The Kerala Government has given the Media Person of the Year Award to Al Jazeera Channel’s Gaza Bureau Chief, Wael Al-Dahdouh. This decision was published in’ Media”, the Kerala Media Academy magazine. Kerala Media Academy is a joint venture between the Kerala government and various controversial entities like the Kerala Union of Working Journalists (KUWJ) and the Indian Newspaper Society. The award consists of one lakh rupees, a citation and a sculpture. Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan will personally present the award.
Green communists claimed that the award was for carrying forward media work in a war despite losing family members. Al Jazeera, in late October, reported that “The indiscriminate assault by the Israeli Occupation forces resulted in the tragic loss of his (Dahdouh’s) wife, son, and daughter while the rest of his family was buried under the rubble.” Kerala Media Academy claimed that Al-Dahdouh said that he appreciated this award received from Kerala.
Al Jazeera, which the Qatari government runs, is one of the biggest anti-Bharat channels in the world. Everyone knows their stand on the Kashmir issue and the Ram Mandir. Moreover, when the ranks of Hamas are killed by bombs in Palestine, their leaders are hiding in Qatar with all kinds of comforts.
Al Jazeera channel’s radical links are not so secret. When the Gulf countries recently imposed sanctions on Qatar, their most immense demand was to shut down the Al Jazeera channel, which promotes extremism.
The deep love of the Kerala government and the Islamo-Left here for Hamas, which is considered a terrorist organisation throughout the world, is no secret. Pro-Hamas rallies and protests are widespread in the state of Kerala, and the award that has just been announced is no surprise.
But in this situation, another name comes into every Malayali’s mind. It is the name of Soumya Santhosh, a Malayali caregiver who lost her life in Israel a few years ago in a rocket attack by Hamas.
In May 2021, HinduPost reported how Soumya, in her early thirties from Idukki in Kerala, was killed by terrorists at Ashkelon in Israel. The hospital where she was caring for an 80-year-old Israeli woman came under multiple missile attacks from Hamas Islamic terrorists based out of Palestine, killing both of them. Back home in her hometown of Cheruthoni, Soumya is survived by her husband and a nine-year-old son, Adon.
Organiser Weekly reported how Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan deleted a FaceBook post condemning the killing of Soumya in Israel by Palestinian terrorists. Vijayan did not mention either Palestine or Hamas as the perpetrators but was forced to withdraw the portion on Soumya soon. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI (M) tried to whitewash the deletion, declaring that it was done since Soumya was not a nurse, but that stunt did more damage. The leader of the opposition Congress, Ramesh Chennithala, mentioned the missile attack in a post but comfortably forgot the Hamas part.
Even in North Bharat, the Kerala government, which declares lakhs of rupees depending on religion and caste if someone is killed in an accident, did not even pretend to know the death of Soumya, a Malayali who had to leave the country to take care of her family. Even in that situation where the representative of Israel came directly and participated in the posthumous ceremony, Keralites saw who was there from the Kerala government. There were none. Self-preservation and appeasement politics?
In August 2017, Kerala CPI (M) handed over two cheques of Rs 5 lakh each to the family of Junaid Khan, a 16-year-old Muslim youth who was allegedly killed in an argument over a train seat in Haryana. Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan met Junaid’s parents and brothers at Kerala House and handed over the money. Vijayan was accompanied by CPI (M) Polit Bureau member Brinda Karat and DYFI national president Mohammed Riyas. Riyas later went on to marry Vijayan’s daughter and is now a cabinet minister.
In a state that does not offer any significant condolence to convince the local Hindus, it would not be surprising if a Hamas militant gets the next humanitarian award in the name of the Kerala government.
