The ferocity of the Israeli response to the murder of its cabinet minister merely underscores for Palestinians the injustice of their actions being branded as terrorist and Israel's military incursions as self-defence, writes David Hirst
Some Arabs did criticise last week's assassination of the far-right Israeli cabinet minister Rehavim Zeevi by the left-wing Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. But not because it was an act of terrorism.
They simply shared the apprehensions of all those, from Yasser Arafat to the US State Department, who worried about its impact on the hoped-for renewal of the peace process, about the opportunity it would furnish the Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, to step up his campaign of repression and obstruct the growing international pressure to adapt himself to the diplomatic requirements of the global war against terror. For there could hardly, these critics conceded, have been a more legitimate target for any act of terror than Zeevi.
It was, as the PFLP said, straightforward retaliation for Israel's assassination of its own leader, Ali Abu Mustafa, not to mention the scores of other Palestinians who have died in the course of its "targeted killings." It was precise; there was no collateral damage, no accidental death of uninvolved civilians, as there often has been in Israeli assassinations. If terrorism is a message, it was about as symbolically appropriate as one could get.
An advocate of the "transfer" of all Palestinians out of Palestine, who used words like lice, vermin or a cancer to describe them, Zeevi was the very incarnation of all that is most extreme, bellicose and racist in Israeli society, and had just resigned from the Cabinet because he did not think that Sharon was extreme enough.
Yet Israel reacted to the killing with greater ferocity than it has to any previous acts of terror, including even Hamas suicide bombings in which tens of innocents died.
From its point of view, the fact that Zeevi was not merely a civilian, but a minister and elected representative of a democratic country, put it, morally, in an entirely different category from Israel's own assassination of Palestinian leaders.
But probably the real cause of Mr Sharon's ferocity was less moral outrage than the fact that, as one newspaper said, it was such an effective "blow to the head of the Israeli political system." It also gave him the pretext to further his political agenda, which some Israelis see as nothing less than eliminating any need to make peace by eliminating the only party, Arafat and the Palestine Authority, with which it could be made.
He first issued an ultimatum to the Authority that is virtually impossible for it to fulfil. Unless it handed over immediately "the murderers. . .and those that sent them". . .and outlawed "all terrorist groups", Israel would "view it as a state that supports terrorism and act against it."
He then mounted the biggest military operation of its kind undertaken, re-entering six towns in the Authority-controlled areas of the West Bank, killing almost 50 Palestinians so far, and wounding scores of others.This has been accompanied by a barrage of semi-official, right-wing propaganda that seeks to persuade the world that the Authority has exactly the same relationship with Palestinian terror as the Taliban do with Osama bin Laden, and Israel the same right to destroy the one as the Americans do the other.
Yet it is hardly debatable: in method - individual assassination - and target - a key advocate of the other side - what the PFLP did was the equivalent of what Israel has done countless times. As one of the franker Israeli columnists put it: "We execute theirs, they execute ours."
So why is it, asked Arabs everywhere, that what Israel does is called self-defence, and when Palestinians do exactly the same thing it is terrorism, or a flagrant breach of the ceasefire? And why does Israel have the right to demand the extradition of culprits while the Palestinians don't? And, more to the point, why does the US essentially endorse the Israeli outrage, condemning the killing as a "shocking and despicable" act?
Why is that, while it may often have deplored Israeli assassinations, it has never used that kind of language in doing so, or called them terrorism too?
Rarely have such contrary viewpoints, when taken together with the vastly disproportionate Israeli retaliation which the assassination supposedly justified, so starkly illustrated the cliche that one man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter - or, in Arab eyes, the imperative need for an internationally recognised, UN-promulgated definition of just what terrorism is.
They don't have their own unified stance on the matter, but, broadly speaking, they want such a definition to cover state as well as non-state agents, and to take into account both the nature of the violence and its motives and aims. Their contention is that Israel is a practitioner of "state terrorism."
Its violence may indeed be carried out by the armed forces of an internationally recognised, lawfully constituted entity, and it may not be deliberately directed at non-combatant civilians in the way that some acts of Palestinian terror clearly are, but, in practice, it ends up as a form of terrorism.
Indeed, a violence that deploys such disproportionate firepower, tanks, helicopters and F-16s in civilian neighbourhoods is inherently bound to do so.
But more important, in the Arab view, is the cause. Leave aside all the controversies about the peace process, and who was chiefly responsible for its breakdown, the fact is that, at bottom, Israel is using the consequent violence for what is internationally recognised as an illegitimate purpose, the maintenance of its occupation, and the Palestinians are using it for what is recognised as a legitimate one, the ending of the occupation.This does not mean that their resistance cannot constitute pure, unbridled terrorism. But it does, or should, mean it is much harder for the world to condemn the resistance when it confines its targets to the soldiers and settlers who are the instruments and symbols of occupation.
Soon after September 11th, the US seemed to realise that of all the possible impediments to its war on terror the Palestine question was the most serious and potentially disastrous.
As a result, after Sharon's latest excess in his war on terror, it once again finds itself at loggerheads with him, demanding his army's immediate withdrawal from the six Palestinian towns it has re-entered.
In Arab eyes, the US is quite simply hoist with the petard of its traditional, institutionalised indulgence of its Israeli protege - and of a definition of terrorism which, till now, has entirely suited Israel's purposes.It is a complaisance, said Egypt's leading state-owned newspaper, al-Ahram, which must come to an end once and for all; otherwise all the Anglo-American talk about a new drive for peace, and a Palestinian state at the end of it, will be so much political bombast.
(David Hirst is a Middle East commentator )
Israeli terrorism
An Israeli terrorist cell conducted another attack against Palestinians on Wednesday. Six residents of Yata, south of Hebron, who were on their way to work, were wounded by shots fired at them from an Israeli car. The commander of the Samaria and Judea District Police says he believes the attack was committed as an act of revenge for attacks on Israelis in the territories. It was the sixth or seventh such attack by an Israeli cell against Palestinians since the spring; so far, six people have been killed and more than 20 wounded in these incidents.
The Shin Bet and the security forces believe there are at least two Israeli terrorist cells operating in the West Bank with the mission to kill Palestinians out of revenge or as a deterence. The cells have been operating for several months without the Shin Bet managing to track them down or arrest any of their members.
The length of time and freedom of action these terrorists have enjoyed raises questions about the effort being made to capture them. The Shin Bet has lately recorded many successes in solving the cases of attacks against Israelis and finding their Palestinian perpetrators. The most important of these was the successful probe of the assassination of Tourism Minister Rehavam Ze'evi within hours after the murder and finding the assassins within a few days. There is no reason to suspect that the Shin Bet is deliberately not trying to uncover Jewish terror or that the Israeli government has instructed the Shin Bet to invest less than a full effort to put an end to this terrorism. Nonetheless, one cannot ignore the firm impression that the authorities have failed over and over again in their attempts to uncover the Jewish perpetrators of these attacks.
All terrorists need a supportive environment to operate and find shelter from their pursuers. The community around these Israeli terrorists also knows who they are and where they come from. Presumably, if they are extremist believers, they have a spiritual authority who gives his blessing to their actions. The Yesha rabbis and Yesha council have repeatedly issued condemnations of the attacks and their perpetrators, but their authority is apparently limited and is insufficient to impose a moral or political discipline over the entire Jewish population in the territories. And one can also not expect that these institutions will do everything they can to expose the terrorists.
The Shin Bet must devote all its efforts to uncovering and foiling these terrorists and not assume that their community will reject them or hand them over. The response to Israeli terror attacks against Palestinians must not be only a shrug. Condemnations of these attacks cannot replace capturing the terrorists and punishing them under the law. Success at exposing and foiling Palestinian terrorism cannot cover up the failure in uncovering the Israeli terrorists.
The Israelis need to answer the question: How can men inside tanks possibly look for suspects and find anybody?
The Israelis claim that their tanks went into six Palestinian towns in the self-ruled areas to hunt down alleged killers of Israeli cabinet minister Rehavam Zeevi. Zeevi was a particularly hard line Israeli, from the far right and anxious to see all the Palestinians out of Palestine.
The truth is that the tanks went in to cause the maximum amount of destruction and death that they could, and treated their raid as tit for tat revenge rather than any supposed effort towards justice. The day left at least six Palestinians dead with the total still unknown. The dead persons had nothing to do with the death of Zeevi, but suffered as random targets for Israeli revenge. The killing of Zeevi itself followed the Israeli killing in August of Abu Ali Mustafa, the leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which has claimed responsibility for the killing of Zeevi.
It is ludicrous to try to argue that there was any attempt at justice in the Palestinian deaths. They were simply the result of a military power imposing yet again its will by force of arms on the suffering population of Palestine, reminding every individual Palestinian that the Israelis have given themselves the right to kill Palestinians when they want.
It is all very well for moderates like Shimon Peres, the Israeli Foreign Minister, to discuss the practicalities of pulling out of the West Bank "as soon as the situation calms down and the Palestinians have done what they pledged to do". He cannot be believed. It simply will not happen. The cycle of violence is whirling around and around, and nothing substantial enough is being done to stop it.
It is all very good for well-meaning people like former U.S. president Bill Clinton to call for a return to the Mitchell Commission recommendations of an immediate and unconditional ceasefire, a freeze on Jewish settlements and more determined action to rein in Palestinian militants.
It all counts for nothing when Israel's Prime Minister is Ariel Sharon, who has a long history of murder and massacre of Palestinians, and has no intention at all of letting the Palestinians see anything like justice. That was the real message of the tanks this week.
Washington's inexplicable silence speaks volumes
The indiscriminate throwing of Israeli weight around the besieged West Bank poses a serious challenge to the US government's priorities in the Arab and Islamic worlds, and still Washington shies away from a genuine reckoning of the costs and benefits attaching to its relationship with the Jewish state. Until the United States starts subjecting Israel to the standards applied to other allies, it will continue to see its intentions questioned and its policies thwarted. But no government can come up with the right answers until it starts asking the right questions, and just now America's leadership seems to lack either the common sense or the good will to seriously pressure Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to end his military's bloody incursions into Palestinian-held territory.
The immediate consequences of Israel's aggressive behavior and hypocritical posturing are nothing short of noxious to whatever remains of America's status as "honest broker" in the Middle East. Firstly, while Sharon may have curbed the ordering of air strikes conducted by US-built warplanes, it is not lost on Arabs that his soldiers are still firing American weapons at Palestinians and their homes. Secondly, Sharon's government is doing everything in its power to contradict a central tenet of the Bush administration's "war on terrorism:" The United States says it has no desire to make war on Arabs or Muslims in general, but Israel seizes every opportunity to link Palestinian President Yasser Arafat with Osama bin Laden and its West Bank adventurism with the US campaign in Afghanistan.
Sharon has pulled his forces out of a key town near Ramallah, but a clear message had already been sent by the fact of their having been sent there immediately after US Secretary of State Colin Powell called for the end of incursions in other areas: Israel feels absolutely no allegiance to US goals in this part of the world and is even willing to deliberately disrupt them.
Washington has failed utterly to provide a forceful answer to this implicit challenge, and its relative silence is being interpreted as a signal that in spite of mealy-mouthed statements to the contrary, it is happy to see Sharon going back to his old ways. The Bush administration gets to sound helpful by leaning toward officially advocating Palestinian statehood but stands meekly aside as the Israeli Cabinet spokesman explicitly likens his country's bullying of Palestinians to America's attacks on bin Laden's forces and their Taleban hosts.
If there is a recipe for the undoing of Arab/Muslim participation in Bush's coalition against terrorism, this is it. And still Washington holds its tongue.
Astride this particular episode lies what for all intents and purposes is the wreckage of US foreign policy in the region. That policy had been built around the Palestinian-Israeli peace process, but Washington has consistently helped the Jewish state to cloak its maximalist demands in moderate clothing.
Quite simply, the Palestinian position calls for not a single Israeli concession, only compliance with UN Security Council resolutions 242 and 338, which are very modest documents. If the United States is not willing to support the implementation of UN decisions, where does it get the chutzpah to seek UN support for its "war on terrorism?"
Editorial:
Israel has to answer a question
SEVEN YEARS have already passed since the signing of the Jordanian-Israeli peace treaty, an historic stride, which was meant to lift the entire region from the abyss of war and conflict to peace and progress. But unfortunately, the cause of peace is neither better served, nor it is brought any closer to its desired goal of creating a genial, secure, open, tranquil and prosperous Middle East, as initially aspired, mostly because of the irrational policies of hawkish Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
As the Jordan-Israel peace treaty came after the Egypt-Israel peace treaty and the interim Israel-PLO peace agreement, the accord with Jordan was specifically intended to help achieve a “just, lasting and comprehensive peace between the Arab states” in line with the peace conference launched in Madrid in 1991.
It is highly distressing, however, to realise that after all those precious years, the region, and entirely due to the Israeli intransigence and callousness, is sinking deeper in bloody confrontation. Moreover, the imminent and real threat of further deterioration is looming while the walls of suspicion, separation and fear are rising higher and growing broader than ever before.
There has been no progress whatsoever on the Syrian-Israeli track, and with no promise of a foreseeable resumption of any meaningful negotiations.
The same applies to the Lebanon-Israel track, although the Israelis were forced to dismantle their so-called security zone in southern Lebanon. The situation on that front remains extremely dangerous and tense because Israel maintains its occupation of a small strip of Lebanese territory, the Shebaa Farms, again blocking any possible progress towards reconciliation on the Lebanese side.
But the worst threat to regional peace, and indeed to the entire peace promise, is the situation in Palestine, where over three million Palestinians have been subjugated to 34 years of the harshest Israeli military occupation in history. They are facing a barbaric, ferocious and continuous Israeli onslaught, featuring systematic killings, destruction of homes and farms, collective punishment, and humiliating blockades with the intention of crushing the will of that nation to pursue its liberation.
The continued bloodbath committed by the very well-armed Israeli forces against innocent, helpless Palestinians is reaching unimaginable levels, as these words are being written to commemorate a great peace agreement.
The outcome of all this is certainly frightening. By pursuing its aggressive and defiant policy, and by its reckless and harmful violation of all its commitments and agreements, in its disregard for international law and UN resolutions, Israel is not only blocking any possible progress towards peace, but more dangerously, it is undoing and wrecking what has already been achieved. It is Israel who will be hurt most by such practices.
The question is: Did Israel truly want to utilise an historic opportunity and live in harmony and peace with its Arab neighbours who have unquestionably demonstrated genuine willingness to sacrifice so much towards the realisation of that goal, or was it simply Israel's suspicious tactics and devious move to use the whole "peace process" as a cover to continue the implementation of the Zionist expansionist programme at the very expense of Arab lands and Arab rights.
Unless Israel is able to credibly answer this fundamental question, the promise of peace will remain a mere illusion.