Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, January/February 2002, page 6

Special Report

 

The Bush Administration Declares War on Terrorism, But Ignores Its Causes

 

By Rachelle Marshall

“In my reading of European and Near East sentiment today, the Israel-Palestine conflict and America’s association with Israel are the greatest single source of anti-American sentiment, crossing political, ideological, and national boundaries.”—Historian Tony Judt, “America and the War,” New York Review, Nov. 15, 2001.

“Undoubtedly, the sore that festers in the Middle East, that taints every aspect of life in the Middle East, is the continuing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.”—Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal, New York Times, Nov. 24.

In a speech to Congress last September, George W. Bush vowed the war on terrorism would not end “until every terrorist group of global reach has been defeated.” He repeated that vow at Fort Campbell on Nov. 21 when he told troops on their way to Afghanstan, “There are other terrorists, and there are other nations willing to sponsor them. Across the world and across the years we will fight these evil ones and we will win.”

The question of how far to extend the war on terrorism is still being debated at the White House. If Middle East experts are correct, however, as long as lingering grievances go unresolved U.S. forces could turn all of the suspected countries into giant bomb craters and yet still fail to stop terrorism.

Among the deepest of these grievances are Israel’s dispossession and expulsion of the Palestinians 53 years ago, and its brutal treatment of those who remain. As Israel’s principal benefactor and ally, the United States has become an equal target of resentment. By late November, with the Taliban in retreat and his popularity at an all-time high, President Bush was politically in a position to dispel much of this resentment. By pressuring Israel to lift its blockade of Palestinian towns and villages, abide by U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, and withdraw from all of the territory it occupied in 1967, Bush could have struck at one of the roots of terrorism. Instead he bowed to pressure from Congress and the pro-Israel lobby and backed away.

Secretary of State Colin Powell’s long-anticipated speech on U.S. policy in the Middle East on Nov. 19 had raised expectations that the administration would offer a new and more even-handed approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. When Powell was interviewed on al-Jazeera television in September he mentioned that the conflict had created “a sense of hopelessness” among Palestinians and acknowledged that “terrorism is fueled by these grievances.” But his speech at the University of Louisville two months later offered only a warmed-over version of past administration statements.

Although Powell again called on Israel to freeze settlement construction, ease the blockade of Palestinian towns and cities, and end its raids into Palestinian territory, he gave no hint of punitive action if Israel did not comply. He gratified Palestinians by referring to “Palestine,” and he identified Israel’s occupation as a legitimate source of grievance. But he again left it up to Israel to set the terms for renewing peace talks. Powell had been expected to ask Sharon to give up his unrealistic demand that Palestinians stop all violence for seven days before peace talks could resume, but he never mentioned the subject. Nor did Powell repeat the recommendation of the committee headed by former Sen. George Mitchell (D-ME) that a cease-fire must be accompanied by concessions on Israel’s side. Instead Powell reaffirmed U.S. unwillingness to pressure Israel, saying only that Washington would “push and prod,” and “present ideas.”

The secretary of state also announced the appointment of Anthony Zinni, a retired Marine general, as special U.S. envoy to the Middle East. As a Marine commander in 1998, Zinni conducted the operation that fired Tomahawk missiles at a pharmaceutical factory in Sudan and at Taliban training camps in Afghanistan. Zinni is reputed to be a straightforward and tough negotiator, and has studied Arabic, but his mission as mediator between Israel and the Palestinians is only to arrange a cease-fire, not a resumption of peace talks.

Israelis and their American supporters were generally pleased by Powell’s speech. “It’s clear that America is not going to impose on us its own approach,” said Natan Sharansky, Israel’s hawkish housing minister. Abraham Foxman, director of the Anti-Defamation League, pointed out that Powell “clearly puts the onus on the Palestinians.” Powell further pleased the Israelis by insisting the Palestinians “must eliminate any doubt that they accept the legitimacy of Israel as a Jewish state,” a statement the Israelis interpreted as supporting Israel’s refusal to allow refugees the right of return. Israelis claim an influx of large numbers of Palestinians would undermine Israel’s identity as a Jewish state.

 

No Ruffled Feathers

According to a report in the Nov. 23 Northern California Jewish Bulletin, Powell originally had planned to come down harder on Israel, “but the White House and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice in particular pressed him not to ruffle feathers in Jerusalem.” The reason was not hard to divine. Three days earlier, 89 senators had sent a letter to Bush urging him “not to restrain Israel from retaliating fully against Palestinian violence” and “to express solidarity publicly with Israel.” Powell dutifully complied with both requests. Not surprisingly, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) “was particularly active in providing advice on the letter,” according to The New York Times.

Sharon interpreted Powell’s speech as a license for unlimited bloodletting, with tragic consequences for both sides. Just hours earlier, Israeli tanks had shelled Palestinian areas in Gaza, killing four Palestinians. The next day Israeli forces carried out two more assassinations and launched raids into Rafah and Khan Younis during which they killed 6 Palestinians and demolished 18 homes. Four days later five small boys from the same family were killed in Gaza by an exploding booby trap bomb Israeli soldiers had laid in the path to their school. After the children’s funeral, soldiers responded with live fire to boys throwing stones, killing one and wounding six.

On Nov. 23 an Israeli death squad killed a prominent leader of Hamas, Mahmoud Abu Hanoud, and two associates, prompting tens of thousands of Palestinians to pour into the streets in protest. The assassination of militant leaders is thought to be essential to Sharon’s strategy of preventing any resumption of peace talks, since by provoking the victims’ radical followers to exact revenge he is able to postpone such talks indefinitely. Hamas took the bait and responded a week later with suicide bombings in Afula, Jerusalem, and Haifa that killed 28 people and wounded nearly 200. Such bombings are especially cruel, and the horror they aroused was justified. But during the same weekend, the killing of at least 80 Afghan villagers by U.S. bombs—a result of “faulty intelligence”—received little notice, causing one to wonder if human life is valued equally by the mainstream American media.

Israel almost immediately tightened the blockade of Palestinian cities and towns, destroyed part of Arafat’s headquarters in Ramallah, and promised more reprisals. An obviously dismayed Arafat found himself in a precarious position. Bush demanded that the Palestinian leader break up Hamas and Islamic Jihad and arrest their members. Arafat immediately ordered the arrest of dozens of suspected militants. In doing so, however, he risked a possible revolt by the growing numbers of Palestinians who see the extremists as the only alternative to a weak Arafat who has failed to deliver. His situation justifies warnings that peace supporters on both sides have issued for more than two decades: that unless Israel agreed to a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital and control of its own borders, moderate leaders would be replaced by radicals, and the result would be even more bloodshed.

Neither Powell nor any other administration official urged Sharon to take steps to end the cycle of violence, an omission that ignored the cruel realities in the occupied territories. Between September 2000 and mid-November, more than 820 Palestinians, including 177 children, were killed, and more than 16,000 injured. In the same period 187 Israelis, including 30 children, were killed. According to UNICEF, 530 Palestinian children are permanently disabled. These statistics become out of date as soon as they are issued, since the numbers increase every day.

Along with violence against human beings, Israeli forces have done hundreds of millions of dollars worth of damage to buildings, fruit trees, crops, and other property—destruction clearly aimed at weakening the Palestinian infrastructure and the ability of Palestinians to survive on their own land. In late September, with no provocation, the army shelled sections of Gaza’s new airport which were built with the aid of France and Holland and were flying their flags. After invading and then withdrawing from six Palestinian cities last October, the army left behind dozens of bereaved families and a wake of gratuitous destruction. In Bethlehem, Israeli tanks and bulldozers rolled through the streets crushing cars, power poles and shops, and riddling buildings with bullets. Even schools and hospitals were damaged. The Jerusalem Times reported that hundreds of families whose homes were taken over by soldiers returned to find them in ruins—“some burnt down, their belongings and years of memories destroyed.”

An incident described by Chris Hedges in the October Harper’s provides insight into why so many of Israel’s victims are children. Hedges, a former Middle East bureau chief for The New York Times, was in Khan Younis last summer when a voice came over the loudspeaker from a nearby Israeli army post booming obscenities in Arabic and calling, “Where are all the dogs of Khan Younis? Come! Come!” When several boys took the challenge and darted out to throw stones, the soldiers shot them like clay pigeons with their M-16s. Hedges writes, “Later in the hospital I will see the destruction: the stomachs ripped out, the gaping holes in limbs and torsos.”

The army has conducted only ten investigations of illegal gunfire by Israeli troops and conducted one court martial. But an embarrassing mistake by an army clerk revealed why these numbers are so small. When soldiers in Rafah killed ll-year old Khalil Mughrabi last July and seriously wounded two other boys, the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem asked for an investigation. The army responded that stones were being thrown at the soldiers and therefore there was no need for an investigation. But internal army files inadvertently attached to the letter showed that Khalil was killed by shots fired from a tank-mounted machine gun a quarter of a mile away, hours after the stone throwing had stopped,

 

The soldiers shot them like clay pigeons.

On November 21 UNICEF reported that Israel had jailed more than 600 children in the past year, often subjecting them to physical and psychological abuse while in custody. The report came one day after Amnesty International told the U.N. Committee Against Torture, meeting in Geneva, that it had found increased incidences of torture, brutality, and prolonged detention in solitary confinement by Israeli authorities. Palestinian women and girls were among the victims. The Bush administration is not likely to complain about Israel’s use of torture. George J. Terwilliger III, an advisor to the U.S. Justice Department, told reporters that the United States not only intended to try suspected terrorists in secret military courts but might first transport them “to other nations with different standards of interrogation.” Israel would undoubtedly be among those nations.

The Israelis are also likely to play a role in the next stage of the Bush administration’s war on terrorists. On November 27 Bush declared that “Afghanistan is just the beginning of the war on terrorism,” adding that “if anybody harbors terrorists they’re a terrorist.” His warning was thought to be aimed at countries that Israel considers its enemies, such as Syria, Iran, and Lebanon, which have provided support for Hezbollah and Hamas. Bush was more specific in his threats to Saddam Hussain, saying there would be “consequences” if Iraq did not admit arms inspectors to look for weapons of mass destruction. A new U.S. war on Iraq would be certain to shatter the coalition of Arab and European countries Bush has assembled against Osama bin Laden. As a New York Times editorial recently pointed out, it would also “undermine whatever possibility now exists for damping violence between Israelis and Palestinians.”

That possibility in any case has been seriously diminished by Bush’s apparent decision to give Israel a free hand against the Palestinians while labelling as terrorism all armed resistance to Israel’s occupation. For National Security Adviser Rice, any distinction between forces resisting a foreign occupation and those who wantonly kill thousands of innocent people, seemingly does not exist. She warned Arafat on November 8 that “You cannot help us with Al Qaeda and hug Hezbollah. Or Hamas.” A week earlier Bush had responded to pressure from former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, Rep. Tom Lantos (D-CA), and other pro-Israel zealots by giving the U.S. Treasury the power to seize the assets of Hamas and Hezbollah and demanding that other nations follow suit. The order could create problems for governments of countries where these organizations provide hospitals, schools, and other much needed help to the poor. Hezbollah, for instance, quickly stepped in to rebuild southern Lebanon’s infrastructure and restore health services after Israeli forces withdrew last year, and several of its members are members of Lebanon’s legislature.

The order to freeze the assets of Hamas and Hezbollah, and an administration official’s statement that “Al Qaeda was first and after that we’re going after the rest of the terrorists” indicate the administration is willing to risk losing America’s Arab and Muslim allies, and has little interest in achieving a just peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Bush abandoned even the pretense of even-handedness when he pointedly refused to shake hands with Arafat during a U.N. meeting in New York but held a cordial meeting with Sharon at the White House a few weeks later.

Bush’s threats, and those of his hawkish advisors, mean that the administration may be intending to wreak more havoc on countries already suffering from years of war and its aftermath, while continuing to ignore the problems that afflict these countries. If so, the effort to end terrorism that has worldwide support is doomed to fail. Shibley Telhami, Professor of Peace and Development at the University of Maryland, has explained why: “There is legitimate anger and genuine despair in the Middle East, which provides fertile ground for terrorists to exploit,” Telhami wrote in the November 11 issue of the Jerusalem Times. “Unless we address the roots of this anger and despair, new terrorists exploiting public hopelessness could replace the ones we destroy.” If Bush wants to stop terrorism he should ignore the advisers who advocate endless war and listen instead to advice that could bring peace.

Rachelle Marshall is a free-lance editor living in Stanford, CA. A member of the International Jewish Peace Union, she writes frequently on the Middle East.

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