18 - 24 April 2002
Issue No.582
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 18 - 24 April 2002 Issue No.582 |
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When a planet goes to war
The super-powered, multi-phased campaign that extends from Afghanistan to Palestine is just the other face of globalisation, argues Ahmed Sidqi Al-Dajani*
I am still trying to make sense of the events in Palestine, and perhaps find answers to a number of questions. The first pertains to the role Zionist colonialism has assumed in this conflict.
This war is being waged by the repressive forces of globalisation, led by the US government, against those who resist repression and seek a world order based on justice. Its aim is to subjugate and silence the opponents of US-style globalisation. Washington has chosen to call its quest a "war against terror," and describes any struggle against injustice as terror. Its media machine is working double time to popularise this claim.
US President George W Bush launched the war against terror on 7 October 2001 (with Tony Blair in a key supporting role), just weeks after the 11 September attacks. The United States made every possible effort to put together an international coalition. Its war on the Afghanistan front aimed to bring down the Taliban government and liquidate Bin Laden's Al-Qa'eda. The US government then allowed its Zionist colonialist base to go into action on the Palestine front, deploying brute force against the Al-Aqsa Intifada.
The United States says openly that it is fighting all those who oppose the injustice inflicted by globalisation, whom it calls terrorists, wherever they may be. Islamic societies, however, are its favourite targets. NATO, the military arm of globalisation, issued a statement on 12 February 1992, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, in which it declared communism dead and designated Islam as the next enemy. Washington has thus waged a campaign to vilify Islam, a religion that sets great store by the fight against injustice and sanctions martyrdom for the cause of justice. Resistance has proved effective, however.
During the first five months of the war for globalisation, the US and its UK allies violated international law in a variety of ways pertaining to the way the war was declared, hostilities were conducted, and civilians and POWs were treated. George W Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, and Tony Blair oversaw these operations. Their opposite numbers in the colonial Zionist base did the same: Sharon, Ben-Eliezer, Peres, and Mofaz. The United States managed to dismantle the Taliban, deal painful blows to Al-Qa'eda and set up an interim government in Afghanistan. The Americans, however, proved unable to arrest Mullah Omar or Bin Laden. Resistance continued and took on new forms. On the Palestinian front, the colonial Zionists have so far failed to crush the Intifada.
On 11 March, Bush declared that the war's second stage was beginning. In a speech marking the anniversary of his first year in office, he had described Iraq, Iran, and North Korea as an "axis of evil." He also applied the label "terrorist organisations" to a number of groups resisting Israeli occupation: Hizbullah, Hamas, and Jihad.
The US president made clear his intention to strike Iraq, then sent Dick Cheney on a tour of our region to plan the attack. On 21 March, Cheney went home with a battle plan. The primary offensive was assigned to colonial Zionism. Bush and Sharon, both in office since early 2001, have thus taken to new heights the strategic alliance forged by Reagan and Begin in the 1980s.
Sharon's government has consistently voiced its contempt for the Palestinian Authority and its elected president. Sharon has made it clear that he wants to annex most of the West Bank. Bush, on the other hand, has floated a certain US "vision" of a Palestinian state that guarantees Israel's security. Since it began its war, the Bush administration has repeatedly declared that Palestinian struggle against Israeli occupation is nothing but "terror" and that the United States "understands" Israel's acts of "self-defence." The Zionists, meanwhile, maintain that their crimes are part of the "war against terror."
In the course of this war, the US president has won a broad mandate to use force against any country, group, or individual suspected of involvement in terror. He has also received a budget of $40 billion to help him in this task. After forming the Office for Homeland Security, Bush passed a number of executive decisions restricting civil freedoms on the grounds of emergency. Congress passed national laws restricting basic freedoms for four years. The measures gave rise to controversy over The Emergence of the Fascist American Theocratic State, as John Stanton and Wayne Madsen titled their recent book. Ohio deputy Dennis Kucinich wrote "a prayer for America," a poetic speech in which he lamented the restrictions on civil liberties in the country.
The Israeli incursion began on 29 March. Two days later, Sharon announced "an all- out war against terror," and described Arafat as the "enemy" of Israel. The Israeli prime minister also asserted that Israel belongs to the West and the free world. On 30 March, the newspaper Yediot Aharonot cited a military commentator as saying that the aim of the offensive was to reoccupy Palestinian towns and stay there. The first stage of the offensive would take a week, during which the Israeli army was to destroy the infrastructure of the Palestinian Authority and conduct house-to-house arrests. Israeli reservists would then be called up. In the second week, Israel would finish off the Palestinian Authority and find someone to replace Arafat, assume local command, and repress the Islamic opposition.
At the start of the incursion, Colin Powell warned it would be impossible to conduct political talks before the violence ended. On the seventh day of the reinvasion, Bush, sensing the risk of a full-scale regional war, called for an Israeli withdrawal from Palestinian towns. Sharon had another seven days during which to destroy Palestinian towns and camps. For the first time, Bush then referred to a political track to be pursued in tandem with the security track. Some commentators considered this a strategic shift. They noted that, at Easter, Bush had expressed understanding for Israel's actions, and demanded that Arafat "do more to stop the terror." Bush was thinking in security terms when he sent General Zinni to the region. The shift came about because of continued Palestinian resistance.
Powell, at any rate, arrived in Israel after a week of atrocities against the Palestinians. The Israelis had used US-made armoured carriers and planes, as well as internationally banned weapons, in the reinvasion. According to Israeli security officials, Powell visited the northern borders of the Israeli entity on 12 April. The US is especially interested in Israeli security because it wants its Zionist base to remain prepared for possible action in the region against such countries as Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Iran.
Powell repeated Israel's mantra of self- defence, giving Israel a green light to continue its West Bank incursions. The US secretary of state, however, referred in passing to the strategic risks inherent in the ongoing conflict, cautioning that Israel should understand the long-term consequences of its military campaign. He had made similar remarks in Morocco at the beginning of his trip. There, he spoke of "the impact of the events" on US strategic interests in the region.
What exactly do the US administration and Sharon's government hope to accomplish in the battle now raging on the Palestine front? Their first aim is to destroy Palestinian resistance to Zionist colonialism and, thus, pave the way for a racist solution to the problem of Palestine. Sharon once stated this very clearly: "Unless the Palestinians feel defeated, it will be impossible to return to the negotiating table. Once they are defeated, they will have to accept what we offer them."
The second aim is to prepare for the next battle: the strikes against Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Lebanon. The Zionist colonial base is to play a main role in these strikes. The third aim is to intimidate Arab and Muslim countries and prepare them for the new regional order, in which the Israeli entity will be boss.
A few days spent observing the Palestinian front of the war for globalisation make at least one thing clear. Sharon and Bush are not succeeding. Those who oppose globalisation should take note. The Palestinians' heroic resistance has thwarted Bush and Sharon. The Palestinians, furthermore, can draw on the support of anti-globalisation movements inside and outside the Arab and Islamic world. The Palestinian resistance has shaken colonial Zionism. And inside the United States, civil society is growing uneasy at the atrocities US taxpayers are funding. The battle raging in Palestine has exposed the ugliness of this war and its lack of any moral justification.
*The writer is a veteran Palestinian scholar and political activist.
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