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America Hijacked
by Hichem Karoui
In the light of the tragic events of
the last weeks in the West Bank, some recent
statistics should rise concern, if not for the
present condition of all those people who, maybe not
for the first time, found themselves without a home,
at least for the future of any reasonable solution of
the conflict.
It is confounding to state that, against all expectations,
the horrid outrages committed by Tsahal as reported by numerous witnesses
do not upset the Israelis!
In the past, Ariel Sharon’s criminal activity in Lebanon
during the 1982 siege had been investigated and condemned by an Israeli
Committee (Kahane) who found him guilty of complicity as regards the
butchery in Sabra and Shatila refugees’ camps. Today, it sounds that the
Israelis are unable to see any wrongdoing in the criminal behavior of
their army. Of course, in such times the charges of " treason and
compassion with the enemy of the nation» are quickly delivered. This is
also true for the other camp, as it is actually the case everywhere during
war times. Yet, there is a wide and clear difference between
"collaborating with the enemy" and realizing that the army is perhaps not
behaving as it has to; accordingly with the principles of military honor
any army is usually proud of exhibiting. Indeed, some Israeli servicemen
preferred to face the charge of "desertion" rather than to take part to
the collective bloody, blind vendetta led by their generals against
ordinary Palestinian people. But while it is the duty of all the Human
Rights Organizations to take the defense of those Conscience Objectors, it
is no less important to state that the majority of their compatriots
remain utterly indifferent to the criminal acts of their army. Some signs
are – alas! - too obvious to be misread.
It seems for example that Israeli public opinion polls
show a dramatic increase in support for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon since
the current West Bank military offensive began.
A poll published in the daily Ma'ariv said 65 percent of Israelis now
express confidence in Mr. Sharon, compared with 30 percent who do not.
A poll published by another daily, Yediot Ahronot said 64 percent of
Israelis now trust Mr. Sharon's leadership. That contrasts with a March 9
poll in that newspaper, which showed 76 percent of the people were
dissatisfied with Mr. Sharon's performance.
The Ma'ariv poll said 57 percent of those surveyed feel safer since the
offensive, called Operation Defensive Wall, was launched.
Do you know what that mean? It means in the least that
should an Israeli election be organized today, Sharon would win it again!
Of course, that may seem unbelievable for any human being concerned for
the ruthless and brutal manners of Sharon. But the Israeli people, who
lately appeared scandalized by the unexpected arrival "en masse" of the
French ultra-right wing Jean-Marie Le pen, have " seen the straw in the
eye of the French, but not the girder in their own eye"! (A French
proverb).
And do you know why the Israelis sound so satisfied,
unless their polls are as lying and misleading as the French polls, which
prior to the elections, have all of them estimated that the second ballot
would include only Jospin and Chirac, thus completely excluding Le pen?
You can find some elements of the answer in a New York Times story, which
mentions that: "Now, after Israel's biggest military offensive in the West
Bank since it first occupied the territory in 1967, the settlers appear,
for the moment, to have the upper hand. Some have fled the violence of the
last 18 months, but their numbers continue to grow over all". And Mr.
James Bennet adds:" Settlers continue to build new Jewish homes in the
middle of Palestinian Hebron and in the rocky West Bank hills, and to
pursue a vision that blends nationalism, messianism and yearning for the
good life." (April 28).
The fact that those settlements (160 in the West Bank and
19 in Gaza, according to Peace Now) are the embodiment of the illegal
occupation does not seem to disturb the Israelis! Their American sponsors
sound almost as insensitive as they are, and their most illustrious
representative (Mr. Bush) pushed the hypocrisy to the extent of pretending
that "Sharon is a man of peace"!
Why not? After all, for twenty years the successive
American administrations were completely apathetic towards the Israeli
occupation of southern Lebanon, representing the most scandalous defiance
to the International Security Council resolutions. Today, Israel is still
occupying Syrian lands and murderously rampaging in the West Bank,
supposed to be a self-ruled Palestinian territory, and the USA is still
"powerless", as to stop or even to pressure Sharon, despite the news
reported by many international media about another genocide in Jenin.
The US is said to be standing for Human Rights, freedom
and democracy in the world. All right, but how? Who ever would believe
that the American administration couldn’t do more to protect the
Palestinian population? Who ever would believe that this population is
nothing but a pack of terrorists? If this is what the American people
believe, then all the Arabs are damned! But if this is not what the
Americans think, so who has been hijacked? And in which conditions? And
for what purpose?
Let’s remind the forgetful that all that mess in the West
Bank occurred just after a proposition of peace including all the Arab
states has been adopted by no less than a very official Arab summit in
Beirut. Recently moreover, the man who issued that proposition – Crown
Prince Abdullah- presented it personally to President Bush when the latter
received him. The new Saudi document, while complementing the Beirut plan,
calls for an end to the Israeli siege of the West Bank town of Ramallah,
deployment of an international peacekeeping force, reconstruction of
damaged Palestinian areas, a renunciation of violence, a focus on talks
toward a political settlement to Israeli-Palestinian issues, and an end to
Israeli settlements in Palestinian areas.
But who believes today that the present administration
would really commit itself to a true effort in this direction? In the Arab
world, they are no longer under any illusions. Maybe even Crown Prince
Abdullah himself knows that his propositions would find their way to the
manuals of history even before any peace would loom at the horizon of the
Middle East! Considering the "historic" unwillingness of the Americans to
find any wrongdoing in the Israeli acts, nothing is amazing!
Mr. Bush indeed does not miss a single occasion to remind
us that his first concern is about fighting terrorism, and "fighting
terrorism" is exactly what Sharon has pretended to achieve! Thus
supporting Sharon is the duty of the American president!
But what if an international committee, trusted by
everybody in the world, finds after thorough investigations an evidence of
genocide committed in Jenin? Would Mr. Bush still pretend that Sharon is
"a man of peace"?
Here’s what an Israeli militant (Mr. Uri Avnery)
recently wrote:
"If Sharon had really intended to "destroy the
infrastructure of terrorism", he would have acted very differently. He
would have given the Palestinian masses hope of achieving their national
freedom in the near future. He would have fortified the position of
Yasir Arafat, the only effective partner for peace. He would have
strengthened the Palestinian security forces and radically improved
economic conditions in the Palestinian territories."
But it seems that, with the exclusion of Ariel Sharon,
there are no men of peace to be heard in Washington!
That the present administration has ridiculed
itself and undermined its future chances in the search for peace does
not need to be proved.
This is not only what the Arab observers say, but also
what their Western colleagues state, when obviously it sounds as
ludicrous as dangerous to hide the truth known to everybody, or to
disguise it. Thus, Mr. Charley Reese writes on April 24, under the
headline " the end of America’s prestige":
"I said earlier that Colin Powell's trip
to the Middle East would answer the question of who determines American
foreign policy: America's elected leaders, or Israel and its powerful
American lobby. The answer is Israel. Powell has disgraced himself. He did the ritual moaning and groaning
about six Israelis killed by a suicide bomber but said nothing about the
hundreds of innocent Palestinians killed by the Israelis."
And Mr. Robert Fisk, the Middle East insightful observer
since so many years, noticed in a comment about the Secretary of State’s
last trip: "Thanks to Mr.
Powell, President Bush and Mr. Sharon, America's credibility has been
shattered. Israel, it turns out, does indeed run U.S. policy in the
region. The Secretary of State sings from the Israeli songbook."
To be sure, we can add many other quotations from the
American and the European media. But our purpose is just to give
examples, so that the American administration, or those in Washington
who have the power of decision, stand back from repeating infinitely the
same tragic mistakes that hitherto have doomed any honest effort for
peace in the Middle East. The purpose of these examples is actually to
make them wonder: if this is what our own observers state about our
policy, so how can we blame the Arabs when giving up to emotions they
burst out angrily against all what we stand for?
In other words: are the Arabs really against America or
the American way of life as some fools pretend? Absolutely not. What
happened on September 11 was the exclusion not the rule. For you will
notice what the rule is, when you know how the ordinary folks in the
Arab cities enjoy the American products, how they are fond of American
movies, and American books, and American culture, and American food. Why
should the Arabs be the enemies of the USA if the globalization and the
media boom made our world so small, and our cultures so similar? Are
there really rival civilizations in our modern world, fighting and
sometimes-, as it seems! - clashing, for survival-or a single human
cosmopolitan civilization with varied faces and aspects? What
distinguishes the Arab citizen who lives in Abu Dhabi from an American
citizen of the Michigan, if they are both endowed with the same material
conditions? I mean that both men could enjoy the same modern welfare,
maybe have the same job and the same salary, read the same books, love
the same movies and plays, travel abroad during vacations, and lead a
successful life! Why should these two citizens, who have perhaps never
met, hate each other?
Yet, this is precisely what over fifty years of
mishandling of the Middle East problem would lead to.
Whose fault is that?
If it is hard for anyone to acknowledge its mistakes
because of the so-called "national pride", we should notice that it is
exactly that kind of unbridled nationalism that led to the worst
outrages of history. And while it is understandable that America, under
the strain of the terrorist menace, tries to unify its people and to
mobilize it for the fight against terror, it is definitely important to
notice that this effort must not veer into a crusade against Arabs and
Islam, under different labels.
Now, anybody can state that this is precisely what
Sharon is doing, justifying his excesses by the fight against terror,
thus seemingly "responding" to the American call. Are the Americans
recognizing themselves in Sharon’s acts? Are they identifying their
purposes to those of Israel? Allow us to doubt it.
But if the Americans in their majority stay faithful to
the principles of reason and democracy, how could a minority of people
endowed with powerful means of coercion such as the Zionist lobby (AIPAC),
trap the Congress and the different governments in a long, almost
indefectible, consuming complicity with its projects of hegemony and
wild expansion, at the expenses of other peoples’ rights?
Hichem
Karoui is a writer and journalist living in Paris, France.
by courtesy & © 2002 Hichem Karoui
by the same author:
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