>The gap grows wider >By Edward Said >(Al-Ahram Weekly, March 2-8) > >On his visit to Birzeit University, Lionel Jospin had the gall to speak of >the Hizbullah fighters as terrorists, also expressing his "understanding" >of Israel's actions against Lebanon. As is now widely known, he was greeted >after his speech by many hundreds of students, who stoned his car and that >of his escort, Minister Nabil Shaath. Jospin's visit to the Palestinian >territories (still under occupation by Israel, which is aided in its >occupation by the Palestinian Authority) was under the supposed auspices of >the Authority, which was exposed for its unpopularity and incompetence. > >Embarrassed and angry, the Palestinian boss, Yasser Arafat, condemned the >attack, paying no heed to the justice of what the students were saying, >which was that there was one common front of resistance against Israeli >occupation from Beirut to Birzeit, and using his security forces to beat >the students and perhaps later imprison and torture some of them. >Threatened by the wave of discontent, the panicky Birzeit administration >closed the university for three days, more or less acting under the >Authority's injunctions. > >Like dictators everywhere, Arafat has no real support anymore and has lost >sight of what it is he is supposed to be doing, namely liberating his >people. Far from that, he is colluding with Israel to confine them still >more, all the while fattening himself and his cronies on the ill-gotten >gains provided by his monopolies, casinos, skimmed-off-the-top businesses, >extortion and protection money. Without any law or real civil institutions >Arafat is the perfect partner for Israel and the US, who now have a native >sub-contractor in the oppression of Palestinians and in the furtherance of >their interests: therefore, they could not be happier. Even though "peace" >isn't a step closer to realisation than under Netanyahu -- in fact, I had >predicted that Barak would be a good deal worse, and he has confirmed that >by allowing or encouraging more settlement building than his predecessor -- >the various rulers and "peace" professionals seem not to have taken notice >of a widening gap between the people ruled and the justly-maligned process. >Typically though, it isn't the seasoned politicians or the intellectuals >who have taken the lead in opposing the enslavement of the so-called peace, >but rather the students. > >In Beirut, at the American University, students have been demonstrating >against US policy, which is nothing less than full support for Israel's >bombing of civilian targets, a crime punishable according to the Fourth >Geneva Convention. But whereas the US government and organisations like >Human Rights Watch have been agitating to bring Saddam Hussein to trial for >crimes against humanity (few deserve it more, by the way), nothing is said >about Sharon, Barak, Peres, and all the other leaders whose routine >assaults on civilian and human rights constitute the longest-standing and >longest-unpunished set of war crimes in history. These go back to 1948, >when Palestine was ethnically cleansed. The invidiousness of such a policy >enraged the Beirut students, and they made life a little difficult for the >US ambassador, who was attending some public function at the AUB. One would >wish there was a similar policy of peaceful resistance taken against those >rulers in the Arab countries who either take no favorable notice of the >demonstrations or who pander openly to the Israelis and the Americans. > > As for Lionel Jospin, he follows in the long tradition of bad faith and >duplicity of the European Left, which has always actively supported Zionism >with scarce regard for the tenets of socialism, much less of liberal >humanism. It is a strange thing indeed, but the Western Left has basically >been blind to what Zionism did to the Palestinians, so carefully did the >publicists of that movement cultivate the totally fraudulent notion that >Zionism was essentially a socialist and progressive movement. In fact, as >several Israeli historians have shown, Zionism was profoundly >anti-socialist, and was very much in favour of capitalism so long as it >could be put to what was then characterised as "Jewish" purposes and aims >in Palestine. This was as true of Ben Gurion as it was of Weizmann, as it >was of all their followers in the Israeli Labour Party. It is a >breathtaking prevarication, this pretence of socialism, but has been >sustained successfully for almost a century: Israel's Labour Party is a >member of the Socialist International; the kibbutz, which was a sort of >window-dressing operation constituting less than one per cent of the >population, became the symbol of socialist Zionism; and a whole generation >of European politicians from Crossman to Jospin have followed along >unquestioningly. In Jospin's case, he is a member of the Protestant >minority and likely to feel pangs of identification with Israeli Jews >(forgetting totally the Palestinian minority, for racist reasons), as well >as some sense of collective guilt for the Holocaust. As to why it should be >allowable for Israel to bomb Lebanon as an aspect of its illegal occupation >of the South, that is left unexplained. Perhaps it is also worth mentioning >that Jospin's sudden expression of enthusiasm was kindled by the fact that >ElAl, the Israeli airline, is in the process of refurbishing its fleet of >aircraft, and Aerospatiale, the French producers of the AirBus, are >Boeing's chief competitor for the enormous, multi-billion dollar deal. >Jospin must have accordingly felt that a little cost-free French support (I >think he and Mrs Albright call it "understanding") for Israeli bombing >would be an extra incentive for ElAl to buy French products. Besides, he >supposed, where more convincingly could he make his point sincerely than >under Palestinian noses, so to speak. They would never object, poor little >brown people that they are. French racism and condescension, hand in hand. > >Thank heavens for the students, who were more courageous than their >professors and their so-called leaders, who probably (I have no >information) just sat on their hands politely and let the villainous Jospin >blather on. But that has been the Arab elite habit for some time now: >taking it imperturbably on the chin when a white man insults and humiliates >them, all of this abjection as a way of demonstrating to the world that we >are not the terrorists and fanatics that we have sometimes seemed to be. >Boss Arafat and Nabil Shaath, who was at Birzeit and was pummeled by the >students as a symbol of collaboration, went out of their way to express >anger at the students, instead of refusing to speak to Jospin at all. Any >other leadership worth its salt would have done exactly that. But ours is >too far gone to notice that "peace" to most people is a cynical game and >the shameless pandering to Israel's bankrupt and ruthlessly arrogant >leadership will get them no further than exactly as far as they have come >to date, which isn't much of a distance at all. > >Thus the gap between the interests of the preponderant majority of the >people and the ruling juntas (Arab as well as Israeli) increases. In whose >interest exactly is Israel's quasi-insane military spending? Certainly not >that of the urban masses or the Mizrahim, who are forced to swallow insult >upon insult, to say nothing of grinding poverty and discrimination, while >the Ashkenazi elites go on their merry way regardless, acquiring bigger >cars and apartments while the majority suffers. This is not to mention the >present suicidal course of Israel's foreign policy, whose result is to lay >up more and more hatred among Arabs who are conceived of as only >"understanding the language of force." What blindness and what moral >obtuseness this is, as if more and more gratuitous punishment and >humiliation of the Arabs will make Israel more acceptable and more popular >instead of more hated and more likely to be the target of indiscriminate >Arab violence. The Israelis seem to have learned nothing from the history >of cruelty, which simply breeds counter-responses that prolong the >dialectic of force, instead of the other way round. > >They are no less unwise than their Arab counterparts, who somehow doggedly >believe that the Americans will protect them in the long run from the wrath >of their long-suffering people. There will be no escape from that so long >as the gap widens between the rhetoric and institutions of the false peace, >on the one hand, and the appalling distortions of reality on the other. >Peace in the Palestinian world has meant more land taken, houses >demolished, corruption, continued political prisoners and torture, >despotism, and no land really liberated to speak of. At this point it >doesn't matter who does the oppressing, Israeli or Palestinian security >men. Torture can't be justified if it is done by a Palestinian policeman, >any more than it could be justified when an Israeli did it. Torture is >torture, occupation is occupation. And above all, injustice is injustice >and will be perceived as such, whether it is uttered by a French politician >or an Arab one. As Fanon said, it cannot be the aim of liberation simply to >replace a white policeman by a non-white policeman. Liberation must go a >great deal further. > >The important thing for now is to keep hammering away at the phony rhetoric >and promises of the peace process, showing relentlessly not only that it >hasn't worked and has created a gap between rulers and ruled, but also, and >more importantly, that in its present form it cannot work. Human, political >and civil rights are indivisible: they cannot be partially achieved by one >people and fully enjoyed by another living in the same territory. This is >the deep flaw of Oslo. The only way to overcome it is to raise the cry >"equality or nothing, for Arabs and Jews". If one people enjoys a right of >return, the other one must also. Otherwise the conflict continues -- in the >real interests of no one at all. No one, not even those who seem to be >profiting in the short run. > > >Louis Proyect > >(The Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org) __________________________________ KOMINFORM P.O. Box 66 00841 Helsinki - Finland +358-40-7177941, fax +358-9-7591081 e-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.kominf.pp.fi ___________________________________ [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe/unsubscribe messages mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] ___________________________________
