Violence for violence sake? The roots of terrorism are usually sown and nurtured in climates of deprivation and deep political discontent

Middle East, The, Nov, 2001 by Mariam Shahin

Violence for violence sake? The roots of terrorism are usually sown and nurtured in climates of deprivation and deep political discontent. Terrorist attacks, particularly those aimed at innocent civilian targets, can never be condoned but to dismiss them as being violence for violence sake, as some politicians have attempted to do, is simplistic and naive. Mariam Shahin reports from Ramallah on the thinking behind recent Palestinian discontent. (Current Affairs)

In January 1996, the Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza Strip made a historic decision. In the first general election for a parliament under limited self-rule -- they voted overwhelmingly in favour of "officially dividing British Mandate Palestine into two states, one Arab and one Jewish. Some said the decision came "too late", unaware perhaps of the tremendous concession being offered by a population rather than a mere leader. The people had spoken and after a struggle of nearly 50 years agreed to settle on 22 per cent of their historic homeland for the sake of ending the conflict and signing a permanent peace accord.

The response to this truly historic compromise in the years that followed offered the Palestinian continued occupation, extrajudicial killings of their leaders and politicians, and the election of a series of right wing Israeli politicians, Benjamin Netanyahu, Ehud Barak and Ariel Sharon. Israeli settlements continued to spread through the Occupied Territories like wildfire, and the Palestinian leadership they had trusted appeared to be no more than a tool of the Israelis, used to subdue and suppress its own people. The Palestinians were forced to think again.

Finally there was Camp David II. In the middle of the millennium year -- Ehud Barak, then prime minister of the Israelis made the Palestinians "an historic offer" -- 60 per cent of the West Bank and Gaza -- amounting to a paltry 12 per cent of historic Palestine. This "historic" and "final" offer was made at the urging of the then US president, Bill Clinton and presented by Washington as a one time offer the Palestinians just "could not refuse".

There were a few Palestinian politicians at Camp David, who privately urged Yasser Arafat to accept Barak's offer. But even Chairman Arafat, who truly wants to get the struggle "over with", could not go home to his people with "only 12 per cent". This, in a nutshell, is the backdrop to the Al Aqsa Intifada; the Palestinian children dancing in the street when they heard that Israel's number one ally, the United States had been "hit"; and, of course, the resurgence of suicide attacks against Israeli targets.

"Terrorist rhetoric" coming from the US and Britain and racist commentaries from the likes of Italy's Mr Belusconi, are dismissed as "bad taste", "hypocrisy" and "ignorance", or worse still as "malice", by Palestinians on the street.

While Arafat was left "speechless" by the attacks on the US and Hanan Ashrawi contextualized the Palestinian position, the Israelis went on a killing spree in the aftermath of the New York and Washington attacks. As a result the Palestinian street mood only hardened; according to a poll conducted in September, the vast majority of Palestinians support the on-going Intifada.

Questions like: Why do `they' hate us? and What is wrong with the Palestinians? which came from US politicians and commentators, only underlined the almost total ignorance of most Americans about how their policies of subjugation have moulded the lives of people in the Middle East, and the Palestinians in particular, over the years.

In the immediate and continuing aftermath of the 11 September attacks on the US and as the "war on terror" began, the Palestinians continued to be at the receiving end of violence. Amazingly, the international media continued to dance to the Israeli tune. Even the BBC, in a 2.45 second news piece, reported for two minutes on a bomb explosion in southern Jerusalem in which no one was hurt, and continued for the last 45 seconds with its almost incidental coverage of the fact that 12 Palestinians had been killed in the previous 72 hours.

"Islamic terrorism" was denounced everywhere in the West, meanwhile in Gaza and Ramallah, crowds marking the first anniversary of the Al Aqsa Intifada chanted pro Bin Laden songs in the streets. "For as long as they do not condemn Jewish terror and Christian terror we will support Islamic terror", said one member of the Islamic Jihad movement who marched through the streets.

Most Palestinians, even the devout ones, practice a secular way of life and privately find the actions of Bin Laden and the Taliban abhorrent. But that is not the point. The international community is being outrageously selective. Surely any war on terror must, also include those who practise terror against Arabs. So far, say the Palestinians, all they have seen is support from the western coalition, which includes mainly the Americas but also the European Union, for those perpetuating crimes against Arab and Muslim peoples.