Viewpoint Sharon adds fuel to fire of his military solution
By NEVE GORDON
A few hours after the F16 jet
dropped a 1-ton bomb on a crowded residential area in Gaza, killing 17 people
-- 11 of them children -- and wounding over 140 more, Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon exclaimed that the attack had been one of Israels biggest
successes.
Israeli spin doctors immediately understood that the massacre
would generate bad public relations and changed the official line, using
apologetic adjectives like miscalculation, mistake, error and oversight to
describe the deadly assault. Noble Peace Prize laureate Shimon Peres took it
upon himself to lead the remorseful choir, hoping to suppress world
censure.
Despite harsh international criticism, Sharon remained
unrepentant. The Israeli press has suggested that his triumphant cry has less
to do with the operations formal objective -- the extra-judicial
execution of Hamas leader Salah Shahada -- than with the successful
annihilation of a unilateral ceasefire agreement formally finalized by the
different Palestinian military factions a day before the massacre. Hamas and
Islamic Jihad will most likely retaliate, which will justify, in turn,
Israels further reoccupation of Palestinian territories.
In other words, Sharon added fuel to the dying fire because he
does not believe in a diplomatic solution to the bloody Israeli-Palestinian
conflict, but rather in a military one. His objective, though, is not to wipe
out the Palestinian Authority, as some commentators seem to suggest, but rather
to forcibly change its role.
Regardless of whether Yasser Arafat remains in charge, if Sharon
gets his way, the reformed Palestinian Authority will no longer
serve as the political representative of an independent state. Rather, it will
operate as a civil administration of sorts, responsible for education, health,
sewage and garbage collection. The strategy is clear: Confer on the
Palestinians the costly role of managing civil life, but eliminate their
political freedoms. South Africans called such areas Bantustans.
To accomplish this vision Sharon needs to break the spirit of the
Palestinian people. This, it seems, is exactly what he has been trying to do.
Following the brutal Israeli assault dubbed Defensive Shield, he
has held almost 2 million Palestinians under tight military curfew. These
people have been imprisoned in their homes for over six weeks.
Sharon will continue the strangulation and humiliation of the
Palestinians, hoping that at a certain point they will bow down. A reprisal
attack by Hamas will only give him more ammunition, which is why he considers
the Gaza massacre a feat worth celebrating.
Neve Gordon teaches politics at Ben-Gurion University,
Israel.
National Catholic Reporter, August 16,
2002
|