victory or peace?
Ivo Skoric
ivo at reporters.net
Mon May 20 16:52:32 CEST 2002
Since Israeli-Palestinian conflict lasts longer than my life, I am kind of
bored with yet another suicide bombing or yet another Israeli military
crackdown on Palestinian refugee camp. What I am looking at is what is
new in this particular conflict, which makes it different from the previous
ones. It became an unwritten rule that Palestinians live in refugee camps,
displaced within their own homeland. That seems to please both their
enemies and their friends. And the vaunted international community, that
found such practice horrendous in Bosnia, seems to feel quite fine with it
in Israel/Palestine. The squalor of refugee camps, however, is the
proverbial swamp that created the most horrifying weapon of mass
destruction: the human bomb, i.e. the suicide bomber. It is more precise
than a cruise missile and more stealthy than a stealth bomber. It is, also,
more intelligent than any other weapon, because its circuitry is a human
brain. The September 11 tragedy kind of started to wake up the West,
which for so long was complacent with the six decades long blood-
letting between Arabs and Jews in Israel/Palestine, and take the notice
that something there indeed went awfully wrong.
It doesn’t get any better, either. Hamas leader promises not to stop
suicide missions until Israel ceases its military offensive. Israeli leaders
promise not to stop their military offensive until Hamas stops its terrorist
activity, or, rather, until Hamas is wiped of the face of the Earth, which,
indeed, would stop its activity for good. Both parties to the conflict seem
to be committed to war and dedicated not to stop fighting until one of
them dies. They are so entrenched in their no-win thinking, that it does
not seem that any mediation would do any good, since they
recalcitrantly repeat that they have no interest whatsoever in peace -
they are only interested in victory. It is sad to see that sixty years of
conflict did not yet teach them that their victory cannot be achieved. So,
what’s new?
New is that Arafat is not only playing the usual victim: he is playing a
weak old man, powerless to change anything, unwanted even by his own
people, yet despite all of this, or, maybe, precisely because of it, an
unsurmountable obstacle to Israeli victory. He doesn’t go to Jenin. There
he could re-assert his strength. He could play a strongman again. He
could say that he won by making Israelis let him go, and he could ask for
more attacks against Israel, just as Hamas leader did. He could rally the
hate that Jenin residents must have against Israel, particularly after that
recent event which was not a massacre (but nobody yet came up with a
better term for it), but he did not. Instead, he opted to play a Palestinian
version of Alija Izetbegovic: he called for elections.
Just as everybody on the planet concluded that he is irrelevant, he
decided to make himself relevant by highlighting his irrelevancy. You
don’t want me? Ok. Then, I will let you elect another leader. Oh, I forgot
you cannot reach the ballots, because there are Israeli check-points
everywhere, and you cannot leave your neighborhood. This is a similar
situation to what had happened in Bosnia - where displaced Bosnians
also could not participate in elections, because they could not pass the
checkpoints set by Serbs of Republika Srpska, that boycotted the
elections. Well, Bosnia, unlike Israel, came under control of international
forces, and Bosnians were bused to ballots under UN protection. What
is Israel going to do? Remove the checkpoints and allow Palestinian
elections to proceed under international community supervision and
maybe get rid off Arafat?! No. That would also open doors to Hamas
suicide bombers, wouldn’t it? Therefore, the elections will fail, and the
fault is going to be with Israel, and Arafat will make his point and become
relevant again.
What is new, too, are the sick revelations that the US president might
have been aware of the scope and extent of the terrorist plot that ended
up in the September 11 tragedy. The suspicions were always there. But
now there are FBI and CIA agents and documents surfacing to confirm
the Watergate-like conspiracy. And there is Dick Cheney addressing
Congressional Democrats, in a manner and style of some Soviet
communist party commissar, telling them “not to provoke.” What I
remember is that last summer I observed more police activity in New York
city. They were particularly after the out-of-state licensed vehicles. After
receiving the third moving violation ticket last summer - in my out-of-
state registered vehicle - I even wrote to the FOIA board, requesting
explanation for this heightened police presence - I haven’t got a ticket in
previous 11 years of living in the city. I never got a written answer to that
complaint. Instead, I got the CNN view of Twin Towers collapsing. This
was my answer. I believe they new something would happen, and I
believe they were furiously after everything that moves, but they simply
did not envision use of passenger aircraft as a weapon of mass
destruction. I guess G-men desperately need some out-of-the-box
thinking. But, unfortunately, I doubt Democrats would have the case
against Bush and be able to send him down the Nixon way.
It is also interesting that there are many New York immigrants entitled to
unemployment benefits that for one reason or another are not receiving
them (I am hearing a lot of complaints amongst my compatriots). The
New York State Department of Labor seems to be in such a disarray as if
their building had been hit by a plane. My research cannot confirm so far
whether there is an intentional discrimination against the immigrant
population (revenge?) in place, or whether this is just a consequence of
bureaucratic inefficiency and affects equally immigrant and non-
immigrant unemployed. Claims are getting lost, letters are not answered,
telephone conversations conveniently forgotten, cases misplaced,
human operators unreachable - yet the paperwork load placed on the
claimant dramatically increased: it seems that individual is ineligible for
benefits if he/she does not have two year old pay stubs ready.
New, interesting and alarming definitely is the change in public opinion
in the U.S. regarding Israel. Of course, this change is not reported in the
mainstream media, but that’s not news: mainstream media perceives and
wishes the change to be marginal, and therefore leaves it under-reported.
For the first time, however, there is an appearance of strong opinions
against Israel in the U.S. Sometimes those opinions venture eerily close
to the Anti-Semitic outbursts usually associated with Europe. Like the
demonstrations at SFSU (San Francisco State University), where
demonstrants handed cans of red paint, labeled kosher meat of
Palestinian children, or the small protest at the Union Square in New York
city where a banner with the Star of David, a swastika and an equal sign
between them was observed. Given that New York is the largest Jewish
city on the planet, it is probable that at least some of those protesters
were Jews. Those two events mean that there are non-Muslim Americans
un-supportive of Israeli policies, and there are more of them by the day.
The old landmark wooden synagogue building at Far Rockaway island in
New York city bursted in flames one recent night, the police suspects
arson. What is next? Some Le Pen like candidate becoming a governor in
one of the States?
Ivo
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