Over 61,000 Palestinians, including 18,000 children, have been killed in Israel’s offensive in Gaza since October 2023. 1.9 million people, or 90 per cent of Gaza’s population, have been displaced. A humanitarian tragedy so all-consuming that the United Nations has said an entire generation has been wiped out.
But call it genocide and Israel’s ambassador to India is ready to wage a social media war. Reuven Azar on Tuesday publicly picked on Congress MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra for accusing his country of committing genocide.
“What is shameful is your deceit. Israel killed 25,000 Hamas terrorists. The terrible cost in human lives derives from Hamas’s heinous tactics of hiding behind civilians, their shooting of people trying to evacuate or receive assistance and their rocket fire,” Azar said in response to Priyanka’s X post.
“Israel facilitated 2 million tonnes of food into Gaza while Hamas tries to sequestrate them, thereby creating hunger. Gaza’s population has grown 450% in the last 50 years, no genocide there. Don’t buy Hamas numbers,” Azar added.
In her post, Priyanka had said: “The Israeli state is committing genocide. It has murdered over 60,000 people, 18,430 of whom were children. It has starved hundreds to death, including many children, and is threatening to starve millions. Enabling these crimes by silence and inaction is a crime in itself. It is shameful that the Indian Government stands silent as Israel unleashes this devastation on the people of Palestine.”
Priyanka has repeatedly spoken up for Palestinians on social media and had once carried to Parliament a bag voicing support for the Palestinian cause.
The Congress slammed the Israeli envoy for publicly speaking against an elected member of India’s Parliament.
Congress communications in-charge Jairam Ramesh said: “The Indian National Congress condemns the words used by Israel’s Ambassador to India in response to the pain and anguish expressed by Smt. Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, MP, on Israel’s continuing genocide in Gaza. It is too much to expect the Modi Govt, which has shown extreme moral cowardice when it comes to speaking out on Israel’s destruction of Gaza over the past 18-20 months, to take serious exception and objection to the Ambassador’s response. We do and find it totally unacceptable.”
Srinivas BV of the Congress wrote on X in response to Azar’s post: “An ambassador on Indian soil, representing a regime accused of genocide, has the audacity to target a Member of Parliament of this country. This is not diplomacy, it is naked arrogance and foreign interference in our democratic space.”
While the external affairs ministry did not comment on the Israeli ambassador’s post, government sources said he was free to respond to people, including politicians. They pointed out that Israeli diplomats “work differently” on such issues. They are known to be more vocal and proactive in fighting back what they perceive as efforts to delegitimise Israel, the sources said.
If faced with a similar situation overseas, an Indian diplomat is likely to reach out to such legislators directly and talk to them in private instead of publicly disagreeing with them.
A retired diplomat said barring the opening line of his post which directly targeted Priyanka, the ambassador was essentially stating the official position of his government, which was his job.
The Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations does not bar a diplomat from arguing with a politician in the host country. It only bars a diplomat from interfering/ commenting on the internal situation of the receiving country.