Ever-since independence in 1971, Bangladesh has been upholding a wrong diplomatic policy of opposing the existence of the State of Israel simply for the sake of pleasing Palestinians, although by now a large number of Muslim nations have already normalized relations with Jerusalem, while Saudi Arabia is also moving ahead in abandoning its decades-old policy of opposing Israel. Bangladesh’s anti-Israel policy actually is a continuation of policy adopted and followed by Pakistan, while it is a documented fact that Palestinians, including their leader Yasser Arafat and the mufti of Jerusalem have played notorious role by directly opposing to Bangladesh’s war of independence in 1971. Moreover, Saudi Arabia and even Pakistan are having economic relations with Israel and there is no travel ban for citizens of those countries in visiting the Jewish State.
In May 2021, when Bangladesh under the magnanimous leadership of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina removed the clause “except Israel” from its new e-passport, Islamists and anti-Semitic forces in Bangladesh and abroad began orchestrated propaganda against the ruling Awami League government stating this step has “undermined” Bangladesh’s “unconditional support and solidarity towards Palestinians”. Palestinian envoy in Dhaka, Yousef Ramadan even had openly exhibited audacity by expressing anger at Dhaka’s decision stating “It cannot be acceptable for us”.
Such statement of Ramadan is clear violation of diplomatic norms while its undermined Bangladesh’s constitutional provision. According to Bangladesh constitution, our foreign policy’s key theme is “friendship to all, malice to none”.
At that time, German broadcast network Deutsche Welle journalist Arafatul Islam wrote a report titled ‘Will Bangladesh normalize ties with Israel’, and wrote: “Citing immigration officials who did not want to be named, the Qatar-based Al Jazeera news outlet reported that after the change, Bangladeshi nationals could now travel to Israel from a third country if they can obtain a visa.
“None of the 17 legal acts governing Bangladesh’s immigration rules can impose a ban on traveling to Israel, contradicting Momen’s [Bangladesh Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen] assertion of legal action, Al Jazeera reported, adding that a passport alone was not enough to visit a country and that visas must be issued.
“[Ruth] Zakh said Bangladeshi citizens could still visit Israel. “Bangladeshi citizens could visit Israel even with the old passport. We always ignored the words ‘except Israel’ when it appeared in other countries’ passports” she told DW.
“Tens of thousands of tourists and pilgrims bearing passports stained with ‘except Israel’ visited Israel every year and were warmly welcomed”, she said”.
Now let us rewind the history of Bangladesh. It is important for everyone in the world to know, especially the younger generation in Bangladesh, that Israel was one of the first countries to recognize the newly born Bangladesh. It actively aided Bangladeshis during the liberation war, and even supplied arms and logistics to the Bangladeshi freedom fighters through India.
Meanwhile, Palestinians, particularly former PLO chief Yasser Arafat, termed Bangladeshi freedom fighters as “terrorists,” and supported Pakistan owing to the warm relation between the Palestinians and Islamabad. The Palestinians termed Bangladesh’s war of independence as “another Israel-Palestine conflict.” Meaning, Arafat and his cronies in the PLO were projecting Bangladesh as another Israel, with Pakistan as Palestine. They went even further by stating the war was between Muslims and Hindus.
However, after the victory of Bangladesh, then-foreign minister Mushtaque Ahmed – who later became one of the masterminds of the assassination of Bangladesh’s father of the nation, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman – denied Israel’s recognition and declined to reciprocate.
Instead, the country supported the Palestinians, despite the Palestinians declining any sort of Bangladeshi help following Bangladesh’s liberation, as the Palestinians did not recognize our country. The passports that were issued following independence barred our citizens from traveling to Israel, Taiwan and South Africa. However, the ban on South Africa and Taiwan was subsequently removed, and the travel bans were lifted, too. In this case, there is actually no reason for Bangladesh to refrain from distancing from Israel or not moving forward by normalizing relations between Dhaka and Jerusalem.
Flashback
Even before the British left the Indian subcontinent, a Bengali identity was already forged. There was a movement in Bengal prior to the partition of India in 1947 to make Bengal an independent state – neither a part of India, nor a part of Pakistan.
However, subsequent communal violence between Hindus and Muslims led to Bengal being divided between India and East Pakistan. Right before the partition, a famine in Bengal, widely considered to be artificially created, led to millions of deaths. Subsequently, the partition led to hundreds of thousands of deaths.
In 1952, the flame of Bengali nationalism rekindled during the Language Movement, as Bengalis faced persecution and discrimination in Pakistan, despite being the majority. This eventually led to Bangladesh breaking away from Pakistan on March 26, 1971. The then-Pakistani government targeted the intellectuals in our nation, as a part of the genocide that left three million dead.
So, the Bengali identity is not something new or young. It has been there for hundreds of years. Bengalis faced multiple genocides and endless persecution at the hands of foreign powers. Our struggle for forging an independent nation, which lasted for hundreds of years and culminated in 1971, when Bangladesh, against all odds, was born.
Here we need to mention a very important point. During the war of independence of Bangladesh, a Jewish officer of the Indian Army, Lieutenant General Jack Farj Rafael Jacob (popularly known as General Jacob), was not only a Jew who had deep and warm ties with the State of Israel, but had fought against the Pakistani occupation forces hand-in-hand with Bangladeshi freedom fighters – the Mukti Bahini. General Jacob is respected by every individual in Bangladesh as a hero, and we are eternally grateful to him for his contributions.
Still, I doubt if anyone in Bangladesh knows much about his warm ties with Israel. Despite this, antisemitic forces have greatly influenced our society. The majority of the newspapers in Bangladesh – except for my newspaper, Weekly Blitz – are engaged in demonizing Israel, Jews and even Judaism.
Islamist’s attempt of returning to power in Bangladesh
Bangladeshi people consider Islam as a religion, but not as a political force. Therefore, most people can be described as being religious in the sense that they pray in mosques regularly, but do not really care about any political opinion the Imam may have to offer. To Bangladeshis, Imams are no more than clergymen whose jurisdiction is very much restricted within the mosque. However, people do hear hate speech in mosques on a regular basis, and eventually are victims of incessant antisemitic propaganda. And when a lie is repeated many times over, people involuntarily start believing in them.
Unfortunately, Islamist forces in Bangladesh, particularly Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and its ideological ally Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI) have been making frantic bids in returning to power, while according to media reports, BNP has been spending millions of dollars by appointing lobbyists with the ulterior agenda of misleading the US policymakers and paving path to returning to power thus turning Bangladesh into an Islamic republic.
On May 24, 2023, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken issued a press release announcing a new visas policy that allows the United States to restrict the issuance of visa for any Bangladeshi individual, believed to be complicit in undermining the general elections in Bangladesh due to be held in January 2024. Following the announcement, there has been a surge in propaganda in Bangladesh, promulgated by the political opposition in Bangladesh – the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and its ideological ally, Jamaat-e-Islami – citing that the visa restriction is “a result of their efforts” and is aimed at censuring the incumbent government of Bangladesh, although according to the visa policy, every individual – including opposition party members – fall under potential restriction should they jeopardize the electoral process in Bangladesh. Notably, the Jamaat-e-Islami has historically been stirring profoundly concerning anti-US sentiments in Bangladesh, and both the BNP and Jamaat-e-Islami have been repeatedly denounced by the US Congress for its ties to Islamic militancy, oppression of religious minorities (Hindus, Christians, Buddhists and others),, and as a threat to the democratic process in Bangladesh.
Moreover, the BNP has been exploiting the new visa policy in furthering its political agenda. It should be kindly noted that most of the Bangladeshi voters, who hail from rural areas and have limited literacy, are unable to obtain information about the new visa policy from reliable sources but depend on the mouthpieces of the main political organs as the primary source of their information. The BNP has dubbed the new visa policy as a ‘US sanction against the Bangladesh government’ and is holding it akin to the US sanctions against Russia. This has generated a wave of misinformation among the general population which risks swaying popular opinion, jeopardizing a fair democratic election in Bangladesh. Such misinformation has also encouraged BNP leaders to use highly provocative and inflammatory language, including death threats to the incumbent Prime Minister.
Furthermore, the BNP and its political ally Jamaat-e-Islami have repeatedly threatened to remove the incumbent government through means of force, which seriously threatens democracy in Bangladesh.
In the US House Resolution 160 and 1156, and in a resolution adopted by the European Parliament, the Bangladesh government was asked to “deny, disrupt, and dismantle the ability of Jamaat-e-Islami and its affiliates to continue posing an immediate and ongoing threat to secular democracy and regional stability”, and it was observed that “religious minorities were targeted by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, Jamaat-e-Islami, and Islami Chhatra Shibir, following the 2014 general elections [which the BNP boycotted and was keen on disrupting]” Both parliaments urged the BNP to delink with Jamaat-e-Islami (Jamaat-e-Islami), but with the general elections approaching, the BNP high command has instructed to strengthen its ties with the militant Jamaat-e-Islami.
I have been researching and writing on counterterrorism and anti-militancy for over 20 years and I am a recipient of the Moral Courage Award conferred by the American Jewish Committee, and I have been repeatedly persecuted and charged and tried for sedition and blasphemy in 2003 by the then BNP-Jamaat government for my stance against militancy. In 2007, a bi-partisan resolution (HR-64) was passed by 409 votes in the United States Congress in my defense where the members of the US Congress had called upon the BNP-Jamaat government to immediately drop all charges. Similarly, the European Union Parliament, the Parliament of Australia, and the UK Parliament had also passed resolutions in my defense. However, the BNP-Jamaat government paid no heed to the resolutions, and instead, large, state-patronized demonstrations were held in Dhaka where US flags were burned, and there were open calls by the militants “to turn Bangla into Afghan by following the Taliban”. It should further be noted that the BNP-Jamaat government named a bridge in Bangladesh in honor of Hezbollah – a US-designated foreign terrorist organization. As a long-standing ally of the US, I feel concerned that any undue capitalization of the new visa policy of the US by militancy groups such as Jamaat-e-Islami and the BNP will seriously jeopardize secular democracy, revivify militancy, and threaten free expression in Bangladesh. As the Jamaat-e-Islami is a global militancy platform with outposts in many countries, its rise to power can seriously threaten regional and global stability.
The US and Bangladesh have been strong allies for 51 years, and the US has stood beside Bangladesh in combating militancy, and the two countries have extensively cooperated in counterterrorism and safeguarding regional and global security as two democratic institutions. While the people of Bangladesh look forward to a free and fair general election in 2024, the general population, who uphold secularism as a fundamental tenet of Bangladesh’s Liberation, do not want the return of militancy in Bangladesh. In the 2013 Shahbagh Protests, the youth of Bangladesh ubiquitously took to the streets calling for a ban on Jamaat-e-Islami and other extremist and theocratic political parties in Bangladesh. While the US and the EU have since urged the BNP to unequivocally decry the Jamaat-e-Islami, far from doing that, the BNP has been working on resuscitating the Jamaat-e-Islami ahead of the general elections, which has reinstated a fear of violence through means of political showdown in Bangladesh. It is suspected that the BNP, fearful of the US visa embargo, will use the Jamaat-e-Islami to proliferate political violence, aiming to remove the government by force. It should be noted that the Jamaat-e-Islami is not a registered political party with the Bangladesh Election Commission and will try to disrupt the electoral process in Bangladesh, while the BNP – detached from the Jamaat-e-Islami in theory – cannot be held accountable under the new visa policy for any actions of the Jamaat-e-Islami.
Bangladesh has been moving towards secularization of the state. The country whose reputation was tainted by the Islamists during the BNP-Jamaat administration from 2001-2006 has now taken decisive steps in eradicating militancy under the current administration.
Unfortunately, the BNP has been aiming to gain international support to unsettle the current administration and may even be making vacuous promises about strengthening its ties with the West and securing the rights of the minorities if they return to power. But principally, the BNP has always had anti-Jewish and anti-Israel predispositions, especially due to its alliance with the militant Jamaat-e-Islami, and the party will renege on all of their promises should they return to power, as the religious minorities and secularists in Bangladesh have historically always voted against the BNP, and the party largely hinges on the votes of the Islamists.
Under such a crucial situation, it is the responsibility of every secularist and anti-Islamist individual in the world to unite against the BNP and Jamaat. At the same time, authorities in Dhaka also need to actively consider normalizing relations with the Jewish State which would be vital for ensuring regional security and saving the region from slipping into the grips of terrorists, Islamists and agents of militancy.
