict has emerged. Essentially one has to go to something called the Zionist movement which starts even before the First World War and which is essentially gathering Jews all over the world and having a nation state for them. So 1917 is a very important year for this because it is the British colonialist and a person called Alfred Balfour and his famous Balfour Declaration of 1917 which actually gives the mandate and his sanction to establish a state of Israel. Now the problem which arises is that the area which is earmarked as a state of Israel is already occupied by the indigenous Palestinian people and so there is an inherent tension in the Balfour Declaration itself. All this gets accelerated with the Holocaust which takes place in the Second World War where there's a worldwide empathy for the Jews because of the extermination in the concentration camps carried out by Hitler and therefore the Zionist movement gets its second win and gets its energy from there and that is where we come from 1945 onwards the practical steps are taken for the establishment of the state of Israel. In 1948 Israel emerges as a nation state and right from the time of its birth you have the conflict started because the Palestinian people, the indigenous people revolt and because they are Arabs and share the commonality of collective hurt of the Arabs you have the Arab leaders joining them and so the Arab countries around come to the Palestinians aid chiefly it is Egypt which is bordering the Sinai area and it's a desert sort of a zone south of Gaza and then you are into the Sinai desert and there after further down towards Cairo so it is the Egyptian armies which come in and then you have the Jordanians coming from the north so that is another border which is there with current day Israel so you have this multi-pronged Arab attacks coming in and that is where the Arabs lose at war because essentially it's technology which is there with the Jewish people and the empathy because of the empathy generated all of the West they also have very strong connections with Britain and other developed parts of the world at that time so immediately after the birth of Israel and the war of 1948 you have this enormous displacement of Palestinian people and the loss of land and from a person who has a place to stay the Palestinians gradually are being turned into refugees and where do they go from there obviously as in any kind of conflict situation you go into the neighboring areas and the neighboring areas is Sinai on one side Lebanon is on another side north of the Letani river and of course Jordan which is next door and you have Syria so you have this flood of refugees going out from there and that is the beginning of this long drawn conflict of course the Arabs by this time are also in a high and Arab nationalism is going on very strongly and you have leaders like who takes up is the face of Arab resistance to Israel and you have a series of wars which are fought thereafter and 1956 is one and then you have which again the Arabs do not win but you have 73 war is a very important one because that's where the former Soviet Union comes into the assistance of the Arabs and who acquired modern aircraft weaponry the big start flying from Moscow to Cairo and the Israelis almost lose that war which is called the Yom Kippur war because of the surprise element Yom Kippur is a festival of the Jews and everyone was in celebratory moves when the attack came from the Arab side but yet the Israelis prevail in the end thanks to the American connection which has developed very strongly between Israel and the diaspora is there also in the United States which is extremely what we call the Jewish lobby now so it was powerful even at that time which continue to grow in strength in the United States so we had this big support coming from the US to Israel that connection had developed and 73 therefore becomes a benchmark but that is also a process when you start looking at a solution because 73 war really showed the Israelis that you have a small territory and you are vulnerable so the sentiment for coming to some kind of peace agreement with the Arabs also starts there so externally what happens is that in the end the Sinai area which was captured by the Israelis is given back to the Egyptians and in return you have a peace treaty between Egypt and Israel coming after the 1973 war and that is one flank Israel secures which will be conflict free in the future which is the Egyptian side there is also another war which took place on another front which is on the Syrian front which is called the Golan Heights now I have seen Golan Heights is completely divided you have a place called Tunitra coming from the Syrian side and the other side you see this farmland which is under Israeli occupation that has still not been sorted out and it is quite hard rendering to see how families have been displaced in Sinai I have actually witnessed it about 2005 or 6 I am not sure of the year when you have families coming they have a designated day to talk to each other so suppose the uncle is on the other side and you have a nephew on this side and they talk once a week on loudspeakers so you then narrate your stories about what is happening to your family then you start discussing about somebody's marriage somebody's got educated, gone abroad so that conversation takes place from loudspeakers on either side of the divided territory of Golan Heights so that area still remains to be resolved and then you also have the Jordanian side because the Jordanian if you go to Amman today it is the capital of Jordan you are struck by the number of Palestinians you find in fact 40% of Jordanian population today is Palestinian because of the refugees which had to leave Israel and then Jordan is just about an hour hour and a half away so to give you and there are refugee camps there we have the Wahadat refugee camp which I went there and it is on top of a hill so Palestinian people all around bazaars are inside that particular camp so it is not like a designated tinted city or something it sort of merges with the city so you are just travelling along in fact I had to my problem was I needed a photograph to put on a passport or something I needed a picture so I took this Palestinian driver who was in Jordan and I said I need a photograph so he just drove and we came up to the top of the hill so I asked him where are we he said we are in the Palestinian refugee camp and the studio was inside this camp and that is where I got my picture taken so it is like normal markets are functioning, a lot of people are around but this is the way that people somewhere down the line have also got assimilated into the mainstream of Jordan so it is also going to be hard for people to leave these camps and go back once you have a two state solution that is Israel and Palestine two states living side by side of the solution of resolving this conflict it is interesting I will just give you a sort of a feel of how it is to travel from Amman to let's say Jerusalem you take a car for the border and you pass through bone dry areas the hillocks around and the road is passing through that not a blade of grass on that and as you are going down you see these signboards dead sea 20 kilometers away you will read all that in history books and suddenly you see that you are going downhill and then it says dead sea some meters below sea level this is the only place on earth I am told which is below the sea level so you are really going down towards that and on your left you see when you see this signboard is Mount Nebo and you can see that site there and as you go down you are in the dead sea area and it is like a lake and you all know it is extremely salty and full of minerals so you can float on the dead sea and there is a Jordanian side of the dead sea and there is an Israeli side of the dead sea and that is where they have the border point crossing from Jordan to Israel so if you have an Indian passport this is relatively easy because of India's relations with Israel therefore I will remember that how we had once protested when Rajiv Gandhi recognized you know Israel and it was near the DLTA stadium in Delhi that we got thrashed by the police for protesting but but I really saw that you know the border post so if you have an Indian passport stamp on the other side you take a taxi to Jerusalem not very far and as you start going now you are inside Israeli territory it is like a valley and there is farmland and then there are these hills on either side and on top of those hills are the settler colonies these are the Israeli settlers who have occupied this area which is a disputed area which is supposed to be there but you have these white houses with the red topped roofs on either side and through which you pass and it takes you around about half an hour to 45 minutes to reach Jerusalem and that is one amazing city because it has layers and layers of history it is the area of three Abrahamic religions which is Judaism Christianity and Islam all coming together with icons related to their particular religions deeply into Jerusalem and you have this area called the Temple Mount which the Jews call and next to that is the Alaksa Mosque where Prophet Muhammad is supposed to have ascended to heaven and that is the historical importance to that mosque and there is an old ancient Jewish temple all in an area of you know about 400 to 500 meters maximum and that is the found in a way of such deep historical importance and also of conflict and this is what is called the East Jerusalem part now East Jerusalem if you have a two state solution then East Jerusalem goes to Palestine and of course the Israelis protest that very fundamentally because they see that it is linked to the very sense of identity of the Jewish people so you can understand the depth of feelings and the depth of emotion when you are visiting the Temple Mount area and how difficult it would be to come to a compromise on something as fundamental as your basic historical identity so this is a little bit feel of of Jerusalem and if you drive from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv now it's almost two words apart by the way I also took a train once from Jerusalem and to Tel Aviv it's a very slow train which goes through these mountains again low rise kind of hills let me put it that and it's about an hour by train to reach Tel Aviv and Tel Aviv is something which gives you a completely different feel it's like a modern city so it's an ancient port Jaffa was the ancient port for this area which is Tel Aviv and you have the sea on one side which the Mediterranean opens up but Tel Aviv is a modern feel something like a bomb bay let me put it that it's the commercial capital of Israel and you have a place there called Ramat Gan and Ramat Gan I visited because there is a strong Jewish sorry a Gujarati business community in Ramat Gan obviously this is way back I think about 2000 or so when I visited Ramat Gan and once you enter it's like Zaveri Bazaar of Bombay where you have these Bansalis and you know all these Gujaratis are all trusted together but they are some of the richest people not just of Israel but of the region and I spoke to one gentleman Mr. Bansali and he explained to me that how they are connected with Antwerp in Belgium because and Surat the connection is like this the raw diamond is taken out from Sierra Leone or Liberia that area in Africa if you have seen the film Blood Diamond this is the area that's where the raw conflict diamonds are taken out and from there they reach Antwerp in Belgium the small diamonds go either to Moscow or to Surat where they are polished so the you know the taking out of the diamonds is not controlled by the Gujaratis that the Lebanese do and how the Lebanese reached there I don't know though I visited that particular area in Sierra Leone once but it is the Lebanese who take out the diamonds and this is the Lebanon Gujarat connection and finally it ends up with Ramadan in Israel the fascinating story and also about how the Gujarati community has actually remained united with its connections with Uganda, Africa Gujarat you know no intermarriages with other communities so that it has got its own rules and laws and I understood that not by staying in India by visiting them in Ramadan in Israel coming back to the conflict what happens now is that once the refugees go on the other side there is a demand to come back and the conflicts begin with each of these countries so now the support base for the refugees changes over time after Nasir disappears I think 1976 if I am not mistaken he dies in 1976 and after that a new game begins and you have of course Yasir Arafat you know Yasir Arafat Palestinian leader socialist oriented very modern European outlook so you have the PLO the Palestinian Liberation Organization which is operating outside outside the Palestinian territories and their base is really Tunis in North Africa which is Tunisia and of course while the PLO remains strong there is also the 79th revolution which is taking place in Iran and once Egypt signs a peace deal with the Israelis there is a vacuum in terms of who supports the Palestinian people and that is where Iran is coming up the Shiite Iran and starts building its Shia network of Palestinian resistance it does so with a group called Hezbollah which is again Shia fighters based in Lebanon and Hezbollah then establishes its contacts with the Hamas which comes as actually a rival to the PLO this is interesting because what happens is that once the Israelis realize that the PLO is becoming strong the time has come to divide the Palestinian movement so the rise of Hamas is actually Israeli intelligence operation which is really a Mossad operation where they try and co-opt Sheikh Yasin and company the leaders of the Hamas as a rival to Arafat to break up the Palestinian movement this is what happens when you ride a monster it's not necessary that you control it forever the Hamas gets in touch with the Israelis benefits from the political space that is being yielded but then becomes the entity of its own and establish contacts with Israel so at some point the Israelis lose control over the Hamas but it's originalized as an intelligence operation by the Mossad which actually doesn't work so you have these two Palestinian groups the divisions which are taking place one mostly being run by the Iranians, Syrians and the Hezbollah and you have the PLO by Arafat which is the face which is UN recognized and which then there's a time arises in the in the mid 90s when you have this sentiment called land form peace formulation that you know having solved most of the problems with the neighboring Arab countries the time has arrived for an internal resolution between the Palestinians and the Israelis that's the moment when you have a leader like Yitzhak Rabin from Israel who is heading the peace movement in Israel you have the peace now movement for example which was totally for reconciliation with the Palestinians so it's you got to see the shades of gray there are organizations within Israel which talk the Palestinian language as well I mean in the sense political language so you have Rabin coming in and signing a deal with Arafat and we were in the university when we saw these famous photographs of you know the handshake between Rabin and Arafat I think Carter probably standing behind or was it Clinton by the time forgetting 90 so it tries to be Clinton by that time so what happens now is that the right the Israeli right is totally opposed to this two state solution and that is where a right wing Jew assassinate Rabin to set back the two state solution and that is really the setback which is so durable and after Rabin is assassinated and dies and you have people like Ariel Sharon the rise of the right in Israel because Israel you have two kinds one is the Labour Party which is essentially socialist oriented it is made of people who are called Ashkenazis which are people who are migrated from Europe basically and carry some of the liberal thinking of Europe into Israel so you have the Labour here and Labour is more centrist then it is right but by that time Yitzhak Rabin is assassinated that is the time when the right is on the rise and you have people like Sharon and Netanyahu which come up on this side and because there is a right wing shift here you also see a gradual decline of Yasser Arafat who eventually I believe was poisoned and eliminated by Netanyahu who is a foreign company he dies in a Paris hospital and then you have this binary between the Hamas on one side and Islamic Jihad and you have Netanyahu and go on this side and there is complete polarization and we are back from that situation when you had this land for peace and two state solution coming up I remember visiting in the around 2000 when Vashpay was a prime minister and it was just one thing's visit to Israel and Palestine and I remember very clearly that we drove from the Israeli territory we have to cross this place called Hebron there is a checkpoint there and you cross then into Gaza and there is a cemetery there as soon as you cross which has lot of Indian soldiers killed in first world war that cemetery is there in Gaza but it was like a seamlessly one was going from one territory to another you know almost you have the Church of Nativity also very close by next to Hebron which is supposed to be the birthplace of Christ and it's all a wooden structure and it really grows on you and you see the sense of history when you visit Church of Nativity and then when we entered Gaza would see around 2000 lot of construction activity because everyone was anticipating another state emerging of Palestine and a boom was supposed to be coming over there and there were also geological surveys being conducted to see if you can get oil and gas in that area and of course that was a port an exit for trade with the rest of the world so that was Gaza at that time which was really on its way up and India had donated one in the University of Gaza we had donated at the Jawaharlal Nehru Library for which just one thing went and inaugurated so it was a very different kind of an era you know around that time where you were looking at peace rather than conflict but I remember we were sitting for lunch in a restaurant and there was this Palestinians around they said this is lull before the storm we are not going to accept this kind of two state solution so you see the radical elements on either side now the Palestinians saying that why should we just have this two state solution the entire Israel is ours and why should we compromise and then you have the right coming up from their side from the Israeli side so there is a kind of a new situation which arises the rise of the Hamas and the support which comes from Iran via Hezbollah I remember the Hamas leadership was in Syria at that time in Damascus it was much later that I visited Damascus and I wanted to interview the Hamas people so I stayed in a hotel and I went to the information ministry in Damascus requesting them because Bashar al-Assad the president had given the Hamas shelter in Damascus so I went to this lady who was in charge I said I want to interview her I am a journalist from India and she was one of the old Arab socialists Jane smoking completely westernized no question of any hijab forget all that and she said okay we will see that what we can do but it will take time she discouraged me from staying there but I said no I have to then I went to the Indian embassy I requested there I said you have contacts with the information ministry because I have to interview it took me about full 10 days after which I got this phone call that okay you can go and we will arrange for it and it was one hell of a journey because I was told that you come out of your hotel and you take a taxi and that taxi will take you to a petrol station and you get down from the petrol station and another car will pick you up and that will take you close to a mosque and from there you have to wait outside the mosque and you will be picked up by Hamas people to their headquarters there was a Syrian lady who was a part of her embassy out of a strange circumstances that I took the first taxi went to the petrol station and certainly I see this lady coming in her she had a Maruti alto because I remembered very clearly we had a conversation on that she said look I thought you are not safe you come with me okay so she took me to that mosque and she said okay I will be waiting till the time you are picked up just in case that you are safe and sure enough after about 10 minutes it was like a SUV which came with tinted glasses you know your black but the windows were all black and they opened the door called my name so I was inside this vehicle and we drove for about 15 minutes so the mountain side again you know on the outskirts of Damascus so you are climbing up the mountains and after a while they said okay now you can get down and I got on and this was a sheer face like a cliff on that side so I was just wondering where is the Hamas here then finally there was one person who came he escorted me and it was like a cave but once you got open it was like a 5 star restaurant you know great furniture computers and I will ask what kind of coffee would you like Turkish coffee you would like this is just amazing this was the Hamas headquarters so of course they took my cell phone and they said the number 2 of Hamas is going to meet Bashar al-Assad so he will be coming and then you can interview so we waited for about half an hour and then they had the close circuit TV I could see him coming from the climbing the stairs and soon after that we started just doing some small stock before we got into the interview I said okay you are from India Indian people like tea you like tea with milk I said yeah very much I was missing them for a long time being in the riskiers and so that's how it went on and after the interview was over now there was no way back there was nothing none of those cars came so I was out in the open and just walking down and I hadn't told my wife exactly where I was going but you know close to my brother I was keeping him informed where exactly I was I realized that these guys had taken the cell phone away and I hadn't taken it back on the way back so now I wanted to retrace my step and get my phone back and I couldn't really find that building but they were nice enough so one of them had come out with the phone so this was one kind of a adventure which I had in the field while doing this conflict zone it's a different matter that the entire leadership goes to Qatar and then joins Muslim Brotherhood people and some of these terror groups which ultimately attack Bashar in the Syrian war after 2011 but that's another story how it happened so this is I would also like to briefly touch upon the 2006 experience which I had because as I said there were various countries which these refugees had sort of spread and one was Lebanon and Lebanon this is 2006 when the Israelis attacked the Hezbollah because Hezbollah is the one which is supporting Hamas so they were going to the root and the root was Hezbollah and their headquarters was it's interesting, it's an amazing city because in Beirut you have one side of the mountains so you can have skiing on one side and you come down and then you have the sea as well and so you could it just gives you the entire field within about 40 minutes you can be in the mountains and you can be in the sea at the same time I mean it's just amazing beautiful city one of the best Arab cities I've seen very French in architecture because they were just colonized by France at one time and deep history because we have these Roman columns there so it is part of the Byzantine Empire as well so you have these remnants layers and layers of history in Beirut but what had happened was central Beirut is essentially Meronite Christians and then you have the diplomatic area and finally you have the southern Beirut which is the headquarters of the Hezbollah and the leader being Hassan Nasrallah so when the war had started they were attacking southern Beirut which means there were airstrikes which were going on so I was in a hotel in central Beirut so I knew so long as this pattern remains that is the Israelis attacked southern Beirut southern Beirut they were attacking Haifa in Israel so the rules of the game one could understand in the field that while a war is going on there are safe zones within a war and you need not be as a journalist be too adventurous especially I was a print journalist so I didn't have to take a camera along video people or television people have a much more difficult time because they are far more visible than somebody from print and I made the point that I never went with this reporters without borders with these flag jackets and all that because I think you become so identified it's very difficult for your movement in a conflict zone to get so identified with these things but it just happened that one day the attacks from southern Beirut went to Tel Aviv so that was my red line that the rules of engagement are changing and if the Hezbollah has hit Tel Aviv today next day or very soon the Israelis will hit central Beirut so the time to get out was now so I called the driver who had got me from Damascus in 2006 who drove me from Damascus to Beirut is about 3 hours drive so I called him I said 5 o'clock in the morning we got to leave and we will go to the Syrian border and you drop me up to Damascus but it was too late because 5 o'clock we left the bombing of central Beirut had started and we were driving and there was this bridge and I could see that bomb on that bridge still in the line of sight to be very honest though I was very scared I was reminded of the movie Shole at that time you see that scene of Amitabh Bachchan finally there's a bomb on that bridge and he shoots and it blows up there was something like that you could see that bomb there and this driver panicked you can't leave me here so do you know a route which will take me to the Syrian border and I'll leave you at the Syrian border you come back from the Syrian border don't take me to Damascus so then we drove up the mountain and it was a circuitous route and we came to a place called Tripoli Tripoli is Libya capital as well but there's a Tripoli in Lebanon and Tripoli is right at the border with the homes in Syria so this driver drops me there I said look I'll get my passport my visa entry visa here for Syria but you have to put me somewhere how do I go to Damascus from here so he said okay that's fine so there was a taxi there and he talked to them and said Syrian family and he said okay you travel with them so then I went into and got into this taxi this is a Syrian very nice lovely people and they drove me up to Damascus we crossed homes but you know like every other place you stop for a place to eat there was something like at Hava or you can say that somewhere there and I wanted to pay because as it is they were not allowing me to pay for the taxi but they would just not take any money from me and so finally after about 3-4 hours we reached Damascus and the son was in the military or something so they were going to visit him so these are the kind of things that are journalists in a conflict zone to experience and it makes sometimes you are scared like hell but I think in the end it's very rewarding because you finally realize that people are people and they are good people and they are bad people and it really doesn't matter what nationality you are when you are in situations like this your humanity comes out and you connect very strongly I think I have spoken for a long time and I will stop here and if we can take some Q&A and you know I deliberately didn't you know make this a very structured kind of a lecture kind of a thing but basically as it goes it snippets from the ground snippets from the field I have shared some of my experience and tried to weave in some part of history into it and there are many you know strengths which are not tied up so we can take them up in Q&A if any people have questions to ask and we are very happy to respond thank you thank you in fact it was a very mesmerizing kind of a journey you know you took us to from from from Palestinian to Jerusalem from Jerusalem on the way we see the Dead Sea then we see our Kuzrati people and finally to the Hamas Headquarter in Damascus and it was a very mesmerizing kind of a story you know journey I remember the story you know by one of our fellow journalist in Assam when he decided to visit Ores-Burwa and he travelled all the way I was finding similarities you know how what could happen you know how we travelled what actually could feel in that battlefield and it's also interesting to find out when you said that the same Baser who has actually sheltered the Hamas people and finally become joined up fanatics and attack Syria and then the most important thing is that that important thing is that as a journalist what you feel in a different land all together when you meet Kuzrati Syrian people when you meet Palestinian when you meet Israelis but ultimately the people everywhere and ultimately they refuse to take money from you they give you free free ride so all kinds of things I think after all it matters so after all when I said in a world nobody loses ultimately the people who suffer so that is a very wonderful kind of approach you took in your speech I will not speak much definitely there are so many questions I would request a jointer Sharma to moderate your answer thank you sir thank you Aneja we have a few questions most of the questions are actually people are now worried about Israel using artificial intelligence there are questions on that and there are questions on about most people are curious about how to resolve this crisis or complete the first question I would like to fill this answer from Pinku Kalita of T.O.P Jorha the question is it says that if the conflict is not resolved will it lead to the world war 3 and will the new president of Israel will the new president seek a peaceful solution this is from Pinku Kalita of T.O.P Jorha before I answer that question I just want to respond to Kandy's observation you see what happened I realized India's soft power was so strong in these areas coming from your Nerubian Indraga these time onwards small examples I got out of the airport in Jordan Naman and there was one taxi which came to me so it was not clear who would go in first so this guy looks at me he says are you from India you are our guest you have to go into the taxi first so it's small small curses like this because there is a great image of India I don't know and it's changing though but I'm talking when I visited there I felt it there again I was in a place called Aqaba which is on the Israel border you have the city of Ayilat on one side and you have Aqaba on this side I had gone there for a genetic assignment and you know I had to come back and my ticket had to be changed that is the dates had changed so my Royal Jordanian Airlines ticket had to had to change so I was walking at the street I was looking for the airline office and I saw these four or five people you know in standing in a group in one corner so I introduced myself I said can you tell me where is the Royal Jordanian Airlines office and one of the guys steps out says that are you from India I said yeah he said I'll take you there but the reason why I'll do so I said yeah please tell me he said look under the ITEC program I studied in Pune and this is Aqaba, Deep Aqaba we had shoestring budget at that time it is not you know we have much more money now we are much richer but we had educated this gentleman in Pune University so he walked all the way with me to the Royal Jordanian office you know talking about this wonderful days in Pune so that soft part I could feel very strongly in the Arab world that remains whether you go to Syria whether you go to go to Jordan this is very very strong I just wanted to flag that this is something we need to preserve the image of India of a non-aligned India you know narrowing friends of NASA that is very very strong it's continuous to the mains when they say coming back to Mr Kalita's question regarding about the prospects of peace in Israel personally you see at this time we are in a cusp the old ways not working anymore you know Netanyahu is out and you have a new generation of Israelis who think differently I mean you remember this was somewhere in 2011 when the Arab Spring was going on you had this young people of Israel protesting against their own government and wanting more liberties it's a new generation with a new sentiment and it's polarized but this is also becoming strong in Israel now that we need a peace with the Palestinian people victims of history because the polarization remains and for reasons which can be understood the Hamas has become more radicalized because the softer approach the more negotiation that dialogue based approach was not working so you have this kind of a changing situation now where there are strands of a new beginning of toward sentiment towards peace and yet the sentiment for conflict also remains strong so it can go either way now but at least one can say that there has been a change with Netanyahu being defeated and a new composite government coming here it's very interesting that in Israel you have the Arab parties being the king makers and you remember the casting vote thing Arab parties are the ones where the swing they were the ones who formed a new government there's couple of votes and it's on the other way so you have this situation which is coming up but it's still very very uncertain in early days we will see if there is a greater sentiment for the two state solution because that's the only way forward so let's see if that's go but we are at a cusp but there has been a breaking of ground in the last one month or so which is pointing to a direction which can go to the positive direction but not necessarily sir Thank you sir, there is one question it is related to this artificial intelligence technology used by Israel recently it is from Loken Banik he asked how Iran nuclear deal will affect Israel and he says that we notice Israel declared first artificial intelligence based war in the last complete so is that situation intentionally created so that Israel can showcase their new technology and you know in one way technologically the Israelis have been way advanced than others and the use of what you call standoff weapons where you are not visible but you are far from a distance they have made great strides into that and also the use of drones has been there you know you had the UAVs these are the pioneers of that so that's something which is going on for some time but I think the interesting part is the nuclear deal revival I was talking to Iranians in a webinar few days ago and they are of the view that it's just a matter of time before you have the new nuclear deal even though there is a change in government in Iran but the real power is with the supreme leader which is Ayatollah Khamenei so it really doesn't change much if you are the new president so the nuclear deal is most probably going to come up and the Israelis know it once you have the nuclear deal coming in sanctions against Iran gets removed and Iran is a country with enormous human talent and huge resources, oil and gas and also great history of being Persians and very cautious that they are a civilizational state it's a very deep country it's a pivotal state in this region so I think the accommodation of Iran is going to take place and that is going whatever be the case you know whatever government comes in Israel will not be able to ignore this fact so that is where my worry really is that we could be moving closer to a greater friction between Iran and Israel in the coming days and the Israelis have already come geographically closer to the Iranians by normalizing their relations with the United Arab Emirates for Sudan, Bahrain so the Gulf countries which are sort of bordering Iran when I was in Dubai and my daughter used to stand in a balcony in the apartment there was a sea in front so she would ask me what is there on the other side I said this is like a pond you cross it and you will be in Bandar Abbas so that's how close UAE is to Iran and if you have an embassy which is an Israeli embassy in Abu Dhabi the Mossad is already in take it for granted it's already there and from the Israeli perspective they would try and create that as a bridgehead so that the geographical distance for a conflict is reduced so I think it's a warring situation between Iran after they had a converitly manipulative deal because the Israelis because they were a small country you know the sense of vulnerability is so strong there is no strategic depth so either you go on the offensive or you are destroyed and the Iranians have developed long-range missiles as well which they some of which were transferred to Hezbollah and Lebanon so when I was talking about the firing from south Lebanon to Israel to Haifa and then to Tel Aviv and frankly getting translated to Hamas is essentially it's the Iranian missile development which is getting translated to a range of weapons so that's where the situation is going to be being very security conscious whether Americans are with them or not the Israelis can take pro-activation so I think this is really the time for some back channel talks to begin between the Iranians and the Israelis and that will eventually be the game changer once they come to some tacit agreement of course being democracies you have to sell it in a way that you have not succumbed to other parties how you package your messaging for your domestic audiences is always difficult because both want to appear strong but it's time that they had this otherwise both these countries being strong countries oil and gas flowing through the Persian Gulf it can be a huge global issue suddenly it will just search and impact most economies because if you have the blockade of the state of Hormuz from where your oil is coming from the Gulf countries before it gets into the Indian Ocean and that's the doula sea liens we are taking oil to India and then further out to China Southeast Asia Korea, Japan it's all going from this side so this is really the war inside that we are maybe because at one level tensions are easing with the JCPOA or the nuclear deal coming through but this track will get activated and I don't see anyone addressing this either in the United Nations Security Council or elsewhere so this is a big worry not only for the two but also for us in India so there are several audience who are actually asking this question you have already touched this they are asking about the role of countries like India the United Nations, America and other major countries Iran in solving this crisis questions have come from Janabi Debi then question has come from Ajay, Shinte, North Lakupur College from Abhijit Bhuya of KK Handik State Open University all of them are actually asking one question this two nation theory what will be the role of the United Nations and America as well as role of countries like India in finding a solution to this unfortunately in India has switched off from playing a regional or a global role I think it happens after the economic reform started in 90s but got accelerated that we will retreat from the Nehruvayan area where as the leader of the non-line movement we were actually intervening let's say 50 to 50 in the Korean war ultimately we played a major role in that I think we have a deep interest in being part of the solution if there is a conflict between Israel and Iran we get hit badly because of our energy security gets hit very badly not only do we buy oil from Iran we buy oil from UAE and most importantly from Saudi Arabia and your reliance refinery let's say in Jamnagar we will get so badly hit straight away if there is any obstruction coming in there I think we have a genuine interest it's not out of idealistic reasons I am saying so I think there are very practical reasons of the economy that we should be trying to do something and intervene but unfortunately I see that we have just retreated into our shell these days though we are now currently part of the security council 15 member security council not the 5 per minute so we are part of that and I think we need to raise our voice countries like India who in fact look at this India wants to be a member of the UN Security Council which means what you are saying in the world is that we are ready for global responsibilities from just nationality we are going international now but if you are aspiring to be a member of the security council then you better take international responsibilities as well which is going to affect all of us including India so there is the there is a tradition and there is also a scope for a role in the UN Security Council because we are at least for some time we are part of the 15 member so yes there is a role both for the security council and for India but I think there is a need for a change in mindset to get out of this you know pre-globalized kind of thing that is sovereignty and national interest alone which matters and rest of the world because it is all interconnected and interdependent we guard our national interest by engaging with the rest of the world we are not an island and we have with countries like Iran we not only have the economic side but there is a deep historical relationship between ancient Persia and India and linguistically we have so much in common and when you give an example I was in Iran or I think 2009 2010 somewhere there and it was in a hotel so I pressed, got into a lift and I wanted to go to the 5th floor so I pressed 5th and there was a reported voice 8, 2, 3, 4, 5 I said wow this is our language our counting has come from Persia so you know it's it's a simple thing like that which tells you how deep is the historical connect so there are layers or layers which we have of engagement in this region and I really feel very strongly there's time that we reconnected as people not just at the political level but at the people to people level because there are lost cousins really I don't want to go deeper we have people like Krishna and Anand on this who are historians you know who will have a better idea but you know this whole migration of Aryans into India which is such a strong connection historically in this region I think we should take a form of proactive role then we are doing correctly Sir we will take two more questions one is from Chandan Goswami he teaches mass communication in Guwahati University so naturally he has he has just typed it he said that I was following google map along your speech for better understanding and his question is media situation and media impact in that area sorry media impact where in that area that is the conflict area he is asking about the media situations and media impact I think he is asking about how what are the precautions the people have to take and how media is actually depicting the conflict I think there is first thing the scope for a big independent media my own experience in the media had this feeling even before that no media is really independent each one is reflecting a certain bias you know if you have a CNN or a BBC it is reflecting a certain point of view and it is not entirely independent so there is a slant always and then we have this Aljazeera coming up eventually in the end Aljazeera very slick technically very very strong but is really the voice of the Muslim Brotherhood man and my own personal view so there is a scope for independent media to be there in these parts of the world second thing is that media itself has changed you no longer have the normal way of reporting that it is all becoming digital so you got to be very familiar with the digital domain and how do you deal with which you have to report is much faster the demand for multimedia has come in much more than earlier so you have to be good at your videos and also interactive because what happens now is when you release a news immediately there are comments which are coming some of that the journalist himself or herself has to attend to that is the one part of it the change in need for independent media and the nature of media is very important to keep yourself safe in conflict zones and the first thing is not to be too adventurous because as I said there are rules of the game which are you have to read there you got to understand like I was giving this example of this bombing between South Beirut and Tel Aviv there is a pattern to it so you got to read the situation that so long as this pattern remains and if you are away from the exact impact areas of the conflict you are safe but the moment it changes then is the time for you to take the questions I can give a small example I was in Benghazi Libya and there was one day when the camera man you know by forces we don't know and for me that was where the red light was flashing that they have started killing journalists now and that was the day I called my editor and I said I think it is becoming too dangerous and journalists are being targeted so I think I should be moving from Benghazi to Egypt and of course editors understand this situation so I was told that now is the time to exit so I called the car which had taken me from Egyptian border and we drove back the next morning at 5 so that is the time it is always a judgment call when it comes to your own safety incident you never go into the big hotels doing you know a lone ranger kind of work don't go in a conflict situation where the entire media is staying in a media hotel I never did that I stayed quietly away in a smaller hotel less stay beneath the radar you know you got to be a hero in print or in your reporting not on the street so that restraint is also very important when you are doing coverages in conflict zones because if you get into trouble it's very difficult to get help so prevention is a much better thing than you know trying to be brave and trying to be a hero so there is one question about war crimes it is from Trisha Dwarah Borva she is asking why is accountability for aliased war crimes so how to achieve in Israel Palestine conflict well the answer is that from the Israeli side I mean it's unbelievable the amount of power they have the Jewish community their linkages with the United States for example you know if you take newspapers like New York Times and all the big icons owned by Jewish groups you talk about Wall Street you know the big J.P. Morgan and others of business houses or financial institutions of that level mostly Jewish and then you have in the senate another decision making body you have these bodies called IPEC for example IPEC is you know everyone has to succumb if there is a US presidential election you better get IPEC on your side but this is your right you are one way you can say that the Israelis have worked so hard on the US system that the tailwag is a dog that kind of situation and that is the reason because the Jewish lobby is so strong that what the questioner is asking Risha if I got the name right she that it's very difficult to make them accountable for human rights violations because they have friends who are very powerful in the human rights council in the United Nations or even in MST International Human Rights Watch so these are realities of power in a way which sometimes dedicating it I don't think this is permanent but right now we are passing through that phase when there is just too much of power on one side of the isle there is a question from Abhijit Ria of our university he is asking sir is Iran still elisively supporting Hamas financially or in terms of weaponry in the present state of violence and if so are we giving Iran a long group there is no doubt about that Iran is supporting the Hamas and also there is another group in Gaza which is the Islamic jihad initially Iran support went to Islamic jihad more than Hamas Hamas is actually a Sunni organization but over the years once the Hamas broke away from Bashar al-Assad in Syria that's when the Iranians came even bigger way but the real channel for the Iranian influence is the Hezbollah of Lebanon and Hezbollah in turn has very strong connections developed very strong connections with Hamas so you can see that in the regional part in Yemen you see again the Houthis armed by Iran and you see the Hamas and the Hezbollah also by Iran now there is a certain logic to that and when I go to Iran I understand that logic that there was this attempt to throttle the 1979 revolution of Iran right from the beginning I mean there was a 8 year Iran-Iraq war where the whole idea was that Saddam had a revolution which took place in 79 so if you are an Iranian sympathizer you would say that if you are going to destroy me it's for me I have to defend myself and increase my influence in the region so it depends on which side you are on but I can see the logic coming from Iran why they need to be so far a short answer yes Iranians are very very influential both with the Hamas but also with the Islamic jihad via Hezbollah so there are a few other questions but I think you have already answered them questions were from Sultan Asim Siddiqui questions were from Anupam Gohan and there are questions from one unknown unidentified audience also but you have already answered them but finally there are two points one is do you look at this conflict as a conflict of religion and number two do you think that the two state solution two nation solution is that possible I think it's not religion religion is only the upper layer it's land essentially it's your heritage your land and your identity yes and once you take that away from you then you will fight then it's human nature so I don't see that as religion driven second thing is that solution yes I can't see anything else but a two state solution maybe we will need to broaden it out the countries in the neighborhood Jordan and you have Egypt on the other side can we enlarge the land mass because you see there is one issue which is coming up it is called a right to return which is those Palestinians who have been displaced from the land and are in refugee camps even though another generation has come they said ultimately that is our land we have a right to return now if you allow the right right to return there is a second problem which emerges it is that Israel may no longer remain a Jewish state because the majority of the population may be non-Jewish so how do you accommodate this right of return which means the basic character of the Zionist movement of creating Israel as a Zionist state or a Israeli state that disappears so therefore if you have to accommodate this you will need a two state solution but then if you have so many refugees coming back and flooding this is a very small area Gaza, West Bank it is not a big land mass and then you have the sea on the other side then how do you resolve it you have to broaden out territorially you know some uninhabited area in Jordan on one side or from Egyptian on the other side you will need to rethink this problem again unless let's say there are refugees Palestinian refugees in Paris or some other place they become French citizens I doubt because the sentiment of your roots and of going back is very very strong so economic sustenance for a good life for a while but I think you finally your roots call you back and this has to be it's a difficult but two state is the fundamental line you need to elaborate probably on it and update it to current realities I think there is no more question I think I deserve the last question yes sir please I just actually it's not a very difficult question it's just small curiosity as far as I understand you have seen that the whole Israeli population is a very heterogeneous kind of a population the people from different baggages cultural baggages they come to Israel and they settle down some of the people who actually came along some of our very good friends my friends are the Russians and they have a very different kind of temperament there are people from Europe as you say more liberal kind of a thing you know and there are also people from our own land here in North East Mizoram there are all the heterogeneous population with different cultural background different historical, political background finally you know how it happens in Israel there is a strong rightist force emerges how come is possible it should be actually because I normally tend to compare the situation with Assam Assam is a multi-national multi-cultural multi-religious and lot of tolerance here so in that situation how it happens in Israel a little bit it confuses sometimes to me it should have a very liberal kind of a state sure Kendi what really happens is that when you are persecuted the trauma of the holocaust was a great unifying factor but that is the 40s so you had a because of the the memories were so strong so initially you went and it was a fairly well united sentiment in terms of sentiment unity then you have the other layer coming which you are talking about the 80s when you know Andrew Paul was the Secretary General of the Communist Party of Soviet Union and you have this huge front of Russian Jews who migrated to Israel who do not necessarily connect and the memories of the Second World War are also fading a bit and if a new generation comes they would have memories of that not personal memories they would have heard from their fathers or grandfather so that's a problem the third thing which came was the rise of the right is also when you had this Jewish migration coming from Africa from Ethiopia and these were not the Ashkenazis the rich Jews who had this liberal tradition and this is where the right really rises when Netanyahu takes advantage of these African migrants and brings them under the liquid party so there that's where but now the pressures are building up while your religion is a unifying factor but there are no strong heterogeneity in Israel and people are questioning it so I am not sure where Israel will go from internally because there is also a possibility of exfiltration people going leaving Israel and going to New York or other places out in Europe and that can happen very well so we are completely in flux right now and we are also the world has changed a globalized world, you see opportunities you don't want to stick to your Jewishness if you see some opportunity coming let's say in Bangalore in India and if you are an IT specialist in Israel and you are getting good money you will go those pressures are there this is not the end this story is still in the middle somewhere as they say that's the tradition thank you yeah so joint up we can close yeah there is no more questions so I will ask professor Jyoti Boro to offer the formal vote of thanks and then we can conclude today's session thank you sir okay thank you it's wonderful to listen to you as always I mean earlier also and today also and also I am very happy that very probing questions also were thrown up by our participants which actually made this whole session very lively and interactive I take the privilege of offering formal vote of thanks to everyone I begin with our vice-insular sir for supporting all our efforts including this one and the moment we shared the idea he readily agreed and he was become more enthusiastic than all of us having you here and then getting this session done so thank you sir for the support then I would like to offer our thanks to for readily agreeing to be with us this evening and then also share his thoughts and experiences and the way we imagine the whole idea and successfully he actually have done exactly the what we have and researched and that is why we would like to for a great from heartiest thanks who supported all events and then I would like to give them a big thank you our IT team has been excellent in supporting all the webinars that we have done in recent times so to them also I would like to give the formal vote of thanks though they are very much part of us and all the participants today and thank you everyone for making this session extremely lively and extremely illuminating thank you all thank you