The Egyptian government mouthpiece Al-Ahram (August 31) has figured out who carried out the terror bombing of the mosque in Najaf which took the life of prominent Shi'ite cleric Ayatollah al-Hakim and 120 others. It was the U.S. government! In the words of the editorial "[T]he occupation forces were responsible for this incident, as part of their effort to provoke conflict among the Shiites and between the Shiites and the Sunnis. This is a [policy] of 'divide and rule,' which occupation forces have used throughout history to rip apart the unity of peoples in countries under occupation."
This is mild stuff compared to Egyptian columnist Fatma Abdallah Mahmoud in the government daily Al-Akhbar (August 28), who has U.S. forces ripping flesh from their victims: "In every country trampled by the feet of the American military forces, we see ghastly pictures of the remains of innocent civilian victims: eyes gouged out, noses cut off, limbs intentionally amputated with the flesh that covered them stripped off....What is the meaning of this satanic force that makes them mutilate corpses in a way so barbaric and loathsome....The fight against America will be continued, Allah willing, by the peoples waging Jihad against the original pirates and criminals [the Americans] -- or, to be more precise, against the cannibals and the human corpse-disembowelers!!"
Public attention understandably focuses on the small but steady stream of casualties among U.S. troops inflicted by Saddam loyalists and assorted jihadists. But the real problem has not yet surfaced -- Iraq is composed of ethnic and religious groups with incompatible goals. The Kurds will not be satisfied until they have achieved their dream of an independent Kurdish state. Within the majority Shiite population, a strong element wants some version of a theocratic state (and is not likely to stop at violence in its effort to achieve it). The Sunni population, used to dominance, certainly does not want to be part of such a state. When the Saddam loyalists are disposed of, the fundamental issues will prove much harder to address.
Not for the first time, Israel has wounded itself in the international public relations battle, this time with publication of the report by the Orr Commission, set up to investigate the deaths of 13 Arab rioters at the hands of Israeli police in October 2000. The report's essential finding was that police officers treated the rioters as "enemies" when they should have been viewed as "demonstrators" protesting "discrimination."
But which were they? When Arafat rejected Barak's last desperate offer and launched his war in the fall of 2000, as Steven Plaut has pointed out, "Israel's own Arabs and their leaders decided the time was ripe to show their solidarity with the enemies of their country....Jews were attacked and beaten everywhere. The entire Galilee and other parts of Israel became scenes reminiscent of the late 1940s, where Arab gangs blocked roads, laid siege to Jewish towns, beat Jewish families randomly, grabbing passing Jews out of their cars, stoning every Jew they could find, murdering at least two Jews inside Israel...Throughout the country, small teams of Israeli police were confronted by hordes of thousands of violent Arabs, throwing Molotov cocktails and rocks at them, and sometimes shooting guns."
Writing in the Jerusalem Post (Sept. 11), Sarah Honig noted that Arabs in Jaffa (adjoining downtown Tel Aviv) singled out Jewish stores to vandalize, marking the windows of businesses not owned by Arabs so that only Jewish property would be ransacked, just as the Nazis did prior to undertaking the Final Solution.
Honig points out that to call this sort of thing a "demonstration" is to indulge in the Humpty Dumpty School of Logic: Humpty Dumpty told an astonished Alice, "When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean." The dictionary says an enemy is "a person or group that hates and tries to harm another," while a demonstration is defined as "a parade or meeting to protest or make demands."
Writes Honig: "The Commission's expressions of concern for the lack of Arab integration into Israeli society more than miss the point. Israel's Arabs may resort to civil rights rhetoric, but their goal isn't equality and fraternity. At the very least it's winning autonomy as a separate national entity inside Israel in order to undermine its existence as a Jewish state."
In its folly, the Orr Comission has provided an unparalleled propaganda tool to Israel's enemies worldwide who can cite the findings of an official Israeli investigative body that Israel discriminates against its Arab citizens, and when they take to the streets legitimately to protest, shoots them down.
Outpost - 2 - October 2003