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Column: Palestinian-Israeli conflict after Sept. 11 Immediately following the horrific terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, the reactionary Israeli government of Ariel Sharon took advantage of the situation to escalate its attacks on Palestinians. According to a report published on Sept. 14 in THE NEW YORK TIMES, a newspaper that is hardly a strong critic of Israel: "A total of 13 Palestinians have died and dozens have been wounded in fighting in Jenin and neighboring villages this week, in what has become the most sustained Israeli operation since the start of the Palestinian uprising nearly a year ago." Given the Middle Eastern connection to the attacks on New York and Washington, and the ghoulish display of joy by some Palestinian demonstrators in Jerusalem and Ramallah, the war criminal Sharon evidently felt that he would now receive even greater U.S. support for his attempts at a military solution to the Palestinian uprising. Perhaps he even dreamed of a repeat of the large-scale massacres he had orchestrated in Beirut in 1982. However, as the Bush administration geared up for war in Afghanistan, it wanted Israeli attacks on Arabs and Muslims off the TV screens. But Sharon did not give in easily to U.S. pressure and kept up the bloodletting as long as he could. After a full week of stonewalling, Israel finally agreed to halt its military offensives in response to a truce called by Palestinian Authority President Yasir Arafat, yet Israel soon violated the truce by killing six more Palestinians. One thing that undercut Sharon in U.S. eyes was how Arafat immediately made strong public statements unequivocally condemning the terror attacks of Sept. 11. Moreover, the Bush administration, desperate for Arab or Muslim allies against Osama bin Laden, had its own reasons for adjusting its attitude toward the Palestinians. As recently as August, the U.S. was allowing Sharon to run wild, as were the supposedly more progressive Labor Party members of his government
coalition. That month, Sharon launched new attacks on Palestinian towns with U.S.-supplied jets, tanks, and missiles. Israel also assassinated top
Palestinian political leaders. Most provocatively, on Aug. 10 it closed This latter move, interpreted as an effort to undermine any possibility of Palestinian rule over East Jerusalem, led to protest demonstrations that included both Palestinians and Israeli peace activists. By Sept. 3, 62 Israeli youths had also signed a statement promising to resist the draft because they refused "to take part in acts of oppression against the Palestinian people." The closing of Orient House was said to be a reprisal for a suicide bombing by an Islamic fundamentalist that killed 14 Israelis at a pizzeria. Using an argument familiar to all who oppose police killings in America, Israel has tried to portray itself as a peace-loving victim of Palestinian terror, but the facts show that the vast majority of the 700 killed in the past year have been Palestinian civilians. In addition, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians live in a state of near-permanent lockdown-unable to get to work, to the hospital, to school, to visit the next town-even inside the areas supposedly under Palestinian rule. Until Sept. 11, the Bush administration distanced itself from the Palestinians, seeming to give Sharon a green light. For example, Vice President Dick Cheney declared in early August that he saw some justification for Israel's policy of assassinations. The U.S. also blocked a United Nations Security Council resolution that would have called for an international protection force to separate Israeli and Palestinian forces. With the U.S. now backtracking and with the Palestinian Authority anxious to distance itself from terrorism and fundamentalism, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict has clearly entered a new phase. |
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