A congratulatory message from a neighbor when you have won a national election is no big news. It is routine — but not when the sender of the message is Israel’s Premier Ariel Sharon and the receiver Mahmoud Abbas, the new Palestinian leader. It is worth noticing, especially when the message expresses the hope to meet “soon.” After so much hopelessness, this must be looked upon as a ray of hope. Simply to have the two governments at the highest level talking directly to each other is an advance. The desire now is that the talks come quickly and form the first step away from bloodshed and violence.
Even for those who want to be positive, however, there remain considerable doubts. Sharon is a fox. To have made the congratulatory call to the new Palestinian leader presents him as eager for dialogue and conciliation. Not to have made such an early contact would have been seen as churlish and negative, especially since President Bush was quick to send his own good wishes to Abbas.
Israel’s well-known ruse has always been to control the agenda. Thus although it is occupying Palestine with quite ruthless force and establishing Zionist settlements on land that it does not own, time and again it manages to present itself as the injured party. The intifada as well as the armed struggle against the occupation is presented to the outside world as terrorism and the outside world, especially the Americans, allow this distortion of reality. Palestinian suicide bombers who destroy innocent Israeli lives are terrorists but Israeli troops and pilots who kill and destroy within Palestine are the good guys, bravely seeking to fight against wicked insurgents. The key piece of the falsified Israeli agenda is that Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza is legal and that it is therefore within its rights to do all that it deems necessary to crush resistance to its hated military presence. Sharon is busy presenting the withdrawal of Israeli troops and settlers from Gaza as a generous and statesmanlike gesture — for which he wishes to be rewarded by legitimizing the Israeli occupation of key areas of the West Bank and of East Jerusalem.
The great failure of the Palestinians has been their inability to persuade the international community that they are in fact the wronged parties. Simply setting out the Palestinian case, time after time, has proved inadequate. Meanwhile the Israeli propaganda machine is outstandingly smooth. It has different publicity officials who broadcast the Zionist line to the international community in the accents and inflexions of the countries from which they emigrated. Its killers wear uniforms and are very occasionally put on trial for abuses — which shows how civilized Israel is. Palestinian suicide bombers, however, wear no uniforms and no militant is ever charged with killing an Israeli.
Much has already been written about the challenges facing Abbas and the fragility and brevity of the honeymoon period he will enjoy with Palestinian extremists. Few though have focused on the immense presentational task that the new Palestinian leader faces. A radical overhaul is urgently needed.
