Kashmir again

For many years I have been warning that the Kashmir dispute between India and Pakistan dwarfs the Israel-Palestine conflict.  Not only have India and Pakistan already fought three wars, but they are much more highly populated than Israel and the Palestinians and also they both have nuclear weapons that spells a potentially diastrous outcome.  The recent clashes along the line of control in which both Indian and Pakistani soldiers were killed does not bode well for the future.

Just as in the Middle East, the two parties to the conflict occupy portions of a territory, namely Kashmir, that they both claim.  Both have some right on their side, when the Indian subcontinent was split in 1948 each independent kingdom or princely state had the choice of opting to join either India or Pakistan.  In the case of Kashmir the Maharajah of Kashmir decided to join India even though the vast majority  of his subjects were Muslim (ca. 80%) and wanted to join Pakistan.  A Pakistani army invaded Kashmir and occupied part of it, then the Indian army entered Kashmir and drove them out of most of it.  In the end, 40% of what was considered to be Jammu and Kashmir was occupied by Pakistan and the rest by India, with an unstable border called the line of control between them. This conflict is very similar to the Israel-Arab conflict, but of course there are differences.

If one considers the amount of media attention and newpaper column inches devoted to the Middle East conflict compared to that of Kashmir, the bias of liberal journalistic support for the Palestinians is astounding, considering the real threat to the world's peaceful future in Kashmir.  Why are the Palestinians given so much media exposure and support, it can only be because their enemies are the Jews.  The Palestinians have no oil, no strategic location, no source of money, nothing to contribute to the betterment of mankind (like the Jews).  On the contrary they play on their manufactured victimhood as the exemplar of the dispossessed, mimicking the Jews in doing so.  Yet the liberal-leftist world regards them as virtually uncorrupted and sacrosanct, when in fact they are the opposite.  They are split in two, Fatah nationalists in the West Bank, Hamas Islamists in Gaza, and they kill each other without compunction.  Their whole framework is corrupt, stealing the aid intended for the people and they have no positive aims, only the commitment to destroy Israel.  Just as there were fellow travelers with the Stalinists, so there are fellow travelers with the Palestinians.  Yet, it is a mystery why, what have they contributed to civilization to deserve this support?  Nothing!

So forget the Palestinians, they are marginal, but forget Kashmir at your peril.