Is the Middle East moving toward a real shooting war? Those who used to dismiss such speculations as hyperbole are not so sure now. Many of them have now begun to discuss it as a likely scenario. What changed their minds is the perception that Israel is determined to take its present confrontation beyond the borders of Palestine to the wider Arab and Muslim world. The ceremony laying the first stone for a new Jewish temple to be built where Al-Aqsa stands now can have no other meaning. If assassinations, house demolitions and random killings will not give Israel the excuse to conquer the “Biblical land”, its leaders know how to get that excuse.
It is now led by a man who knows how to make provocation pay. Ariel Sharon is in the prime minister’s chair because he knew how to use it to great profit. Last September, when he paid a visit to Al-Haram Al-Sharif with a big military contingent in tow, he was a man with no chance of ever being admitted to decent company, leave alone becoming prime minister. He was a war criminal, not only in the eyes of the world, but also of Israel. After the massacre in Lebanon, Israel’s own court of inquiry had judged him a psychopath too dangerous to be trusted with any sort power. His foray to the Al-Aqsa compound changed all that.
So where does it leave us all, not only Palestinians and Israelis or Arabs and Muslims, but the whole world? A war is not going to leave anybody unscathed. All of us, big and small, will be wounded, possibly even fatally. So, it is time for those who can stop the madness to get their act together. Shibboleths such as “Israelis and Palestinians should build trust” and “Arafat should crack down on violence” have had their day. It is time to get down to brass tacks.
The European Union went to the heart of the matter when it said of the stone-laying ceremony, as quoted by its Middle East envoy Miguel Angel Moratinos, that this “was not the right time to do his kind of symbolic act at all.” His appeal to Israel to avoid any provocative act that could stoke passions carried wisdom - but no clout. If it is to have clout, it must come from the United States who so far has reacted to provocations with rewards for the provoker and punishment for the victim.
It sounded quite “superpower-like” for US Secretary of State Colin Powell to come to the region on June 13 and prescribe the remedy for the trouble: seven violence-free days, followed by a six-week cooling off period, and then several months of confidence-building measures. Obviously, the ex-general missed the small detail that the ones who had to live by the strict regimen were not military cadets in Annapolis but a bunch of vicious colonizers and a desperate people fighting dispossession.
Instead of dispensing such lofty theories, the United States must move back to the ground. The first thing is to stop the violence. And ending violence must come from the side that started it. And before sticking the label of terrorist on anybody, an attempt should be made to find out who is guilty of terrorism. The best way to do that is to have impartial observers posted in the scene of violence. And, if any of the parties object to the presence of observers, it wouldn’t need an Einstein to figure out who the terrorist is.
The choice is between loyalty to campaign contributions and concern for world peace. For some, it may be quite tough.
