NEW DELHI: Left parties on Monday urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to decline invitation from United States Donald Trump to join the Board of Peace for Gaza.
General Secretary of Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM) MA Baby said that the proposed Board is not meant to rebuild Gaza, but only aimed at exploiting the destruction of Palestinian's homeland for profit.
Noting that Trump has no authority to act as a global policeman or to impose its geopolitical will under the false pretext of peace, the CPI Rajya Sabha MP P Sandosh Kumar said India must resist great power coercion and defend a just and rules based international order rather than becoming complicit in its erosion.
The CPI (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation (CPML-L) said that with the formation of the Board, the Trump administration seems to have cynically shifted away from its original purpose and objective agreed upon by the parties at the Sharm el-Sheikh agreement.
“The Peace Plan remains vague on ending the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories. PM @narendramodi should decline the invitation and call out Israel on their genocide in Gaza and the US on being accomplices. India should stay true to its tradition of opposing occupiers and colonisers, and stand in solidarity with the people of Palestine!,” Baby posted on X.
Kumar said that Trump’s invitation reflects a crude interventionist mindset that tramples upon international law and renders multilateral institutions meaningless.
“Instead of bending under threats of tariffs and lending legitimacy to Trump’s authoritarian and cynical agenda on Palestine, Prime Minister Modi and the Government of India must show political resolve and uphold India’s historic and principled position rooted in the legacy of Mahatma Gandhi…India must resist great power coercion and defend a just and rules based international order rather than becoming complicit in its erosion,” said Kumar, who is the member of the national executive of CPI.
Through the statement issued by the Central Committee (CPML-L), the party said that it is clear that the Board is being projected as an alternative to the United Nations organisations, with all authority concentrated in the hands of the Trump-led United States.
The recent US aggression against Venezuela serves as a clear warning of what such concentration of power under Trump entails: colonial subjugation and the denial of peoples’ dignity and sovereignty, the party added.
“India, with its rich anti-colonial legacy and long-standing solidarity with the Global South, must not be part of this ploy to create a Trump-US power-centric new colonial world order…It is shameful that during the Israel-US led genocide in Gaza, the Modi government has betrayed this historic legacy and instead chosen closer cooperation with colonial and oppressive forces,” the statement also read.
The CPML-L also said that India must immediately course-correct and strengthen its solidarity and support to the people of Palestine and their struggle for their liberation. “We must stand with the Palestinian people and uphold their right to determine their own future, free from occupation, apartheid, and foreign domination,” it said.