What Sharon Wants
(YellowTimes.org) – What was the point of the Israeli army reducing Mr. Arafat's compound to ruins, firing shells that came within the
smallest margin of killing him? Everyone outside the hermetically-sealed thought-environment of Israel and Washington
recognizes Mr. Arafat is no more responsible for the violence of Hamas or Hizbullah than Mr. Bush is responsible for a
disturbed gunman now terrorizing America's capital city.
Of course, the question is rhetorical. The reason for the destruction is clear. Mr. Sharon has always exhibited personal
animus against Mr. Arafat. He never mentions his name without the rhetorical equivalent of pronouncing a curse. The acts
of Hamas or Hizbullah gave Mr. Sharon the excuse to humiliate and frighten him, hoping to destroy him as a political
force and push him into exile. There cannot be the slightest doubt Sharon would prefer assassinating Arafat, as he has
assassinated so many dozens of others opposing him, but even the unthinking Mr. Bush recognizes the immense strategic
blunder of doing that.
With Arafat gone, Sharon could start the last thirty-five years over again. That mystical, nebulous mechanism called the
"peace process" could start again - decades of stalling and quibbling, ignoring every United Nations' resolution while
Israel relentlessly inches eastward, absorbing the homes and farms of others - the search for peace through slow-motion
ethnic cleansing.
Not that the creation of settlements has ever stopped while Mr. Sharon destroyed both the Oslo Accords, that landmark
diplomatic achievement he always held in contempt, and much of the West Bank and Gaza. It would be just so much easier
to continue with an opponent who does not have the ear of the world's statesmen and who has not done everything
politically possible to reach a reasonable settlement. It is so much easier to curse Arafat, broadcast his weaknesses,
and ignore the fundamental claims he represents.
Mr. Arafat has not been one of the world's shining statesmen. Nor has his administration in Palestine been marked by the
most enlightened practices. But he is, unquestionably, dedicated to peace. He does, despite ups and downs, represent
some of the most important interests of his people, and he has shown remarkable courage and tenacity; Sharon's efforts
to remove him have only showcased these qualities before the entire world.
A lot of people in the United States still do not understand that it has always been the policy of extreme parties like
Mr. Sharon's Likud to annex what they call Judaea and Samaria - that is, what is left of Palestine, home to a couple of
million Arabic people. Even at the time of the original Camp David Accords, the late Mr. Begin kept muttering those
names, Judaea and Samaria, into President Carter's ear.
A reader recently wrote me about a television documentary on Palestine. He mentioned a settler (who, like all the
settlers, is a newcomer who has pushed out residents from places they have lived for centuries) being asked about the
Palestinians. Her answer was they should all leave and go where they belong.
Go where they belong? According to this belligerent view, they belong on the other side of the Jordan River, or, indeed,
anywhere but in their own homes and on their own farms in the West Bank. I can only wonder whether a person holding such
views has ever given a moment's thought to the reality of shoving two million people out of their homes and into small,
poor countries that are not remotely-equipped to deal with massive migration?
The largest internal migration in American history, and perhaps the largest in world history not associated with war,
was the great black migration of tenant farmers from the rural South to industrial jobs in the North during the
mid-twentieth century. It involved about 6.5 million people over several decades. This vast movement of people generated
tremendous social difficulties that remain unsettled in the world's richest country, a land that is many, many times the
size of any of Israel's Arab neighbors.
So how could anyone reasonably expect such a solution in the Middle East? The answer is that reason has nothing to do
with it. Israelis with these views simply want the Arabs gone. If you don't hear echoes of Milosevic, you aren't
listening. Until Mr. Bush, this idea had been little advertised or promoted in North America. Now, it has received some
publicity, perhaps offered as "trial balloons."
Mr. Rumsfeld - in one of his most regrettably Hitler-like expressions since insisting that Taliban prisoners, after
their surrender at Kunduz, should be shot or walled away for good - recently spoke of the spoils belonging to the victor
in the Middle East.
That redoubtable American ally, General Dostum, of course, took Rumsfeld at his word about the prisoners. Hundreds of
them, after being hideously suffocated, lie in mass graves. One can't help asking whether American generals are now to
apply Mr. Rumsfeld's spoils-principle to Iraqi oil fields?
Another Republican moral giant, Mr. Dick Armey - not known for charity towards the less fortunate of any society, even
his own - recently chimed in that pushing two-million or so people out of the West Bank would be acceptable to him.
Hell, what's a couple of million Arab lives, right?
And now, the Rev. Jerry Falwell - fundamentalist politico and hate-entrepreneur, a man whose tailored suits are bought
with the proceeds of a relentless hate campaign against a former President, a former First Lady, and all gay people -
has added his scholarly opinion that the prophet Muhammad himself was a terrorist. One can almost hear the unspoken
link, so why would his followers deserve to live in the Holy Land?
These public statements provide an excellent measure of the moral tone set by Mr. Bush's administration. America's long,
on-and-off romance with fascism has been stoked back to a warm glow (for background, see my earlier article, "Flirting with Fascism"). A president with any conscience should have loudly condemned these statements. Instead, hate speech is tolerated.
Well, Mr. Sharon is now building a wall, a truly massive undertaking. Authoritarian personalities and movements always
seem to like walls. This one will be a grand re-creation of the Berlin Wall, complete with a strip of no-man's land,
good portions of it at the expense of Palestinian farmers.
This may be what Sharon had in mind when he made statements months ago, contradicting every act and breath of his adult
life, that he supported a Palestinian state. One can only imagine what he had in mind with those words, something surely
bordering on the nightmares of the gulag. The wall is likely part of his vision. A rump-state, walled off from all
natural connections with its neighbor, with every movement in or out controlled, is certain to fail. It would be a state
in a bottle. The idea represents a freshening up of the late General Dayan's thinking when he said, years ago, that the
Palestinians would be made so miserable, they would choose to leave.
- [John Chuckman is former chief economist for a large Canadian oil company. He has many interests and is a lifelong
student of history. He writes with a passionate desire for honesty, the rule of reason, and concern for human decency.
He is a member of no political party and takes exception to what has been called America's "culture of complaint" with
its habit of reducing every important issue to an unproductive argument between two simplistically defined groups. John
regards it as a badge of honor to have left the United States as a poor young man from the South Side of Chicago when
the country embarked on the pointless murder of something like three million Vietnamese in their own land because they
happened to embrace the wrong economic loyalties. He lives in Canada, which he is fond of calling "the peaceable
kingdom."]
John Chuckman encourages your comments: jchuckman@YellowTimes.org
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