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Terror v Terror |
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The atrocities perpetrated by men prepared to blow themselves up is a form of martyrdom peculiarly difficult to counter. The outrage of those attacked, or more often their grieving compatriots, is widely felt and demands some rapid satisfaction, but revenge in such situations is bitter, not sweet, since the terrorists have in most cases disappeared, some almost without trace. All that remains to take revenge upon are the families and homes that they left behind. But the Israeli government, led by an indicted war criminal, sees the only recourse to be to turn to terror. Accordingly, planes, helicopters and tanks are used against a largely defenceless population is what turns out to be a series of small-scale massacres. The tactics are to attack the only visible signs of Palestinian authority, which is at the same time excoriated for not exerting its power to arrest the perpetrators (although dead) and their assistants, who may or may not be known to the Israelis. The melancholy catalogue of suicide attacks and consequent devastation in Israel that followed the provocative walk by Ariel Sharon upon the Temple Mount and his vainglorious boast that as prime minister he would ensure the security of Israelis has been bitterly exposed as a nonsense. Unfortunately he is still in charge, worsening the tragic situation with his policy, seemingly deliberate, of sharpening hostility to the point where he can proclaim all-out terror as the solution to Israeli fears. It is interesting to reflect on the unfortunate irony that the lessons of the Nazis persecution of the Jews have been well learnt. Ascribing collective guilt, taking revenge on the defenceless, turning a population into ghettos and blackening the reputation of anyone seen as a particular threat or target: all these practices have been adopted by the Israelis in dealing with their Palestinian neighbours. And the views about the Arabs expressed by many Jews interviewed bear striking resemblances to the racial intolerance evinced by fascist regimes. One especial venom is reserved for Yasser Arafat, a man whose personal and political attributes may be unsavoury but who is credited with a degree of power and Machiavellian cunning that is certainly misplaced. However, Arial Sharon either has, or serves, a more sinister agenda and one that is adding to the crippling of any future Palestinian state. It is very clear that the Israeli army intends the part of Palestine that is supposedly to be under Arab control to be so cabinned, cribbed and confined that is will have no effective liberty of action. Military roads, strategic settlements, hilltop army posts and split territories are to ensure that all Palestine will be wide open to Israeli attack or occupation at a moment's notice. Journalists on the spot are compelled to act within the constraints laid down by the Israeli army, which probably accounts for the high proportion of reporters and commentators sent there who are Jewish. With the best will in the world it must be hard for those men and women to be impartial in the face of the suffering inflicted on Israeli civilians. To which must probably be added a fair sprinkling of Jews in the higher reaches of the administration of the U.S.A., often referred to as an 'honest broker' in the conflict but one that is responsible for equipping and paying for the weapons and army that is inflicting terrorist reprisals upon the Palestinians. In all this, since the Jewish settlements in Palestinian are illegal under international law, an interesting questioned arises as to the financial responsibility for the damage done by the deliberate attacks on the Palestinians. No doubt in any future settlement there will be huge lump sums to be paid out, but the immediate question of financial loss for families and individuals must be a very serious one. Who is paying and who will pay? If anyone seriously seeks a solution, it must surely start with an avowed abandonment of the settlements and an attempt to follow the lines of United Nations resolutions. The question of return of Palestinian families - or descendants - to land taken from them by Jews in Israel will need to be dealt with by large-scale reparations, to be paid no doubt by the Israelis' banker, the U.S. That will leave Jerusalem as the most difficult bone of contention, to be settled later. The solution that would probably make most sense and in the long run could be the full adoption of the Mitchell report, which offered both sides some hope. The former Labour foreign minister recognized this in his statement on BBC Newsnight that a general peace could be made on the basis of dividing control of Jerusalem, withdrawing from he West Bank settlements and having an international peacekeeping force to supervise the whole process. For Jerusalem, proclaimint it a world city, with an administration drawn from the three religions that are claimants to its legacy might be even better. Sooner or later some such agreement will have to be reached, if Israelis and Palestinians are to live at peace.
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