If there was ever an illusion about where the Bush administration stood on the issues of the struggle between the Israeli occupation and the Palestinians, Colin Powell today (29 March 2002) made sure there is no ambiguity. We will leave the rather ignored issue of the billions in dollars the US sends to prop-up the Israeli occupation to another time (14 million dollars per day is transferred from US taxpayers to Israel). We were instead clearly told that terrorism (of course, he meant only Palestinian terrorism but not Israeli terrorism) is the problem resulting in the political quagmire in which we we find ourselves. Arguments advanced in response to this fixation on terrorism span the gamut from support of violence to condemnations with reservations to outright condemnation of terrorism. But remedy is vaguely discussed and even those who advocate certain remedies (building walls, killing more people, more ethnic cleansing, assassinations, etc.), seem unsure what will make a difference. As a Palestinian pacifist and a medical scientist, perhaps my analysis would seem rather "clinical" but perhaps it can give a different shade of light.
Any people in a situation of oppression or perceived oppression develop a bell-shaped curve of action ranging from all non-violent forms on one end of the curve to sometimes horrible crimes (we call it terrorism) on the other end. The majority in the middle of this curve will always have some elements of resistance that is neither terrorism nor completely non-violent resistance. Any casual examination of history will reveal examples of a wide range of tactics adopted by different segments of the society even when all are living under the same degree of occupation or repression. Differences in tactics between individuals in their responses can but do not need to be related to the external pressures faced by those individuals. Examples of the full range of this bell shaped curve was evident among the Irish, Black South Africans, African American blacks, Native Americans, and also Israeli Jews. In each of those groups, segments within the same society expressed their emotions and their aspirations using forms ranging from writing, to peaceful demonstrations, to civil disobedience and to terrorism.
It would be rather meaningless to try to pick individual acts of terrorism to compare and try to set them along a "morality" yardstick. Terrorism by definition is immoral and falls outside the scope of what a majority of humans would consider acceptable human behaviour. After all, how much of a difference is there in how civilians die whether inside a burning tire ("necklacing" by supporters of the ANC in South Africa), shelling of villages and towns (US in Vietnam or Israel today), dying at a checkpoint waiting to go to a hospital, or bombing of cafes and bars (Irish and Palestinians). A quantitative gradient or even a discontinuous spectrum of different levels or immorality or inhumanity is rather meaningless to its victims.
Of course, there are issues to discuss that may require clarification and may be contentious. For example, do we consider Palestinian policemen or armed Jewish settlers/colonialists as "civilian"? But generally, it is unambiguous that unarmed Palestinians in their homes and Israelis in their malls and cafes are civilian. If we use even the strictest of criteria to define civilian, we still find that many more Palestinian civilians were killed by Israelis than the other way around. But these numbers do not provide a measure of morality to either "group". They also miss addressing the core issues beyond a grizzly process of counting dead.
There is also occasionally misunderstanding about motivational issues. From a psycho-social standpoint, some individuals identify more with the perceived suffering or injustice done to others in their community because they have strong group "instinct" (tribalism, if you may). They can develop extreme forms of violence even when they individually are not physically affected by the situation. In other words, individuals most oppressed are not necessarily the most violent. But societies that are most oppressed or have that feeling will have a level of violence from some of its elements that reflect this. Many of the worst acts of terrorism were not committed by individuals who themselves were victims of oppression but in identification with a presumed/actual oppressed people. Hundreds of examples can be cited, ranging from such groups as Irgun, Stern Gang and Kakh (Jewish terrorist groups in Palestine) to the KKK (Christian terror groups) and to Al-Qaeda (Islamist terror groups). Kach member Dr Baruch Goldman (Goldstein), an immigrant from New York who massacred over 29 civilians while they where kneeling in prayer, came with good resources and was in no physical danger himself. Osama Bin Laden and Ariel Sharon similarly come from privileged backgrounds (Sharon belonged to the same Jewish underground terrorist group as Menachem Begin and both committed terror against civilians). All are united in working to "defend" their people from perceived injustice.
Fortunately, these fringe elements who engage in terrorism are usually a tiny minority of the population. Yet, they can cause tremendous carnage. They may feel their cause abandoned by the international community and thus think there is a need to create a balance of terror since they cannot create a balance of power. Hence the Zionist terror against the far more superior British forces in Palestine in the 1930s and 1940s. Their effect is further increased by exaggeration and due to the unpredictability of where and when they might hit next. Hence they create terror (=fear) among the target population. They become more dangerous when:
a) a large segment of the society, while not willing to engage
in similar tactics, "understands" their actions and
provides excuses for them, and
b) the media exaggerates their actions, creating fear and panic
among the target population (terror).
However, dissecting and understanding motivation in a population is in no way condoning terrorism by a segment of that population. During 1947-49, over 33 massacres of Palestinian civilians occurred in a process that is now understood, even by Israeli historians, to have been intended to "cleanse" non-Jews from the areas which were to become a Jewish state. Media frenzy resulted in even more panic and fear in the hapless Palestinian peasant population. This resulted in the largest and now most persistent refugee problem in the world. It is these refugee camps, abandoned by the whole world and oppressed, that are now called "centres of terror".
A majority of the 600,000 Israeli Jews at the time saw the massacres and expulsion of Palestinians as justifiable and part and parcel of a war of liberation. The Israeli Knesset passed laws by an overwhelming majority to prevent the return of refugees. Few Israelis complained (e.g. the Jewish Philosopher Martin Buber). Many justified these war crimes and crimes against humanity as acceptable because the Nazis did much more to Jews and now Jews must establish their state at any cost even if it meant creating hundreds of thousands of refugees. Many Palestinians in refugee camps today see terror attacks against Israelis as so much less than what they themselves endured from Israel over the past 54 years. The difference, of course, is that the Israeli state victimized the Palestinians who had nothing to do with the Nazi atrocities while the Palestinian terrorists think they are responding to the same society that victimized them and was built on their ruins. Neither is, of course, excused.
The following are all sad but true: 1) a majority of Germans did not engage in the creation and maintenance of the concentration camps but acquiesced, 2) a majority of the Israeli Jews did not participate in the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians in 1947-49 but acquiesced, 3) a majority of Israelis do not participate in occupying or oppressing Palestinians but acquiesce, 4) a majority of Americans did not participate in starving the Iraqi people (half a million were killed by the American-led sanctions) but acquiesce and 5) a majority of Palestinians do not engage in terrorism but acquiesce. The list can go on and on. This list can leave people depressed. In fact, a Jewish author and holocaust survivor committed suicide in Italy after being depressed at how much Israel and others were repeating the same hatred and racism he suffered under in the concentration camps. He felt depressed at the state of the world following World War II (another war supposedly to end all wars). But I strongly believe not only that humans are capable of making war but are also capable of making love and peace. Most humans are capable of influencing each other. In the age of the internet, this is becoming more obvious.
One segment of society does and should criticize other segments and sometimes these internal divisions succeed in stopping atrocities or at least in ameliorating their intensity. Those in the centre of the curve down to the completely pacifist individuals do denounce terrorism and violence and can and do work to promote better systems of social relations. Those who engage in terrorism may see non-violent resistance as passive acceptance of evil and may try to influence others. But history is not ambiguous or neutral in this equation. History reveals that violence breeds violence. This fact is usually lost to those in the dominant culture or power at the time. This is precisely because, having arrived at such dominance through military means, they believe it to be economically and logistically acceptable to engage in violence (calling them just wars, security measures, etc.). Being lulled into thinking that power can be maintained through more violence and more military spending, these powers lose sight of history. They then disintegrate both from within and from without to be replaced by other similarly foolish empires. That was the fate of the Roman Empire, the Persian Empire, the British Empire and the Soviet Empire. Will it be the fate of the US? That is up to us who care to try and avert it by insisting that the US act in a human and humane way and stop sending money and weapons to the Middle East (the area accounts for 60 per cent of our military exports and those in turn are the largest segment of our exports).
The majority of people do not (and should never) excuse killing civilians whether by individuals belonging to a group like Irgun, Kakh or Hamas, or whether by states with a well-oiled military machine that inflicts much heavier toll on civilians (e.g. shelling neighbourhoods with US supplied F-16s and Apache helicopters). Analysing state terrorism is addressed less than other forms of terrorism because states have more resources for study and propaganda than individuals. But the ultimate truth that always shines through in any in-depth study is that violence only begets violence and that non-violent resistance does work even in the face of a brutal and repressive power like that of the Israeli/Zionist state. Beginnings along those lines are noted in the hundreds of Israelis refusing to serve in the occupation army and the thousands who signed statements asking for Israeli withdrawal.
During the many years of the Oslo "peace process", many of us warned that what Israel is doing (land confiscation, settlement building, home demolitions, torture, a slow process of ethnic cleansing and other human rights violations) was not going to lead to peace. We argued that a just peace cannot be achieved between a strong, colonial and belligerent Israeli governments and weak Palestinians under occupation or dispersed as refugees. We further argued that violence and military power does not solve problems but exacerbates them. We also argued for international attention to be given and for international protection to defend human rights. This involvement of the international community, we argued, is similar to what materialized in South Africa. Many in the US media chose to shut off our voices and instead to listen to Israeli government officials who thought they had figured out how to deal with the Palestinian "problem". As Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin once said: he will get a peace that "achieves traditional Israeli objectives".
We all know what those objectives of pax Israeliana were. For Labour Zionists, the arrangements were to maintain the Zionist programme by giving Palestinians autonomy in certain areas (not Israeli citizenship), call it a Palestinian state (on 16 per cent of the original land of Palestine or 80 per cent of the lands of the occupied areas of Gaza and the West Bank) and maintain control of the natural resources, borders, land, etc. For Likud Zionists, the arrangements were to maintain the Zionist programme by giving Palestinians autonomy but not statehood in less areas (10 per cent of the original land of Palestine or 42 per cent of the lands of the occupied areas of Gaza and the West Bank), and maintain control of the natural resources, borders, land, etc. Both groups refuse basic international law on the right of refugees to return to their homes and lands. These issues should be discussed
Intoxicated with the power of being the fifth strongest army in the world and with backing from the only remaining superpower, both brands of Zionism were emboldened to continue to think in the tradition of older Zionists: that Palestinians will either go away or acquiesce to Israeli domination. In 1947-48, when Israeli forces expelled three quarters of the inhabitants of the land that was later to become the state of Israel, Ben Gurion (Israel's first prime minister) called it a "miraculous cleansing of the land". The apparent surprise for the current crop of Israeli leaders (Peres and Ben Eliezer of Labour, Sharon and Netanyahu of Likud) was that "miracles" faded with new realities and new "miracles" are hard to come by. Sharon explained that the international media can cover these things much better than they did in 1948. Further, despite all the oppression in 54 years, Palestinian natives still have the nerve to demand self-determination, true sovereignty and basic human rights.
Terrorism is not a mystical or elusive force to understand. Rather, its cause and effects are easy to discern and understand in the context of violence and power politics. It is also not an inevitable phenomenon nor is it a phenomenon directly related to religious beliefs or particular regions. Terrorism in the Middle East was introduced well before Islam and modern day terrorism was practised by both states and individuals in many countries. Terrorism as practised by individuals relates to (but is not excused by) the disenfranchised and oppressed status of a people. State terrorism is related to (and also is not excused by) the maintenance of power and privilege of the few. The two phenomena (state and individual terrorism) are intimately linked and grow by feeding on each other in a cycle that can be broken only by non-violent resistance and direct action.
Violence is not an incidental by-product of occupation or oppression or dispossession. It is an inevitable consequence of these injustices (which are, of course, sustained by violence). Tackling it by definition means tackling it at its roots. Otherwise it is an illusion to fight it by increased violence. What is needed is to follow the lead of the hundreds of Israeli reserve soldiers and officers who are refusing to serve in the occupied areas and to follow the lead of the 1,000 generals and army personnel who asked their government to withdraw from the occupied areas and vacate many of the settlements. We in the US are funding this occupation with our tax dollars and are thus complicit in perpetuating the misery for both Palestinians and Israelis. Apartheid and colonial overrule has failed in South Africa and it cannot and will not succeed in Israel/Palestine. It is time to say: end the occupation which is killing all of us, respect human rights, and give dignity and equality to the Palestinians.
In our search for answers to the violence in this world we should always remember history to learn from all the good that people have done and learn from the evil (lest we repeat the same mistakes and breed more violence). To truly "drain the swamp" that breeds terror (as Colin Powell put it), we must and will positively tackle the forces and powers filling the swamp: propaganda, economic deprivation, injustice perpetuated on native people, the widening gap between rich and poor, and other social and environmental ills that plague this earth. We must become positive agents of change rather than support violence as a means of enhancing "our security". We should join those who worry about the security of this small planet. Only by being aware of history and working for justice and non-violence can we hope to effectively "fight terrorism" but, more importantly, create a liveable world.
To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places - and there are so many - where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don't have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvellous victory. (Howard Zinn, You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train: A Personal History of Our Times, p.208.)
© Mazin Qumsiyeh