Killing with kindness
When will the world tell Israel enough is enough? This week in London a conference on Palestinian reform convened without the participation of PA representatives. Israel will not allow them out of the occupied territories.
IsraelŐs prime minister had no qualms in snubbing requests by the British prime minister and the White House to allow PA officials to go to London and talk about Palestinian reform though night and day Sharon complains that it is Yasser Arafat who is impeding reform.
Even by the standards of previous Israeli governments Sharon displays particular aplomb when it comes to turning a deaf ear to the demands of the international community. It was only in April that Israel defied the Security Council and refused any cooperation with the UN fact-finding mission that was to investigate atrocities committed by Israeli occupation forces in the refugee camp of Jenin. And now, as in April, Israel is again defying the will of the international community and violating international law. And it will continue to do so as long as there is no price to pay.
It will continue to do so as long as it is rewarded for its defiance, as it is regularly rewarded by Washington. In recent months Washington has awarded the Israeli government what can only be described as unprecedented support for its defiance of the international community and international law. At the UN Washington vetoed a draft UN Security Council resolution that had attempted to condemn the murder by Israeli occupation soldiers of international aid workers in the Palestinian occupied territories. And at this very moment, in Washington, US and Israeli officials are discussing a new multi-billion dollar package of military and economic aid, some of which is intended to go towards the financing of yet more illegal Israeli settlements built on occupied Arab land.
And still the US continues to debate the reasons that lie behind the Arab worldŐs growing distaste for things American. One would have thought the reasons were clear enough already.
