Rohana R. Wasala

The desert will rejoice, 
and flowers will bloom in the wastelands. 
The desert will sing and shout for joy;
 it will be as beautiful as the Lebanon Mountains
 and as fertile as the farmlands of Carmel and Sharon.
 Everyone will see the Lord’s splendour,  see his greatness and power.
–Isaiah 35: 1-2

This is an expanded version of Gaza conflict: Reply to ‘Another view’” published in The Island daily (Sri Lanka) of August 29, 2025. It is not meant to open a political debate on which side to support as Sri Lankans in the Gazan crisis, Israeli Jews or Palestinian Arabs? The conflict is beyond our powers of mediation. We have nothing to share with either except our inexpressible pain over their suffering and  our great concern for their eventual release from it. We need to remain friends of both, as we have done over the decades. Palestinians are important to us, because, among other crucial things, they are co-religionists of  the Sri Lankan Muslims minority. Israelis are equally important to us, because 30-40,000 Sri Lankan workers find employment there and are looked after exceptionally well, as many of them have told us. Sri Lanka has always followed a conspicuously pro-Palestine policy, while also maintaining friendly relations with Israel, though subject to some stress due to unavoidable global political and economic realities (which both Israelis and Palestinians understand). Christian/Catholic Sri Lankans have natural unbreakable bonds with Israel as part of the Holy Land.  The people of Sihela/Ceylon (Sri Lanka) transacted with Jewish traders as early as the 3rd century BCE according to documented history, which was contemporaneous with the arrival of Buddhism in Sri Lanka. 

Sri Lanka is obliged to protect the rights of the Jews who visit Sri Lanka and interact with Sri Lankans in any way they like, just as much as Palestinians who do the same, without breaking the laws of the country. But there were reports of some anti-Israeli protests in Colombo, and Baticaloa in the East. Israelis have not committed any terrorist acts in Sri Lanka and they don’t represent the Israeli government which is embroiled in a war with Hamas. Please read the following with this introductory information in mind

Offering ‘Another view’ (The Island/August 20, 2025) in reply to the first part of the article ‘Gaza conflict: Sarvajana Balaya’s response’ published Wednesday 13th, Stanley Weerasinghe of Pannipitiya has raised seven arguments against my opinion about SB’s Gaza reaction. SW has done so even before seeing the second part of my article, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with SW doing that. Now that the second (or concluding) part has been published (August 22), there probably is no need for a reply from me. Still, in appreciation of SW’s concern for truth, which I also share, and equally importantly, for reasons that must be talked about more explicitly before long, in order to prevent the re-emergence of extremist tension in different forms, I decided to gladly try to answer his criticisms. 

Stanley Weerasinghe has done us a good turn by articulating those counter arguments. I am sure he has his own sources of information to support them. But there is a problem that none of us can avoid in looking for reliable information about anything nowadays, especially about controversial, hotly disputed subjects such as the raging Gaza conflict. It is this: Today we mainly depend on electronic media for instant news, most frequently, YouTube, the American social media platform owned by Google. Google is a multinational tech-giant, which is globally the most widely used search engine. YouTube has us, its users, in its thrall by influencing our choice of content, even our inner thoughts, beliefs, prejudices, and opinions through its recommendation algorithms. Through this it tries to please every user happy, to hell with truth, values, culture, and the rest. Unless we are critical and discriminating enough in our approach to interacting with the deluge of information that is turned on us, we tend to get latched onto some opinion, belief, or ideology, and fixated on a position that ignores really valid alternative stands regarding important issues. YouTube can even affect unwary users’ mental health.

 What has brought us together here is, I think, our great protective love of Mother Lanka, our truly resplendent Homeland, which we have saved as one country from South Indian and later European invaders. But today, our only refuge seems to be the representative parliamentary system of government based on democracy.

First, what I meant by saying that the SB delegates did not ‘care or dare’ to make any reference to Israel was that they probably wanted to register  their ‘politically correct’ indifference to that country in order to please the local Muslim voters. They must have thought that to do otherwise would antagonise the latter. But not all Muslims are extremists who are blind Jew haters, something I know through personal experience with fellow Sri Lankans of the Muslim community. My feeling is that most minority leaders (please note, not ordinary citizens who belong to different ethnic minorities) traditionally fail to reciprocate the friendship and flexibility offered by the liberal policy of political correctness usually adopted by nearly all politicians who come from the majority Sinhalese Buddhist community. The urgent need of the hour is to focus on the increasing vulnerability of the Sri Lankan people/nation to the predatory influence of extremist ideologies (whether political or religious), but not to appease opportunistic politicians generally believed to be indirectly benefiting from the actions of extremists. 

Second,  SW argues that the Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu has been declared a war criminal  by the ICC (International Criminal Court). But its ruling (in effect, its authority) seems to be ignored by some countries. Recently, the Hungarian PM Viktor Oban said, just ahead of Benjamin Netanyahu’s scheduled visit to Hungary, that his country had started proceedings to withdraw from the ICC. PM Bart De Wever of Belgium announced that the Israeli PM will not be arrested by his country either. Heads of State of sovereign nations undergoing internal crises should not be treated as common criminals merely on being charged with wrongdoing on suspicion. For all nations economy matters much much more than religion.

Three, the widely circulated allegation that Israel is starving Gazans is vehemently disputed by the IDF with plenty of video evidence available on free social media. If there is any starvation there, according to the IDF, it is due to the involvement of disguised Hamas members in the distribution of relief foodstocks  given to UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency) for the purpose  by Israel and other donors including some Arab states. It is alleged that Hamas members have penetrated the UNRWA as drivers of the aid trucks and as other workers; they first secure the relief food supplies for Hamas’s own use before giving it to the ordinary Palestinians (who are allegedly being used as human shields, much like Tamil civilians in the north of Sri Lanka before 2009). Some of the food supplies find their way to an impromptu blackmarket, it is claimed by the IDF sources. References are made to alleged UN collusion with Hamas terrorists. Free media posts cite the IDF as the only army in the world that feeds the enemy that is fighting against it. This is due to its commitment to supplying humanitarian aid to Gaza civilians including basic essentials such as food and medicines. The Sri Lanka army similarly fed the armed terrorists in the North during the separatist civil conflict while supplying relief to stranded Tamil civilians. Bogus whistleblower Azad Maulana, once aide to Pillayan, was also employed by the UNRWA, before he was featured in the fake video produced in 2024 by the infamous Channel 4 of UK about falsely alleged Sri Lanka government collusion in the Easter Sunday attacks of April 2019. UNHRC chief Volker Turk’s offhand, even dismissive, refusal of an urgent request by some prominent members of the Patriotic National Movement organization including its Secretary Dr Wasantha Bandara, senior lawyer and civil activist Kalyananda Tiranagama, former Eastern Province Governor Anuradha Yahampath, former Cabinet Minister Retired Rear Admiral Sarath Weerasekera, etc., to meet him before he ended his recent official visit to Sri Lanka (23-26 June, 2025) or even to acknowledge a written appeal by them, while at the same time taking care to send an immediate reply to a Jaffna Tamil civilian’s letter (a sinister gesture, no doubt) according to some YouTube channels. There are other instances of blatant UN discrimination or active prejudice (entirely unexpected in terms of the founding principles of the United Nations) against at least 80% of the Sri Lankan population. In this respect, Israel (with a 75% Jewish and 25% non-Jewish population) and Sri Lanka are in the same boat. The minorities in both countries live in harmony with the respective majorities due mainly to the natural expansiveness and enhanced democratic values of the latter (that is, Jews in Israel, and Buddhists and Hindus in Sri Lanka). Sarvajana Balaya should have taken the opportunity to show Israel that we understand their difficulties. 

Four, SW’s implicit charge is that Netanyahu is the main culprit responsible for the persistent human suffering in Gaza. But, so long as Palestinians chant: ‘From the River to the sea – Palestine will be free’, Israel, under Netanyahu or any other future leader, cannot be expected to agree to any arrangement that recognizes such a Palestine, because it means total non-recognition of Israel as a sovereign state. It is not Netanyahu who insists on genocide. It is Hamas (harakatul-muqawwamah al- islamiyyah or the Islamic Resistance Movement) that insists on the elimination of Israel.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio was recently (August 23) questioned by some journalists about the still ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza:

 ‘And what about the civilians that are being killed everyday?’ 

Rubio said: ‘I blame Hamas. Hamas should stop hiding behind civilians, putting civilians in the way…Hamas has to stop building their military installations underneath hospitals. I think you guys get this. I want them to destroy every element of Hamas they can get their hands on…..These people are vicious animals who did horrifying crimes and I hope you guys post that.

A woman journalist asked: ‘So you don’t care about the 15,000 that died, the babies being killed everyday?’

‘I think that’s terrible and I think that Hamas is 100% to blame. Make sure you post that, please’.

That’s straight from the horse’s mouth. Who gets more authentic information about the ground situation in Gaza than the US Secretary of State?  

Though we recognise and fully support a Palestinian state at present, it is still recognised by only 147 (76%) out of the 193 countries of the UN. The territory it encompasses remains disputed. President Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestine National Authority  comprises Judea and Samaria, which are Palestinian enclaves in the Israel-occupied West Bank. The resolution of this confusing situation remains a problem mostly due to Hamas’s refusal to recognise the existence of Israel.

Five, SW’s contention that my ‘fervent hope’ to see Israelis and Palestinians living as peaceful neighbours is not likely to be fulfilled because Netanyahu ‘had shattered such hopes from the inception’. I don’t agree. Surely, no leader in power could agree to the genocide of his/her own people (unlike our purblind, narrowly power craving, politicians who are turning a blind eye to what could be described as a cultural genocide that is being perpetrated against the majority Sinhalese Buddhists in the form of destruction or vandalism of archaeological sites in the North and the East provinces, propagation of the fictitious Hela Budun concept, deliberate distortion of the Dhamma, unethical conversion of innocent poor as well as not so poor Buddhists and Hindus, etc). A couple of days ago, Netanyahu said something that he had repeated several times before: ’Our goal is not to occupy Gaza. Our goal is to free Gaza, freed from Hamas terrorists. The war can stop tomorrow if Hamas lays down its arms and releases all the remaining hostages.’ But this stance seems to have now turned sterner due to Hamas’s intransigence. SW should remember that about six months ago US president Trump pledged to rebuild the destroyed Gaza with Israel collaboration, if only terrorism stopped.

Six, I didn’t write that Hamas killed 1200 Israelis, although that number is right. If the UN Secretary General (Antonio Guterres) said that the massacre (of October 7, 2023) didn’t happen ‘in a vacuum’, (he did make such a statement; I myself saw several videos of Guterres in this connection on the internet), didn’t he seem to partially justify terrorism?,  which, I don’t think, is worthy of the head of the UN. A hateful local NGO employee made a similar malicious comment in support of a vicious separatist terrorist atrocity just committed:  he  said that it was to be expected! (implying his secret admiration of separatist terrorism, as some commentators at the time read it).   

Seven, SW’s implicit comparison of Netanyahu with Yitzhak Rabin’s real killer is not acceptable. Netanyahu served in the IDF for six years (1967-73) as a Captain, taking part in active combat in a number of wars including the Yom Kippur War of 1972 and also in the celebrated anti-terror Entebbe, Uganda airport raid or Operation Thunderbolt of 1976. Prime Minister Rabin was assassinated by an extremist Jew, a law student by the name of Yigal Amir, who believed that Rabin endangered the lives of Jews by his Oslo Accords (Oslo I and II, signed respectively in 1993 and 1995). 

It is true that he was charged on several counts (breach of trust, accepting bribes, fraud) in 2019, which caused him to relinquish portfolios other than the post of prime minister. His trial began in the Jerusalem district court in 2020; his prosecution rested in July 2024, and defense started in December 2024. Justice will be meted out to him in due course.  Israel is not a lawless country. It is democratic and law abiding. That is why it is so powerful.

Netanyahu posted audio ‘Greetings from Jerusalem to the proud people of Iran’ on August 26, 2025.

Greetings from Jerusalem to the proud people of Iran

A few days ago, the Iranian president said, ‘We have problems with water, electricity, money and inflation. Where don’t have a problem? There won’t be any water in the dams, by September or October’. 

He is right. Everything is collapsing. In this brutal summer heat, you don’t even have clean cold water to give your children.

Such hypocrisy. Such disdain for the Iranian people. To live like this is not fair to you. It’s not fair to your children.

But I have very good news !

Israel is the Number 1 recycler of water in the world”.

Netanyahu is implicitly offering assistance to Iran provided it abandons its hardline genocidal stand against Israel. I found this post on the internet. It suggests that Netanyahu is closer to humanity than Hamas that is committed to Israel’s physical elimination.

In this post, Netanyahu is also echoing the beautiful biblical passage I have quoted at the beginning of this essay. I read about Israel’s Green Revolution (turning dry arid land into fertile farming areas through innovative water management for sustainable agriculture) many decades ago in my youth. Jews and Christians believe that this was achieved as predicted in the Bible in several places including Isaiah 35: 1-2, which has stuck in my memory because of its poetic beauty and its profound message about the power of righteous living in keeping with unshakeable faith in God.

For me, no believer in any religion, but brought up in my native Buddhist culture, these biblical lines resonated (as they do now) with the Buddhist blessing lines repeated at the end of Seth Pirith (Blessing chant) recitation every morning heard over the SLBC radio in my youthful years in the 1970s. 

Devo vassatu kalena/sassa sampatti hotuca/phito bhavatu lokoca/raja bhavatu dhammiko

(May the rains come in time/So that the harvests may be abundant/May the world be prosperous/May the ruler be righteous)

Buddhists believe that for a nation to flourish, gaining prosperity and happiness, they must live righteously, especially the ruler. Where democracy rules, equality, mutual tolerance, care for others, rule of law, absence of corruption, non-discrimination, and so on  become the principles of governance, and foster the emergence of a righteous society