No Palestinian 'Saison' [UriAvnery] / What Had To Be Proved [DavidGrossman]
GUSH SHALOM - pob 3322, Tel-Aviv 61033 - http://www.gush-shalom.org/
[The following articles, one by Uri Avnery to be published Tuesday in Ma'ariv, the other by David Grossman in today's
Ha'aretz, both try to appeal to Israeli public opinion regarding the Palestinians by reminding that we were once in the
same condition.]
[1]
No Palestinian “Saison”
by Uri Avnery - 5.01.02 “You aren’t serious,” the Algerians told the PLO leaders. ”You must kill
your opponents!”
That was years ago. The PLO leaders had asked their victorious brothers, the Algerian Liberation Front (FLN) veterans,
for advice. They tendered their counsel generously: “You can’t wage a war of liberation when there are internal
differences. There can only be one party. There is no place for internal opposition. Opponents must be liquidated.”
As an example, they pointed out one of their facilities on the Algerian- Tunisian border. It was a house of three
rooms, to which opponents of the leadership were brought. In the first room they stood trial, in the second judgment was
pronounced, in the third they were executed. The whole process lasted but a few hours. The only way they left the house
was on a stretcher.
This story was told to me this week by a senior Palestinian official. “We, the Palestinians, listened and said to
ourselves: This will never happen in our movement!”
And indeed, in order to understand what is happening now in the Palestinian territories, one has to understand that
this is a unanimous national resolve: Avoid a civil war at any cost.
This resolve stems from a Palestinian trauma. In 1936 the “Arab Rebellion” (in Zionists parlance: “The Events”) broke
out. Jewish immigration had been rising sharply after Hitler’s advent to power in Germany, the Arabs felt that the land
was being taken from under their feet. In a desperate attempt to save their national existence, they declared a General
Strike, which turned into an armed rebellion. It was led by Haj Amin al-Husseini, Grand Mufti of Jerusalem.
The mufti seized the opportunity in order to eliminate all his domestic opponents. In the bloodbath, almost all the
Palestinian leaders who did not accept his leadership unconditionally were assassinated. When the moment of truth came
at the end of 1947 (after the UN partition resolution), the Palestinian people had no national leadership to speak of.
Now Ariel Sharon wants to compel Arafat to start a civil war. That is the meaning of his demand that Arafat liquidate
the Hamas and Jihad leadership and destroy their institutions. He expects the Hamas and Jihad will then take revenge and
murder the Palestinian Authority chiefs. The mutual killing will put an end to the Palestinian struggle, perhaps
forever.
Neither Arafat nor his opponents intend to fulfill this hope of Sharon’s. In his address to the nation, Arafat declared
that continued attacks on Israelis are harmful to the national interests of the Palestinian people. Most Palestinians
understand that Arafat is right. The Hamas and Jihad disagree, but do not want to be dragged into a civil war. Therefore
there is a ”dramatic decrease in the number of attacks”, according to Israeli security officials.
All this reminds one of a similar phase in our own history. After the assassination of Lord Moyne by the Lehi*,
Ben-Gurion decided to turn the “dissidents” over to the British police, who tortured them and then sent them to a prison
camp in Africa. Some of the Irgun** fighters were kidnapped by Ben-Gurion’s Palmah (“shock troops”) and turned over to
the British, others were arrested by the British themselves with the help of a list of 700 suspects, submitted to them
by Ben-Gurion. This episode was called “the saison” (pronounced the French way), meaning the hunting season.
If at that time a bloody civil war did not erupt, it was thanks to Menahem Begin, the Irgun commander, who was
determined to prevent a fratricidal war at any cost. Irgun fighters were ordered not to fire on the Palmah members who
came to kidnap them. (The leader of the Lehi, Nathan Yellin- Mor, decided otherwise. As he told me years later: “I went
to a meeting with the Haganah chiefs. I put a loaded pistol on the table in front of me. I said: ‘Every Lehi fighter
will use his gun to defend himself.’ As a result, not one man of ours was kidnapped.”)
Ben-Gurion played a complex game. At one time he ordered the “saison”, at another he set up the “Hebrew Rebellion
Movement”, which coordinated the actions of his own Haganah, the Irgun and Lehi. He used diplomacy and violence
alternatively, in varying doses. Actually he used the actions of the Irgun and Lehi for his own purposes.
Arafat is now doing exactly the same. When there is hope of achieving a Palestinian state by peaceful means and a
confrontation with the Americans has to be averted, he prevents the actions of the “dissidents”. When this hope fades,
he gives them the green light.
All this is done by mutual understanding. Contrary to his image created in Israel, Arafat is no brutal dictator. On the
contrary, some of his aides accuse him of being too forgiving, not taking revenge on those who betrayed him and not
punishing those who damage the Palestinian cause. He adheres to an ancient Arab tradition: the “Ijmaa”, decision by
general agreement. (The elders of the tribe sit and discuss a controversial issue until every single one of those
present is convinced and supports the proposed decision, making it unanimous.)
That is his way of stopping the violence. The Palestinian people will not commit suicide by civil war. They will be
persuaded to stop the violent struggle only if they see that their national existence can be assured by peaceful means.
And in the meantime, they will collect weapons, for any eventuality.
* Lehi - Hebrew initials of “Fighters for the Freedom of Israel”, called by the British “Stern Gang”
** Irgun – short for National Military Organization, another underground
[2] Ha`aretz, Sunday, January 06, 2002
What Had To Be Proved
By David Grossman
The seizure of the Palestinian arms ship brings great relief because the terrible weaponry will not be aimed at
Israelis, as well as a sense of gratitude toward the soldiers who participated in the mission. However, in the voices of
spokesmen for the Israel Defense Forces, the government and the media there was also an unconcealed note of joy that at
long last "final proof" has been found of the Palestinians criminal, terrible intentions.
Ostensibly, it has become clear beyond a shadow of doubt that "the Palestinian Authority is infested with terror
from head to toe," as Chief of Staff Shaul Mofaz said at the press conference that seemed to be an attempt to bring back
for a moment the glory of the heroic 1950s, if not of Entebbe itself.
But what proof has been obtained here? Proof that if you oppress a people for 35 years, and humiliate its
leaders, and harass its population, and do not give them a glimmer of hope, the members of this people will try to
assert themselves in any way possible? And would any of us behave differently from the Palestinians in such a situation?
And did we behave any differently when for years we were under occupation and tyranny?
Avshalom Feinberg and Yosef Lishansky set out for Cairo to bring money from there to the Nili underground so
that the Jewish community in Palestine could assert itself against the Turks. The fighters of the Haganah, the Lehi and
the Etzel underground movements collected and hid as many weapons as they could, and their splendid sliks (arms caches)
are to this day a symbol of the fight for survival and the longing for liberty, as were the daring weapons acquisition
missions during the British Mandate (which were defined by the British as acts of terror).
When "we" did these things, they were not terrorist in nature. They were legitimate actions of a people fighting
for its life and liberty. When the Palestinians do them, they become "proof" of everything we have been so keen to prove
for years now.
It was embarrassing and irksome to hear the chief of staff scolding the Palestinians for "wasting their money on
acquiring arms instead of seeing to their poor and hungry populace" - the words of a man whose soldiers - who follow the
government's instructions - harass Palestinians morning, noon and night, impoverish them and starve them. No less
embarrassing was the journalistic reporting of the seizure of the ship. The correspondents, excited by the heroism of
our soldiers, unanimously adopted the self-righteous declarations of the chief of staff and the prime minister about the
Palestinians and their murderousness and the terrorism that burns in their breasts like a second nature, almost.
Now come the days of celebration and rejoicing because "we told you so": We told you that the Palestinians do
not keep agreements (while we of course stick to every agreement); we told you that they will do everything possible to
acquire attack weapons (while we aim narcissus stems at the windows of Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat's
window in Ramallah); we told you that there is no one to talk to and therefore we should keep tightening the noose
around their necks (and in this way undoubtedly we will bring about a profound change in the "Palestinian character," so
that they will agree to accept all our conditions); we told you that Arafat is in fact bin Laden (and we are disciples
of the Dalai Lama).
In the attempt to smuggle in the arms by ship, the Palestinians seriously violated the agreements with them and
the IDF must, of course, do all it can to prevent such escalation. Nevertheless, how can an entire people's sense of
judgement be so dulled? How can we repeatedly ignore the big picture and the sharp sense that Israel, in its actions and
in its failures to act, and especially in the malevolent behavior of its prime minister, keeps pushing the Palestinians
to such actions so that time after time they will provide us with that "incontrovertible proof," in which there is in
fact no real benefit to our interests?
These are disgusting days. Days of total befuddlement of the senses. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon will wring
every possible drop of propaganda out of this ship. The media, for the most part, will run panting after him. The
Israeli street, too exhausted and apathetic to think, will adopt any definite conclusion that will solve for it the
internal and moral contradiction in which it lives and reinforce its sense of righteousness, which has been undermined
at its base.
Wo has the strength these days to remember the beginning, the root of the matter, the circumstances, the fact
that what we have here is occupation and oppression, reaction and counter-reaction, a vicious circle and a bloody
circle, two peoples that are becoming corrupt, violent and crazy with despair, a death trap in which we are suffocating
more with every passing day.
Ends