It is wrong to assume that the current loss of lives in Israel as a result of recent Palestinian attacks will shake Sharon’s extremist government. Nor does the dispute between Labor and Likud hint at the imminent fall of the government. On the other hand, Israel’s secret design is to gain time to torpedo the peace efforts.
The killings and injuries of Jews are the price for destabilizing Palestine and destroying the Palestinian Authority. Sharon’s current policies are reminiscent of Zionist terrorist acts before the founding of Israel. Zionist terrorists organized attacks on Jews living peacefully among Arabs with the sole aim of frightening them and creating a feeling that they had no security except in a Jewish state. The Zionists knew that a few Jews would be victims in such attacks. When it was seen that most Iraqi Jews had no plans to move to Israel, the Zionists blew up a Jewish-run cafe there and killed a number of its Jewish customers. Simultaneously the Israeli media stepped up a campaign stressing that Jews had no security except in Israel.
Sharon’s current plan is certainly to destroy every effort for peace. He knows well that attacks on Palestinians will provoke them to attack Jews and some Jews will be killed. But he does not see it as too high a price for Israeli occupation. To lure Palestinians into attacking Israeli civilians was Sharon’s motive in assassinating Mahmood Abu Hanoud, the day before he was scheduled to leave for Washington. This was followed by the assassination of Abu Ali Mustafa, secretary-general of the Popular Front for Liberation of Palestine. Matters were going as Sharon planned.
During his visit to Washington Sharon persuaded the pro-Israeli American media to link the war against terrorism in Afghanistan and Israeli military action against what he called Palestinian terrorism. It is unfortunate that the American administration and public accepted Sharon’s arguments. In this way Sharon plans to destroy Arafat’s internal support. Sharon might destroy the Palestinian economy on one hand and, on the other, apply pressure on Arafat to turn over the intifada leaders.
While Israel has killed Palestinians in large numbers, it has also intensified its propaganda that the intifada is terrorism and was not a people struggling for their independence. Why then was the American struggle against the British described as a war for independence? The European and American public should understand that the Palestinians have a legal right to resist because they are under military occupation. International law and the UN Charter approve the right of a people to resist occupation. In fact, Sharon is guilty of state terrorism and not self-defense as he claims. The international community should understand this and not support blindly whatever Israel chooses to do.
In this context, I remember part of a speech made in 1789 by Benjamin Franklin, one of America’s founders: "Both moral standards and commercial integrity fall wherever Jews live. They prefer to stay in ghettos, never integrating into the mainstream. They are motivated by a feeling of persecution which makes them choke other people economically — as they did in Spain and Portugal. If the Jews are not driven away, after 100 years our grandchildren will find it hard to feed themselves. Thus I warn you that if you do not drive the Jews away, your children will curse you in your graves. The Jews will never be influenced by our thoughts even if they live among us for decades. They are the greatest danger to which the United States is exposed."
