topic by
real watcher
4/28/2002 (10:18) |
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The Real Aim
Saturday, April 27 2002 @ 01:22 PM GMT
By Uri Avnery
The real aim of 'Operation Defensive Shield' was not to
'destroy the infrastructure of terrorism'.
This was merely a good slogan for uniting the people of
Israel, who are angry and afraid after the suicide
bombings. It is also a good political device, allowing
Sharon to ride on the bandwagon of President Busch’s
'war against international terrorism'. Under the
umbrella of 'destroying the infrastructure of terrorism'
one can do practically anything.
If Sharon had really intended to 'destroy the
infrastructure of terrorism', he would have acted very
differently. He would have given the Palestinian masses
hope of achieving their national freedom in the near
future. He would have fortified the position of Yasser
Arafat, the only effective partner for peace. He would
have strengthened the Palestinian security forces and
radically improved economic conditions in the Palestinian
territories.
But destroying the infrastructure of terrorism is not Ariel
Sharon’s aim. His program is far more radical: to break
the backbone of the Palestinian people, crush their
governmental institutions, turn the people into human
wreckage that can be dealt with as he wishes. This may
entail shutting them up in several enclaves or even
driving them out of the country altogether.
As Sharon sees it, this would be finishing off the job
started in 1948: to establish the real Israel, from the
Mediterranean to the Jordan river; a state inhabited
solely by Jews. It was no accident that he openly
supported Slobodan Milosevic, the inventor of 'ethnic
cleansing'.
When I wrote this a year ago, it sounded like malicious
slander. Sharon was still pictured as a man determined
to fight terrorism, not as a person using the fight against
terrorism as a means to achieve quite different aims.
No more.
Four days ago I was in Ramallah. I sneaked into the
town (Israelis are forbidden by the military commander
from entering the Palestinian territories) in order to see
it for myself. I visited the Palestinian ministries. A
shocking sight, indeed.
Take, for example, the Palestinian Ministry of Education.
It is housed in an imposing building, probably going back
to British times, a mixture of neo-Classic European and
oriental styles. In front of it there was a rose garden –
'was', because a tank has crisscrossed it, for no
apparent reason, leaving only one purple rosebush in all
its glory. Just so. To teach them a lesson.
On the upper floor, where the archives and computers
were housed, the destruction was total. The computers
were taken apart and thrown on the floor, the safe
blown open, the papers strewn around, the drawers
empty, the telephones crushed . Some of it was just
plain vandalism. The money in the safe was stolen, the
furniture upturned, the papers dispersed. But when one
looked closer, the real aim of the operation became
clear. All the hard disks were taken from the computers,
all the important files taken away. Only empty shells
remained. All the important contents of the ministry were
taken: the lists of pupils, examination results, lists of
teachers, the whole logistics of the Palestinian school
system.
The Ministry if Health suffered the same fate. The hard
disks that contained all the information, state of
diseases, medical tests, lists of doctors and nurses, the
logistics of the hospitals had been taken.
Even the people most critical of the Palestinian Authority
admitted that these two ministries – Education and
Health – had been functioning well. They have been
utterly destroyed.
This happened to virtually all the Palestinian government
offices. Gone is the information pertaining to land
registration and housing, taxes and government
expenditure, car tests and drivers’ licenses, everything
necessary for administrating a modern society.
The lists of terrorists were not hidden in the land
registration books, the inventory of bombs was not
tucked away among the list of kindergarten teachers.
The real aim is obvious: to destroy not only the
Palestinian Authority, but Palestinian society itself: to
push it back with one stroke from the stage of a modern
state-in-the-making to the primitive society of Turkish
times.
This is true for the civil society, and even more so for the
security system. The headquarters of the security
services were destroyed, files burned, computers
crushed, the information concerning armed underground
organizations and all other details pertaining to the war
against terrorism were obliterated. There is no better
evidence of the aims of this operation: not war on
terrorism, but destruction of organized Palestinian
society.
By the way, on that day I passed, with a group of Israeli
peace activists, through the center of Ramallah – from
the mass-grave in the hospital parking lot to the
besieged headquarters of Yasser Arafat. We carried
Hebrew posters and encountered much sympathy and
not a single sign of hostility. Even at this time, the
Palestinians know the difference between the Israeli
peace camp and those who responsible for this brutal
attack. Here, perhaps, lies the only glimmer of hope.
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