Socialist Action /April 2002
Picket Line & Barricades
Sharon: 'Palestinians-out!'
In the elegant phrase of Washington bureaucrats, they "don't give
a rat's ass." They don't care a whit if all Palestinians were to die
tomorrow. No, not true-they'd be overjoyed. Another tough problem overcome!
Unfortunately for Washington, the Palestinians have no intention of quietly
committing suicide. On the contrary, with every tank, aircraft, and artillery
attack, the will to resist the Israelis and their American partners becomes
more evident.
This resistance is reflected in the organization of Israeli reserve troops
(now numbering over a thousand) that is opposing the Israeli occupation
and the war against the Palestinian people.
In the meantime, the Israeli politicians and army, in copying the methods
of the Third Reich-under which European Jews suffered annihilation-tell
lies without stopping.
They are merely pursuing terrorists, they intone, while the nightly TV
newscasts show their soldiers attacking refugee camps (for which the Israeli
prime minister, Ariel Sharon, is truly infamous in having arranged the massacre
20 years ago of helpless refugees in two camps in Lebanon).
The Israeli regime is very big on assassinations (normally called murder
or "bushwacking" in the West). This is a common response to their
Palestinian political opponents. People are bombed in their homes, in their
cars, or wherever they can be found.
The Israeli writer, Edgar Keret, wrote in the L.A. Weekly regarding his
nation: "This is a country that has long become indifferent to the
pain of its own people, to say nothing of its enemies." He then describes
the shooting of two pregnant women, one Israeli and the other Palestinian,
"without attracting undue attention."
This is a warning tocsin to the United States, which may well be trudging
down that forbidding road, not inclined to be bothered with the agony of
foreigners, or of its own citizens either. After all, where is the outcry
concerning the blindfolding of prisoners held in wire cages in Guantanamo
Bay?
The Israeli leadership relies above all on the country's military agreements
with the United States. The U.S. administration, in turn, knows that Israel
is its only true ally in the area. Yet the White House is embarrassed by
the publicity, worried that it might force a halt to its moves in the Middle
East and the effect it might have on the rapidly approaching national election.
The U.S. State Department issued a stern warning to Sharon some months
ago to tone things down. What effect did it have? Zero-the reason being
that the Israeli leaders know that the U.S. has no other nation to turn
to.
Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah offered a peace plan (although not the type
socialists put forward, which is for a single democratic Palestine, where
Jews and Palestinians could live together, rid of the rule of obscurantist
priests harking back to Biblical days).
This was a rerun of the discredited Oslo "agreement" that would
relegate the Palestinians to bantustans encircled by Israel.
But even this was unacceptable to Sharon. His response was, "There
is no diplomatic horizon, only a security horizon." Or in plain words,
nothing doing.
The reason is clear-it is the same reason he attacked "the wretched
of the earth" (in the words of the song, "The Internationale")
in their refugee camp hovels. He wants the Palestinians gone! He wants
all the land! He wants a Greater Israel, as in the Biblical days of yore!
How else can you explain the destruction of 40 homes in the refugee camp?
People there have nothing; where else can they go? Exactly the idea!
Sharon's soul mate, Bush II, has threatened Syria. Why? Syria hasn't
declared war on the United States.
Doesn't matter-Syria abuts Israel, and in any peace negotiations it wants
the return of the Golan Heights. But the Israeli rulers do not wish to relinquish
the land. Therefore, the U.S. hauls out its nuclear bowie knife and waves
it at Syria.
And the Israeli settlers-many from the U.S.-under the protection of Israeli
troops, use bulldozers to knock down olive trees, hundreds of years in age,
and the sole income of Palestinian farmers.
How can the farmer and his family live without the trees? Well, that's
the idea, you see. You can't live-so get out! In the words of an old military
song, "Like hell we will, like hell."
Socialist Action /April 2002 |