Nice read…
Israel’s Fatal Blow
by David McReynolds
Israel’s action in assassinating Sheik Ahmed Yassin early Monday is one
more nail in the coffin of any possible peace process, and, as time and
events may show, a nail in the coffin of Israel itself..
Israeli spokespersons have pointed out the involvement of Sheik Yassin in
a range of bloody suicide bombings, which claimed so many Israeli lives,
most of them civilian. The fact that the Sheik was a quadriplegic and in
no position to personally throw a bomb, hardly exempted him from moral
responsibility for Hamas, of which he was the spiritual head.
However Israeli spokespersons - and the Western media - have not noted
that Hamas was supported in its early days by Israel in hopes of
undercutting Arafat and the PLO. Nor have these spokespersons explained
why, if they had the power to engage in an “extra-judicial murder”, they
could not have arrested the Sheik and tried him in a court of law.
I have said for some time that Israeli actions have been, almost
consistently, acts of folly, giving Israel short term benefits and leaving
them with a long term disadvantage. (This goes back a very long way, to
the Israeli support for the French side in the Algerian war, and the
Israeli/French/British action in invading Egypt when Nasser took over the
Suez Canal. . . which has resulted in the Arab world seeing Israel as a
colonial power, and seeing it as a direct threat to national sovereignty
of surrounding Arab states).
In the short run Israel has strained US/Israeli relations, which is fine
by me, but not what Israel desires. And in the short run there will be
some flurry of random attacks which are not likely to do much damage to
Israel. But, in part because Israel is, relatively, militarily secure, one
must expect that the irrational furies unleashed by Israel will have a
fall out in Western Europe and elsewhere, where Palestinians and their
supporters will seek vengeance on innocent Jews far from Israel. This is
not to the benefit of Jews anywhere, but it will increase the degree of
anti-Semitism, which is flowing not from the historic roots of Christian
anti-Semitism, but from the much more recent Muslim anti-Semitism.
(Let me anticipate my critics - yes, after the creation of Israel there
was a wave of expulsions of Jews from Arab states - but prior to that, for
many centuries, the Muslim countries had a better record of providing a
safe haven for Jews than Western Europe).
Internally, within Israel, Sharon’s action may be of some immediate
political benefit to a Prime Minister facing corruption charges, but
surely wiser heads within Israel must realize that they have removed one
of the few leaders among the Palstinians who could have made a cease fire
work. Apologiists for Israel often ask, sometimes sounding sincere, “we
would love to negotiate - but with whom can we negotiate?” Leaving aside
the fact that present Isreali leaders have no interest whatever in
negotiations, the bitter reality is they are eliminating those who would
have had credibility if they had been any negotiations.
Israel depends for its survival on something more important than its
“invinceable” military machine - it depends on some respect for law in -
that is, some sense that it was created by valid legal processes. If it
seems to be an illegal state, world support for its survival will sharply
diminish. Any nation as tiny as Israel needs friends - and friends that
can offer more than the tainted friendship of the United States, which has
little control over Muslim feelings and actions.
Yet Israeli actions - ranging from the massacre at Jenin to the illegal
wall being constructed to the present extraordinary extra-legal murder of
the religious and political leader of Hamas - undermine not only public
sympathy for Israel, but also undermine the sense that the State of Israel
is legitimate. (Israel’s defenders argue that Jenin wasn’t a massacre and
I can only wonder why the bulldozing of a part of Jenin, and the killing
of dozens of civilians, doesn’t count as a massacre, but if half that
number are killed by a suicide bomber in Israel it is a massacre?)
Israel, and its defenders in the US, will use any rise in Anti-Semitism to
defend any actions Israel takes and to condemn any critical discussion of
Israel as anti-Semitic. (I find myself in the odd position of being
considered an anti-Semite because I’m sharply critical of Israel, and a
Zionist apologist because I’m not critical enough.) The fact is that
Israel today and its actions, are much more directly responsible for a
rise in deep hostility to Israel than any efforts by old-fashioned
anti-Semites. And those actions that offend a community of world opinion
are the shooting of children, the murder of militants, the building of
walls on Palestinian territory, and the determined effort by Israel to
bypass any real discussion toward a peaceful settlement.
The logic offered for the criminal act today is that Israel wants to
withdraw from Gaza, and the murder of the Sheik and the continued
heavy-handed military “intrusions” and killings in Gaza are a way of
showing that when, suddenly, one early day in summer, all the Israeli
tanks and troops unilaterally withdraw, it will be seen as a victory. I
don’t know what psychological world Sharon lives in, but it isn’t, I
believe, a real world. No matter when and how Israel leaves Gaza, the
murder of a religious leader beloved by the Palestinians (and hated by
Israelis) will echo through the years to come.
For us on the “ground” in the US, we need to do three things.
-
Never to forget there are good and decent people in Israel who work and
live for peace, who have risked a great deal for peace, and that this is
also true of Jews in the United States, many of whom are deeply committed
to peace. It is not Jews that pose a problem - it is Israel.
-
At the political level raise the demand for an end of all US military
and economic support for Israel. Bring this issue into the political forum
everywhere.
-
Change the dialogue so that when we discuss states that have weapons of
mass destruction, we include Israel, which has a substantial stockpile of
nuclear weapons, and insist that any plans for international inspection
must include Israel.
–
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