The reason given by Ariel Sharon for not complying with President Bush’s demand that he immediately halt Israel’s rampage in the West Bank — that the “need to prevent harm to civilians” has prolonged it — takes the prize for brazen deceit. How many Palestinians have to die for their own protection? The Israelis themselves say that 200 have been killed in the past 12 days, a figure that presumably includes the 30, among them women and children, whom Palestinian officials say were massacred in Jenin.
Or, perhaps, Sharon means Israeli civilians — for he does not seem to count any Palestinian, from old men down to young babes, as anything other than “terrorists”. How many Palestinians then have to die to save Israeli lives?
The whole sordid attempt at justification is, of course, a cheap lie. He has only one objective: to terrorize the Palestinians into docile servitude or exile. Civilian casualties are for him a minor consideration. But if his thinking is downright malevolent, that of the White House is sheer exasperation.
In their joint statement at the Bush ranch in Texas, the US president and visiting British Prime Minister Tony Blair spoke of the need to reach a just settlement in the Middle East. Admirable sentiments; but “just settlements” cannot be imposed in a vacuum, against the will of those involved.
Secretary of State Colin Powell says that Arab leaders have a role to play. No argument about that. But his idea of what that role is shows that the White House has not begun to understand the problem, for he says that the job of Arab governments is to put pressure on the Palestinians. Is this for real? It is the Palestinians who are being attacked, who have been lied to, time and again, by the Israeli governments determined not to honor promises to withdraw from Palestinian land, who have been goaded beyond endurance.
Maybe if Powell has a final plan, a blueprint for the “just” peace spoken of by his president — one which has to be forced on the Israelis as well — then perhaps the suggestion of “pressurizing” the Palestinians does not sound quite so offensive. But even then, the US needs to remember that any settlement with the Israelis is, first and foremost, something for the Palestinians to decide. It is not something that Arab governments can dictate. The Palestinians have already surrendered 78 percent of their historic homeland; any suggestion that they should be pressured by Arab governments into surrendering any part of the remaining 22 percent is repugnant. The Palestinians will not tolerate such pressure, no matter where it comes from.
That raises one last point that the Americans apparently still do not understand: any solution unacceptable to the broad majority of Palestinians will not work. And, it will not stop the bombers who, by the very nature of their actions, are not interested in compromise or moderation. An imposed unjust deal means that the violence will continue; Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian leadership will be as powerless to prevent it as they are now
The only answer is a just peace — and if it is just, there is no need to talk about pressure.
