As violence continues within the uneasy Palestinian Israeli truce, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon yesterday began a two-day visit to Germany and France to try and persuade the Europeans to apply pressure on the Palestinians. The Yiddish word “chutzpah”, meaning “outstanding cheek”, springs to mind.
In the view of most European states, the only pressure being applied on the Palestinians is coming from hard-line Israelis, of whom Sharon is the chief. So why is the man even bothering to fly first to Berlin and then Paris ?
He will doubtless tell the Germans and the French that he is holding out desperately against a gathering hard-line tide within his own government and only if the Palestinians can be persuaded to make concessions by the Europeans, who are important financial supporters, will he be able to resist it. It is unlikely to do him much good however. The Europeans want peace in the Middle East but in the last 20 years, they have come to understand the Palestinian case and realize the true nature of oppressive Zionist policies.
In the aftermath of World War II, as the enormity of the Nazi butchery of Jews, gypsies and anyone else they considered of inferior racial stock became known, Europe hung its head in shame. The new Israeli state exploited that guilt masterfully, presenting itself as a brave little country surrounded by an aggressive and malevolent Arab world. But half a century on, the act no longer plays.
Europeans, not least the Germans have seen how the Israelis have treated the Palestinians, whose land they took. The greatest puzzle has been how a people who had been subject to such terrible oppression themselves could, in their turn, be brutally oppressive to others. The realization of this terrible hypocrisy has robbed Israel of European sympathy.
Sharon’s European trip, therefore, is unlikely to gain him much, except the chance to demonstrate his inflexible political thinking. He will doubtless argue that only a hard-liner could really achieve peace, just as only a tough anti-communist president like Richard Nixon could have opened up dialogue with Communist China. This may have passing appeal but a man must be judged by his actions, not his words. The gunning down of Palestinian youths, the continued covert support of new Zionist settlements on Palestinian land, the use of warplanes against civilian targets and the systematic assassination of leading Palestinians are deeds enough by which to judge him. Bigoted, Zionist, expansionist Israel is finally running out of rope, not just with Europe but finally with the Americans.
Asking the Europeans to ask the Palestinians to cease their protest is absurd. Protest is all that the Palestinians have. It is protest that has focused world attention on their unjust treatment. It is a protest that has forced Zionism onto the back foot and laid bare its cruelty. But powerful though protest may be, it is the Israelis alone who can make the real moves toward a proper settlement and genuine peace in the Middle East.
Asking the Palestinians to cease their protest is to ask them to knuckle down under the Israeli yoke and allow Zionism to continue its theft of Arab land.
