The action that took place in Jericho on Tuesday was abhorrent, first of all, because it was an election propaganda gimmick. In this action, three people were killed. Many more lives, Palestinian and Israeli, were put at risk.
The horrible cynicism of the decision was plain for all to see. Even the voters noticed it: In a public opinion poll two days later, 47 percent said that the decision was influenced by electoral considerations, only 49 percent thought otherwise.
This is not the first time for Ehud Olmert to walk over dead bodies on his way to power. As mayor of Jerusalem, he pushed for the opening of a tunnel in the area of the Muslim shrines, causing (as expected) dozens of casualties.
Olmert had a problem. His party was slowly sinking in the polls. He was in urgent need of a military action that would provide him with the laurels of a tough military commander, and would also help him shake off the nickname attached to him by the Likud: Smolmert. (Smol, in Hebrew, means left.) The trick paid off. In the same poll, 20.7 percent of the voters said that the Jericho action persuaded them to vote for Kadima, or, at least, reinforced their decision to do so.
In general, one should beware of a civilian politician who succeeds a leader crowned with military laurels. It is enough to mention the classic case of Anthony Eden, the heir of Winston Churchill, who initiated the Suez war of October 1956.
The Jericho affair is incredibly similar: The British and the Americans pretended to fear for the safety of their monitors, which were stationed in Jericho according to an agreement which we shall touch upon later. They told Mahmoud Abbas that they might withdraw them. At a time secretly agreed upon with the Israeli prime minister, the British and American monitors went out and the Israeli Army went in. Preparations for the action had been going on for weeks. Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz can be proud of this victory. In the past, he became famous for saying that all he feels is a slight bump on his wing when he drops a bomb on a civilian neighborhood, even if women and children are also killed. After that he sleeps well, he said. Now he has won real glory: With the help of dozens of tanks, gunships and heavy bulldozers he has succeeded in capturing six unarmed prisoners..
In the course of the action, Halutz’ soldiers created a disgusting picture that has sullied the image of the Israeli Army in the eyes of the hundreds of millions who saw it on their screens. They ordered the Palestinian policemen and prisoners to take their clothes off, and then let them be photographed, again and again — and again and again — in their underpants.
The Israeli media had a ball. Not just a ball, they went gaga for sheer joy. They contributed their special part to the loathsome event and stood to attention behind the government. Like a flock of parrots, unanimously repeating the mendacious official version.
It was a festival of brain-washing. The “Murderers of Ze’evi” have been captured! It was our national duty! We could not rest until they fell into our hands, dead or alive!
These three words — “Murderers of Ze’evi” — turned into a mantra. They were repeated endlessly on radio and television, and appeared in the printed newspapers (all of them!) and the speeches of the politicians (all of them!). That’s how it is: Israelis are “murdered”, Palestinians are “eliminated”.
Why, for Gods sake? Rehavam Zee’vi, a Cabinet minister at the time, preached day and night about “transfer” — the euphemism for driving the Palestinians out of Palestine. Compared to him, Jean-Marie le Pen in France and Joerg Haider in Austria are bleeding-heart liberals. His targeted killing is no different from the targeted killing of Sheik Ahmed Yassin and scores of other Palestinian leaders, including Abu-Ali Mustafa, the chief of the Popular Front, who was allowed by Israel to return from Syria to the Palestinian territories after Oslo.
This is part of the endless chain of violence: The Israeli Army killed Abu-Ali Mustafa. He was succeeded by Ahmed Saadat, who, according to the Israeli security service, ordered the killing of Rehavam Ze’evi in revenge, and whose capture was the aim of the Jericho action. And so it goes on.
I oppose all murders. But whoever spills the blood of a Palestinian leader cannot complain about the shedding of the blood of an Israeli one.
There is still another side to the affair, which is no less disgusting: The attitude toward the keeping of agreements.
Saadat and his colleagues were held in Jericho in accordance with an agreement signed by Israel. On the strength of it, they left the Mukata’a in Ramallah, during the siege on Arafat, and entered the Palestinian jail in Jericho. The US and the UK guaranteed their safety and undertook to monitor their imprisonment.
What has happened now in Jericho is a blatant breach of the agreement. Who will sign an agreement with us, knowing that it obligates only him? How can Israel convincingly demand that the Hamas leaders “accept all the agreements” signed by the Palestinian Authority?
Many Israelis believe that the Jericho action was a brilliant exercise. I found it simply loathsome.
