New Delhi: Israel's Ambassador to India Mark Sofer has said that militant outfits Lashkar-e-Toiba and Hamas are similar in their activities.
In an interview in New Delhi on Tuesday, Sofer said India and Israel are facing similar situations and military option must be exercised only after all other alternative options are exhausted.
"There is absolutely no difference between Lashkar-e-Toiba and the Hamas. Both of these are extremist organisations which use fear, murder and the slaughter of innocent civilians to achieve some sort of nefarious fanatical aims which they hold. In that case there is a great deal of similarity between the situation here and the situation there. But I do believe that from there the similarity ends," he said.
"Each country, each government really must try every option possible as it seems fit. The military option, wherever it is, must be the final option. There must be everything tried before hand as we did in Gaza, viz-a-viz Gaza. Diplomatic option, economic option, international pressure everything that is possible in order to try and avoid the military option because that is the worst and the last option that must be used," Sofer added.
Sofer said that Israel strongly and unambiguously supports India in its fight against terror and his country is satisfied with the evidence that India has furnished about the Mumbai militant attacks.
"The Indian authorities the Indian government has been clear from the outset and I see no reason at all and from Israeli point of view no reason at all to place any doubt on those statements whatsoever. we stand strongly and unambiguously behind India in its fight against terror, in its struggle to eliminate the horrors that it has faced both obviously culminating in Mumbai
which is the most serious in recent but the bombs which are being thrown in
Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Delhi, Mumbai and the other terrorist atrocities which you
have faced. It is a serious scourge and the fight, the struggle to overcome
the infrastructure of terrorist organization must remain paramount on all of
our minds," said Sofer.
India and Israel have built closer ties in various sectors including defence. It reportedly includes regular intelligence-sharing for counter-terrorism, but these are, however, kept largely under wraps due to the domestic and international sensitivities involved.
New Delhi did military business worth over a whopping $7 billion with Tel
Aviv since the 1999 Kargil conflict. India has been procuring from Israel defence equipments ranging from portable miniature UAVs (unmanned aerial
vehicles) and advanced radars to missile systems and electronic warfare
suites. The two countries have recently decided to focus on more and more
joint R&D projects rather than just continue with a mere buyer-seller kind
of relationship, said sources.
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