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THE LIES LEADERS TELL WHEN THEY WANT TO GO TO WAR
Source: The Independent - March 30, 2002, Saturday
By Robert Fisk
HOW MUCH longer can Ariel Sharon pretend that he's fighting in the
"war against terror"? How much longer are we supposed to believe
this nonsense? How much longer can the Americans remain so gutlessly
silent in the face of a vicious conflict which is coming close to
obscuring the crimes against humanity of 11 September? Terror,
terror, terror. Like a punctuation mark, the word infects every
Israeli speech, every American speech, almost every newspaper
article. When will someone admit the truth: that the Israelis and
Palestinians are engaged in a dirty colonial war which will leave
both sides shamed and humiliated?
Just listen to what Sharon has been saying in the past 24 hours.
"Arafat is an enemy. He decided on a strategy of terror and formed a
coalition of terror." That's pretty much what President Bush said
about Osama bin Laden. But what on earth does it mean? That Arafat
is actually sending off the suicide bombers, choosing the target,
the amount of explosives? If he was, then surely Sharon would have
sent his death squads after the Palestinian leader months ago. After
all, his killers have managed to murder dozens of Palestinian gunmen
already, including occasional women and children who get in the way.
The real problem with Arafat is that he has a lot in common with
Sharon: old, ruthless and cynical; both men have come to despise
each other. Sharon believes that the Palestinians can be broken by
military power. He doesn't realise what the rest of the world
learned during Sharon's own 1982 siege of Beirut: that the Arabs are
no longer afraid. Once a people lose their fear, they cannot be
re-inoculated with fear. Once the suicide bomber is loose, the war
cannot be won. And Arafat knows this.
No, of course he doesn't send the bombers off on their wicked
missions to restaurants and supermarkets. But he does know that
every suicide bombing destroys Sharon's credibility and proves that
the Israeli leader's promises of security are false. Arafat is well
aware that the ferocious bombers are serving his purpose - however
much he may condemn them in public.
But he - like Sharon - also believes his enemies can be broken by
fire. He thinks that the Israelis can be frightened into withdrawing
from the West Bank and Gaza and East Jerusalem. Ultimately, the
Israelis probably will have to give up their occupation. But the
Jews of Israel are not going to run or submit to an endless war of
attrition. Even if Sharon is voted out of power - a prospect for
which many Israelis pray - the next Israeli prime minister is not
going to negotiate out of fear of the suicide bomber.
Thus the rhetoric becomes ever more cruel, ever more revolting.
Hamas calls its Jewish enemies "the sons of pigs and monkeys", while
Israeli leaders have variously bestialised their enemies as
"serpents", "crocodiles", "beasts" and "cockroaches". Now we have an
Israeli officer - according to the Israeli daily Ma'ariv - advising
his men to study the tactics adopted by the Nazis in the Second
World War. "If our job is to seize a densely packed refugee camp or
take over the Nablus casbah, and if this job is given to an
(Israeli) officer to carry out without casualties on both sides, he
must before all else analyse and bring together the lessons of past
battles, even - shocking though this might appear - to analyse how
the German army operated in the Warsaw ghetto."
Pardon? What on earth does this mean? Does this account for the
numbers marked by the Israelis on the hands and foreheads of
Palestinian prisoners earlier this month? Does this mean that an
Israeli soldier is now to regard the Palestinians as sub-humans -
which is exactly how the Nazis regarded the trapped and desperate
Jews of the Warsaw ghetto in 1944?
Yet from Washington comes only silence. And silence, in law, gives
consent. Should we be surprised? After all, the US is now making the
rules as it goes along. Prisoners can be called "illegal combatants"
and brought to Guantanamo Bay with their mouths taped for
semi-secret trials. The Afghan war is declared a victory - and then
suddenly explodes again. Now we are told there will be other
"fronts" in Afghanistan, a spring offensive by "terrorists".
Washington has also said that its intelligence agencies - the heroes
who failed to discover the 11 September plot - have proof
(undisclosed, of course) that Arafat has "a new alliance" with Iran,
which brings the Palestinians into the "axis of evil."
Is there no one to challenge this stuff? Just over a week ago, CIA
director George Tenet announced that Iraq had links with al-Qa'ida.
"Contacts and linkages", have been established, he told us. And
that's what the headlines said. But then Tenet continued by saying
that the mutual antipathy of al-Qa'ida and Iraq towards America and
Saudi Arabia "suggests that tactical cooperation between them is
possible?" "Suggests?" "Possible?" is that what Mr Tenet calls
proof?
But now everyone is cashing in on the "war against terror". When
Macedonian cops gun down seven Arabs, they announce that they are
participating in the global "war on terror". When Russians massacre
Chechens, they are now prosecuting the "war on terror". When Israel
fires at Arafat's headquarters, it says it is participating in the
"war on terror". Must we all be hijacked into America's dangerous
self -absorption with the crimes of 11 September? Must this vile war
between Palestinians and Israelis be distorted in so dishonest a
way?
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