		Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 22 - 28 October 1998 Issue No.400
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875		Current issue \| Previous issue \| Site map

An act of frustration

Reacting to the recent attack on a bus station in Beer Al-Saba'a on Monday, of which the principal victims were Israeli soldiers, Foreign Minister Amr Moussa reiterated Egypt's condemnation of all forms of terrorism, but also noted that the incident reflects the mood of frustration that overwhelms the region. The attack was a golden opportunity for Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to convince the US, during the peace talks that have been taking place with Palestinians over the past week, of his claims that a peace agreement depends first and foremost on the Palestinians' willingness to provide maximum security for Israel.

As usual, the fanatically right-wing Netanyahu never paused to wonder what could possibly prompt a 29-year-old father of five to sacrifice his life and carry out the attack. This man has been living under a racist, violent Israeli occupation since the day he was born, probably after Israel confiscated his family's land and turned them into refugees. He may well have been prevented from building a house by Israeli authorities, and if he was able to build a dwelling for himself and his family secretly, it would only have been a matter of time before IDF bulldozers moved in, levelled it, made him pay a fine and forced him to remove the rubble with his own hands.

This Palestinian man, like so many others, may well have been arrested and tortured several times by the Israeli intelligence services. If no members of his own family were killed in confrontations with Israeli army troops, he had no doubt seen many of his friends and neighbours shot down by Israeli "rubber bullets" -- no less lethal than the normal kind. This litany of humiliation and abuse is common currency for the Palestinians living under occupation. The Israeli premier and his war-criminal of a foreign minister do not see the Palestinians as equal human beings with equal rights, and that is why peace will never be reached between Arafat and this kind of government.

Many Egyptians were impressed with the interview President Hosni Mubarak recently gave on an Israeli television channel, mainly because he expressed, in clear and simple words, what people in most Arab countries want: peace for all, justice for all and security for all.