by Rime Allaf

Everyone’s nerves are frayed two months into the current insurrection in Palestine, and strange slips of the tongue have been heard. Imagine, just the other day, Yasser Arafat publicly asked Palestinians to stop firing when we all know he surely meant to ask Israelis to stop shooting. Right? Freudian slips notwithstanding, Arafat’s more or less intentional theatricals (depending on the mood ­ or the offer ­ of the day) only add to the general bewilderment that we observers of the ever-lasting Middle East conflict feel.

Our constant repetition of facts on the ground seems to have become an exercise in futility. Not only do Israel’s allies and more distant friends remain obtuse as we cry for help, but even Arab leaders seem to be batting for the opposite team. How on Earth is that possible?

Average Arabs are baffled by the fact that citizens of the great Western democracies and self-styled champions of human rights have completely ignored their plight. Arabs are stunned by reactions (or lack thereof) to the violence of the past few weeks in Palestine, wondering how anyone could possibly support Israel when the evidence leaves no reasonable doubt about the illegality, immorality and inhumanity of the Israeli Army’s actions.

While droves of desperate Palestinians are using slingshots, Israeli soldiers calmly take position, aim, and shoot to kill, nonchalantly choosing their victims.

Americans and Europeans are not blind, are they? They see what is happening, but do they need captions to understand the pictures they see? If so, then there is no point in beating around the bush or mincing words anymore: Israel is committing despicable war crimes and a slow, calculated form of ethnic cleansing. Israel practices the plainest form of racism: religious and national apartheid. Under all definitions, laws and conventions, Israel is a brutal invader, occupier and evictor, and Palestinians are the greatest single mass of victims since World War II.

Israel dares to hold the rest of the world hostage to the guilt of past crimes, demanding constant reiterations of apology and regrets, and exacting compensation for horrific crimes committed. “Never again,” the slogan slammed and rammed at every possible opportunity, has been heard and feared by everyone ­ except by the Israelis themselves, who obviously deem that such limitations do not apply to them. Israel has yet to admit ­ let alone to apologize for ­ the monstrosities it has committed since its creation.

It is appaling that while only a particular kind of revisionism is punishable in Europe by laws such as the notorious Gayssot Law, Israel is itself guilty of even more blatant revisionism on a daily basis, rewriting not only history, but current events as well. It is truly amazing that the intelligence of rational Europeans and Americans does not seem to be insulted by this.

Israel condemns the absence of the word “Israel” in Arab schoolbooks and maps ­ but does anyone dare to point to the fact that Israeli school books do not mention Palestine? Did anyone bring Golda Meir to trial when she claimed that there was no such thing as a Palestinian people?

Palestinians are under an all-out siege ­ from the Israeli Army, from the media, from their own leaders. Native Palestinians live in physical and psychological ghettos. They are not just fighting for a holy site, or for pathetic strips of land labelled A, B or C connected by thin corridors across enemy lines.

I for one am offended by the fact that the current insurrection has been baptized “Al-Aqsa intifada” by Arabs and Israelis alike. This belittles the suffering of over 50 years and diminishes the national aspects of this insurrection against injustice. This insurrection is not about religion, and it’s not about Ariel Sharon. This is not just about ending the violence, it’s about ending the misery. Palestinians are rebelling for their lives, and they are doing it alone.

Americans, who actually dare to call themselves honest brokers, have been unashamed supporters of the very notions which should be alien to their democracy. They have provided and paid for the most powerful army in the Middle East, an army responsible for invasion, appropriation and annexation of Arab land, and for systematic mass murder.

Europeans, shining by their absence, so terrified of being branded “anti-Semitic” (which apparently is a greater crime than murder), have been cowering in their corner, praying that the Jewish lobby won’t notice them and lay claim on yet more funds from their bulging banks. After having played and lost at divide and conquer, they now pretend to busy themselves with new dreams of a great European Union, eventually making a show of being horrified by the plight of Bosnians, Kosovars and other victims of the same racism they allege to abhor, in an era when ethnic cleansing has never been more vibrant.

This is how the democratic powers of the free world behave. Even though the media now allows them to watch bombings and killings live, even though electronic media now whip news across the world wide web practically as it happens, they simply refuse to acknowledge who is the aggressor, and who is the victim.

As for Arabs, they are still banking on the elusive dream of unity, a small comfort for the heavy toll that a constant state of non-peace has had on their daily lives. Still paying dearly for grandiose European colonial plans, and burdened by the afflictions imposed on them by the new powers, they continue to strive for a simple condemnation of the unacceptable. With a false sense of security and a desolate gratefulness for the implied recognition of their misfortunes, they are now happy to see this conflict so well publicized, so talked about in international media. But some Arabs fail to discern that Palestinians are always “killed” in clashes, whereas Israelis are “murdered.” Hundreds of Palestinians are always anonymous victims of circumstances, whereas a few Israelis are murder victims with faces, names and addresses.

Arabs must have gotten so used to being initially wrongly blamed for everything that they seem to have forgotten for a while that they too were able to present clear, rational depictions of events as they occurred. Were it not for a few well-spoken representatives who imposed themselves on the international scene and opened the way for truth to come out, Arabs may still have been in an even worse position than the one prevailing today. Fortunately, they are reacting not only to the war on the ground, but also to the ludicrous war in the media.

I  find great comfort in knowing that Israelis are terrified by our potential. That CNN is farcically accused of bias by Israel should give us confidence. That every articulate, coherent and logical statement made by Professor Edward Said engenders a panicked flow of Zionist ink should give us force. That responsible and brave journalists like Robert Fisk are viciously attacked at the instigation of the Israeli propaganda machine should give us impetus. That the major European and American newspapers refuse to (or dare not) publish articles even remotely critical of Israel should give us determination. It proves just how powerful our words can be.

People like Said and Robert are thankfully confident in the truth they report, eloquently ridiculing every lie and misguiding statement made about the catastrophe of Palestine. Isn’t it time for the rest of the world and the supposedly free press to join their likes?

Citizens of the free world have seen the morbid facts of the Palestinian tragedy. And yet the military, political and media sieges go on. If they are truly worthy of the democracy and freedom they pride themselves on, then they will lift this siege and liberate the Palestinians from their ghettos.

* Rime Allaf wrote this commentary in Damascus for The Daily Star