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The Hamas attack on Israel on October 7 is a terrorist act but there is also an issue of Palestine which has to have a solution, external affairs minister S Jaishankar said at the Joint Secretary Session of the Senate’s External Affairs and Defence Commission, Rome. “What happened on October 7 is a big act of terrorism and the subsequent happenings after that…this has taken the entire region into a very different direction. But surely it must be everybody’s hope that eventually, the conflict can not be the normal in the region…that it comes back to some stability, some cooperation. within this, we have to find a balance in between different issues… we all find terrorism unacceptable and we have to stand up on terrorism,” Jaishankar said.
“But there is also an issue of Palestine. There has to be a solution to the problems being faced by the Palestinian people. And our view is that it has to be a two-state solution. If you have to find a solution, you have to find it through dialogue and negotiation. You cannot find a solution through conflict and terrorism. So we will support that as well. Given the current situation…we do believe that international humanitarian law must be respected by everybody. So in any complex situation, it is not wise to not get the balance right. That is a very important part of addressing a very difficult and complicated situation,” Jaishankar said.
India in its response to the Israel-Hamas war clarified its balanced stance against terrorism and in favour of the “establishment of a sovereign, independent and viable state of Palestine”. PM Modi was one of the first global leaders to condemn the terror attack by Hamas and express full solidarity with Israel. In the United Nations General Assembly, India abstained from voting on a resolution calling for a truce in Gaza as it did not mention Hamas and didn’t condemn the attack.
“…We see very frankly very difficult times ahead, very turbulent times ahead and there are many reasons for this. If one takes just the last five years, the impact on the global economy and also society, Covid has been very traumatic. There are still many countries and many societies which have not recovered from it. We have seen, that progress in sustainable development goals, in many countries, has been rolled back, and many more countries today are facing, a financial economic crisis, and debt is a very big problem…on top of that the Ukraine war has affected every part of the world,” Jaishankar said.
Poulomi Ghosh is a journalist with Hindustan Times, New Delhi.