Date: Tue, 4 Dec 2001 07:13:54 +0000 (GMT)
Subject: the last...


Robert Fisk: This terrible conflict is the last
colonial war
'Arafat used to make the same expressions of grief
when
his gunmen murdered innocent Lebanese'
 04 December 2001
 Can Ariel Sharon control his own people? Can he
control his
 army? Can he stop them from killing children, leaving
booby
 traps in orchards or firing tank shells into refugee
camps? Can
 Sharon stop his rabble of an army from destroying
hundreds of
 Palestinian refugee homes in Gaza? Can Sharon "crack
down"
 on Jewish settlers and prevent them from stealing
more land
 from Palestinians? Can he stop his secret-service
killers from
 murdering their Palestinian enemies – or carrying out
" targeted
 killings", as the BBC was still gutlessly calling
these
 executions yesterday in its effort to avoid Israeli
criticism.It is, of course, forbidden to ask these
questions. So let's
 "legalise" them. The Palestinian suicide bombings in
 Jerusalem and Haifa are disgusting, evil, revolting,
unforgivable.
 I saw the immediate aftermath of the Pizzeria suicide
bombing
 in Jerusalem last August: Israeli women and children,
ripped
 apart by explosives that had nails packed around them
–
 designed to ensure that those who survived were
scarred for
 life.I remember Yasser Arafat's grovelling message of
condolence,
 and I thought to myself – like any Israeli, I guess –
that I didn't
 believe a word of it. In fact, I don't believe a word
of it. Arafat
 used to make the same eloquent expressions of grief
when his
 gunmen murdered innocent Lebanese during that
country's civil
 war. Bullshit, I used to think. And I still do.But
there was a clue to the real problem only hours after
the  latest bloodbath in Israel. Colin Powell, the US
Secretary of  State, was being questioned with
characteristic  obsequiousness on CNN about his
reaction to the slaughter.  Nothing, he said, could
justify such "terrorism", and he went on
 to refer to the plight of the Palestinians, who
suffer "50 per cent  unemployment". I sat up at that
point. Unemployment? Is that  what Mr Powell thought
this was about.  And my mind went back to his speech
at Louisberg University  on 20 November when he
launched – or so we were supposed  to believe – his
Middle-East initiative. "Palestinians must..."  was
the theme: Palestinians must "end the violence"; 
Palestinians must "arrest, prosecute and punish the 
perpetrators of terrorist acts"; Palestinians "need to
understand
 that, however legitimate their claims" – note the
word "however" – "they cannot be... addressed by
violence"; Palestinians  "must realise that violence
has had a terrible impact on Israel".  Only when
General Powell told his audience that Israel's 
occupation of the West Bank and Gaza must end, did it 
become clear that Israel was occupying Palestine
rather than
 the other way round.   The reality is that the
Palestinian/Israeli conflict is the last
 colonial war. The French thought that they were
fighting the  last battle of this kind. They had long
ago conquered Algeria.   They set up their farms and
settlements in the most beautiful land in North
Africa. And when the Algerians demanded independence,
they called them "terrorists" and they shot down their
demonstrators and they tortured their guerrilla
enemies and they murdered – in "targeted killings" –
their antagonists. In just the same way, we are
responding to the latest massacre in Israel according
to the rules of the State Department, CNN, the BBC and
Downing Street. Arafat has got  to come alive, to get
real, to perform his duty as the West's policeman in
the Middle East. President Mubarak does it in  Egypt;
King Abdullah does it in Jordan; King Fahd does it in
Saudi Arabia. They control their people for us. It is
their duty. They must fulfil their moral obligations,
without any reference to history or to the pain and
the suffering of their people.So let me tell a little
story. A few hours before I wrote this article –
exactly four hours after the last suicide bomber had
destroyed himself and his innocent victims in Haifa –
I visited a grotty, fly-blown hospital in Quetta, the
Pakistani border city where Afghan victims of American
bombing raids are brought for treatment. Surrounded by
an army of flies in bed No 12, Mahmat – most Afghans
have no family names – told me his story. There were
no CNN cameras, no BBC reporters in this hospital to
film the patient. Nor will there be. Mahmat had been
asleep in his home in the village of Kazikarez six
days ago  when an bomb from an American B-52 fell on
his village. He was asleep in one room, his wife with
the children. His son Nourali died, as did Jaber –
aged 10 – Janaan, eight, Salamo,  six, Twayir, four,
and Palwasha – the only girl – two.  "The plane flies
so high that we cannot hear them and the mud  roof
fell on them," Mahmat said. His wife Rukia – whom he 
permitted me to see – lay in the next room (bed No
13). She did not know that her children were dead. She
was 25 and  looked 45. A cloth dignified her forehead.
Her children – like so  many Afghan innocents in this
frightful War for civilisation –  were victims whom Mr
Bush and Mr Blair will never acknowledge. And watching
Mahmat plead for money – the  American bomb had
blasted away his clothes and he was naked beneath the
hospital blanket – I could see something terrible: he
and the angry cousin beside him and the uncle and the
wife's brother in the hospital attacking America for
the  murders that they had inflicted on their
family...One day, I suspect, Mahmat's relatives may be
angry enough  to take their revenge on the United
States, in which case they  will be terrorists, men of
violence. We may even ask if their  leaders could
control them. They are not bin Ladens, Mahmat's 
family said that – "We are neither Taliban nor Arab" –
but, frankly, could we blame them if they decided to
strike at the United States for the bloody and
terrible crime done to their family. Can the United
States stop bombing villages? Can Washington persuade
its special forces to protect prisoners?  Can the
Americans control their own people? 

 

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