Palestine & Iraq, the submissive silence [Archives:2006/968/Opinion]
By: Abdulbari Taher
What happens in Palestine and Iraq nowadays are war crimes. The American occupation in Iraq is responsible for crimes of a war of annihilation and destruction of civilization. In occupied Palestine, there is an Israeli government, and its Zionist right and left responsible of the same unsightly crimes.
The barbaric and annihilating war matches the medieval wars and what happens in Palestine renews the catastrophe of the holocaust and rather exceeds it. The unsightly colonialist war in Iraq and the racist and ethnic cleansing war in Palestine occur under a horrible international silence. Out of this mass destruction, there arise questions; does one dominant pole have the right to impose a fait accompli? Do the criminal events of September 11th justify the silence towards crimes like these? Does the split in the internal will of Palestine and Iraq contribute to negligence of the international community and human rights organizations? Do weakness and defeatism to an extent of connivance extinguish the flame of these questions?
What is most tragic is the change of the international stance in general and that of the Arab world in particular. The international stance, especially the European, was distinguishable from the American stance and was sympathetic to some extent towards victims of wars and against occupation and ethnic cleansing. It appeared more tilted towards peace and not protesting. As for the Arab order, it has turned its back on what is going on in Iraq and Palestine; it is preoccupied with its internal battles and incapable of doing anything, even just nominal condemnation.
The Israeli press and statements by Israeli senior officials began to endorse the Arab silence in their favor. They talk about the official Arab stance as if it is supporting Israel in the war of annihilation against the Palestinians. Moreover, some Arab governments exercise pressure on the Palestinians as if they were the aggressive party and required to concede. However, this does not mean they are blind towards the internal disunity in Iraq and Palestine. The factional differences to an extent of fighting between two antagonistic fronts in Palestine provide climate and pretexts for external interference and weaken the western international sympathy that is historically sympathetic with the Israeli state.
Also, the sectarian divisions in Iraq and playing the card of the Sunnis and Shiites give a cover to the American will to prolong the duration of war and destroy the Iraqi entity as well as tearing to pieces its historically united people. It is naive to stand at the boundaries of these actually existing differences that have been there for long times, but they did not hinder the crystallization of the Iraqi civilized entity and did not lead to conflict until the existence of colonialist external factors. In fact, the attempts of playing with this have historically failed during the Mongol and Tatar invading campaigns and even the British occupation was incapable despite its political cunning and colonialist experience. It was incapable of continuing its existence in the land of Mesopotamia.
The differences between Fatah and Hamas are political and could be resolved were it not for the Israeli war of annihilation that intends to destroy the will of the Palestinian people and efface and swallow their national and legitimate rights.
The healing of the domestic will of the Iraqis and the Palestinians and reaching of general national accord make repelling of the colonialist occupation in Iraq and ethnic cleansing in Palestine the issue of issues. There is strong and deep interrelationship between the two issues. What happens in Iraq influences the situation in Palestine and vise versa.
Israel may understand, more than the Bush administration that the defeat of the American army in Iraq is inevitably coming. Therefore, it tries to race against time, impose a settlement of a fait accompli, and disintegrate what has remained of the Palestinian land in a way that the building of a Palestinian state would be impossible.
Abdulbari Taher is a Yemeni Journalist and the former chairman of Yemeni Journalists Syndicate.
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[archive-e:968-v:14-y:2006-d:2006-08-31-p:opinion]
