By Robert Fisk
How much longer can Ariel Sharon pretend that he's
fighting in the "war against terror"? How much longer
are we supposed to believe this nonsense? How much
longer can the Americans remain so gutlessly silent in
the face of a vicious conflict which is coming close
to obscuring the crimes against humanity of 11
September? Terror, terror, terror. Like a punctuation
mark, the word infects every Israeli speech, every
American speech, almost every newspaper article. When
will someone admit the truth: that the Israelis and
Palestinians are engaged in a dirty colonial war which
will leave both sides shamed and humiliated?
Just listen to what Sharon has been saying in the past
24 hours. "Arafat is an enemy. He decided on a
strategy of terror and formed a coalition of terror."
That's pretty much what President Bush said about
Osama bin Laden. But what on earth does it mean? That
Arafat is actually sending off the suicide bombers,
choosing the target, the amount of explosives? If he
was, then surely Sharon would have sent his death
squads after the Palestinian leader months ago. After
all, his killers have managed to murder dozens of
Palestinian gunmen already, including occasional women
and children who get in the way.
The real problem with Arafat is that he has a lot in
common with Sharon: old, ruthless and cynical; both
men have come to despise each other. Sharon believes
that the Palestinians can be broken by military power.
He doesn't realise what the rest of the world learned
during Sharon's own 1982 siege of Beirut: that the
Arabs are no longer afraid. Once a people lose their
fear, they cannot be re-inoculated with fear. Once the
suicide bomber is loose, the war cannot be won. And
Arafat knows this.
No, of course he doesn't send the bombers off on their
wicked missions to restaurants and supermarkets. But
he does know that every suicide bombing destroys
Sharon's credibility and proves that the Israeli
leader's promises of security are false. Arafat is
well aware that the ferocious bombers are serving his
purpose – however much he may condemn them in public.
But he – like Sharon – also believes his enemies can
be broken by fire. He thinks that the Israelis can be
frightened into withdrawing from the West Bank and
Gaza and East Jerusalem. Ultimately, the Israelis
probably will have to give up their occupation. But
the Jews of Israel are not going to run or submit to
an endless war of attrition. Even if Sharon is voted
out of power – a prospect for which many Israelis pray
– the next Israeli prime minister is not going to
negotiate out of fear of the suicide bomber.
Thus the rhetoric becomes ever more cruel, ever more
revolting. Hamas calls its Jewish enemies "the sons of
pigs and monkeys", while Israeli leaders have
variously bestialised their enemies as "serpents",
"crocodiles", "beasts" and "cockroaches". Now we have
an Israeli officer – according to the Israeli daily
Ma'ariv – advising his men to study the tactics
adopted by the Nazis in the Second World War. "If our
job is to seize a densely packed refugee camp or take
over the Nablus casbah, and if this job is given to an
(Israeli) officer to carry out without casualties on
both sides, he must before all else analyse and bring
together the lessons of past battles, even – shocking
though this might appear – to analyse how the German
army operated in the Warsaw ghetto."
Pardon? What on earth does this mean? Does this
account for the numbers marked by the Israelis on the
hands and foreheads of Palestinian prisoners earlier
this month? Does this mean that an Israeli soldier is
now to regard the Palestinians as sub-humans – which
is exactly how the Nazis regarded the trapped and
desperate Jews of the Warsaw ghetto in 1944?
Yet from Washington comes only silence. And silence,
in law, gives consent. Should we be surprised? After
all, the US is now making the rules as it goes along.
Prisoners can be called "illegal combatants" and
brought to Guantanamo Bay with their mouths taped for
semi-secret trials. The Afghan war is declared a
victory – and then suddenly explodes again. Now we are
told there will be other "fronts" in Afghanistan, a
spring offensive by "terrorists". Washington has also
said that its intelligence agencies – the heroes who
failed to discover the 11 September plot – have proof
(undisclosed, of course) that Arafat has "a new
alliance" with Iran, which brings the Palestinians
into the "axis of evil."
Is there no one to challenge this stuff? Just over a
week ago, CIA director George Tenet announced that
Iraq had links with al-Qa'ida. "Contacts and
linkages", have been established, he told us. And
that's what the headlines said. But then Tenet
continued by saying that the mutual antipathy of
al-Qa'ida and Iraq towards America and Saudi Arabia
"suggests that tactical cooperation between them is
possible?" "Suggests?" "Possible?" is that what Mr
Tenet calls proof?
But now everyone is cashing in on the "war against
terror". When Macedonian cops gun down seven Arabs,
they announce that they are participating in the
global "war on terror". When Russians massacre
Chechens, they are now prosecuting the "war on
terror". When Israel fires at Arafat's headquarters,
it says it is participating in the "war on terror".
Must we all be hijacked into America's dangerous
self-absorption with the crimes of 11 September? Must
this vile war between Palestinians and Israelis be
distorted in so dishonest a way?
From The Independent
______________________
Terbitan : 31 Mac 2002
Ke atas
Home
