By Rohana R. Wasala 

Continued from March 18, 2026

Soon after its controversial establishment in 1948, the State of Israel was surrounded by enemies, its Arab neighbours Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon, and Iraq. In response, founding prime minister David Ben Gurion conceived and developed a brilliant foreign policy strategy known as the Periphery Doctrine (Torat Haperipheria) to deal with the Arab World’s enmity towards the Jewish State and its resultant isolation. The ingenious Ben Gurion looked beyond the hostile Arab nations, and identified a natural ally in the East, the non-Arab Persia (an ancient empire now called Iran). The Jews and Persians (modern Iranians) shared a common history of victimhood of foreign invasion and imperial dispossession, something that the Shah also recognised. The fledgling Israel and the ancient Persia formed a strategic tripartite alliance with the United States, a strategy that became a masterclass in power, serving as a protective wall against the Soviet Union. The end of this excellent regional arrangement came with the 1953 coup, which began the currently raging American involvement in West Asia (or the Middle East as it is called from a European perspective).

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Shah of Iran from 1957 to 1979, became the security guarantor the US needed in the Persian Gulf. They gave him all the weapons he asked for, from F-14 Tomcats  to nuclear technology. (These remained in the general Iranian arsenal even after the 1979 Islamic Revolution; but the F-14s were retired in 2006 and replaced due to high maintenance costs, and are no longer in use). Up until 1979, the Shah gave the world stability in return. The quarter century under his rule saw Iran gradually turning into the most Westernized, and powerful nation in West Asia, and Tehran transforming into the most modern metropolis in the region where miniskirts, rock music and high tech industrial gadgets became familiar elements in the daily life of ordinary Iranians. It looked like the projection of a visionary future onto the present. But this happened after an initial lag of ten years of autocratic rule under the Shah from 1953 to 1963.

The Shah at the beginning followed an autocratic mode of government that closely aligned with the US and UK. He formed his secret police and an intelligence service known as the SAVAK, the Persian acronym for the ‘Organization of National Security and Information’. He set up this intelligence unit with American and Israeli assistance aimed at suppressing opposition. The SAVAK started using inhuman methods to tyrannize, torture, and even execute political dissidents. 

It was only in 1963 that he launched his ‘White Revolution’, for ushering in Western-modelled secular modernization, characterized by rational, scientific thinking and science and technology based industrialization. This led to a significant diminution of the authority of religious institutions in public life. The process included elements usually associated with Western liberal values such as individual liberties (freedoms of speech, thought,and belief), rule of law and equality, representative democracy, separation of powers to protect the democratic process, human rights and dignity, tolerance and secularism that together create a secular public space, where individual autonomy (i.e., the  recognition of the individual as the primary unit of society) can be realised and enjoyed.

 Probably, the most conspicuous change effected during the first decade of the Shah’s return was in connection with the emancipation of women from the traditional mysogynistic restrictions that religion imposed on females. Gender equality resulted in their enfranchisement. Not only were they  given the right to vote at elections, they were granted the right to take part in active politics, and also the eligibility to join the workforce. Secularization of the state was another revolutionary step towards modernization. The state was separated from religion. Land and private property reforms that replaced the traditional feudal system saw peasants becoming land owners.

The gradually intensifying mullahs’ backlash came in the form of the 1979 Iranian Revolution led by the Shia Muslim cleric Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. He returned to Iran from a short period of asylum in France on February 1, 1979. Ten days of chaos followed, during which the Shah was overthrown. Ayatollah Khomeini consolidated government authority under his leadership, replacing Reza Pahlavi’s monarchical system with a theocratic system, which seems to be on its last legs today.

In the current wartorn West Asian context, it is not the ethical conduct or the political or the religious convictions or the choices of the ordinary Israeli and Iranian people (whose shared suffering is endless) that form the decisive factor. The common people of both countries are helpless victims of the consequences of the actions of those who rule over them.The actors invariably involved in the evolving, potentially global, conflict situation  are the rulers or politicians in general, of the respective nations, and their (the rulers’) rational and magnanimous behaviour is of paramount importance for the survival of the respective nations, and of the entire human civilization itself, for that matter. And this brings us to the crux of the problem! 

Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are the three basic Abrahamic faiths, professed respectively by the Israelis, their comrades in arms the Americans, and their common antagonists the Iranians. Among them, they differ in their conception of the one God they claim to believe in as the supreme creator of the universe, who is all powerful and all merciful. Adherents of the three faiths aim to achieve moral righteousness by ‘aligning their life with God’s will, characterized by a commitment to ethical conduct, justice, and compassion’. All three religions uphold the golden rule (as, for example, expressed in the Christian Bible in different places and different words, including ‘And just as you want men to do to you, you also do to them likewise’ in Luke 6:31.) What better ethical foundation for rational thought and magnanimous behaviour can there be? Yet, the totalitarian nature of each of these ‘revealed’ faiths (or creeds/religions/dogmas, etc., created by chosen prophets through divine inspiration, rather than conceptualized  by freethinking philosophers through human reason based speculation) makes mutual accommodation among them problematic, as it appears. 

As a consequence, there is no agreement about what is rational and magnanimous (Please see above) between these embattled adversaries. Rationality and magnanimity are inevitable casualties of religious bigotry, further vitiated by mundane politics. Actually, it is a political conflict. The morally and materially weaker side uses religious extremism as a weapon. Intense intolerance of beliefs and practices of people of a different religion or of different sects of the same religion or religio-political ideology is a barrier to rational thought as well as meaningful dialogue  and prevents generous, forgiving and compassionate behaviour towards fellow humans.

A little clarification before proceeding further: Religion and politics did not just originate simultaneously, they were often fundamentally inseparable, working as a single unified system of social organization in the early history of human civilization. Political power was typically justified through divine authority, with leaders acting as priest kings. (According to the Agganna sutta in Buddhism {agganna literally means ‘knowledge of origins’}, however, organised society emerged not through divine intervention, but through a natural evolutionary process driven by craving, moral decline, and voluntary social agreement that led to the election of a king or ruler, promulgation of laws, and the emergence of the four traditional social orders based on their functions or roles and actions {karma}, rather than on god-given rights.)

Incidentally, the phrase ‘god-given rights’ in the secular US Constitution (ratified in 1788) refers to natural rights inherent to humanity (inviolable rights deemed granted by a higher power); these are the fundamental rights of the freedoms of conscience, religion and life, which cannot be taken away even by the state, and which are protected by the Constitution. But in a bigotted religious environment even these fundamental rights are threatened. That’s why democracy is superior to any theocracy. The UN Charter of Human Rights (1945) is based on the principles of sovereign equality of states, prohibition of force, and the promotion of universal respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms”.

The joint American-Israeli action against Iran is criticised, in many countries around the world including Sri Lanka, as being in violation of Article 2 (4) of the UN Charter, which is a foundational principle of international law; it prohibits the threat or actual use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state. But there are exceptions. These are only for authorised actions primarily for self-defence under Article 51 or subject to Security Council approval. 

Article 51 of the UN Charter states that ‘Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an actual attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international security…..’

The US and Israel launched their first strikes on Iran in the current conflict on February 28, 2026 in self-defence. Israel identified a missile launched against it from Yemen making it the first such missile used in this conflict. The US too can make similar claims: US assets were targeted by Iran-backed forces with reports of its service members being injured in a Saudi air base. And both the US and Israel had well known earlier grievances against Iran.

 Although it may sound a hard-hearted thing to say while witnessing through the media the appalling scale of human suffering that is being experienced in West Asia due to the conflict, sometimes it is nothing but fair for Israel and America (especially for Israel) to do whatever they can do in self-defence to defeat the current Islamist terror driven Iranian regime whose declared ultimate goal is the total destruction of the Jewish State. Genocide of a people is the most egregious crime against humanity imaginable.  

The West Asian conflict has an inevitable impact on Sri Lanka because of long standing trade and diplomatic ties with those nations. But Sri Lankans have no choice but to stay non-aligned in this conflict, while still ensuring that justice, democracy, and humanity eventually prevail, not losing sight of the fact that they too are potential, nay real, victims of the violent religionism of the Islamic type that is a rapidly growing global menace today. Israel is the modern David confronting a Goliath of hostile neighbours, extremist ideologies, and a geopolitical environment that constantly denies its right to exist. Some believe that Sri Lankans are also in the same boat.

Going by the social media reports from Sri Lanka, there seems to be some growing awareness of the justness of the Israeli action against genocidal Islamism (cautiously rejected by the majority of ordinary Muslims themselves in the Gulf states) despite surging empathy for the innocent people suffering caught in the crossfire. While there are only subdued expressions of support for the beleaguered Jewish state, there seems to be more vocal opposition to it from a section of the local Muslim minority.

 In my opinion, Sri Lankans who are facing the same existential threats, have, at present, some of the dumbest politicians (both in the government and the opposition) ever entrusted by the people in democratic elections to look after their overall security, economic prosperity, mental well-being, and national independence as a sovereign nation. They are the worst violators of the great Buddha’s principle of good governance ‘raja dhammam paja rakkha – it is the ruler’s obligation to protect the people through righteousness’. 

The Buddha elaborates a ruler’s responsibilities in terms of the ‘dasa raja dharma’ or ‘the ten duties of a king’. One of these is ‘tyaga’ (Sanskrit) or ‘paricchaga’ (Pali) meaning ‘sacrificing things of value for the good of the  people’; this has three forms: self-sacrifice (selfless service), altruism (willingness to give up personal benefits for the welfare of the people), and renunciation (acting not being shackled by the petty sense of ego {I, me, mine, for me, etc} in serving the people). But, in the land that claims to be the repository of the pristine teachings of the Buddha, corruption is a byword for politics. This legitimate perception of a deep systemic link between the abuse of entrusted power and political authority is probably the greatest threat to Sri Lanka’s national security, democracy, economic development, territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence. 

The greatest secularist the world has ever known, Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha or the Awakened One (who neither followed nor founded any religion) taught how to seek relief from suffering through governing one’s mind. Heedfulness or mindfulness leads to happiness, he said. ‘Mind precedes all mental states – Mind is their chief – They are all mindwrought…’ are the opening lines of the Dhammapada collection of Buddha’s sayings. Our mind is the most vital thing in life that we can possibly bring under our control if we want, in our happiest moments as well as in our saddest. It is the creator as well as the destroyer of our overall/holistic wellbeing. Buddha’s compassionate call to practical action embodied in the Noble Eightfold Path (or the Fourth Noble Truth), I think, is most appropriate advice for the suffering people of Iran, Israel, and Sri Lanka, and the whole world, in fact. At the moment the shared element of conflict generated suffering forms the basis of mutual empathy and support between common Sri Lankans, Iranians and Israelis. 

Buddha’s teaching of universal compassion or loving-kindness, towards all sentient beings, and his gentle reminder that violence should be avoided ‘putting oneself in the place of another’ (Dhammapada Verses 129 and 130) should be adopted as a soothing antidote to spreading religious hate that makes zealots shout ‘Death to those they don’t like’ and also to what the late anti-religion crusader Christopher Hitchens (British-American writer and journalist) condemned as the ‘poison of religious extremism’ 

Concluded