The crisis triggered by the attacks in the United States could be a turning point in the course of the deteriorating Palestinian crisis. After Sharon came to power, the Palestinian ordeal worsened in an unprecedented manner. The extreme right parties support Sharon in the frequent military incursions into Palestinian civilian areas. The number of assassinations of Palestinians is also on the increase.
Certain Western TV channels were very keen to show Palestinian children celebrating the attacks in New York and Washington. The same channels ignored incidents such as Israelis expressing their joy at the American misery after the attack — even after the New York police arrested six Israelis who celebrated the attacks. The Israelis might have been happy because the US would begin relentless punishment of Arabs in general and Palestinians in particular. There was nothing odd in the conduct of the arrested Israelis because they simply expressed the sentiments typical of extremist Israelis who reject peace with the Palestinians. It was natural for them to think that the greatest security crisis in American history would make Americans turn their fury on Arabs.
Palestinian President Arafat, however, condemned the attacks with exceptional speed. It was a wholehearted condemnation, leaving no doubt of its sincerity. He was careful to distance himself from the perpetrators despite Al-Qaeda’s declaration that it undertook the attacks in support of the Palestinians. Arafat’s stand seems to have increased both American and Arab support for him, apart from sparing the Arabs hostile treatment from Western governments.
In politics everything has a price. By adopting a tough stand against the attackers and making serious efforts to keep the Palestinian people public from taking anti- American positions, the issue will get some positive international attention. This will discredit the hard-line Israelis headed by Sharon who reject all peace efforts.
The attacks should trigger efforts to control extremists on both the Israeli and Arab sides. The current international practice is to chase and punish Arab extremists while Israeli extremists are treated with sympathy and consideration. Any war against terrorists and extremists must be directed against both Jewish and Arab extremists alike — not only against the Arabs. The US has already seen the grave danger in allowing the Palestinian issue to be used as a weapon for promoting international terrorism. This is thus an appropriate time to declare that extremists on both sides should be fought and defeated.
The Arab war on extremism should not be half-hearted. Such an attitude would only make the US think that Arab politicians are exploiting Arab terrorists to serve their own ends. We Arabs must never accept the idea that Palestinian sufferings justify terrorist attacks. We do not want to liberate Palestine by disrupting security in other places, no matter how deeply and strongly we support the Palestinians and weep at their decades of suffering. No one should be allowed to exploit the Palestinian issue as a political trump card.
On the other hand, nobody has the right to suggest that all Arabs should be held responsible for the actions of a few claiming to be Arabs. If a few Americans — and most Israelis — point an accusing finger at the entire Arab world after the attacks in the US, we Arabs refuse to accept it. The entire Arab world cannot be held responsible for the acts of a handful of Arabs.
