http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,1179307,00.html
>...Leader
Saturday March 27, 2004
The Guardian
The voices of moderate Palestinians calling for non-violent protest against the Israeli occupation at last got some of the attention they deserve yesterday. Seventy prominent politicians and intellectuals have urged a return to a "widespread, popular and peaceful intifada" based on "clear objectives and forthright discourse", arguing that the indiscriminate violence of terrorism only provides Israel with the pretext for more repressive measures. The grim truth is that such voices, on both sides, have become muffled as the pace of mutual destruction has grown. Even grimmer, a majority both among Israelis and Palestinians now simply wants to see the other side suffer. The signatories to Thursday's advertisement, placed in the Palestinian Authority's newspaper al-Ayyam, acknowledge this in urging the people to "repress their rage" and adopt instead a more "constructive and disciplined" form of popular action.
The immediate context for this appeal has been the cold-blooded Israeli assassination of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and his replacement by Abdel-Aziz al-Rantassi who calls for Hamas's war on Israel to be stepped up in retaliation. The blind rage which fuelled this response not only could have been expected, but had been predicted in similar cases before by intelligence agencies in Israel. And the killing of Yassin, according to an informed analysis in the leading Israeli newspaper Haaretz yesterday, was itself fuelled by the wounded pride of the Israeli armed forces, which felt impelled "to teach the enemy a lesson" whatever the consequences.
Another factor was the attempt this week - by which terrorist group is not yet clear - to use the confused teenager Hussam Abdu (who according to relatives "thinks like a 10-year-old") as a human bomb: this also been criticised strongly by Palestinian human rights groups and politicians. There can be no extenuating circumstances for the recruitment of what anywhere else would be condemned as "child soldiers". Sadly, it may be noted, however, that his mother reportedly would not have opposed the decision to send him on a suicide mission if he had been over 18.
More than a decade after the Oslo agreement, and with every version of the road map in tatters, there is a sense of hopelessness outside as well as within Israel and Palestine which has to be dispelled. Routine denunciations against the violence of both sides mean nothing when mouthed by a US government which refuses to bring pressure on the stronger antagonist, its ally Israel, whose illegal occupation remains at the heart of the conflict. But a weary acceptance that terrorism, however horrific, is now unavoidable, or even to some degree allowable, does no service to the Palestinian majority which desperately wants to return to normal life, while it denies the power of non-violence which fuelled the first intifada. It is hard to recall now that the success of a mainly non-violent strategy in South Africa was once held out as a hope for the Middle East.
The logic of peace, Hanan Ashrawi (one of the statement's signatories) has argued recently, is now being drowned "by the din of war drums and the frenzied mutual infliction of pain". Ms Ashrawi, who is one of Palestine's most persistent and principled voices, condemns the "bizarre concept of a 'balance of terror'" and insists on the need to continue to work for a two-state solution in which the grievances and fears of both sides are laid to rest. If there is even a germ of hope for this, it will require countries such as Britain, whose attention so often wanders, to support with finance, aid and sustained diplomacy the advocates of peace. And if the "war on terrorism" seems more important now, let us remember that it will never end while the Palestinian crisis persists.
Michael Pugliese