News reports on Israel and the Palestinians

http://www.wrmea.com/archives/may2002/0205006.html#Israel

Special Report

The Only Truth About Jenin Is the Israeli Cover-Up

By Mouin Rabbani

On the morning of Wednesday, April 10, reports began to emerge from the
Jenin refugee camp in the extreme north of the Israeli-occupied West Bank
that its Palestinian defenders had run out of ammunition and were thus no
longer able to resist the Israeli offensive that began on April 2. While this
appeared to put a conclusion to the most furious battle to be waged on
Palestinian soil since 1948, subsequent developments indicated otherwise. As
night fell, one of the camp’s few remaining field commanders issued a
dramatic, live appeal to the world through the Qatari Al-Jazeera television
network, in which he stated that the Israeli military was summarily executing
defenseless fighters as it advanced and was refusing to accept the surrender
of those still alive. Calling for immediate intervention by the international
community and human rights organizations, he concluded by asking viewers to
read the Fatiha (the opening chapter of the Qur’an) for his and his comrades’
souls.

The claim of yet more atrocities being perpetrated by the Israeli military in
Jenin was considered sufficiently credible that within an hour the
secretary-general of the Lebanese Hezbollah organization, Hasan Nasrallah,
offered to release an Israeli colonel it has held since October 2000 if Israel
would cease its assault on the camp and guarantee the safety of those
remaining within it. Forceful interventions by the leading Israeli human rights
organization B’Tselem, Arab members of the Israeli parliament, and others
threatening the possibility of severe judicial repercussions against Israeli Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon, Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, Chief of Staff
Shaul Mofaz and others directly involved in the planning and execution of the
Jenin operation appear to have saved a number of those most at risk, and the
orderly surrender of several dozen fighters was reported by the International
Committee of the Red Cross later that night.

Yet, as of the morning of April 12, more than 48 hours after the battle for
Jenin refugee camp apparently ended, the camp remains strictly off limits to
outsiders by virtue of one of the most tightly enforced exclusion zones in
Israeli history, and the sounds of gunfire continue to be heard from within.
Virtually every journalist, human rights worker, and humanitarian relief official
has concluded this is because Israel has perpetrated a major atrocity in the
camp and is currently busy removing the evidence.

The city of Jenin has been a thorn in Israel’s side since before the
establishment of the Jewish state. In the 1930s, its environs served as a base
for the radical Syrian cleric Izz-al-Din Qassam, from whom the military wing
of the Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, takes its name, and whose
death in a firefight with British troops in November 1935 served as a prelude
for the 1936-1939 Arab Revolt. During the 1948 war, Jenin was the only
Palestinian city Israeli forces initially managed to conquer but were
subsequently expelled from, in this case by an Iraqi expeditionary force.
During the first Palestinian uprising (1987-1993) the Jenin district was the
most active arena for paramilitary groupings such as the Palestine National
Liberation Movement (Fatah) Black Panthers and the Popular Front for the
Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) Red Eagles. And during the current uprising
which commenced in September 2000, and with the increasingly tenuous
control exercised in the northern West Bank by the Palestinian Authority
(PA), militias such as the Fatah-linked Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, the
Izz-al-Din Al-Qassam Brigades of Hamas, and Islamic Jihad’s Jerusalem
Brigades have been operating within Jenin virtually at will. As has often been
noted, a good portion of Palestinian suicide bombers have emerged from
Jenin refugee camp as well. While the endemic poverty of the northern West
Bank may explain this in part, it is primarily a function of location; Jenin is
close to the boundary with Israel and, despite unprecedented Israeli measures
to seal this off, its militants have had little trouble infiltrating proximate cities
such as Netanya and Haifa.

Situated on a lot of approximately one square kilometer, most of Jenin
camp’s 15,000 residents originate from the city of Haifa and its surrounding
villages, from which they were forcibly expelled during the 1948 war.
Located within the largest of the West Bank’s autonomous enclaves
established pursuant to the Oslo agreements, the camp has been the object of
repeated Israeli attempts to re-occupy it since the Sharon government came
to power in March 2001. In each instance Israeli forces were repulsed,
although the camp was eventually occupied for several days in March 2001 in
the context of Israel’s “Operation Journey of Colors”; after initially offering
resistance, its defenders slipped out en masse in order to conserve their
forces and fight another day.

With Sharon’s determination to eliminate the Palestinian leadership, destroy
the PA, and dismantle the Palestinian national movement as represented by its
various factions, it was obvious this fight would come sooner rather than later.
And indeed, assured of full support for such a venture by the Bush
administration, Sharon grabbed his opportunity immediately after the March
27 suicide bombing by Hamas of a Netanya hotel which killed 27 Israelis
attending a Passover seder.

The ferocity of “Operation Defensive Shield,” which unfolded within 24
hours, could hardly have come as a surprise. The architect of the 1982
invasion of Lebanon and the September 1982 Sabra-Shatila refugee camps
massacre, Sharon’s record of deliberate and indiscriminate attacks against
civilians stretches back to at least the early 1950s when he commanded Unit
101, notorious for “reprisal raids” against West Bank villages. The records of
Foreign Minister Shimon Peres (e.g., the deliberate 1996 shelling of a U.N.
camp full of Lebanese and Palestinian refugees in southern Lebanon’s Qana,
killing over a hundred), Ben-Eliezer, and Mofaz also are distinguished in this
regard. In the more immediate background, the extraordinary savagery of
Operation Journey of Colors in February-March 2002, which left some 200
Palestinians dead and included massacres in the West Bank’s Tulkarm
refugee camp as well as in the Jabalya refugee camp and the village of
Khuza’a in the Gaza Strip, also served as a harbinger of things to come.

Furthermore, on the eve of Operation Defensive Shield, a senior Israeli
military officer was quoted by the Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahranot as
stating that in view of the character of the upcoming Israeli operation, the Nazi
campaign to subdue the Warsaw Ghetto uprising in 1943 required careful
study as an example of successful urban combat. At the very least, the
interview revealed that a primary purpose of the campaign would be to
decisively break the Palestinian population’s will to further resist Israeli rule.
And with specific regard to the civilian residents of Jenin refugee camp, a
senior Israeli military officer involved in the assault was quoted by the Israeli
newspaper Ha’aretz as stating that mothers who raise suicide bombers could
not expect to be immune from the consequences.

Until the invasion of Jenin, Operation Defensive Shield had been a clear
success from Israel’s point of view. The re-occupation of Ramallah and
Bethlehem by massive armored columns simply overwhelmed resistance,
which was in any case light and—particularly in Ramallah—poorly organized.
Israeli losses were minimal, the Bush administration unconditionally
supportive, the Europeans more subtly so, and the Arab states
overwhelmingly silent.

Although the various militias operating within Jenin had decided to make a
stand in the camp, and had more or less unified their forces and been joined
by members of the PA security forces, there are no indications that Israel
expected anything less than a walkover in its determination to make an
example of the camp. In doing so, it ignored the fact that Jenin’s defenders
were able to adapt their tactics on the basis of both Operation Journey of
Colors the previous month and what had transpired in other Palestinian cities
occupied the previous week. No less importantly, Israel’s policy of providing
no quarter to Palestinian militants and security personnel in other cities only
stiffened their resolve to resist.

This said, the disparity between the opposing forces remained overwhelming;
Israel is a nuclear power with a massive arsenal full of sophisticated American
weaponry, whereas the Palestinians—who possess neither an army, air force
or navy, nor even a single armored vehicle—fought back with light automatic
weapons, and limited quantities of bombs and grenades which are in many
cases locally improvised devices. One side had Apache helicopters in the air
throughout the battle firing missiles and heavy machine guns virtually without
interruption, while the other possessed not even a single rudimentary
anti-aircraft weapon.

While the re-occupation of Jenin proceeded relatively smoothly, the Israelis
were simply unable to make any headway into the camp. Despite extensive
shelling from air and land, and the use of dozens of tanks, armored personnel
carriers, and armored bulldozers, the camp’s defenders, ensconced in its
maze of narrow alleyways, offered ferocious resistance. The available reports
suggest they were capable of decommissioning armored vehicles with some
regularity, and inflicted heavier casualties on the invading forces than Israel
has been prepared to admit.

Israel’s military tactics were initially similar to those employed elsewhere in
the West Bank. In addition to the use of vastly superior firepower, Israeli
snipers occupied buildings all along the camp’s perimeter and consistently
shot at anything that moved—combatants and civilians, adults and children
alike. Water, electricity, and telephone communications to the entire camp
were severed. No food or medicine of any sort was permitted entry.
Ambulances and emergency services, humanitarian organizations, and the
media were systematically prevented access.

The military initially tried to use the tactic it termed “mouseholing”—cutting
through breezeblock walls to move from the interior of one building to that of
the next—deployed during Journey of Colors. Faced with well-laid
booby-traps this time around, it instead resorted to the tactic of “shaving,” by
which homes and buildings were either blown apart with high explosives or
leveled to the ground by armored bulldozers to facilitate the military’s
advance. In some cases the army first went in and forcibly removed
inhabitants. According to numerous eyewitness reports, there are also many
cases in which the military simply collapsed structures over the heads of their
inhabitants, killing those inside.

By April 5, Chief of Staff Mofaz was already claiming victory, stating that the
battle would be over that night. He was forced to make similar statements on
each of the subsequent four days—during which he personally took command
of the operation from the vantage point of an American-made Apache
helicopter, only to be eventually replaced by the minister of defense. On the
fifth day—Aprio 10—at least 13 Israeli soldiers were killed and perhaps as
many wounded in a highly sophisticated ambush, with two more killed in
subsequent exchanges. It was the military’s single bloodiest day since the
beginning of the current Palestinian uprising, and one of its worst since the
1973 October War.

Heavy Israeli losses in Jenin—officially 23 dead and 150 wounded—and the
small camp’s ability to withstand the full might of the Israeli military for three
days longer than did the entire Arab world in 1967, has elevated it to
legendary status throughout the region, which closely followed the unfolding
drama by means of detailed reports provided by Al-Jazeera, Hezbollah’s
Al-Manar, and other satellite television stations. Such reports routinely
included live interviews with field commanders and camp residents, as well as
activists, PA officials, medical professionals, and others located elsewhere in
Jenin.

Despite the hermetic exclusion of journalists and humanitarian agencies, the
intensive coverage of the Jenin refugee camp battle from its very outset also
meant the Arab public—and thus the entire world—was from the outset
keenly aware of the unfolding catastrophe. This necessarily means that the
international community—and specifically the United States and European
Union, which clearly had more information available than the Arab viewing
public and which alone have the requisite influence on Israeli policy and
actions—consciously refused to undertake any effective measures to prevent
or halt Sharon’s work in progress. Indeed, when, at a joint press conference
in Madrid April 10, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan pronounced himself
“frankly appalled” by reports he was receiving from the occupied territories
Secretary of State Colin Powell clarified that Annan was speaking for himself
and that the U.S. was merely “concerned.”

An International Failure

This said, international organizations also have failed miserably. The Jenin
refugee camp is administered by the United Nations Relief and Works
Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA); although
UNRWA Director General Peter Hansen spoke of “horrific reports”
emanating from Jenin suggesting a “humanitarian catastrophe,” Annan
resolutely failed to use the authority of his office to publicly and explicitly
voice concern about a massacre in the making. Similarly, at the very height of
the crisis the International Committee of the Red Cross simply folded its tent
and called it a day, stating that it could not guarantee the physical safety of its
staff from Israeli attack. Palestinians viewed this as a gross dereliction of duty,
and openly questioned whether, as has been the case with Palestinian
ambulance workers, Israeli soldiers would use widespread violence against
their foreign colleagues.

That atrocities which in scope and scale extend well beyond those committed
elsewhere in the West Bank have taken place in Jenin is beyond question. On
April 9, in fact, Ha’aretz quoted Peres as characterizing Israeli conduct
toward the residents of Jenin refugee camp as “a massacre”—albeit in the
context of the Nobel Laureate’s concern over international reaction, rather
than the massacre itself—while in the same article military officers were
quoted as stating that “when the world sees the pictures of what we have
done there, it will do us immense damage.” The following day, Ha’aretz
reported that the Israeli Foreign Ministry had established a PR committee to
deal with the consequences, another indication that the world best prepare for
the worst.

If Israel had limited its actions to those perpetrated elsewhere in the West
Bank these past two weeks it would already be guilty of “grave breaches” of
the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention—i.e., of war crimes. Most obviously in
this respect is the systematic denial of medical care to combatants and
non-combatants alike. Reports abound of casualties bleeding to death from
treatable wounds and of bloated bodies littering the streets, while ambulances
were forcefully prevented from entering the camp. It was in fact only on April
9 that the first ambulances—three in total—were permitted in. After being
obstructed for almost half a day, with their medics subjected to humiliating
searches and abuse, each ambulance was permitted to remove only one
casualty. Of the three so collected, two were promptly kidnapped from the
vehicles by the army. Dr. Muhammad Abu Ghali, director of the nearby
hospital, reported on April 10 that, despite the many hundreds of dead and
wounded in Jenin, his facility remained virtually empty, and that a number of
casualties were to be found in its direct vicinity—forbidden either from
entering or being brought inside.

Inside the camp, residents reported extreme hunger and thirst, and that they
had resorted to drinking sewage so as to stay alive. Those whose homes
were physically invaded by the military spoke of summary executions, violent
abuse and humiliation, property theft and destruction, and of entire families
(sometimes numbering dozens of people) being herded into a single room for
days on end without supplies of any sort. In addition to mass arrests, in which
men, women, and children were separated from each other, many reports
also state that civilian camp residents were ordered to strip to their underwear
and march in front of tanks as human shields. Those kept in detention have
reported abuse, humiliation and depredations of the worst sort, and that they
were systematically denied food, water, and medical care.

Prior to the fall of the camp, residents already had reported that virtually
every building within it had been either severely damaged or entirely
destroyed by incessant Israeli missile, artillery, and heavy-calibre machine-gun
fire. Although Israel claims that the Palestinian casualty toll stood at 100
“terrorists,” Palestinian sources insist the toll is at least double that and
perhaps much higher, the majority of them being civilians.

It appears that reports of bodies strewn along the camp’s streets, confirming
Peres’ characterization of the Israeli army’s conduct, will never be properly
investigated. On April 11, it was reported that at least 10,000
residents—two-thirds of the original population—had been forcibly evicted
from the camp, men and women separated from each other and transported
to Jenin and surrounding villages, humiliated, abused, and left to fend for
themselves. The scattered inhabitants were shown desperately seeking to
contact loved ones to discover their fate, and spoke of horrific conduct by
Israeli soldiers. Within the camp, Israeli bulldozers were said to be
systematically reducing what remained of it to rubble and, according to
various accounts, disposing of corpses in the sewage system, burying them in
mass graves within the camp, and loading them onto trucks and burying them
in mass graves within Israel and/or the Jordan Valley. The latter allegation has
been made with particular force by Arab members of the Israeli parliament,
who claim to have documented the practice as well.

On the morning of April 12, Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Gideon Meir
informed CNN that journalists may be permitted to visit the camp later that
day, but refused to guarantee this would happen. According to Meir, the only
reason the hermetic closure remains in force and may be extended is Israel’s
profound concern for the physical safety of the journalists, many of them
seasoned war correspondents eagerly prepared to risk their lives if permitted
to do so.

Concerning what really transpired in Jenin refugee camp, there are Palestinian
claims of the biggest Israeli massacre since Sabra-Shatila and categorical
Israeli denials that anything untoward could possibly have transpired. At this
point it appears reasonable to assume that the full truth may never emerge. In
the meantime, the only uncontested facts are that Israel is working around the
clock to prevent allegations of war crimes from being examined, while the
Palestinians insist upon immediate access to stop a bloodbath that may well
be continuing and to permit the independent verification of their claims. All
indications are that a genuine chamber of horrors is being concealed.

As of April 16, Israeli forces were still engaged in systematic efforts to
prevent free access to Jenin refugee camp by journalists, human rights
organizations, and humanitarian relief agencies. The day before, several
journalists had been given an escorted tour of a small area of the camp, during
which only one body was displayed for view, with the Israeli military
consistently pushing the message no massacre had occurred. Indeed, a
statement several days earlier by military spokesperson Ron Kitri that
“hundreds” had been killed in Jenin almost immediately was retracted by his
superiors, who elaborated that “hundreds” referred to both dead and
wounded, and that the actual death toll was in the dozens and almost
exclusively limited to armed Palestinians.

The above notwithstanding, several journalists have managed to take
unguided tours of the camp, including Phil Reeves of the London
Independent, who on April 16 concluded, “A monstrous war crime that
Israel has tried to cover up for a fortnight has finally been exposed.”

As for Israel’s claim that it could not let experienced war correspondents into
Jenin because many of the bodies were booby-trapped, those which have
been displayed on television screens are burned and charred beyond
recognition.

Mouin Rabbani is director of the Palestinian American Research Center in
Ramallah. This article first appeared on ZNet online. Reprinted with
permission.



Bush-Sharon Confrontation Looms
By Richard H. Curtiss

The world reached a crossroads in April. The decisions made by the U.S.
administration of George W. Bush, the European Union, the Arab League
states, the United Nations and Israel will change the dynamics of the Middle
East in far-reaching ways.

The most dramatic action concerns Israel. With Secretary of State Colin
Powell’s arrival April 11, the Jewish state had to make difficult decisions.
Under duress, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was supposed to have withdrawn
his forces from Bethlehem, Nablus, Tulkarm, Qalqilya and many additional
West Bank sites. Bush insisted, however, that Sharon should withdraw from
all of the Palestinian towns, in the president’s words, “immediately.” Sharon
made it clear that he would withdraw only at his own pace and in his own
time. Having made this decision, it was clear he was watching very carefully
to see what Bush will do.

At this writing it appeared that Sharon was making a point of defying Bush,
saying that his work would go on in each area until the last of the Palestinian
“terrorists” had been “rooted out.” In some cases, he insisted, his general
would need more time until “the job is done.” Thus Jenin, having largely been
destroyed, would be vacated. Israeli forces had not left Bethlehem, however,
where Christian clerics had remained voluntarily to protect the besieged
Palestinians seeking sanctuary in the Church of the Nativity.

Thus, it seems, the Israelis and the United States may have reached an
impasse.

Until this confrontation loomed, Sharon’s policies appeared to be going the
way he planned. The “Butcher of Beirut” knew that as long as he continued
his hard-line strategy, he would not have to worry about being outflanked
from the right. Sharon, who lives for the moment, planned to continue his
bulldozer course and leave the complications that ensued to be dealt with in
the future.

Bush, however, has to worry about tomorrow as well as today—and
Sharon’s plans do not coincide with Bush’s. Bush either will have to adapt to
Sharon’s plans or insist on having his way. It will be up to Colin Powell to find
a face-saving formula for Sharon—or the confrontation will begin.

Like his predecessors, President Bush wanted to postpone any major crisis
until his second term. It now appears, however, that this crisis won’t wait.

If Bush backs down and is perceived as giving Sharon the green light, the
entire world will realize that the Israel lobby is making U.S. foreign policy.
The president also is concerned with his friends on the Christian right who are
part of the Bush coalition. While Sharon is interested solely in remaining in
power, Bush must decide which course of action is most important to him and
his electoral prospects. On the one side, the Christian right will remain
appeased along with the Israelis. On the other side, if Bush backs down he
will unleash an amazing number of unintended consequences.

The European Union might eventually begin a boycott, with negative
consequences to everyone. This would also force Britain to choose between
staying in line with the other EU countries or trying to go it alone with
President Bush.

The Arab League, meanwhile, has made a fateful decision of its own. Saudi
Arabian Crown Prince Abdullah, having shepherded the entire Arab League
into the most reasonable solution for the Arab-Israeli dispute, now must
devise actions to fit their words.

An eventual boycott may be inevitable. Iraq already has instigated its own oil
boycott, and other Arab states may be forced to follow Baghdad’s lead. If
that does not suffice, another possibility would be for the Saudi government to
close down the air base at Al Kharj.

The U.S., it seems, believing that other Gulf states could compensate for the
loss, considers Al Kharj expendable. It is very likely, however, that the other
Gulf states—the UAE, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain and Kuwait—would follow the
Saudi example. This would, in effect, show that the U.S. no longer can find
any friends in the Middle East—at least among Arab League countries.

Meanwhile, the situation in the West Bank has gone from painful to
catastrophic. According to the April 16 New York Times, since September
2000 at least 1,621 Palestinians and 442 Israelis had been killed. This
represents an intolerable humanitarian crisis.

Contradictions abound. For example, Adam Shapiro, a Jewish international
aide worker from New York, became trapped overnight in Arafat’s Ramallah
headquarters when he helped evacuate some wounded members from the
compound. Arafat invited him to share his breakfast of bread, cheese and
cucumbers. When journalists picked up the story and published it in the
United States, Shapiro’s family in Brooklyn received defamatory hate mail
and threats from American Jews. After frightening phone calls promising a
“fiery death” they fled their home and took refuge in a hotel.

The Sharon-Bush drama is being played out against the Israeli prime
minister’s secret agenda. Sharon always has been on the lookout for a chance
finally to realize his plan of pushing the Palestinians totally out of the occupied
territory. In Black September of 1970, the Israelis offered to “help” Jordan
with its Palestinian problem. The Israelis hoped at that time to find an
opportunity to “transfer” all the Palestinians out of the West Bank and into
Jordan. Unfortunately for Sharon, the chaotic position righted itself before
Jordan became totally destabilized.

Sharon’s Ultimate Dream

Ariel Sharon has never given up hope, however, that another such opening
would come along—and this time, he will be ready. In fact Sharon probably
hopes such an opportunity may arise right now, should volunteers from the
East Bank begin offering their help to the Palestinians. The moment such
circumstances recur, Sharon will transfer the Palestinians once and for all out
of Israeli territory.

That is Sharon’s ultimate dream, and he will not rest until he attains it. This is
yet another reason why George W. Bush must be particularly careful. It is an
extraordinarily dangerous scenario which Bush should take every measure to
promptly contain.

It is crucial that Bush make the right choices. The world’s future depends on
it.

Richard H. Curtiss is the executive editor of the Washington Report on
Middle East Affairs.

Israel Responds to Arab Offer of Peace With a Reign of Terror

By Rachelle Marshall

“I would say to the Israeli people that if their government abandons the policy
of force and oppression and embraces true peace, we will not hesitate to
accept the right of the Israeli people to live in security with the people of the
region.”

—Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, in Beirut, March 27.

“What is happening is a savage act, an inhuman and cruel act…Every
Palestinian is a Yasser Arafat.” —Crown Prince Abdullah, March 29.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was given a clear choice on March 27: to
make peace with the Arab nations or continue to make war. With the backing
of the Bush administration Sharon chose war—a decision that once again
exposed the danger and futility of a U.S. Middle East policy that refuses to
acknowledge Israel’s illegal occupation as the prime cause of the Middle East
conflict.

Ever since the first intifada broke out in 1987 the conflict between Israel and
the Palestinians has followed a familiar cycle: The oppressiveness of Israel’s
occupation of the West Bank and Gaza triggers Palestinian violence, the
savagery of Israel’s response provokes increased Palestinian resistance, and
the spiraling violence finally forces the United States to intervene. The result is
a whirlwind of U.S. diplomatic activity that in the end is undermined by
Washington’s unyielding support for Israel and leaves the Middle East conflict
no closer to a solution.

The most recent peace effort, involving Vice President Dick Cheney and U.S.
mediator Gen. Anthony Zinni, again left Israel free to wreak havoc on the
Palestinians. Prime Minister Sharon made his intentions clear on March 5
when he said, “The aim is to increase the number of losses on the other side.
Only after they’ve been battered will we be able to conduct talks.”

Despite such statements, President George W. Bush repeatedly blamed
Palestinian President Yasser Arafat for the violence and declared Palestinian
liberation forces to be targets of America’s open-ended “war on terrorism.”

Israel launched its sudden invasion of Palestinian refugee camps and cities on
Feb. 28 just as there seemed renewed hopes for peace. As the massive
attacks began, Palestinian officials and Arab leaders were expressing support
for a peace proposal by Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia that offered
normalization of Arab relations with Israel in exchange for Israel’s complete
withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza. CIA chief George Tenet was in
Saudi Arabia to discuss the proposal with Prince Abdullah, and President
Bush had announced he was sending General Zinni to the area to arrange
peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians.

The reason for the invasion became clear when Israeli television reported that
Prime Minister Sharon’s strategy was to intensify Israel’s attacks on
Palestinian areas so that he could withdraw his troops once Zinni arrived and
gain credit for making a concession to U.S. peace efforts. Meanwhile,
however, Israeli forces were to do as much damage as possible in order to
bring the Palestinians to their knees. The three-week military operation
eventually involved 20,000 Israeli troops and hundreds of tanks, along with
helicopter gunships, F-16 bombers, and naval vessels, and turned major
portions of Palestinian cities and refugee camps into rubble.

The timing of the attacks on Gaza and the West Bank was reminiscent of
Israel’s June 1982 invasion of Lebanon, which Sharon orchestrated as
defense minister. Arafat at the time was actively seeking international support
for a peace settlement that would provide for an independent Palestinian state
in the West Bank and Gaza, and the Palestinians in Lebanon were honoring
the truce brokered a year before by U.S. envoy Philip Habib, during which
time they had refrained from cross-border attacks on Israel. Sharon’s clear
aim in invading Lebanon was to undercut Arafat’s diplomatic efforts and, by
destroying the Palestine Liberation Organization, silence the political voice of
the Palestinians.

The elimination of Arafat and the Palestinian Authority has remained one of
Sharon’s chief goals. It was with this objective that Sharon again sent tanks,
bulldozers, and troops storming into Ramallah and other West Bank cities on
March 29 to carry out a wave of killing and destruction that seemingly had no
purpose other than to crush Arafat once and for all. The action was
announced as a response to a series of suicide attacks, but far from ending
Palestinian violence, the assault provoked more suicide bombings, and
ordinary Israelis found themselves less secure than ever before. Bush justified
Israel’s action by saying “their country is under attack,” and demanding that
Arafat “stop terrorism.” His words were ludicrously out of sync with an image
that is certain to become engraved in the Palestinians’ collective memory, of
Arafat using a battery phone to give interviews over Arab radio, his electricity
cut off, in a room lit by a single candle, as the Israelis bombarded his
compound with shells and stun grenades and soldiers were smashing their
way closer, strafing rooms with high-caliber machine guns as they came.
Meanwhile, the citizens of Ramallah and several other Palestinian cities were
at the mercy of Israeli soldiers, who again broke water mains and power
lines, ransacked homes, and seized all men over 14.

At least 20 of Arafat’s guards were killed, several of them when they tried to
surrender, and five police officers were later found to have been executed
when they sought refuge in the nearby British Council building. There was
even speculation that Israeli gunfire would kill Arafat “by accident.” Andrew
Shapiro, an American peace activist who was on the scene, said soldiers sent
hails of bullets into Arafat’s offices even though no Palestinians were shooting
back. When ambulances tried to take away the wounded the Israelis stopped
them and arrested the victims and the crew.

Vice President Cheney’s two-week trip to the Middle East in early March
was intended to secure the cooperation of Arab leaders in ousting the regime
of Iraqi President Saddam Hussain. But in every Arab capital Cheney
received the same message: that military action against Iraq would be
dangerously destabilizing to the area, and the United States should focus
instead on what Sheikh Zayad bin Sultan Al Nahyan of the United Arab
Emirates called “the grave and continued Israeli aggression against the
Palestinian people.”

At this point Bush decided to send Zinni back to the Middle East to try to
arrange a cease-fire. But it was a hopeless mission, since Zinni’s instructions
were to limit the talks to addressing Israel’s security concerns rather than the
occupation itself. From the Palestinians’ point of view, agreeing to a
cease-fire while the Israeli army remained in control of their territory, their
towns and cities were blockaded, and the government continued to seize land
for new settlements, meant acceptance of unconditional surrender. This Arafat
obviously could not do even if he wished to. Leaders of Hamas and other
militant groups that had observed a cease-fire last December, only to have
Israeli violate it, vowed they would continue fighting.

When Cheney arrived in Israel March 18 he refused to meet with Arafat until
the Palestinian leader “renounced once and for all the use of violence.” To
Palestinians whose homes had been wrecked and relatives killed, and who
remained surrounded by Israeli tanks and roadblocks, Cheney’s demand that
Arafat rather than Sharon stop the violence must have seemed a cruel
distortion of reality. The vice president did not pressure Sharon to freeze
settlement construction or withdraw his army to the positions it held on Sept.
28, 2000. Nor did he urge the Israelis to resume peace negotiations based on
the progress made in January 200l, something for which Palestinian leaders
have repeatedly asked. Sharon said afterward that he and Cheney had mainly
discussed how Israel and the United States would coordinate their actions if a
strike on Iraq was carried out.

Faced with the urgency of persuading Arab leaders that the Bush
administration was serious about making peace, Cheney did agree to meet
with Arafat during the Arab summit meeting scheduled for March 27—only to
have Sharon make it impossible for Arafat to attend. Although it was an
obvious slap at Bush, who had personally appealed to Sharon to let Arafat go
to Beirut, the White House did not protest.

Despite Arafat’s absence from the summit, Prince Abdullah presented his
plan in an eloquent speech that was directed to the Israeli people as well as to
Arabs. He expressed support and sympathy for the intifada, but stressed that
once Israel accepted a peace based on equality and justice rather than
oppression and humiliation, “we will not hesitate to accept the right of the
Israeli people to live in security with the people of the region.” All 22 Arab
leaders present, including representatives from Iraq and Libya, accepted the
proposal. The gathering also sent a pointed message to Bush by declaring
they would consider any attack on Iraq an attack against all Arab states.

The suicide bombing by Hamas on March 27 that killed 22 Israelis in
Netanya dimmed hopes raised by the Arabs’ unanimous acceptance of Prince
Abdullah’s peace proposal, and caused Arafat to declare an unconditional
cease-fire. But it was a hopeless move, since Sharon now had the excuse to
do what he had long planned to do: throw the full weight of the Israeli army
against Arafat and the Palestinian Authority. The cabinet immediately declared
the Palestinian leader an “enemy,” and a few hours later the Israeli army
moved in force back into Ramallah, shut down the entire city, and laid siege
to Arafat’s compound.

Although Arab leaders had stressed to Cheney the urgency of resolving the
Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the vice president’s words and actions during his
visit to Israel in March exposed the vast gap between a U.S. Middle East
policy that lopsidedly favors Israel and the reality on the ground. Cheney
seemed oblivious to the devastation caused by Israel’s invasion of Palestinian
areas in the three weeks before his arrival. Neither he nor any other top U.S.
official visited a refugee camp such as Jabalya or Dheisheh, where soldiers
had smashed through walls and rampaged through dwellings, tearing apart the
inhabitants’ belongings, while Apache helicopters hovered overhead firing at
anything that moved. The center of once elegant Ramallah “looked like Beirut
in 1982,” one observer said after the Israelis left, “with gutted cars, wrecked
apartments, shops with windows gouged out, and swirling, choking dust
everywhere.”

After visiting Balata refugee camp, Peter Hansen, general commissioner of
UNRWA, said, “I cannot imagine how frightened the innocent Palestinians
and their children must have been when the Israeli army broke into their
homes through holes they had drilled. I saw four buildings completely
destroyed.” U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan condemned Palestinian
suicide attacks as “morally repugnant,” but charged the Israelis with violating
the fundamental principles of international humanitarian law and called on
them to “stop the bombing of civilian areas, the assassinations, the
unnecessary use of lethal force, the demolitions and the daily humiliations of
ordinary Palestinians.”

Many of those who have died and are dying as this is written could have been
saved but for the Israeli army’s policy of denying medical aid to the wounded.
For several days in March Israeli troops surrounded hospitals in the cities
under siege and fired on clearly marked Red Cross and Red Crescent
ambulances. Among the several medical workers killed were the directors of
hospitals in Jenin and Dheisheh. Secretary-General Annan wrote to Sharon
asking for an investigation of the attacks on medical workers, but received no
reply. A State Department spokesman told the Washington Report on
March 14 that the department had repeatedly urged the Israelis to allow
ambulances to reach the wounded but had had no response. “The Israelis are
still stopping them,” the official said.

The Israelis further punished the Palestinian population as they invaded each
city by rounding up all males between 14 and 40, and taking them away for
interrogation shackled and blindfolded. While in detention they were forced to
sleep on the ground without blankets, given no food or water and not allowed
to go to the bathroom. Many of those later released were taken on trucks to
checkpoints in the middle of the night, and dumped off miles from their
villages.

Such acts of pointless cruelty may not reach the consciousness of U.S.
policymakers, but for too many Palestinians they are part of daily experience.
As a result, a deep sense of popular grievance and an equally deep
determination to be rid of the occupation are now part of the baggage
Palestinian negotiators will take with them to any future peace talks and that
American mediators must take into account. Henry Siegman, a fellow at the
Council on Foreign Relations, has urged the Bush administration “to face up
to the simple truth that stopping the violence and establishing the security of
Israel is not something that serves any Palestinian goal. The only way is to
promise a clear political future...and in the foreseeable future.”

The March 27 suicide bombing in Netanya and Israel’s reoccupation of
Palestinian territory means there will be more waste of innocent lives unless
Sharon and his supporters who cry for blood can be controlled. There is
danger, too, of a wider Mideast war, if the conflict continues—especially if
Bush’s “war on terrorism” comes to be seen as a U.S.-Israeli war against
Arabs.

Yet, paradoxically, the possibility of peace has never been closer. Prince
Abdullah’s offer of normal relations with Israel in exchange for Israel’s
complete withdrawal from the occupied territories was backed by every Arab
leader and given at least verbal support by Bush. It provides a basis for
the”political future” that Siegman referred to. Israel’s acceptance would not
only hasten an end to the conflict but open the way for what Fatah leader
Marwan Barghouti sees as “a new era and a historical reconciliation between
two peoples.”

All that is needed is an American leader who recognizes that this is a conflict
between an oppressor and the oppressed, and an Israeli government willing
to make peace. q

Rachelle Marshall is a free-lance editor living in Stanford, CA. A
member of the International Jewish Peace Union, she writes frequently
on the Middle East.



Suicide Bombers Not the Only Martyrs—Israel Creates Many More

By Wendy Pearlman

In the media analysis on suicide bombings, few words bewilder and frighten
us as much as the word “martyr.” Newspapers and TV specials tell of
Palestinian children singing songs in praise of martyrs and families cashing in
when one member achieves martyrdom. Yasser Arafat invoked the concept
of martyrdom when, trapped in his compound, he declared, “I will be a
martyr, a martyr, a martyr.” President Bush also called special attention to the
martyr issue in his speech April 4. Ordering the Palestinian Authority to stop
referring to suicide bombers as martyrs, he warned, “They’re not martyrs.
They’re murderers.”

The recurrent reference to the word “martyr,” divorced from any real
explanation of Palestinians’ suffering under Israel’s military occupation, paints
a frightening portrait of the Palestinians as a people eager to die and kill in a
holy war against Israel. For most Americans, the thought of a Palestinian
“martyr” conjures up an image of a young man strapped with explosives on a
quest to slaughter innocent people in cafés and discothèques. What is
completely missing from this skewed view, however, is the fact that all
Palestinians killed by Israelis—and not just suicide bombers—are considered
to be martyrs. The Palestinian child shot on his way home from school, the
father killed when a missile strikes his house, and the woman who dies when
an ambulance is prevented from reaching her are all martyrs, no less than are
suicide bombers.

As Sharon’s current war on Palestinian cities and refugee camps attests, any
Palestinian can be made a martyr because Israeli violence does not
discriminate. In the course of the latest offensive, the Israeli army has killed
children and old ladies; it has shot medics and journalists; it has bulldozed
houses with whole families still inside. The Palestinian Red Crescent estimates
that 125 people have been killed since the start of Sharon’s latest onslaught
on March 29. They are all mourned as martyrs, but not one was a suicide
bomber.

In fact, the current intifada began with all martyrs and no suicide bombers.
The first suicide bomber of the current intifada was actually its 126th martyr: it
was only after Israeli soldiers and settlers killed 125 Palestinians in the first
four weeks of October 2000 that a young Palestinian strapped himself with
dynamite and rode his bicycle into an Israeli army post in the Gaza Strip. He
blew himself up and lightly wounded an Israeli soldier.

The 21st martyr of the current intifada was a 15-year-old Boy Scout named
Mohammed Hamad Daoud. He was shot in the head with a live bullet at the
Israeli checkpoint not far from his house. I had the opportunity to meet
Mohammed’s mother when I was living in the West Bank last year. Over
many cups of tea, she told me stories about how her son knew everyone in
the neighborhood, how he hated homework, and how, as the baby of the
family, he was the life of the house. She gave me a sense of the martyr story
very different from anything I’d ever heard in the United States:

“According to our religion, our son is now with God in heaven,”
Mohammed’s mother said. “But he has been taken from me! If he’d grown
up and prayed and believed in God, then he would have gone to heaven
anyway. They took my son’s life away. It’s the hardest thing in the world for
someone to lose a child. You want to tell the whole world and demand that
they be brought to justice, because these children aren’t a source of danger.

“Palestinians don’t have anything else except their children. They took our
land, they took our country, we don’t even have weapons with which to fight.
Our children are our land and our lives, and we’d do anything to protect
them. We have to, because everyone takes the side of the Israelis.

“Our people have struggled and we’re tired. We just want to live and we
want our children to live. But our children keep dying.”

The shocking stories about Palestinian admiration for martyrs makes for good
sensationalism, but it misses the real agony of the hundreds of thousands of
ordinary Palestinians who mourn those killed in their people’s struggle for
freedom. Every Palestinian family has had a member killed or injured by the
Israeli army. And every Palestinian knows that he or she could be in the
wrong place at the wrong time and wind up a martyr, too.

If Americans are really disturbed by the thought of Palestinian martyrs, then
we should pressure Israel to stop creating so many of them. Making
Palestinians suffer will not make Israelis safe. The sooner Israel complies with
U.N. Security Council resolutions and withdraws from the occupied
territories, the sooner Palestinian children will be able to imagine a future that
offers opportunity for something other than an early death. q

Wendy Pearlman is a Ph.D. student in government at Harvard
University. She has lived in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and is
currently preparing a book of interviews with Palestinians about their
experiences during the second intifada.



We Palestinians Will Never Lose Our Love, Pride and Dignity

By Samah Jabr

For many Palestinians, life is a pendulum, swinging between hope and despair:
hope in God’s justice and human goodness, and despair at the reality of our
terrible moment in history. Our land has been occupied, our bodies are
targets in the scopes of Israeli snipers and our future is constantly being
crushed by an iron fist of military might. Our complaints to the world fall on
deaf ears and when we react to our unbearable situation we’re rejected,
condemned and dehumanized as “terrorists.”

Yet why should we expect life to meet our expectations and voluntarily give
us what we want? Is there any Palestinian who does not really know that if a
wolf kills a bluebird, that’s just life? Whether we like it or not, in this earthly
life, might makes right.

In the Palestinian psyche, defeat and loss have left many intractable scars and
complexes. In reaction to our history and our present existence, some of us
have evolved into unbeatable, hardworking people. Others have realized that
rights must be demanded, not begged for. Still others have concluded, “It is
better to play the dirty game of the wolf than to be subjected to it.”

Few, however, doubt that the bluebird ever will turn on the wolf and survive,
or that life will grant reparation to each victim who has paid the price of living.

It is natural to develop our own defense mechanisms to cope with the risk of
any pending loss. My parents devoted their lives to making sure that all under
their care be highly educated, independent and able to stand on their own at
any time. Our neighbors have established family businesses to secure the life
of their children and their descendants for the next five generations. These two
families are examples of high-achieving Palestinians who have worked not
only because of the practical necessity of surviving in occupied Palestine, but
as a means of psychologically and constructively liberating all the anger and
frustration imprisoned in their souls.

Khader, a discouraged friend, said to me, “When I think of all that we’re
going through and ponder all that is yet to come, I wish I were not born
Palestinian. I don’t think it is fair to bring children into this miserable reality.”

“If you were an Israeli, would you bring children into this reality?” I asked
him. That he could not answer. “Think about it, Khader,” I added, “it is even
more difficult for an Israeli. It is cruel to raise your children on lies and ploys
in an attempt to justify their unjustifiable occupation of this land, and to
convince them that all the atrocities against another people are being
committed in their names. Living under occupation may not guarantee a free,
let alone a privileged life for your kids, but it will not prevent you from raising
proud generations, brought up with decency and honorable moral values, the
things that an occupier will never honestly be able to offer his children without
deceiving them.”

As long as we maintain the morality of our struggle, we are the
genuine winners of this war.

Maha, another angry colleague from the nursing staff, described to me what
happened to her elderly father on his way to Makassed Hospital in Jerusalem.
At the Bethlehem checkpoint an Israeli soldier dragged him out of the service
taxi in which Maha’s father was a passenger. Taking him by his shirt, the
soldier literally kicked the old man on his buttocks. A fellow passenger
handed the soldier a packet Maha’s father had with him, which contained
medical reports showing that the old man was dying. “Neither my father’s age
nor the medical reports made any sense to that soldier scum,” my colleague
said. Full of anger, she surprised me with her racist language—but her words
were no more racist or cruel than the behavior of her father’s attacker.

While Khader chooses not to fight his battle, Maha has decided to use the
moral standards that her enemy had set for her. I, on the other hand, am still
trying to transform my anger into some constructive energy and my fears into
strength and empowerment. I keep identifying my individual “battles,” and
fighting them. Even when I win, however, I have to wonder how many more I
will have to go through before the wound of our overwhelming national loss
heals in my heart.

We will win the cultural battle—but only if we see humanity in our enemies
and if we preserve the moral integrity of our cause. If we rise above the
atrocities we have been subjected to, and never inflict them on others, we
cannot be morally or psychologically defeated. Like every community,
Palestinians have their racists, oppressors, minorities, marginalized people and
underdogs. If something good is to come out of the dark years of occupation,
it should be our great sense of justice, our commitment and affiliation to the
nation that has suffered decades of oppression and discrimination. Resistance
has multiple faces, and maybe the most attractive of all is working to enhance
the Palestinian grassroots/popular level. By empowering our people and being
kind, forgiving and caring about one another, we can undermine the
occupation. We are a nation of unarmed civilians and, although a nuclear
power like Israel can surely win the military battle and kill most of us, no
military power can destroy our love, pride and dignity.

Nothing Less Than Justice

We might lose a hundred battles, but as long as we maintain the morality of
our struggle, we are the genuine winners of this war. The Israeli occupiers
might assassinate thousands of our people, and imprison the rest of us in the
hope that we will give up our “Palestine.” I suggest that their strategies will
backfire because of our commitment to each other. The wrong done to us will
only reinforce our determination to survive and to teach our children not to
sell their rights or settle for anything less than justice.

One possible future for the Palestinians lies in our ability to challenge all the
death and destruction around us and to start living, while actively keeping
traditions and heritage alive in our hearts. The future of Palestine lies in what
Palestinians sustain of our rich culture. Sustaining our culture alone is not
enough, however. We must live to give the rest of the world the best of
ourselves: our arts, poetry, kindness and loyalty, our Holy Land goodness,
our intelligence and ability to regenerate ourselves after each blow. Our
strength lies in our passion for our homeland, but we Palestinians should not
live in isolation. We must show the world who we really are.

We may not manage to bring Palestine back to the World Atlas in my lifetime,
but Palestine will live in our songs, our blue pottery and red embroidery, and
will prove to those who deny our existence that we truly are a living nation.

Samah Jabr is a medical student and lifelong resident of Jerusalem. This
article is excerpted from a longer version which first appeared in the
Palestine Times of London.

http://www.wrmea.com/archives/may2002/0205006.html#Israel