By now we have all heard the news of the Palestinian man who strapped
explosives to his body and blew himself up at a Pizza restaurant
on King George Street in central West Jerusalem and, in the process,
killed 18 Israelis, including at least two children, and injured
100 others.
While most of the world will take the time once again to use this
incident as an excuse to hurl more abuse on the Palestinian people,
we must ask the question of what would drive someone to commit
such an act?
In my opinion, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon bears sole
responsibility for this incident.
The on-going indiscriminate Israeli killing of Palestinian civilians
has brought about this reaction from the Palestinian people. It
is Sharon's government which has initiated unprecedented state
terrorism against the Palestinian people, and has imposed a devastating
economic and infrastructural siege on the Palestinians. This has
brought more than 3 million people to the verge of starvation
in the last 10 months. Let us not forget that is was just last
week that eight Palestinians were killed in Israel's ongoing assassination
campaign, including two Hamas political leaders, a journalist
and two children.
Given this fact, can we realistically expect that a nation of
people placed under such conditions would not try to defend itself
by whatever means it has at its disposal? What would we do if
we lacked the very basic needs necessary for human survival, like
food, water, shelter and jobs? The answer to this question is
that when people confront a threat on the most basic essentials
of life, they will defend themselves in order to survive, and
they will do so by any means possible.
In the past several months the Palestinian people have had to
endure a string of Israeli attacks and extrajudicial executions
which have killed over 600 of their people, including children,
and has maimed thousands of others. In addition, they have witnessed
their homes being demolished, the continued confiscation of their
land and, owing to the continual Israeli blockade, their economy
left in shambles. Their very existence hangs in the balance. The
Palestinian people have reached the outer limits of their frustration
because of Israel's unprecedented brutality against them which,
I might add, has the full cooperation and financial backing of
the the most powerful nation on earth - the USA.
Do not expect the Palestinian people, many of whom have had children
or relatives killed by Israeli forces, simply to be docile and
quietly accept their miserable condition. They will fight back,
and they will fight back hard because, as it is right now, they
have no other options.
Of course, the Israelis do not see the situation quite the same
way. Robert Fisk, commenting on this incident in the UK's Independent
newspaper, writes:
Since Israel does not regard the seizure of
Arab land as aggression, since it does not see Jewish settlement
building on occupied land against international law as aggression,
since it does not believe that the demolition of Palestinian homes
or torture in the Russian compound interrogation centre - only
a few hundred yards from the scene of yesterday's atrocity - is
aggression, it's not difficult to see why many Israelis fail to
comprehend what this terrible war is about.
Given this fact, it is expected that the Israelis will continue
with their murderous policy against the Palestinian people. But
if the Israelis expect to see any peace and calm in the region,
they will have no choice but to end their illegal occupation of
Palestinian land and respect Palestinian rights.
Several months ago one Palestinian man responded to a question
from a reporter about violent Palestinian reactions to the Israeli
occupation. He said: "If a person squeezes a cat, that person
will get scratched." The Palestinian people are currently
being squeezed into an impossible situation, so do not be surprised
when they respond accordingly.