Wagnerian tactics
The smell of burning cities is Sharon's favourite aroma, but the Palestinian response worries Azmi Bishara
On 20 October, Gaza came under 13 hours of aerial bombardment which left 14 Palestinians dead and over 100 wounded. Israel is acting as if Gaza were a military fortress. If we are to believe Israeli officials, things will only get worse. The attack on Gaza took place on the same day Sharon was delivering the government's statement to the Knesset. In a gruesome kind of symmetry, the sound of bombardment was Sharon's own "special effects". Bombs put his words into action.
Sharon's recipe for dealing with the Palestinians is simple: if force does not work, use more force. Sharon has asked the Israelis to be patient in this difficult time of waiting. He refers to this time with the exact same wording (tekufat hehmetna) the Israelis used for the period preceding the 1967 war. These were the months in which the Israeli public lived in what is usually portrayed as painful anticipation, waiting to see who would start the war first. Israel had just provoked Egypt and Syria, to get them into a war that Israel willed and planned. The two countries fell into the trap soon enough, with a flurry of rhetoric and ill-preparation. Israel was given the justification it needed for the most spectacular preemptive strike in the second half of the 20th century. Sharon is using this "difficult period of waiting" to make a certain point. I don't know how purposeful this is, and I am not sure how many have caught on to its historical resonance. But I am willing to bet that Sharon's use of words was more intentional than incidental, for it accurately underlines the current political mood.
It was not a coincidence that Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz made repeated statements all last week questioning the ability of the new Palestinian government to survive. Israel is threatening the new Palestinian government, even while stating the conditions under which it would accept that government as a partner. Sharon has condescendingly declared that he would make concessions to the new Palestinian government if the latter were to adopt a firm stand on terror. How thrilling! Still, the ongoing confrontation is between Israel and the resistance factions, not the government. The Israeli leadership has made a decision and is going ahead with it, regardless of how its actions may embarrass the Palestinian government.
The Israeli government is moving towards an all-out confrontation with the resistance factions and the society that aids and abets them. It is actually in the middle of this confrontation -- racing against time and US elections, and in defiance of human rights and legal conventions. The Israeli government is not faced with an army, nor with a unified -- not even an organised -- national movement of any form. Israel is bombarding residential areas, a society under siege: a society in which the politicians and fighters are not even meeting. This is no conventional confrontation. Israel has simply decided to back its political intentions with a criminal effort in order to soften Palestinian resolve. The current bombardment aims solely at breaking the will of the Palestinians.
Palestinian politicians -- the negotiators, so to speak -- are busy discussing the powers of the interior minister. Fatah leaders are conducting their own debate. A part of the government has opted for a settlement agreement with part of the Israeli opposition. The US is maintaining simultaneous contact with various sections of the Palestinian leadership, no matter that Israel is bombarding Palestinians and sealing off passage, and no matter that Washington fires off a barrage of vetoes in Israel's favour. Israel presses ahead with its crackdown on the resistance just as the Palestinians and Americans are talking. The Palestinians are competing to win the US trust, while Israel is bombarding Gaza and besieging Palestinian towns. There is nothing wrong, generally speaking, in having a dialogue with the Americans. But what we have now is not a coherent dialogue conducted by a national liberation movement, but a dialogue between the Americans and the cacophonous ambitions of the Palestinian leadership.
Israel's recent bombardment of Gaza came only a day after a Palestinian operation against an Israeli patrol in Ein Yabroud. The aim is to pressure the Palestinians -- to make them lose hope in the face of Israeli force, and more force. The instinctive reaction of any community to such a bombardment is to close ranks, put its house in order, and organise a response. But in Arab and Palestinian political tradition, things do not happen exactly this way. We have a concept of "condemnation" that is just as unrelated to reality as our concept of "support". We hear condemnations -- no doubt sincere -- of the bombardment in Gaza, and this is all. Nothing is being done about the atrocities, just as nothing was done when Jenin was overrun. Condemnation is not action, and the people saluting the resistance on satellite TV networks themselves disagree with the resistance in both politics and rhetoric. Interestingly enough, the Arab media does not seem to notice the contradictions. For some reason, Arab media is not interested in comparing words with deeds, not even yesterday's words with those of today. Words have no relation to deeds, nor rhetoric to policy, nor morals to reality.
Israel's bombardment was just as tragic as treacherous. It was the background music to Sharon's speech, a taste of the Wagnerian soundtrack to Coppola's Apocalypse Now -- a whiff of napalm in the cool of the morning, so to speak. Deafening as it was, the sound of crashing bombs should not distract us from the criminal hints of Sharon's spoken words: "I am confident that we will succeed in this policy if we have the patience, resolve and endurance. We shall achieve the latent hope in the programme and attain a radical political solution that will bring to us and the Palestinians security and tranquility. The road of peace is long and hard, and strewn with obstacles, but we should not lose hope. Based on available information, I reckon that there is a real possibility of making a breakthrough in the next few month and of moving once again towards a settlement." (Knesset records, 20 October)
Sharon has toned down his language about Ahmed Qurei's government. Now, he accuses Arafat of trying to obstruct Qurei as he had obstructed Mahmoud Abbas (or so Sharon claimed). Sharon now wants Arafat to be excluded from the political scene, which suggests, at least, that he has given up on assassinating him. He also acknowledged the problems of deporting him (Jerusalem Post, 17 October).
Is Sharon lying yet again, or is there an Oslo-style deal in the offing, with conditions acceptable to Sharon? There are people in the current Palestinian government who believe in direct and secret contacts with Israel, but it is hard to find one Palestinian who is willing to accept Sharon's -- even transitional -- terms for a settlement.
In his Knesset speech, Sharon said, "in addition to our policy of offence, we shall continue building the wall as a barrier against terror." Is there a new deal in the offing? And how many Palestinians will be killed so as to prepare the Palestinian people for that deal? We have no idea. The circumstances call for an agreement on the methods of steadfastness, but the Palestinian scene is suffering a dichotomy between confrontation and settlement, resistance and politics.
Sharon did not mention Syria in his speech. Responding to a question from the Israeli radio about the continued escalation against Syria, Sharon was cryptic. There are matters we don't talk about, he said. This response cannot bode well, for it is unusual to avoid reference to Syria in an official seasonal address. The world has condemned Israel's attack on Syria, which is good. Syrian land has been under occupation since 1967 and the occupying country, which has nuclear weapons, is the one attacking the country under occupation. Yet, the United States is backing the aggression, because it aims to undermine the Syrian state and government.
The international community favours reduced tensions in the region following the recent war on Iraq. The Arabs should turn this to their advantage, but this is not going to happen unless there is a true Arab force willing to warn Israel of the grave consequences of repeating its attacks on Syria. The Arab world does not tolerate Israel acting as if it were America, and it has to make that point clear to both the Americans and the Israelis. Not even Washington's Arab friends -- who let the US get away with a lot -- can humour Israel in a similar fashion. Neither Israel's stature nor that of the Arab world could allow this to happen.
Al-Ahram Weekly Online : 6 - 12 November 2003 (Issue No. 663)
Located at: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2003/663/op2.htm