When hate takes a shape

The Sinai attacks, said newspapers, prove that violence by Israel against the Palestinians breeds contempt, writes Rasha Saad

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The big question posed by analysts after the Sinai attacks was who was responsible. Nearly all journalists ruled out the involvement of Palestinian groups. Those responsible included perhaps Al- Qaeda or another Islamist group which saw in the Israeli massacres against the Palestinians a reason for revenge. Many writers believed the attacks will not be the last and that they mark a shift in that the conflict between the Palestinians and Israelis has now been taken outside the occupied territories.

Outspoken Palestinian Editor-in-Chief of the London-based Al-Quds Al-Arabi Abdul-Bari Atwan wrote that the Taba and Nuweiba attacks and the killing of the British hostage Kenneth Bigley in Iraq prove that the invasion of Iraq and the overthrowing of the fundamentalist Taliban regime in Kabul did not make the world a safer place.

"Terrorism as defined by the US has escalated terribly and the number of its victims is increasing rapidly. This fact proves that the war against terrorism launched by Bush and which cost more than $200 billion up till now did not achieve any marked success. On the contrary, it backfired."

Atwan ruled out Hamas as being behind the attacks for two reasons: it is keen to present itself as a political movement which is hoping to have a role in the event a Palestinian state is established. If so, losing Egypt will put an end to those ambitions. Secondly, Hamas never carried out attacks against Israel outside occupied Palestinian territories nor in fact does it have the ability to carry out such a huge attack anywhere.

Accordingly, Atwan wrote that the attacks carry the fingerprints of Al-Qaeda and resemble in planning and execution previous operations like the bombing of the Egyptian Embassy in Islamabad in 1996 and the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar Es-Salam in 1998, among other operations. He said he believed that if there appeared evidence that Al-Qaeda was behind the attacks then the group, by carrying out this operation, meant to counter accusations that it stops short when it comes to attacking Israeli targets. At the same time it "seeks to boost its popularity among millions in the Arab world who are frustrated by their hobbled regimes and their submission to US- Israeli humiliation in Palestine and Iraq."

Thus Atwan warns that the Israeli government, "which refused any talks with Arafat and refused to recognise Hamas, labelling it a terrorist and extremist group, will now have to deal with Al- Qaeda which is more extremist, and could possibly penetrate Palestinian society."

The Lebanese An-Nahar did not find the question of who did it to be crucial. "Be it Al-Qaeda or some unknown group, the attacks hit a sensitive spot in Israel," wrote An-Nahar 's editorial. It added that Israel could not blame Egypt for what might be perceived as a security failure because Tel Aviv itself failed in halting resistance operations inside Israel. The paper said the Taba attacks marked a change in the battlefield and thus Tel Aviv "might find itself in a state of war with powers that are scattered around the globe."

An-Nahar believed that "peace is a necessity for Israel, not an option" because Taba will not be the last operation against the Israelis. In addition, the Palestinians are getting less desperate now as successive generations are brought up at or near countless scenes of death and despair.

Ahmed Omarabi wrote in the UAE newspaper Al-Bayan that the attacks are "a message to the Israeli leaders and their American allies that they cannot go on forever provoking Islamic nations without expecting a reaction."

The attacks, according to Omarabi, caused the re-emergence of the debate over the attacks on innocent civilians. "It is a debate because the international community, which issues statements of condemnations whenever an Israeli or American civilian is killed, stands silent whenever the civilian victims are Muslims. We never hear condemnation against those who kill Muslims in Palestine, Iraq or Afghanistan."

Omarabi also wrote that international law legitimises the use of force by any nation whose land is under occupation. "If the US and Israel are denying the Iraqis and Palestinians this legal right then the responsibility of what happened in Taba lies with them," he wrote.

"As long as these two partners are in agreement in continuing the bloody oppression against the Iraqis and Palestinians, they have to expect that exaggeration in the action provokes exaggeration in the reaction," concluded Omarabi.

In its editorial, "Who would sympathise with Israel?" Saudi Arabia's Al-Jazeera wrote that the Taba attacks coincided with the Israeli massacres against the Palestinians in Gaza and amidst widescale denunciation of the atrocities being committed by Israel. It also happened amidst rage against the US veto of the UN Security Council draft resolution demanding Israel to halt its attacks on innocent people and to pull its troops out from the north of Gaza. According to the paper international anger at Israel is not new but one that has never been translated into action as a result of America's historical protection of Israel even as it commits the wildest of crimes. "And hence Israel will not find anyone to sympathise with it if it receives blows from anywhere in the world because it acts in arrogance, puts itself above the law and international codes of conduct and does not abide by dozens of Security Council resolutions in relation to the Palestinian cause."

The paper believes the Taba attacks are "the repercussions of these stupid Israeli policies and the blind US support for them".

The Qatari Al-Watan newspaper, however, ruled out the Sinai bomb blasts as being a case of revenge for Israel's Gaza offensive or the US Security Council veto. "Linking the Taba attacks to the Israeli operation in Gaza and the US veto is a bit of an exaggeration especially when you take into consideration that such operations need a long time to prepare. Definitely they were planned well before 28 September, the date marking the start of the Israeli operations in Gaza." Al-Watan sees in what happened an extension of a scheme to get at Israelis and Americans wherever they are rather than to avenge the Israeli assault on Gaza.

The Jordanian Ad-Dostour newspaper wrote that what happened in Taba is not a Palestinian act as the Israelis themselves admit, despite the crimes of genocide being committed by the Israeli army in Gaza and the West Bank and its indifference to international calls for a halt to the siege. "This means that the Sinai attacks might have come from parties not directly involved in the conflict," Ad-Dostour wrote.