Israel's Date
With A
Runaway Freight Train
By Hasan Abu
Nimah and Ali Abunimah
The Electronic Intifada,
09 October 2003
Once
more, the deceptive "calm" was shattered on Oct. 4 by the
horrifying suicide attack in Haifa, that took the lives of 19 restaurant
diners, among them men, women and children, both Jews and Palestinian
Israelis. "Calm", as used by the news media in this context,
does not mean that Israelis and Palestinians stopped attacking each
other, but applies to Palestinian actions alone. Ongoing Israeli violence,
no matter who its target, is never considered to disturb such a "calm".
The Haifa attacker
was a young woman training to become a lawyer. Why would a person who
ought to have had everything to live for choose, instead, to end her
life in such a cruel and devastating manner? As we learned about her
victims, we also learned that she too was a victim -- just a few months
ago, her brother and her cousin were killed in Jenin by the Israeli
occupation forces. In her mind, she may have been retaliating for the
pain she saw inflicted on her family and country.
According to rules
written in the blood of so many innocent people, it was Israel's turn
to exact revenge for the revenge. Within hours, Israel bombed Gaza and
demolished the family house of the suicide bomber, creating new victims
whose pain and suffering may, in turn, harden into a desire for yet
more revenge. And so on.
To this, Israel
added the novel step of bombing what it claimed was a Palestinian "terrorist"
camp close to the Syrian capital, Damascus, a measure hitherto absent
from Israel's standard menu of measures after a suicide attack. But
let us look at the standard list.
The moment you hear
the first news of a Palestinian suicide attack, be prepared for the
following in quick succession:
1) A strong condemnation
of the attack from the Palestinian National Authority President Yasser
Arafat, describing the attack as harmful to Palestinian national interests.
This has already been done.
2) A chorus of additional
condemnation from other PNA officials, reiterating their rejection of
attacks on civilians, on both sides, and calling on the international
community to intervene to stop the violence and to put the "peace
process back on track". Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmad Qureia
took care of this one.
3) An Israeli condemnation
of the PNA, holding it generally, and Arafat personally, responsible
for the attack, and renewing the demand that the PNA "dismantle
the terrorist infrastructure". Various Israeli ministers will also
renew calls for Arafat to be expelled (and lately killed). Several Israeli
officials quickly came forward to discharge these ritual duties.
4) Israel launches
air raids on Palestinian refugee camps, tightens its siege on the Palestinian
population and carries out arrests, assassinations and incursions. All
this happened immediately after the suicide bombing.
5) Israel demolishes
the house of the family of the accused bomber as an act of collective
punishment. Also done.
6) A strong condemnation
issues from the White House, accompanied by demands that the PNA "do
more" to "crack down on terror". President George Bush
dispatched this quickly. Also expected are strong statements of condemnation
from the UN and the EU (partners in the Quartet). At the time of writing,
this has not yet occurred, most likely because the attack happened at
the weekend, and what's the hurry anyway? After all, these statements
are nothing more than a courtesy with no practical effect, which has
been extended in every previous occasion, and will certainly be required
many more times in the future.
This, roughly, is
the script that has been followed countless times, with no effect whatsoever
on the escalating violence. Neither ritual condemnations nor Israeli
repression, nor even Israel's apartheid wall, have had one iota of success
at deterring or thwarting those determined to avenge their suffering
at the hands of the occupier by taking innocent Israeli lives.
By its shameful
and cynical inaction, the international community is sending a double
message. To Israel, it says that there is no level of escalating repression
that will not be accepted, albeit with occasional token but utterly
inconsequential condemnation. To extremist Palestinian factions, the
message is that only by ever greater escalation and making things worse
is there any hope of creating a situation so bad that the world will
eventually be forced to intervene.
Israel's deviation
from this script -- the attack on Syria -- should be seen as a desperate
and dangerous attempt to escalate the situation further. Israel certainly
knows that whatever it bombs in Syria, the attack will have no practical
effect on the ability of Palestinian factions to strike at Israeli civilians.
The attack may also have been an attempt by Ariel Sharon to influence
the debate, within the US administration and Congress, on whether to
formally add Syria to the "axis of evil" and begin to move
aggressively against it.
Sharon has run out
of ideas for how to deal with a Palestinian population among who there
are those determined to liberate themselves from occupation by any and
all means. What is tragic is that Sharon has been assisted in his disastrous
course by the so-called Quartet, whose "roadmap" proved to
be nothing more than a tool for him to procrastinate and a cover to
implement Israel's racist and expansionist policies in the occupied
territories.
Israel may hope
for a Syrian escalation to save it from an existential crisis that is
hurtling towards it like a runaway train. It may hope that spreading
the chaos from Iraq and the occupied territories to other countries
will give it a free hand. But nothing can alter the fact that a Jewish
minority, no matter how well armed and ruthless, will not be able to
subjugate indefinitely even an impoverished and decimated Palestinian
majority any more than a nuclear-armed white-ruled South Africa was
able to survive against the determination of its "backward"
black majority.
Will the international
community face this stark truth and tackle it head on, or will it continue
to pretend it can be disguised and deferred by wringing its hands and
blaming the Palestinians?
Hasan Abu Nimah
is former Ambassador Permanent Representative of Jordan at the United
Nations. Ali Abunimah is co-founder of EI