The West in Denial

“WHAT do you say to a gorilla with a machine gun?” goes the old joke. The correct answer is “Sir!” It is the Palestinians’ consistent refusal to say “Sir!” to Israel that has led to the current assault on Gaza.

After an oppressive occupation that has lasted over four decades, the Palestinian people still refuse to surrender, and this defiance has produced immense frustration in Tel Aviv and its backers in Washington.

Even though the current massacre represents a new level of escalation, it is just one more chapter in the long history of the conflict. Ever since Israel seized the West Bank and Gaza in 1967, it has attempted to bludgeon and bully Palestinians into accepting its annexation of large swathes of territory. But despite the odds, Palestinians have clung to their hope of retaining their homeland, and fought back with rocks, guns and suicide attacks.

This is not to suggest that their leaders have not committed huge blunders. Much of the present misery and mayhem in Gaza can be placed at Hamas’s door: by refusing to extend the fragile truce, it gave Israel the pretext to send its planes across the tiny, over-populated territory to pulverise Hamas as well as civilian targets. Inevitably, scores of innocent women, children and non-combatants have been killed.

The causes of the conflict have been repeated too many times to be recounted here. But the fact remains that the cycle of violence is fuelled by the reality of the Israeli occupation. To pretend that Israel needs chunks of the West Bank for its security is now a bad joke: the Zionist state’s military preponderance over the Palestinians, and any combination of its neighbours, is now so great that this particular fig leaf slipped off years ago.

Currently, the Israeli assault is more to do with electoral politics than any threat Hamas’s wildly inaccurate Qassam rockets might pose to civilians. With general elections due in a few weeks, the ruling party needs to establish its tough, macho credentials. This is especially important as the extreme right-wing opposition is led by Benjamin Nethanyahu, the most hawkish politician in Israel currently. Polls show him ahead, so if the ruling Kadima party is to win the election, it feels it must flex its muscles.

Nevertheless, it would be a mistake to think there is a solid consensus behind the massive bombing of Gaza. A quick scan of the Israeli press reveals the ongoing debate. Similarly, American Jews are divided over the issue, even though the Zionist lobbying group AIPAC is solidly behind the hard-line policy being pursued.

There is deep anger in the Arab streets over the killings of innocent Palestinians, and pro-American governments in Cairo, Riyadh and Jordan are bracing for protests. But the biggest rallies have been held in the United States. If and when the Israeli army invades Gaza, and more casualties inevitably result, there will be even more violent protests and attacks against western targets.

Over the years, I have come to believe that despite the historic injustice that was the basis of Israel’s foundation in 1948, and the colonial nature of the Zionist state, the Palestinians and the rest of the world need to accept reality. Having said this, I also believe that Israel must return to the borders set by the UN resolution that called for the creation of the Jewish state. If it is allowed to annex parts of the West Bank and the Golan Heights, we will return to an earlier, more barbaric era when nations conquered and retained territory when they could. If the rule of international law is to prevail, then UN resolutions pressing Israel to withdraw must be honoured.

If the wanton violence being perpetrated by Israel can anger somebody like me (a secular, and hopefully reasonable, person), imagine what effect it must be having on young, impressionable minds that have been influenced by radical mullahs and militants. For all the talk about the ‘war on terror’, Americans and other western leaders continue to egg on Israel by their complicit silence.

To equate the bombing of Gaza that has killed around 400 Palestinians with the Hamas rocket attacks that have killed four Israelis is to indulge in a shameless distortion of facts. Apart from the imbalance in the casualty figures, a state must be held to different standards than a group (albeit elected) that represents an occupied and oppressed people.

The reality of the occupation is that it has driven Palestinians to desperation. This is truer of Gaza than it is of the West Bank, but the daily humiliation and deprivation Israeli check posts inflict on ordinary people has been described in graphic detail for many years. Two generations of Palestinians have been traumatised and impoverished by the occupation, and to demand that they accept their lot is to deny the heroic nature of their resistance.

Since 9/11, apologists for Israel’s harsh policies have tried to de-link them for the radicalisation of thousands of young Muslims around the world. Although numerous studies have shown a strong correlation between militant Islam and the humiliation being undergone by Muslims in places as dispersed as Palestine, Chechnya and Kashmir, analysts and politicians remain in denial. Out of all these trouble spots, Palestine stands out as the most potent symbol of Muslim pain.

Indeed, it can be argued that people like Begin, Sharon and now Olmert have done more to fill the ranks of Al Qaeda and its offshoots than Osama Bin Laden ever did. But between the compulsions of Israeli politics, and the pressure exerted by AIPAC and Christian evangelists in America, this view is shrugged off as too inconvenient to take into account.

Barack Obama will be sworn in as the next president of the United States in under three weeks, and the most urgent task he will face, apart from the dire state of the American economy, will be the perpetual Palestine problem. Thus far, Palestinians have no reason to expect a more even-handed approach from him than they got from his predecessors.

During his election campaign, he kowtowed as abjectly to the Jewish vote as did any of the other candidates. And his appointment of a Zionist to the position of his chief of staff does not inspire much confidence either. But he is much too intelligent a person not to see that the festering sore that is the Palestinian issue cannot be allowed to continue oozing its poison into world politics forever. In this realisation lies a sliver of hope.
~ By Irfan Husain