'The problem with Arafat is that he has a lot in common with Sharon: old, ruthless and cynical'
30 March 2002
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Thus the rhetoric becomes ever more cruel, ever more revolting. Hamas calls its Jewish enemies "the sons of pigs and monkeys", while Israeli leaders have variously bestialised their enemies as "serpents", "crocodiles", "beasts" and "cockroaches". Now we have an Israeli officer – according to the Israeli daily Ma'ariv – advising his men to study the tactics adopted by the Nazis in the Second World War. "If our job is to seize a densely packed refugee camp or take over the Nablus casbah, and if this job is given to an (Israeli) officer to carry out without casualties on both sides, he must before all else analyse and bring together the lessons of past battles, even – shocking though this might appear – to analyse how the German army operated in the Warsaw ghetto."
Pardon? What on earth does this mean? Does this account for the numbers marked by the Israelis on the hands and foreheads of Palestinian prisoners earlier this month? Does this mean that an Israeli soldier is now to regard the Palestinians as sub-humans – which is exactly how the Nazis regarded the trapped and desperate Jews of the Warsaw ghetto in 1944?
Yet from Washington comes only silence. And silence, in law, gives consent. Should we be surprised? After all, the US is now making the rules as it goes along. Prisoners can be called "illegal combatants" and brought to Guantanamo Bay with their mouths taped for semi-secret trials. The Afghan war is declared a victory – and then suddenly explodes again. Now we are told there will be other "fronts" in Afghanistan, a spring offensive by "terrorists". Washington has also said that its intelligence agencies – the heroes who failed to discover the 11 September plot – have proof (undisclosed, of course) that Arafat has "a new alliance" with Iran, which brings the Palestinians into the "axis of evil."
Is there no one to challenge this stuff? Just over a week ago, CIA director George Tenet announced that Iraq had links with al-Qa'ida. "Contacts and linkages", have been established, he told us. And that's what the headlines said. But then Tenet continued by saying that the mutual antipathy of al-Qa'ida and Iraq towards America and Saudi Arabia "suggests that tactical cooperation between them is possible?" "Suggests?" "Possible?" is that what Mr Tenet calls proof?
But now everyone is cashing in on the "war against terror". When Macedonian cops gun down seven Arabs, they announce that they are participating in the global "war on terror". When Russians massacre Chechens, they are now prosecuting the "war on terror". When Israel fires at Arafat's headquarters, it says it is participating in the "war on terror". Must we all be hijacked into America's dangerous self-absorption with the crimes of 11 September? Must this vile war between Palestinians and Israelis be distorted in so dishonest a way?