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October 22, 2002 Opinion Editorial |
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Human Price of the Israeli Occupation of Palestine Mission and meaning of Al-Jazeerah
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Pressuring Pakistan to ensure support for war on terrorism By Mushahid Hussain,
Khaleej Times, 10/22/02
THE timing of the orchestrated leak in the American media regarding North Korea's nuclear programme and the perceived Pakistan connection is an added pressure point in a rapidly changing scenario. The timing of these charges, for which no evidence has been provided, is linked to the emerging US strategy in the region and Pakistan's role in this regard. Simultaneously, contradictory signals are being sent on Pakistan. On the one hand, General Tommy Franks arrives in Islamabad for joint military exercises between the two countries in a gesture meant to underline Pakistan's post September 11 role. On the same day, CIA Director George Tenet revealed to the Congress that the CIA had started covert operations in Afghanistan way back in 1999, much before September 11, 2001, against Osama and his Al Qaeda network. And he disclosed that the CIA penetration of Afghanistan including areas under Taleban control, not just areas where the Northern Alliance was in control, means that this would most likely have been eastern Afghanistan with Pakistan's cooperation, since that was the only friendly area adjoining Taleban-controlled territory. While Pakistan's role against terrorism is being implicitly acknowledged and joint military exercises underway, Pakistan is also being singled out as a supporter of the North Korean nuclear programme. But this disclosure came twelve days after Pyongyang admitted to maintaining a nuclear weapons programme. A number of reasons give a clue to the timing. First, the announcement on North Korea was withheld till after the congressional resolution on Iraq was passed. The Bush administration probably wanted to avoid mixing up Iraq with North Korea, because that would have exposed the US administration to somewhat indefensible charges of double standards. Planning to strike a state that was deemed as a threat because it may develop nuclear weapons, but refusing to act against another state, also a member of the Bush 'axis of evil', which already has the nuclear bomb. Although the North Koreans had confessed to this on October 4, the announcement was deliberately delayed till October 16, till after the passage of the Iraq resolution, which has been the administration's principal priority since early summer. Second, by putting pressure on Pakistan when it is going through a tricky transition after polls whose results have unnerved Washington, the United States wants to ensure Pakistan remains firmly enlisted on board both regarding the military campaign in Afghanistan whose fallout is felt in the Frontier province as well as the coming offensive against Iraq. Third, China is another target in this timing of the North Korean disclosure since President Jiang Zemin is due for a summit with President Bush on October 25, just weeks before his retirement at next month's Communist Party congress at Beijing. China is a neighbour and close friend of North Korea. However, the muted response regarding North Korea and orchestrating the 'Pyongyang-Pakistan connection' is likely to lead to criticism of selective morality and double standards. Two countries designated as part of the 'axis of evil', one having nuclear capability and the other said to be aspiring for one, are being treated quite differently. North Korea is being treated with kid gloves while Iraq is waiting to be hit with a hammer. One is Muslim with lots of oil, while the other is impoverished but fiercely nationalistic and cloaked in Communism. Such pressure on Pakistan is likely to continue even on Kashmir, since the American ambassador in New Delhi, Robert Blackwill, has linked an Indian offer of a future dialogue with Pakistan to the latter ending what he termed "cross-border terrorism from Pakistan or Pakistan-occupied territory". This is the first time such a formulation has been used by a senior American official to describe Azad Kashmir, since this formulation is more attuned to Indian descriptions of that area. Compounding the problem is the vitiation of the atmosphere through vitriolic statements from non-Muslim extremist religious leaders, on which the US has been uncharacteristically silent. For instance, on October 18, Amnesty International said it was "alarmed at repeated inflammatory statements" made by Ashok Singhal, the international president of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), an extremist ally of India's ruling BJP. The VHP had stated that "what happened in Gujarat will happen in the whole of the country", adding that the recent massacres of Muslims in Gujarat were a "successful experiment which will be repeated all over the country". Such rhetoric is reminiscent of statements of some extremist Muslims lauding the terrorism of September 11, although Muslims and non-Muslims promptly condemned those. There is a growing perception among Muslims that the only terrorists or tyrants being targeted happen to be from the Muslim world. These perceptions get credence when prominent Christian clerics like Jerry Falwell attack Islam's core beliefs, without making any distinction between a faith and follies or crimes of a few of its misguided followers. His one statement provoked a backlash, resulted in the loss of several lives, and 100 injured in clashes in India, almost certainly reinforcing a negative view of America among Muslims. His statement was certainly no aberration. In fact, it was part of a growing but dangerous pattern of anti-Islamic vitriol churned out by leading American Protestant clerics. The Christian Coalition founder Pat Robertson had earlier attacked the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), and Franklin Graham, son of the famous cleric Billy Graham, who read the prayer during President Bush's inauguration in January 2001 has even directly attacked the religion. And the conservative daily The Washington Times, acknowledged in its issue of October 16 that "few" Americans have come out to condemn such statements, although the newspaper's leading columnist called Falwell's comments "idiotic, foolish, hurtful and repulsive". As Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamed's recent regional tour underlines, the popular perception among Muslims is of the war on terrorism taking on an increasingly religious colour. Silence on attacks on Islam by clerics, singling out Pakistan for its perceived Pyongyang connection and planning diplomacy with North Korea as the call to arms is sounded on Iraq will only aggravate this perception.
The chain of command There is little controversy about the facts: Last Thursday, in an IDF action in Rafah, at least eight Palestinians were killed (the number will probably climb, since some of the wounded were severely hurt). Five of those killed were women and children. Almost fifty people were wounded — many of them children who had just left their school after lessons. The event took place on the "Philadelphi" axis, a narrow strip of land designed to separate the Gaza area from neighboring Egypt. The Palestinians dig tunnels under the strip in order to move people, weapons and goods. The IDF endeavors to prevent it. Thursday, the IDF sent a bulldozer, guarded by tanks and armored troop-carriers, to block the tunnels. According to the army version, fire was opened on the bulldozer and the force. The brigade commander gave a tank commander permission to fire shells at the "sources of fire". All in all, five shells were fired at the densely populated refugee camp, including "flanchette" shells which spread thousands of deadly steel arrows, an especially inhuman weapon the use of which is forbidden by international law. The IDF suffered no casualties. The army alleges that among the Palestinians killed were three "armed men" who had shot at the bulldozer. The Palestinians contend that none of them was a known member of a fighting organization. (This is not necessarily a contradiction: nowadays any Palestinian is liable to open fire on the occupation forces.) The Palestinians speak about a "massacre". Israeli spokespersons say they regret the deaths of the children. The Americans asked Israel to exercise restraint. "The world" was silently reproachful. This was not an exceptional occurrence. It has become almost routine. Who is to blame? Let’s try to compose a list. First: The occupation The occupation creates resistance. In order to overcome the resistance, the occupation is forced to use more and more brutal methods. The occupied people, too, become more and more brutal. Human life becomes cheap, the borderline between fighters and non-fighters becomes blurred and disappears. Second: The axis itself When the Gaza Strip was turned over to the Palestinian Authority, the Israeli generals demanded that there be no border between the Palestinian area and Egypt. The Rafah border crossing remained under Israeli control. The "Philadelphi" axis (I have no idea why it was so named) was designed to create the separation all along the border. In order to guard the axis, a strip six kilometers long and one hundred meters wide, soldiers must pass only dozens of meters away from the Palestinian neighborhoods, which are among the most densely populated in the world. In times of peace, that is a problematical situation. In times of conflict, this becomes a pressure cooker liable to explode at any moment. Third: The Sharon-Ben-Eliezer government The "political leadership" consists of two generals, whose sole language is the language of force — the one is the leader of the Likud, the other is the leader of the Labor party. The policy of this government is to break by force the resistance of the Palestinian people to the occupation. It acts according to the typically Israeli maxim: "If force doesn’t work, use more force." It may be that by now the Israeli occupation has become the most brutal of the modern era: Millions of people are imprisoned in their homes for weeks and months on end, two thirds of the population have been pushed under the internationally-accepted poverty line, hundreds of thousands suffer from malnutrition, on the border of starvation — all this in addition to almost 2000 killed, among them some 400 children. There is no sign that the Palestinian resistance is about to break. Quite to the contrary. By orders and hints, the "political leadership" tells the army to use even more brutal methods, gradually abolishing all limits. To appease international opinion, some tiny restrictions are lifted, while at the same time much more severe ones are put into place. In this game, Shimon Peres, the Nobel hypocrisy prize laureate, plays a central role. Fourth: The chief-of-staff Under the military hierarchical system, the chief-of-staff is the person solely responsible for all the acts and omissions of the IDF. Gen. Moshe Ya’alon has already made public his extreme right-wing orientation. He has announced that any concession to the Palestinians constitutes a "reward for terrorism". He has defined the Palestinian resistance as a "cancerous growth". The Chief-of-Staff controls the actions of even the last man in the army. If he resolutely objects to certain actions, it will travel with lightning speed through the chain of command reaching every soldier, and if he encourages certain actions, or closes his eyes, this, too, will be felt instantly. There is no need for written orders. Every commander senses what his superior wants, every soldier senses was his commander desires. That’s how the army works. Fifth: The area command chief The commanding officer of the southern area and his staff are well familiar with the topographical realities. They know that if you put tanks into the "Philadelphi" axis, there will be Palestinians who will open fire. There exists, therefore, a high probability that a fire-fight will develop near a densely populated area, and men, women and children will be killed. That’s what happened this time, too. (The same thing has happened in other incidents in the Gaza Strip, such as the one a week before at neighboring Khan Younis, when 17 Palestinians, including women and children, were killed. A different topography, similar circumstances, same command.) Sixth: The brigade commander After the fire fight started, the brigade commander ordered the firing of the shells. He knew that under the circumstances there was no possibility of separating the armed men from bystanders. He acted according to a principle, which seems to have been adopted by the IDF: In order to "liquidate" one armed man, it is worthwhile killing ten unarmed people. He should not have ordered the firing of even one shell, much less five. He acted with the approval of the division commander, who appeared again on television and boasted about the action. Like the commander of the air force, he seems to sleep very well at night. He has no qualms, no second thoughts, nothing. Seventh: The tank commander A tank commander is supposed to be able to act under pressure and to make decisions under fire. He must have known that under the circumstances, one shell would cause havoc, and much more so several, including the murderous "flachette" variety. The light finger on the trigger is another symptom of the deterioration of the situation and places a heavy burden of guilt on the whole chain of command, from the prime minister down to the last soldier. Shooting shells at curfew-breakers, and especially at children throwing stones at heavy tanks, has already become the bane of the West Bank. The order to shoot shells may have been a "manifestly illegal order", over which flies "the black flag of illegality", which a soldier is obliged to disobey under Israeli law. No soldier can argue that he "only followed orders". I cannot judge if the lives of the soldiers were in danger. Fortunately, no soldier even suffered a scratch. IDF soldiers are better protected than any soldier in the world. But if they were indeed in mortal danger — the responsibility lies with the commanders, who deliberately put them into this situation. — Uri Avnery, award-winning Israeli journalist and writer, three-time member of Knesset and a columnist for the Ma’ariv daily is a founding member of the Gush Shalom peace movement.
How to shut up your
critics with a single word Thank God, I often say, for the Israeli press. For where else will you
find the sort of courageous condemnation of Israel’s cruel and brutal
treatment of the Palestinians? Where else can we read that Moshe Ya’alon,
Ariel Sharon’s new chief of staff, described the "Palestinian
threat" as "like a cancer — there are all sorts of solutions
to cancerous manifestations. For the time being, I am applying
chemotherapy." Where else can we read that the Israeli Herut Party
chairman, Michael Kleiner, said that "for every victim of ours there
must be 1,000 dead Palestinians". Where else can we read that Eitan
Ben Eliahu, the former Israeli Air Force commander, said that
"eventually we will have to thin out the number of Palestinians
living in the territories". Where else can we read that the new head
of Mossad, Gen. Meir Dagan — a close personal friend of Sharon —
believes in "liquidation units", that other Mossad men regard
him as a threat because "if Dagan brings his morality to the Mossad,
Israel could become a country in which no normal Jew would want to
live". You will have to read all this in Ma’ariv, Ha’aretz or Yediot
Ahronot because in much of the Western world, a vicious campaign of
slander is being waged against any journalist or activist who dares to
criticize Israeli policies or those that shape them. The all-purpose
slander of "anti-Semitism" is now used with ever-increasing
promiscuity against anyone — people who condemn the wickedness of
Palestinian suicide bombings every bit as much as they do the cruelty of
Israel’s repeated killing of children — in an attempt to shut them up. Daniel Pipes and Martin Kramer of the Middle East Forum now run a
website in the United States to denounce academics who are deemed to have
shown "hatred of Israel". One of the eight professors already on
this contemptible McCarthyite list — it is grotesquely called
"Campus Watch" — committed the unpardonable sin of signing a
petition in support of the Palestinian scholar Edward Said. Pipes wants
students to inform on professors who are guilty of "campus
anti-Semitism". The University of North Carolina is being targeted — apparently
because freshmen were required to read passages from the Qur’an —
along with Harvard where, like students in many other US universities,
undergraduates are demanding that their colleges disinvest in companies
that sell weapons to Israel. In some cases, American universities —
which happily disinvested in tobacco companies — have now taken the step
of blocking all student access to their records of investment. Lawrence Summers, the Jewish president of Harvard, has denounced
"profoundly anti-Israel views" in "progressive intellectual
communities", that are — I enjoyed this academic sleight of hand
— "advocating and taking actions that are anti-Semitic in their
effect if not their intent". Said himself has already described all this as a campaign "to ask
students and faculty to inform against pro-Palestinian colleagues,
intimidating the right of free speech and seriously curtailing academic
freedom". Ted Honderich, a Canadian-born philosopher who teaches at University
College London, tells me that Oxfam has refused to accept 5,000 pounds
sterling plus other royalties from his new book After the Terror following
a campaign against him in the Toronto-based Globe and Mail. Now I happen
to take issue with some of Professor Honderich’s conclusions and I think
his book — praised by the American-Jewish scholar Noam Chomsky —
meanders. I especially don’t like his assertion that Palestinians, in
trying to free themselves from occupation, have a "moral right to
terrorism". Blowing up children in pizzerias — and Professor
Honderich’s book is not an endorsement of such atrocities — is a crime
against humanity. There is no moral right to do this. But what in God’s
name is Oxfam doing refusing Professor Honderich’s money for its
humanitarian work? Who was behind this? Our own John Pilger made a program
for Carlton Television called Palestine Is Still The Issue. I have watched
it three times. It is accurate in every historical detail; indeed its
historical adviser was a left-wing Israeli academic. But Carlton’s own
chairman, Michael Green — in one of the most gutless statements in
recent British journalism — announced that it was "a tragedy for
Israel so far as accuracy is concerned". Why Green should want to
utter such trash is beyond me. But what does he mean by
"tragedy"? Is he comparing Pilger to a suicide bomber? And so it
goes on. It is left, of course, to the likes of Uri Avneri in Israel to
state that "the Sharon government is a giant laboratory for the
growing of the anti-Semitism virus". He rightly says that by smearing
those who detest the persecution of the Palestinians as anti-Semites,
"the sting is taken out of this word, giving it something approaching
respectability". But we can take comfort that 28 brave academics have
signed a petition condemning President George Bush’s build-up to war and
Israel’s support for it and warning that the Israeli government may be
contemplating crimes against humanity on the Palestinians, including
ethnic cleansing. Have Pipes and his chums put the names of these good men
and women on their hate list? You bet they haven’t. Because all of them
are Israeli scholars at Israeli universities. I wonder why we weren’t
told about this. (The Independent)
A balanced
push for peace
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