Pulitzer Prize winner covers PFP in Delaware
29 October 2003
Pulitzer Prize winner covers PFP in Delaware
Occupiers are targets when people seethe
By NORMAN LOCKMAN
10/29/2003
“Never negotiate with terrorists” is a common mantra. It makes sense most of the time. The problem is that terrorism is usually a manifestation of some perceived injustice, and fighting terrorism successfully requires addressing the perception as well as the manifestation.
Give the Bush administration some points for understanding that in Iraq. That’s the reason it is struggling to improve the lives of ordinary Iraqis. But take away a few points for reluctance to face the fact that Iraqi terrorism is also fueled by our perceived role as occupier. That is the reason for increasing terror attacks on Iraqi collaborators. The onus is on us to figure out how to shed the occupier image.
The Bush administration (and the Clinton administration before it) gets few points for recognizing the roots of terrorism in Israel and the Palestinian territories of West Bank and Gaza. For years, the watchword there has been that terrorism must stop before we make nice. It puts the onus on the vast majority of Palestinians, Muslim and Christian, who have no truck with terrorists and wish they would go away.
In response to a question at his Tuesday press conference, President Bush restated he wants an independent Palestine created beside Israel — as soon as Palestinian terrorism stops. Unfortunately for him, the present Israeli government uses Palestinian terrorism as a pretext for doing more of those things that provoke the terrorism of the radical extremists.
In Israel, suicidal bombers make it very hard to see beyond the shattered bodies of innocent men, women and children. But it is a mistake to turn fury at these terrorists against all Palestinians, and to assume that any Palestinian complaints are veiled anti-Semitism.
The shattered bodies make more news than the indignities, small and large, against Palestinians. But to Palestinians, Israeli indignities have been the big news for nearly 40 years. That is the message of three women touring the country for Partners for Peace, an American organization promoting better understanding of the situation. Their stories are personal.
Rawan Damen, a Palestinian Muslim from Ramallah, tells of the capriciousness of Israeli checkpoints, where soldiers may delay thousands for most of a day only to disappear for hours, allowing free passage until they suddenly reappear. Her argument is that checkpoints are meant more for group punishment than for security. Suicide murderers, she says, avoid checkpoints.
Mai Nassur, a Palestinian Christian from Beit Jala, tells of the wanton destruction of ancient Palestinian-owned olive groves by Israeli troops, and restrictions that make it impossible for her family to harvest their groves.
Yehudit Keshet, a Jew from Jerusalem, talks about the geographical restrictions on all Palestinians as compared to the freedom of Israelis.
Taken together, their words underscore that systematic group punishment is official Israeli policy. From their point of view, it is a deliberate plan to make staying on disputed land unpalatable for as many Palestinians as possible.
“This is not a war on terrorism,” Keshet says. “It is a war for land and water.”
If she is right, this means condoning Israeli policies designed to deprive Palestinians is not likely to speed the day when terrorism, as counterproductive as it is, becomes passé. It means Americans are stuck with the Israeli view that Palestinian terrorism has no agenda other than preventing peace, when in fact it is driven by revenge for decades without peace and fairness in Palestinian territories.
As in Iraq, combating Palestinian terrorism is going to require rebuilding to prove goodwill.
Reach Norman Lockman, a Pulitzer Prize winner, at (302) 324-2857 or nlockman@delawareonline.com.
