A People Dispossessed

by Noha Ismail

"Here's freedom to him who would speak.
Here's freedom to him who would write,
For there's none ever feared that truth should be heard,
Save he who the truth would indict."

-Robert Burns

Even for a Palestinian-American who has witnessed her share of duplicity in the way the Middle East conflict is reported in this country, the coverage of the tragic events unfolding in the West Bank over the last few weeks has been both shocking and revolting. In spite of what we hear and see via the European and Arab media of the wanton savagery of the Israeli assault on the Palestinians, reading or watching the American media leaves one with the impression that the Israelis are battling an army of diabolical terrorists for their very existence (and certainly not for their settlements and military bases).

The American airwaves are flooded with pro-Israeli apologists employing crude propaganda tactics and cynically echoing President Bush, who describes every "other" as a terrorist. The ability of newsmen and freshly ordained "terrorism experts" to rewrite history, "spin" the ugly truth, and blow-dry the Palestinian-Israeli conflict into clichés has been nothing short of despicable. The occupied territories have now become the "disputed territories." Jewish settlements on Arab land have become "neighborhoods" according to CNN. Israeli death squads are now "elite forces," assassinations are "targeted killings," and every Palestinian who resists the brutal military onslaught, a "terrorist."

Typically, the American media has indulged the insanity of writers and talking heads who have encouraged Prime Minister Ariel Sharon into ever more savage acts. Consider Thomas Friedman's message to Sharon in his recent column in the New York Times "Israel needs to deliver a military blow that clearly shows that terror does not pay." What, in God's name, is an American columnist doing when he urges Mr. Sharon to go to war?

What has happened to America's moral compass when the stench of decaying corpses is wafting out of the refugee camp in Jenin and there is abundant evidence of mass killings and wanton destruction in Palestinian towns and villages, yet neither the President, nor his advisers, nor the media, are capable of grasping what is taking place right in front of their noses? In mid-April, Sharon's army was turning the refugee camp in Jenin into a killing field while the Israeli military was hiding the atrocities it committed in the camp from the outside world by preventing the Red Cross, other aid workers, ambulances, and journalists from coming near it. Meanwhile, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, was calling Sharon a "man of peace."

This is the same war criminal who sent Israel's allies into the Beirut refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila to massacre close to 1,800 Palestinian civilians in 1982. The same man who put the building of settlements on stolen Palestinian land in overdrive in order to thwart and annul the possibility of Palestinian statehood. The same cold-blooded provocateur who has doggedly attempted to subvert the Oslo Agreement by waging a campaign of calculated terror on a defenseless, stateless population from the day he was sworn in as prime minister.

All those ex-generals and politicians who trip over each other to defend him in the media make ignorant and arrogant statements divorced from reality. The truth is they don't begin to understand what is going on in the West Bank and Gaza. They obediently parrot what the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and Sharon's friends on Capitol Hill are saying.

The tired mantra that "Arafat must end the violence" is laughable. Here is a man who is holed up in a windowless room without electricity or telephone connections, stripped of his security forces, and surrounded by Israeli soldiers bent on "isolating" him from the rest of the world. He is being asked to utter the magic words-in Arabic, mind you-and pronto! the violence will cease. Any one who believes that Arafat can push a button and stop the suicide bombers is living in a dream world.

When a whole population is seething with rage, it becomes a dangerous collective. Rage does not obey orders. The actions of Sharon during the last weeks have brought this rage to an unprecedented pitch and instilled it into the hearts of every Palestinian. When this rage overflows, it creates suicide bombers-human bombs fueled by the power of injustice and bitterness, against whom there is no defense. The repression has penetrated their skin so deeply that they now have nothing else with which to defend themselves except their skins. So when an arrogant vice-president or an overbearing secretary of state dictates humiliating terms for a meeting with Arafat-the symbol of Palestinian nationhood-and turns a blind eye to the carnage that is Ramallah, Nablus, Jenin, and Bethlehem, he pours oil on the flames.

Consider the insanity of the Israeli occupation, now in its thirty-fifth year: all those lit-up detour roads built for the exclusive use of settlers and Israeli citizens; the pettiness of the Israeli army's controls at checkpoints, having little to do with security and everything with the primitive urge to humiliate and harass an occupied population; the ruthlessness with which the Israeli government destroys the Palestinian economy, bulldozes homes, and uproots olive trees. All of this is done in the name of Israeli security.

What pressing security need was there in humiliating, denouncing, and calling for the blood of the Palestinian national leader? What pressing security need was there in breaking into the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics and destroying its data? What pressing security need was there in destroying schools and hospitals, tearing up roads, crushing cars, polluting the water supply of scores of Palestinian towns and villages, shooting indiscriminately in all directions, and causing panic to a whole population?

These actions serve only to expose Sharon's ideological goal of delegitimizing the Palestinian leadership and denying the population the opportunity of ever building its own infrastructure or of educating its children. For his ultimate aim is the "transfer" of the Palestinian masses so he can declare the whole of Palestine to be "Greater Israel." That has been his goal from day one, and he has duped the U.S. government into going along with his bogus "war on terrorism" by persuading his clueless American allies, still shell-shocked by the tragic events of September 11, into believing that the entire Palestinian national movement is a terrorist organization. What is a prime minister to do when he has no credible partners? How can he be expected to negotiate for peace with a bunch of murdering gangsters?

And so it goes on. Today, the rubble of the destroyed Palestinian towns and villages looks like Ground Zero. For eighteen months a dispossessed, unarmed nation has been at the receiving end of a merciless, criminal assault by the fourth most powerful army in the world, all while the world passively watched. The blanket statements of support for Israel, right or wrong, only show how quickly people proud of their free-thinking are ready to join the chorus of propaganda, or even lead it.

Throughout history, given enough time and popular unrest, indigenous people ultimately prevail. Israel is locked in a colonial war of repression it cannot possibly win-any more than the French were able to contain Algeria, or the British were able to contain Rhodesia, or India (or, for that matter, thirteen insignificant colonies in the New World). So no matter what cruel turn of history or misfortune we have suffered, and continue to suffer, the Israeli people are going to have to come to terms with the fact that we are a nation that will simply not go away.

Edward Said, a Palestinian-American like myself, put it more eloquently: "As Palestinians, I think we can say that we left a vision and a society that has survived every attempt to kill it. And that is something. It is for the generation of my children and yours to go on from there, critically, rationally, with hope and forbearance."

WAMM Action!

Depressed by the news? Feeling isolated? You are not alone. Maybe it is time to get connected with a community of action. Join a weekly vigil for peace! You have many choices: eight vigils, five days of the week, three Minnesota regions, and six cities. Take special note of the Women in Black vigil every Friday in St. Paul (see below).

Mondays, 2:00 p.m.
Anti-War Vigil at the Army Recruiting Center, Superior St. and 5th Ave. W., Duluth
Sponsored by Loaves and Fishes
FFI: 218-724-2054

Mondays, 4:00 p.m.
Bannering at the corner of Hwy. 61 and 4th St., White Bear Lake
Sponsored by WAMM
FFI: www.worldwidewamm.org or 612-827-5364

Wednesdays, 7:00 a.m.
Outside Alliant Techsystems
5050 Lincoln Drive, Edina
Sponsored by Alliant Action
FFI: www.circlevision.org or alliantaction@circlevision.org

Wednesdays, 4:30 p.m.
Nonviolent demonstration for peace in Duluth
FFI and directions: 218-724-1891

Wednesdays, 5:00 p.m.
On the Lake Street/Marshall Avenue Bridge, starting on the St. Paul side
Sponsored by WAMM, the Twin Cities Campaign to Lift the Sanctions, and others
FFI: www.worldwidewamm.org or 612-827-5364

Thursdays, 7:00 p.m.
Vigil at the Center for Sustainable Living, 314 1/2 Division St., Northfield
Sponsored by People of Peace and Goodwill
FFI: magnusthegood@hotmail.com or 507-650-4659

Fridays, 5:00 p.m.
At the intersection of Summit and Snelling Avenues, St. Paul
Vigil to end the military occupation of Palestine with Women in Black
Sponsored by Minnesota Jews for a Just Peace, WAMM, and others
FFI: SallyShalom@aol.com or 612-925-5277

Saturdays, 12:00 p.m.
Silent peace vigil at Bridge Square in Northfield
Sponsored by People of Peace and Goodwill
FFI: magnusthegood@hotmail.com or 507-650-4659