Israel's Isolation

Netanyahu must not be allowed to get away with mass murder

The joint statement by the leaders of Canada, France and the United Kingdom, and announcements by the U.K. and the EU to pause trade talks with Israel are proof that the Netanyahu government is growing more isolated over its brutal campaign on Gaza. Since the ceasefire ended on March 18, over 3,000 residents have been killed in the enclave, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Israel's chokehold on aid and humanitarian supplies has pushed thousands to the brink of starvation, a fact that even Donald Trump, President of Israel's all-time ally, the U.S., referred to during a trip to West Asia last week. Mr. Trump's decision to skip Israel has been seen as a mark of his displeasure with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's policy on the issue. Despite the rebukes, Mr. Netanyahu has said Israeli Defence Forces needed to continue to target Hamas operatives in the area, and added that Israel would now re-take full "military control" of the Gaza strip, which the IDF had vacated in 2005. The comments provoked an angry response from the leaders of Canada (Mark Carney), France (Emmanuel Macron), and the U.K. (Keir Starmer), all of whom had pledged their support to Israel's actions in response to the October 7, 2023 terror attacks. They called the level of human suffering in Gaza "intolerable" and Israel's escalation of bombardment a "disproportionate" response, condemned the Israeli leadership for threatening to evict all Palestinians forcibly from the strip, and recommended to a "two-state solution" for Israel and Palestine, to be discussed at a United Nations conference in June. Significantly, the three countries even threatened sanctions against Israel. Mr. Netanyahu's response, to accuse the three leaders of handing Hamas a "huge prize", and vowing not to stop "until total victory is achieved", indicates that he still believes that he can continue without being checked.

It is time for the international community to speak up so that Mr. Netanyahu does not think he can get away with what international agencies are calling genocide. New Delhi has notably thus far not issued any statement. This silence may be because of its own preoccupation with Pakistan and due to Israel's unequivocal support over Operation Sindoor. There is no link or equivalence between the two situations, however. Too many lives have been lost in the incessant bombardment by Israel of an area of two million people. Despite the depredations, Israel has not, with any clarity, met its objectives of bringing back the hostages or of wiping out Hamas's presence there yet. Mr. Netanyahu has tried to frame his government's actions as a "war of civilisation over barbarism", but it is he who must consider how much this direction-less war that appears to punish the weakest and most defenceless the most resembles the latter more than the former, as the numbers of innocent dead testify to a brutal genocide.

Stories from the Heart

Banu's Booker will help regional languages gain global recognition

The marginalised have come to the fore with Banu Mushtaq winning the International Booker Prize for 2025. In a first for Kannada, Mushtaq and her translator Deepa Bhasthi walked away with the top honours on Tuesday night in London for Heart Lamp. This is also the first time in the history of the prize that a collection of short stories has won. Breaching walls, breaking ceilings, and enduring angry outbursts, Mushtaq chronicles the lives of Muslim women and their anxieties. Her stories are also peopled by clueless husbands, children who are like "monkeys without tails", loving and, sometimes overbearing, grandmothers, muscular brothers and maulvis. But as Mushtaq has said in interviews, the narratives are primarily about women and how "religion, society, and politics demand unquestioning obedience from them, and in doing so, inflict inhumane cruelty upon them". She writes with candour and wry humour, even as the women are often struggling to stay afloat with their backs against the wall. In her moving acceptance speech, Mushtaq harped on the power of words to "create a world where every voice is heard, every story matters, and every person belongs".

Showering praise on Kannada, she said that it is a language that sings of resilience and nuance — "to write in Kannada is to inherit a legacy of cosmic wonder and earthly wisdom". The 77-year-old Mushtaq hails from Hassan in Karnataka, like another illustrious writer, Raja Rao, who wrote in Kannada, English and French. Mushtaq, a lawyer and activist, was inspired to write after hearing of the "pain, suffering, and helpless lives" of the women she interacted with. The "radical translation" by Bhasthi was praised by the jury chair Max Porter who said it "ruffles language to create new textures in a plurality of Englishes". Heart Lamp's Booker, just three years after Geetanjali Shree won for Tomb of Sand, should open doors for India's rich regional languages to gain a wider readership. Mushtaq follows a trail of writers such as Perumal Murugan, Vivek Shanbhag, Bama, Jayant Kaikini, M. Mukundan and S. Hareesh who observe the human condition in a socio-political context with their translators ensuring the rhythms of the original language are not lost. In a world that often tries to divide people, Mushtaq said that literature remains one of the "last sacred spaces where we can live inside each other's minds if only for a few pages". It is the only place that can embrace stories from unheard corners of the world.

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