Qadri Ismail's article, in an abridged version, first appeared in The Morning Leader. Even as the LTTE is pushed back by military forces, atrocities on the population increases.

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Bulldozed from the land, bombarded from the air and sea, brutalized in general, one would think the Palestinian people would make a sensible calculation, put their hands up and surrender. They don’t.

Most of the world is with them, but that doesn’t really matter because the dominant global power, the United States, is against. Indeed, the U. S. refuses to prevent, or even condemn, the merciless assault of the Israeli state. Thus encouraging, abetting it. Barack Obama’s silence is particularly repugnant.

One would think that Palestinians would get the message. They don’t.

Their cause seems so hopeless some might even think they should capitulate. Clearly, however, they won’t.

Like Palestine, in Sri Lanka today hope is a four letter word.

In the three years since the Rajapakse brothers captured the presidency, our citizens continue to be denied equality, our rights have been stolen systematically, our lives are increasingly terrorized. The constitution is treated, at best, as an inconvenience. The press, a threat. Human rights activists are accused of aiding terrorism. One of our leading lawyers, J. C. Weliamuna, had his home grenaded. Lasantha Wickrematunge was murdered – for opposing, as everyone including its apologists is aware, the government and its warmongers.

The Tamils, of course, are the primary target of this regime’s policy of systematic slaughter. Since Don Shelton Senanayake, they have been less than equal citizens. Since Junius Richard Jayawardene, they have been brutalized.  Mahinda Percy Rajapakse and his brothers are inspired by the worst examples of both.

Under the pretext of a war on terror, Tamils are routinely murdered, maimed, displaced, dispossessed in Sri Lanka today. Never before in our postcolonial history have they felt more politically insignificant. Never before has their every step been monitored, scrutinized. They are even denied the right to move freely across the country. More than a thousand are arbitrarily detained in northern camps – including some fleeing the LTTE. The number incarcerated in the south is unknown.

In Sri Lanka today, the Muslims, too, are being made politically irrelevant. In the east, under the pretext of saving the environment, hundreds of acres of their land have been alienated. At some future stage, no doubt, this property will be transferred to Sinhala settlers. Soon it may be next to impossible for Muslims to elect representatives from any but the most densely populated parts of the east (like Kaththankudy).

In such a context, it is infuriatingly ironic to find Rajapakse, not to mention the JVP, express sympathy for the Palestinian people. The same Rajapakse who unabashedly buys guns and gunships from Israel. Similar weapons, no doubt, to those directed, as you read this, at Palestinian lives. If not Palestinian life itself.

For the Rajapakse regime is like the Israeli state.

The Iranian government of that anti-Semitic anti-imperialist, Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, may think it proper to subsidize the brothers – despite their repression of Sri Lankan Muslims. Despite the fact that Iranian money ends up subsidizing the Israeli arms industry. Despite the Defense Secretary’s own admission on Wednesday that the Sri Lankan and Israeli navies exchange ideas on tactics. But, to repeat: the Rajapakse regime is like the Israeli state.

Palestine is a territory occupied by Israel. An analogous argument could be made about the Sri Lankan army in the north and east.

The Palestinians are an oppressed people. So are the Tamils.

Israel is a pariah state. So is the Rajapakse regime.

The sympathy of the conscience of the world is with the Palestinians. And the Tamils.

The Israeli military says it targets only the resistance. And yet, most of its casualties are civilians. The same is true of the rhetoric and victims of the Sri Lankan military.

The Israeli government often stages military actions around elections. The Rajapakses, ditto.     

The Israeli government only accepts Palestinian politicians it can puppet, like Mahmoud Abbas. The Rajapakses pull the strings of Douglas Devananda, “Karuna” Muralitharan and “Pillayan” Chandrakanthan.

Israeli leaders are routinely accused of corruption. The Rajapakse brothers appear to revel in it.

Parallels are not restricted to the present, but extend historically.

The Israeli state has systematically settled Jews in Palestinian territory. Perhaps they learned this from the Sinhala state, which has pursued such a policy since Senanayake.

And Israelis Jews believe themselves to be a chosen people. That god himself bequeathed Palestine to them as their exclusive homeland. Likewise, Sinhala Buddhists believe Buddha himself blessed this country as their sole possession.

If you believe in absurdities, said Voltaire, you will commit atrocities.

Unfortunately, in both Palestine and Sri Lanka, atrocious acts are not limited to one party. The Palestinian resistance has targeted, killed and injured Israeli civilians. Just as much as the LTTE, once upon a time at the urging of the Indian state, has constantly targeted and murdered Sinhala civilians.

Such practice is ethically unacceptable. It cannot be whitewashed by any alibi. Murder, even to counter state-sanctioned murder, remains murder.

Such practice is also politically counter-productive. Like the Palestinian, I unequivocally endorse the Tamil demand to resolve their future. The Rajapakses, instead, would resolve it for them.

But the actions of the LTTE have weakened the Tamil cause and their case. Indeed, the LTTE’s authoritarian methods have significantly alienated the Tamil people themselves: the drafting at gun-point of children for its army, the killing of dissenting Tamils like K. Padmanabha and Rajini Thiranagama and hundreds of others, the forced evacuation of the Jaffna population in 1995. The list is long. Despite this government’s brutality, due mostly to its own actions, the LTTE no longer enjoys the popular support it did in the 1980s and 90s.

It does not follow, however, that most Tamils who diverge from the LTTE support this racist regime. They don’t.

It does not follow that the Tamils believe, despite Rajapakse’s bombast, that this is a government of all the people. They don’t. Even Devananda, Muralitharan and Chandrakanthan don’t believe that.

Or that the Tamil people, however terrorized they might be today, will surrender their struggle for peace with equality, with justice, with honor.

Like the Palestinians, hell no, they won’t.