The Screw Turns, Again

History has no mercy. There are no laws in it against suffering and cruelty,no internal balance that restores a people much sinned against to their rightfulplace in the world. Cyclical views of history have always seemed to me flawedfor that reason, as if the turning of the screw means that present evil canlater be transformed into good. Nonsense. Turning the screw of suffering meansmore suffering, and not a path to salvation. The most frustrating thing abouthistory, however, is that so much in it escapes language, escapes attention andmemory altogether. Historians have therefore resorted to metaphors and poeticfigures to fill in the spaces, and this is why the first great historian,Herodotus, was also known as the Father of Lies: so much in what he wroteembellished and, to a great extent also, concealed the truth that it is thepowers of his imagination that make him so great a writer, not the vast numberof facts he deployed.

Living in the United States at this moment is a terrible experience. Whilethe main media and the government echo each other about the Middle East, thereare alternative views available through the Internet, the telephone, satellitechannels, and the local Arabic and Jewish press. Nevertheless, so far as what isreadily available to the average American is drowned in a storm of mediapictures and stories almost completely cleansed of anything in foreign affairsbut the patriotic line issued by the government, the picture is a startling one.America is fighting the evils of terrorism. America is good, and anyone whoobjects is evil and anti-American. Resistance against America, its policies, itsarms and ideas is little short of terrorist. 

What I find just as startling isthat influential and, in their own way, sophisticated American foreign policyanalysts keep saying that they cannot understand why the whole world (and theArabs and Muslims in particular) will not accept the American message, and whythe rest of the world, including Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America,persists in its criticism of American policies in Afghanistan, for renouncingsix international treaties unilaterally, for its total, unconditional support ofIsrael, for its astonishingly obdurate policy on prisoners of war. Thedifference between realities as perceived by Americans on the one hand and bythe rest of the world on the other, is so vast and irreconcilable as to defydescription.

Words alone are inadequate to explain how an American secretary of state, whopresumably has all the facts at his command, can without a trace of irony accusePalestinian leader Yasser Arafat for not doing enough against terror and forbuying 50 tons of arms to defend his people, while Israel is supplied witheverything that is most lethally sophisticated in the American arsenal at noexpense to Israel. (At the same time, it needs to be said that PLO handling ofthe Karine A incident has been incompetent and bungling beyond even its own poorstandards.) Meanwhile, Israel has Arafat locked up in his Ramallah headquarters,his people totally imprisoned, leaders assassinated, innocents starved, the sickdying, life completely paralysed -- and yet the Palestinians are accused ofterrorism. The idea, much less the reality, of a 35-year military occupation hassimply slid away from the media and the US government alike. Do not be surprisedtomorrow if Arafat and his people are accused of besieging Israel whileblockading its citizens and towns. No, those are not Israeli planes bombingTulkarm and Jenin, those are Palestinian terrorists wearing wings, and those areIsraeli towns being bombed.

As for Israel in the US media, its spokesmen have become so practiced atlying, creating falsehoods the way a sausage-maker makes sausages, that nothingis beyond them. Yesterday, I heard an Israel Defence (even the name sticks inone's throat) Ministry official answering an American reporter's questions abouthouse destruction in Rafah: those were empty houses, he said, withouthesitation; they were terrorist nests used for killing Israeli citizens; we haveto defend Israeli citizens against Palestinian terror. The journalist didn'teven refer to the occupation, or to the fact that the "citizens" weresettlers. As for the several hundred poor homeless Palestinians whose picturesappeared fleetingly in the US media after the (American-made) bulldozers haddone their demolition, they were gone from memory and awareness completely.

As for the Arab non-response, that has exceeded in disgrace and shamefulnessthe already abysmally low standards set by our governments for the past 50years. Such a callous silence, such a stance of servility and incompetence infacing the US and Israel is as astonishing and unacceptable in their own way aswhat Sharon and Bush are about. Are the Arab leaders so fearful of offending theUS that they are willing to accept not only Palestinian humiliation but theirown as well? And for what? Simply to be allowed to go on with corruption,mediocrity, and oppression. What a cheap bargain they have made between thefurtherance of their narrow interests and American forbearance! No wonder thereis scarcely an Arab alive today for whom the word "regime" connotesmore than amused contempt, unadulterated bitterness, and (except for the circleof advisers and sycophants) angry alienation. At least with the recent pressconferences by high Saudi officials criticising US policy towards Israel thereis a welcome break in the silence, although the disarray and dysfunctionconcerning the upcoming Arab summit continues to add to our already well-stockedcupboard of poorly-managed incidents that demonstrate needless disunity andposturing.

I do think that the adjective "wicked" is the correct one here forwhat is being done to the truth of the Palestinian experience of sufferingimposed by Sharon on the West Bank and Gaza collectively. That it cannotadequately be described or narrated, that the Arabs say and do nothing insupport of the struggle, that the US is so terrifyingly hostile, that theEuropeans are (except for their recent declaration, which has no measures ofimplementation in it) so useless: all this has driven many of us to despair, Iknow, and to a kind of hopeless frustration that is one of the results aimed forby Israeli officials and their US counterparts. To reduce people to theheedlessness of not caring anymore, and to make life so miserable as to make itseem necessary to give up life itself, comprise a state of desperation thatSharon clearly wants. This is what he was elected to do and what, if hispolicies fail, will cause him to lose his office, whereupon Netanyahu will bebrought in to try to finish the same dreadful and inhuman (but ultimatelysuicidal) task.

In the face of such a situation, passivity and helpless anger -- even a kindof bitter fatalism -- are, I truly believe, inappropriate intellectual andpolitical responses. Examples to the contrary still abound. Palestinians haveneither been intimidated nor persuaded to give up, and that is a sign of greatwill and purpose. From that point of view, all Israel's collective measures andconstant humiliation have proved ineffective; as one of their generals put it,stopping the resistance by besieging Palestinians is like trying to drink thesea with a spoon. It just doesn't work. But having taken note of that, I alsofirmly believe that we have to go beyond stubborn resistance toward a creativeone, beyond the tired old methods for defying the Israelis but not sufficientlyadvancing Palestinian interests in the process. 

Take decision-making as a simplecase in point. It's all very well for Arafat to sit out his own imprisonment inRamallah and to repeat endlessly that he wants to negotiate, but it just is nota political programme, nor is its personal style sufficient to mobilise hispeople as well as his allies. Certainly it is good to take note of the Europeandeclaration in support of the PA, but surely it is more important to saysomething about the Israeli reservists who refused service on the West Bank andGaza. Without identifying and trying to work in concert with Israeli resistanceto Israeli oppression, we are still standing at square one.

The point of course is that every turning of the screw of cruel collectivepunishment dialectically creates a new space for new kinds of resistance, ofwhich suicide bombing is simply not a part, any more than Arafat's personalstyle of defiance (all too reminiscent of what he said 20 and 30 years ago inAmman and Beirut and Tunis) is new. It isn't new and it isn't up to what is nowbeing done by opponents of Israel's military occupation in both Palestine andIsrael. Why not make a specific point of singling out Israeli groups who haveopposed house demolitions, or apartheid, or assassinations, or any of thelawless displays of Israeli macho bullying? 

There is no way that the occupationis going to be defeated unless Palestinian and Israeli efforts work together toend the occupation, in specific and concrete ways. And that, therefore, meansthat Palestinian groups (with or without the PA's guidance) have to takeinitiatives that they have been shy of taking (because of understandable fearsof normalisation), initiatives that actively solicit and involve Israeliresistance as well as European, Arab and American resistance. In other words,with the disappearance of Oslo, Palestinian civil society has been released fromthat fraudulent peace process's strictures, and this new empowerment means goingbeyond such traditional interlocutors as the now completely discredited LabourParty and its hangers-on, in the direction of more courageous, innovativeanti-occupation drives. 

If the PA wants to keep calling on Israel to return tothe negotiating table, that's fine, of course, if any Israelis can be found tosit there with the PA. But that doesn't mean that Palestinian NGOs have torepeat the same chorus, or that they have to keep worrying about normalisation,which was all about normalisation with the Israeli state, not progressivecurrents and groups in its civil society that actively support real Palestinianself-determination and the end of occupation, of settlements, of collectivepunishment.

Yes, the screw turns, but it not only brings more Israeli repression, it alsodialectically reveals new opportunities for Palestinian ingenuity andcreativity. There are already considerable signs of progress (noted in my lastcolumn) in Palestinian civil society: an intensified focus on them is required,especially as fissures in Israeli society disclose a frightened, closed-off andhorrifyingly insecure populace badly in need of awakening. It always falls tothe victim, not the oppressor, to show new paths for resistance, and the signsare that Palestinian civil society is beginning to take the initiative. This isan excellent omen in a time of despondency and instinctual retrogression.

© Copyright Al-Ahram Weekly. All rights reserved