DUBAI (AlArabiya.net)
The grandson of Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi resigned as head of a U.S.-based peace institute he founded following his remarks that Israel and the Jews are the biggest players in a global culture of violence that "is eventually going to destroy humanity."
The resignation by Arun Gandhi, 75, president of the board of the M.K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence based at the University of Rochester in New York, was accepted last month after he wrote an online essay on a Washington Post blog.
As part of a discussion about the future of Jewish identity, Gandhi wrote that Israel is "locked into the holocaust experience," which Jews "overplay . . . to the point that it begins to repulse friends."
“Any nation that remains anchored to the past is unable to move ahead, and especially a nation that believes its survival can only be ensured by weapons and bombs,” he added.
Describing Israel as "a nation that believes its survival can only be ensured by weapons and bombs," Gandhi asked whether it would "not be better to befriend those who hate you?"
"We have created a culture of violence (Israel and the Jews are the biggest players) and that Culture of Violence is eventually going to destroy humanity," he wrote.
The posting drew 438 comments -- unusually high for the washingtonpost.com On Faith forum -- and prompted such a backlash that Gandhi and the website later apologized.
"One would hope that the grandson of such an illustrious human being would be more sensitive to Jewish history," said Abraham H. Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League.
Larry Fine, head of the Jewish Federation of Rochester, called the posting "reprehensible." |
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Apology Gandhi later apologized for the "poorly worded post," written on Jan. 7, saying he shouldn't have implied that Israeli government policies reflected the views of all Jewish people.
"My intention was to generate a healthy discussion on the proliferation of violence…Instead, unintentionally, my words have resulted in pain, anger, confusion and embarrassment," Gandhi wrote in his resignation letter.
He said that while the suffering of the Jews under the Holocaust was "historic in its proportions," he stood by his criticism of "the use of violence by recent Israeli governments."
Gandhi's son, Tushar Gandhi, told the Tehran Times that his father had been hounded out of the post. He said he wished the Jewish lobby had looked at his father’s comments dispassionately and acted on his advice.
“That would make them stronger, but instead they have proved him correct,” Tushar Gandhi stated. |
