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Sharon's Holocaust

http://www.stabroeknews.com


March 20th, 2002 Editorial




Sometime, in the distant future in the State of Palestine (yes, there will be some day an independent State of Palestine) a mother might frighten a disobedient child by calling the name of Sharon and recalling the memories of his holocaust. Last week Ariel Sharon, Prime Minister of Israel, ordered hundreds of his tanks and thousands of his soldiers into the refugee camps to look for militants. Overhead the gunships and his navy in the sea outside, shelled the camps, targeting civilians and journalists and among other things Red Cross and Red Crescent ambulances.




Hundreds of young men were rounded up, blindfolded, letters and numbers stamped upon them and taken away. Some two hundred were killed. The situation of rounding up, blindfolding and branding pounds familiar. Where has it been done before? By the Nazis of course, rounding up the Jews to cart them away to the gas chambers. By one of the curious and tragic turns of history this time the Jews are doing the rounding up and there are more direct forms of torture and execution.




The fashionable Western view is that the Israelis are acting in self defence against the campaign of terrorists, namely the suicide bombers. Make no mistake, the indiscriminate killing of innocent civilians whether by an army or a suicide bomber can never be endorsed. But the Palestinian cannot be described as a terrorist out to change the world in the name of extremist religion or ideology. He is a despairing freedom fighter whose homeland has been occupied for fifty years while three generations have been born without hope in squalid refugee camps while his land is honeycombed with numerous posh Jewish settlements. In terms of the criteria now current Mandela would have been termed a terrorist - as indeed he once was.




Suddenly in the overcast sky in those lands where three of the world's great religions have arisen there are glimmers of sunlight. First Ariel Sharon has himself announced the easing of the travel restrictions of Yasser Arafat who had virtually been imprisoned in Ramallah by the Israeli army. He at the same time announced that he would no longer insist on a seven day period without violence as a condition for the resumption of talks. This latter is an important change of position as the insistence on the seven day truce meant that negotiations were effectively made hostage to any militant or to Sharon himself.


Second, seemingly out of the blue, Saudi Arabia, which has


hitherto stood aside from Middle Eastern politics, announced a peace initiative in which all Arab states would recognise Israel in return for the return of all the Arab land captured in the l967 war.




Diplomatic and commercial ties and contacts established by Israel after the Oslo Accords with a number of Arab states, with Morocco, Tunisia, Qatar, Oman, Algeria and the United Arab Emirates have been broken off. Only the Peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan subsist.


Third, there are the important initiative of the US administration a) to send back their mediator, General Zinn to the region with new instructions namely to stay in the region until negotiations begin and to take steps to post US monitors to police the cease fire. The latter decision is important as hitherto the US has supported the Israeli position that there should be no monitors. The status of Zinni has also been enhanced as he is now the personal envoy of the President and not as originally of the Secretary of State. (b) late Tuesday night the US astonished other members of the UN Security Council by introducing into the UN Security Council a resolution in which for the very first time the Security Council recognised as an objective the creation of a Palestinian state. The US formulated Security Council resolution also recognised the importance of the Saudi initiative.




It is only an understanding of the background to these developments which can lead to a judgement as to whether there is now a real chance of peace in the Middle East.


In the case of Sharon he is at last reacting if only minimally to deep changes in Israel which increasingly challenge his authority. The apparent ability of the suicide bombers to bomb at will anywhere and at any time despite check points has left Israeli citizens in a situation of continuous fear and anxiety. There is the growing conviction that Sharon's exclusive dependence on force cannot deliver security. A group of one thousand retired and reserve army officers and intelligence officials have launched a campaign for a complete withdrawal from Gaza and most of the West Bank. Four hundred Israeli soldiers including officers have refused to serve in the occupied territories. It was such refuseniks that forced the withdrawal from Lebanon. Meanwhile the Israeli economy is in trouble falling from a growth rate of 6% in the nineties to the current l.7%. Foreign investment has dropped by 70%. Unemployment is rapidly growing with l8% of the population now below the poverty line. But Sharon whose popularity as shown in the polls is rapidly falling is likely to survive as neither of the main partners in the coalition, whether of the (religious) right who want permanent occupation of the Palestinian lands or the left (the Labour Party) led by Shimon Peres who want immediate withdrawal, seem ready to face an election if they bring Sharon's government down.




What of the Saudi initiative? Saudi Arabia (like Egypt) is very much in the US corner. Although there is no formal agreement with the US, some twenty thousand US troops are stationed there. However the Saudis are the custodians of the Islamic holy places and there is a strong feeling that the presence of the "infidels" violate this sacred trust. Hence there is increasing tension and hostility. This may explain why of the September ll hijackers all but three were Saudis. Bin Laden himself is a Saudi.




The still rather vague Saudi initiative may therefore have been motivated by a desire of its rulers to show that they can take a line independent of US policy in support of the Palestinians.




It is an altogether different question as to whether the Saudis can mobilise Arab solidarity. The Arab states are almost without exception tyrannical regimes, whether dynasties or newcomers who have seized power. They make no gestures towards democracy. They fear their own people, mostly young, some better educated who are organising protests in the streets. The Palestinian struggle is the struggle of a peoples movement. Hence the ambiguity of the attitudes of the ruling groups to the Palestinian struggle. The success of the Palestinians could set off uncontainable demands and protests in their streets. Hence the Arab solidarity which is the indispensable basis of the Saudi initiative will be hard to achieve.




So it is the US diplomatic initiative which can alone be decisive. European newspapers, as quoted by the BBC, regard the US sponsored UN Security resolution as suspect. They suggest that it is a ploy to support Vice-President Cheney's diplomatic efforts to whip up Arab and Middle Eastern support for an attack on Iraq. On the other hand the enhanced mandate of General Zinni indicates a serious intent.




Cheney's efforts have so far not gone well. If he fails will the US back away from its initiatives towards settlement of the Palestinian/Israeli conflict? However, the Security Council resolution has a momentum of its own. It provides the European Union, Russia and the UN Secretary General with an important new basis for action including diplomacy.


Even if the US finds it must go it alone in its efforts to dislodge Saddam Hussein it will still be to its major advantage to be seen to be playing the decisive role in the resolution of the conflict.




To sum up. If the full truth be told all the indications are that Sharon does not wish to enter into negotiations. He sees aggression either direct or provoked as providing the basis for continuing military occupation. In such thinking he is matched by the Palestinian militant groups who likewise eschew negotiations as they feel confident that the Israelis can be driven out as the Hizbollah succeeded in doing in Lebanon. Yet General Zinni's efforts have been promising. Hence, once there is a ceasefire, it seems absolutely necessary for a framework (as in the case of Northern Ireland) to be imposed and policed. A situation may have been reached where the US acting together with the European Union and Russia can impose a framework based on UN resolutions including the recent security Council resolution. Hence there may be just a glimmer of hope.




What has all this got to do with Guyanese. Not much directly except that a widened conflict could send gasoline prices soaring and trigger inflationary effects, although in our case the Venezuelan oil facility might cushion such effects. But much more important the events of September ll have demonstrated how closely interwoven is the texture of the world and how far reaching can be the consequences, especially for small states.




http://www.stabroeknews.com