[Peace-discuss] The other occupation

[C. G. Estabrook]

[Last night I listened to a calm, reasoned, and optimistic prognosis for
the Sharon policy by Bernard Wasserstein of the U. of C. Roughly, his
argument is that population statistics dictate that Israel must accept a
two-state solution along the lines of the Taba discussion (of which he
gave an optimistic reading), and that's what Sharon is moving to.  There
were odd things about the discussion -- notably, the United Sates' being
mentioned only as a rather benign onlooker; no mention of oil, Iraq, Iran,
etc. -- and as I came away I fell into a fantasy (probably because I went
on to a discussion of the Frankfort School) that it was the autumn of 1938
instead the spring of 2004 and I had just heard a learned German professor
give an account of how his government had no further territorial demands
in Europe, now that the question of territory and nationality had been
adequately adjusted by the leading governments in conference at Munich.
So, to bring myself back to reality, I read what our friend Jeff St. Clair
posted on counterpunch.org yesterday, below.  --CGE]

	The Sharon Annex
	Evil Does Often Triumph
	By JOHN CHUCKMAN

It did appear that that mountainous bulk of murder and corruption, Ariel
Sharon, was about to leave politics. Much as with Al Capone, authorities
only caught up with him through a trail of crooked money.

But we have heard less of his retirement lately and rather more about his
plan to leave Gaza. Apparently, after killing hundreds of its occupants,
including scores of innocent bystanders as Israeli helicopters fired
missiles into city streets, Sharon thinks he'll get some good press about
leaving Gaza.

Of course, what Sharon truly is leaving is an impossible situation. Gaza
is a small, fenced-in enclave of nearly a million Palestinians where only
the most mentally unbalanced Israeli settlers insist on living a life of
guard towers, razor wire, patrols, and spies. Sharon's army is tired of
protecting a few machinegun-toting fanatics, not to mention the small
fortune it can save by ending the protection.

The army will be able to do a more efficient job by policing only the
perimeter of the world's largest open-air detention center. Access by
land, air, and sea are tightly controlled, although inmates are permitted
on selected days to pass through fences and checkpoints for jobs in Israel
that Israelis will not take.

America's court-appointed President, the remarkable man who spent a
hundred billion dollars to set Iraq in flames, characterized Sharon's
initiative as "historic" and "courageous," two words whose meanings there
is no objective evidence he even understands.

During the carefully-staged ceremony in Washington, Bush suggested the
U.S. will support Israel's annexation of parts of the West Bank. How is
Bush entitled to grant land he neither owns nor occupies to a third party
without so much as consulting those who lived there for centuries and
still often hold deeds? Apparently, no principle more dignified than might
makes right.

The de facto border of Israel keeps shifting eastward as new settlements
sprawl out like Florida land developments. The Palestinians are not to be
permitted even their miserable 22% of what once was called Palestine.
Sharon's gang has always yearned for the West Bank, minus its inhabitants,
carefully dressing up its language in biblical terms that strike a special
chord in the backwaters of America. Of course, one just as reasonably
could make a case for Greece claiming parts of Turkey on the authority of
the Iliad. The biblical claim really is just that silly, but it carries
weight in parts where children's books are scrutinized for dire signs of
witchcraft.

Sharon's government has been a disaster both for the Palestinians and
Israel. The world's reaction to his behavior has been waves of severe
criticism, but there also has been ugly new expressions of anti-Semitism.
A number of Israel's defenders work to blur the distinction between these
two things, hoping to silence criticism. Reasonable people are driven to
despair at being treated so mindlessly.

I believe the extreme sensitivity of many Jews to criticism of Israel's
behavior actually reflects the fact that it disturbs them too, although
public expressions of their distress are rare. Fierce pressure is felt by
Jews who join criticism of Israel, perhaps the most notable case being the
Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom who not long ago spoke out quite
forcefully on the subject and has not been heard from since.

"It's easy to see which side you support," was one of the more temperate
negative responses I received once to a piece about Israel and the
Palestinians. Why must Israel's critics be put in the position of
supporting them or us? This kind of stuff--them or us--is the wisdom
proffered by the most pathetic President in American history.

Critics emphasize grievances against Israel because those grievances never
receive the same airing as those against the Palestinians. Indeed, there
are many prominent columnists, apologists for Israel's excesses, who
frequently suggest Palestinians are irrational, Thomas Friedman being only
the most well-known of them. Apart from the imbalance of voices in the
press, there is simply a great moral and ethical disproportion between the
acts of desperate people opposing occupation and organized suppression by
a heavily-armed state. Israel holds almost all the cards, so when nothing
in the situation changes, indeed when it grows far worse, how is Israel
not responsible?

My original intention was to write a piece about the departure of Sharon
offering a fresh opportunity for peace. Why not a peace initiative as
inspired as the late President Sadat's trip to Israel? But such things
never do come from Israel, and what we have now is almost the polar
opposite.

It is difficult to understand how Jews, consistently leaders in many
struggles for human rights and progress, continue to accept the
circumstances of the West Bank and Gaza. Nelson Mandela and Bishop Tutu,
figures of unquestionable moral authority and heroic resistance to
tyranny, have both said that what they see there is what they knew in
apartheid South Africa. Only Sharon's admirers, Bush's war-loving loonies,
and Jerry Falwell's strange flock awaiting the end of time are blind to
this truth.

The suicide bombings that have terrified Israelis come from utter despair.
First came Barak's contemptuous offer to Palestinians of a perpetual
Bantustan at Camp David after years of work over the Oslo Accords. This
was followed by Sharon's ugly behavior, including his provocative trip to
the Temple Mount, seeking to exploit fear. Sharon, a man directly
responsible for war-time atrocities, a man who always held the Oslo
Accords in contempt, was elected Prime Minister. Arafat, Nobel Peace Prize
laureate, has been virtually imprisoned, denied a voice in Washington, and
threatened several times publicly with murder. Now we have Bush hugging
Sharon as though he had found a long-sought father substitute. From the
Palestinian perspective, it must appear an Iron Curtain has descended.

Millions of people throughout the world understand the necessary elements
of a just and lasting peace in the Middle East. The proposals of Israel's
Gush Shalom--a group dedicated to genuine peace, a group so often treated
by Sharon's thugs as a criminal or subversive organization--contains the
key elements. A return to the Green Line as Israel's border and
Jerusalem's becoming capital for both states are rational conditions for a
stable peace. What is so difficult about accepting them?

Instead, we have Sharon, a man who has killed thousands of people, almost
all civilians, hailed as courageous. And he is hailed by a President fresh
from killing women and children in Fallujah.

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