UN Resolution on Israel-Hamas Conflict: Congress strongly opposes India’s abstention says Sonia

New Delhi: The Congress is "strongly opposed" to India's abstention on the recent UN resolution on the Israel-Hamas conflict, former party chief Sonia Gandhi said on Monday, asserting that while her party had unequivocally condemned Hamas' attacks, the tragedy is compounded with the Israeli state now focused on exacting revenge from a population that is largely as helpless as it is blameless.

She also said her party's longstanding position has been to support direct negotiations for a sovereign independent, viable and secure state of Palestine coexisting in peace with Israel.

In an article in an English daily, Sonia Gandhi said: "Humanity is on trial now", as she called for the loudest and most powerful voices to be for a cessation of military activity. "We were collectively diminished by the brutal attacks on Israel. We are now all diminished by Israel's disproportionate and equally brutal response. How many more lives will have to be taken before our collective conscience is stirred and awakened?" she said.

On October 7, 2023, on the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War, Hamas launched a brutal attack on Israel, killing more than a thousand people, mostly civilians, and kidnapping over 200 more, she noted. "The unprecedented attack was devastating for Israel. The Indian National Congress strongly believes that violence has no place in a decent world, and the very next day unequivocally condemned Hamas's attacks," she said.

Sonia Gandhi further said that this tragedy is, however, being compounded by the Israeli military's "indiscriminate operations" in and around Gaza that have led to thousands of deaths, including large numbers of innocent children, women and men.

"The power of the Israeli state is now focused on exacting revenge from a population that is largely as helpless as it is blameless.

The destructive might of one of the world’s most potent military arsenals is being unleashed upon children, women and men who have no part in the Hamas assault; they, instead, for the most part, have been at the heart of decades of discrimination and suffering,” she said.

Articulating the Congress’s stand on the Israel-Palestine issue, she said there can be no peace without justice. Israel’s unremitting blockade for over a decade and a half has reduced Gaza to an “open-air prison” for its two million inhabitants packed into dense cities and refugee camps, she said.

“In Jerusalem and the West Bank, Israeli settlers backed by the Israeli state have continued to push out Palestinians from their own land in a seeming effort to destroy the vision of a two-state solution. Peace will come only if the world, led by countries that have the ability to influence policies and events, can restart the process of restoring the two-state vision and make it a reality,” Sonia Gandhi stressed.

She said the Congress has been consistent over the years in its strong belief that both the Palestinians and Israelis have the right to live in a just peace. “We value our friendship with the people of Israel. But this does not mean that we erase from our memories, the painful history of forced dispossession of the Palestinians from what was their homeland for centuries, and of years of suppression of their basic right to a life of dignity and self-respect,” she said. “Contrary to some mischievous suggestions, the position of the Indian National Congress has been long standing and principled: it is to support direct negotiations for a sovereign independent, viable and secure state of Palestine coexisting in peace with Israel,” Sonia Gandhi said.