[Dryerase] The Alarm--Deadly Illusions

[Alarm!Wires]

The following is a commentary piece from Conn Hallinan, a regular 
contributor to our paper.  Most of his work appears originally in the 
San Francisco Examiner, but he retains the copyright outside of the SF 
area.  He is aware of our copyleft policy and is apparently fine with 
being included under its rubric.  You might want to contact him before 
printing.  I, unfortunately, am not the one with his address, but you 
can likely find it on the SF Examiner page.

Deadly Illusions
By Conn Hallinan
The Alarm! Newspaper Contributor
 The Middle East has always been a place where illusion paves the road 
to disaster. In 1095, Pope Urban’s religious mania launched the 
crusades. In 1915, Winston Churchill’s arrogance led to the WWI 
bloodbath at Gallipoli. Illusion tends to be a deadly business in those 
parts.
And once again, illusions are about to plunge the Middle East into 
catastrophe.
The first of these is George W. Bush’s “vision” for peace between 
Israeli’s and Palestinians, a “vision” consistent with the President’s 
uncomplicated “See Spot Run” world of good guys and bad guys.
Since the Palestinians are “bad guys” the message is simple: Develop 
democracy (but only elect people we approve of), create free market 
capitalism, halt resisting the thirty-five year occupation, and stop 
causing trouble. If the Palestinians somehow manage all this while under 
occupation, then in three years they might get an “interim” state with 
“provisional” borders and sovereignty—if Israel agrees. The Sharon 
government, on the other hand, are the “good guys,” so it gets to keep 
building settlements, occupying territory, and besieging West Bank 
cities until the Palestinians complete all the above tasks. Does anyone 
really take this seriously?
Ariel Sharon is a man obsessed with illusions. He has always fantasized 
that combining violence with appointing leaders he can manipulate will 
get him his way. He was a supporter of the secret Israeli operation 
that, according to Tony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic Studies, 
funneled funds to Hamas in the late ‘70s as a way to undermine the 
secular Palestine Liberation Organization. We know how that one turned 
out.
Then he invaded Lebanon in 1982 to destroy “terrorism,” killed 17,500 
Lebanese and Palestinians, and appointed Bashir Jumayil President. 
Jumayil was promptly assassinated, and Israel found itself in the middle 
of an 18-year war, which it ended up losing. And once again he is using 
massive force in the West Bank and Gaza and trying to pick who leads the 
Palestinians.
Sharon’s latest illusion is to fill the occupied territories with Jewish 
immigrants from France, Argentina, the U.S. and Russia, so that he will 
not have to remove a single settlement. According to Sharon, “Netzarim 
in Gaza is the same as Tel Aviv.” Netzarim is a tiny settlement of fifty 
families in the Occupied Territories that takes up as much land as the 
Jebalya refugee camp, which holds 100,000 people. Tel Avid is the 
largest city in Israel.
A recent study by the human rights organization B’Tselem, shows that 
while the settlements only occupy about two percent of the West Bank, 
through strategic placement and a network of roads restricted to 
settlers, they control forty-two percent of the Territories. Under 
Sharon, existing settlements have been expanded, and thirty-four new 
ones established.
That millions of Jews will immigrate to Israel and live on the West Bank 
is sheer fantasy. Indeed, according to surveys by Peace Now, some sixty 
percent of the Jewish settlers would move back to Israel proper if the 
government would offer the same incentives it does for them to live in 
the West Bank: reduction in income taxes, low mortgage rates, and 
subsidized education. Peace Now projects that this “re-transplant” would 
cost $700 million. It now costs $1.4 billion a year to subsidize the 
settlers and occupy the West Bank.
There are illusions on the Palestinian side as well, the most glaring 
being that suicide bombers will drive the Israelis out of the Occupied 
Territories. In fact, the bombers only yield the moral high ground to 
Sharon and strengthen the annexationists in Tel Aviv. These illusion are 
ruining both Palestinians and Israelis. The former live in what is a 
virtually a national prison, with tens of thousands of their young men 
incarcerated, their economy destroyed, and a death toll approaching 
2,000 since Sept. 2000. The Israelis may not be imprisoned, but they 
live in fear. The burden of empire has drained their treasury, forcing 
huge social service cutbacks, driving inflation to eight percent, and 
filling the jobless rolls. More than 550 have died.
But sometimes illusion produces clarity. While Americans tend to think 
of Israel as Sharon and the Palestinians as suicide bombers, the reality 
is far more complex. Sharon has called up the reserves, but he will have 
to do without the 466 reservists who refuse to serve in the Occupied 
Territories. Hamas has pledged a new round of suicide bombers, but it 
will have to do so in the face of call by fifty-five leading 
Palestinians to stop the bombings in Israel. The call has already had an 
effect, according to the Financial Times, which reports that Palestinian 
support for suicide bombings is declining.
There are people of goodwill on both sides, people not blinded by the 
illusion that violence solves everything. For the moment they are 
marginal, but their numbers are greater than they were last month, and 
they will be greater yet next month. They grow in numbers because their 
“vision” is the only way out illusion.
 
All content Copyleft © 2002 by The Alarm! Newspaper. Except where noted 
otherwise, this material may be copied and distributed freely in whole 
or in part by anyone except where used for commercial purposes or by 
government agencies.

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