Uncovering Israel's intentions

As Ariel Sharon wages his brutal war against the Palestinians, U.S. support of Israel continues unabated. The Bush Administration has attempted to portray itself as a neutral party and a voice of reason attempting to mediate between two parties that are either incapable or unwilling to end the violence. But the fiction of the U.S. as a mediator is not supported by actual U.S. policy. Actions speak louder than words, and U.S. actions have unswervingly been in support of Israel.

Bush's "concern" for Israeli military actions are belied by his timeline for sending Colin Powell to the Middle East. Powell's "urgent mission" has been a substitute for more meaningful measures; the U.S. has avoided imposing sanctions or an arms embargo against Israel- an action that the U.S. is not reluctant to take against other nations. Indeed, The Washington Times finally stumbled on the truth last Friday when it reported that: "The White House said yesterday it never expected Israel to 'salute and say yes' to President Bush's demand for withdrawal from Palestinian territories in 'a mere eight days.'" Apparently Bush's message of restraint was for American audiences alone-Israel was never expected to listen.

Should the U.S. be supporting Israel? Americans are frequently told that the Israel Defense Force (IDF) operates with a "purity of arms." On Saturday, the New York Times featured an Op-Ed arguing that, "there are significant pockets of armed resistance in the Jenin camp, but there are also lots of civilians. So [Israel] can't just bomb from the skies. We send soldiers house to house, only to watch as Hamas fighters use those same civilians as shields." Such fanciful claims are contradicted by Israeli human rights group B'Tselem. "According to the information provided to B'Tselem by Dr. Zahara el-Wawi, a doctor at the clinic, the soldiers entered the mosque with their guns resting on the shoulders of Palestinian civilians who were forced to march in front of the soldiers as 'human shields.'"

Other examples of Israeli extremism abound. Peter Beaumont reported for the British newspaper, The Observer , that IDF soldiers are executing Palestinian police officers. Summary executions are also detailed by the secular Christian Science Monitor, which reports that Palestinians "witnessed Israeli troops executing five unarmed young men on Wednesday morning." According to the Monitor, "The young men had hidden in their homes rather than obey the orders of Israeli soldiers that men and boys come out for questioning."

Even the Times, normally unequivocal in its support of Israel in its editorials, remarks that "knocking down houses, destroying electricity pylons and interfering with health care, as Israeli forces have done across the West Bank, cannot be justified by any compelling military need." Corpses are rotting in Palestinian homes because the curfew prevents their burial, garbage remains uncollected and clean water is not available because, as CNN notes, "some sewer lines have been severed" by Israeli bulldozers attempting to "prevent local and media access to various parts of the city."

The greatest danger from the IDF's perspective is that the world might find out what their policies have been. The Israeli government has therefore denied journalists access to the cities under siege. Haider Rashid, the Deputy Governor of Jenin, details IDF concealment of atrocities: "At first I thought they were [bulldozing houses] to make the roads wider for the tanks-but now I believe the army is doing this in order to cover its crime. When the soldiers finally leave from Jenin, the press, cameramen and diplomats will want to come to see the terrible things the soldiers have done-but this atrocity will literally be covered up."

Rashid's explanation is so horrible that it is hard to believe. But as reporters begin to sneak into Jenin, there is much confusion as to why after days of fighting there are no bodies in the streets. Is this the result of the vaunted IDF humanitarianism of which we've heard so much? Phil Reeves of the British daily The Independent reported Tuesday that, "rubble has been shoveled by bulldozers into 30 foot piles. The sweet and ghastly reek of rotting human bodies is everywhere, evidence that it is a human tomb." According to Reeves, "Israel was still trying to conceal these scenes yesterday. It had refused entry to Red Cross ambulances for nearly a week, in violation of the Geneva Convention. Yesterday it continued to try to keep us out."

There is ample incentive for Sharon to conceal IDF atrocities. In September of 1982, he was complicit in a brutal massacre. With the assistance and supervision of then-Defense Minister Sharon, Lebanese Phalange militia troops entered the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila and slaughtered more than 3,000 Palestinian refugees-many of them women and children, and the vast majority of them, as U.N. observers would later note, unarmed. Newsweek reported that IDF soldiers "stood by as the murderers dug a 50-square-yard mass grave and dumped Palestinian bodies into it," as bulldozers with their IDF markings removed "rumble[d] out of Sabra, their scoops filled with bodies." After Sabra and Shatila, the massive worldwide and domestic outcry cost "Arik" his position as Defense Minister.

None of this is to justify Palestinian suicide attacks against Israeli civilians, which are despicable crimes. But it is our responsibility to go beyond the facile explanations offered by apologists for Israel-that Palestinians simply hate the Jews. Anti-Jewish bigotry is surely not restricted to Palestinians, yet Egyptians and Jordanians are not embarking on suicide missions.

Complete hopelessness is the cause of suicide bombings which, it should be noted, have not always been as frequent or terrible as they became after the failure of Oslo. The vast majority of Palestinians would gladly put away their guns and explosives in favor of building a civil society and a functioning Palestinian state. Under Oslo, not even a fifth of Palestinian lands were ever placed under Palestinian control, while settlements were allowed to double under Barak. The 2000 Barak proposal, despite the effusive praise it received here, offered only a cantonized Palestinian state without control of its external borders and without control of its own water supply.

As David Shipler astutely observes, in order for the terror to come to an end, "the Palestinians need to have something to lose, and Israel has to give it to them." Israel and the U.S. have so far denied the Palestinians self-determination; tragically, Bush and Sharon are intent on maintaining the status quo.