There may be cynics who may be tempted to say that, with all the bloodshed that historical Palestine has seen in these past months, yesterday’s the death of another 14 more is no news and that it can’t make the situation any worse. They are wrong. In Palestine, death — any death — is the beginning of a new cycle of bloodletting. Yesterday’s cannot be any different. More Israeli tanks will move into the occupied territories. More young people, ready to die, will move into Israel. And, as desired by hawks, the game of recrimination will start again and any move toward peace will come to a halt.
It is time that both Palestinians and Israelis gave their reflex reaction a second look. It is time spilled blood prompted them to seek an end to it, rather than an increase in it. If Israelis and Palestinians — people, not leaders — refuse to recognize this and act on it, they will condemn themselves — their men, women, children and babies — to continue to die for years and years to come. Human ingenuity has not yet invented the shield that protects you and yours from death and injury while your people go out, be it in uniforms or civvies, to kill and destroy others.
Of the many delusions these past few months have blown away is the one about the power of bombs strapped to bodies or of missiles, rockets and shells fired from F-16s, Apaches or tanks to frighten the other side into capitulation. Every time these are tried, these months have proved, they bring more of the same, not less. It was the folly of killing — of civilians in particular — as a resistance tactic that drew for Hamas, crticism from Nabil Shaath, Palestinian minister for international cooperation. Hamas has a legitimate cause. It represents, along with many others, the refusal of the Palestinians to lie down and be doormats for Israeli jackboots. It is the voice of defiance of a people who have lost a major portion of their patrimony and, in what is left of it, have to seek an occupier’s permission to open their front door and are forced to watch their teenage son or daughter, shot in the street, bleed to death because Israeli tanks won’t allow the child to be taken to a hospital or a doctor to come to see him.
These are experiences that will make any human being to go out and give the same pain to the enemy. That is normal behavior. Moralistic hyperbole from Rose Gardens notwithstanding, that is what even presidents do when their own die for no fault of theirs. They don’t strap explosives to their bodies, true. They don’t have to; they have megaton bombs, missiles and aircraft carriers to do that job. It is much more neater and less messy. And, yes, civilized too: they have told us so.
However, even though presidents do it, targeting civilians is an indefensible crime. In the case of Palestine, it is also counterproductive. It achieves nothing but expose the Palestinian struggle to odium. The struggle of a people for dignity can do without it, should do without it. The only people who benefit from it are Sharon and his hawks. Without civilian blood to demonize it, the Palestinian struggle will be seen by the decent people of the world everywhere for what it is, and will win it approval and backing. No lobby can buy the soul of decent people. It is on them that the Palestinians must pin their hopes.
