Making sense of terrorism

Ian Boyne, Contributor

"Our enemy possesses the most sophisticated weapons in the world and its army is trained to a very high standard-We have nothing with which to repel killing and thuggery against us except the weapon of martyrdom. It is easy and costs us only our lives. Human bombs cannot be defeated, not even by nuclear bombs".

THESE chilling words were uttered before the Black Tuesday Massacre by the Secretary-General of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Perhaps if people understood the dynamics of Middle East politics and had been listening to the Palestinians and other Arabs, the shock and surprise being expressed by all would be mitigated.

Horror, revulsion and unmitigated condemnation yes; but not shock or astonishment. After all, the mastermind behind the I993 attack on the World Trade Center did testify that the plan was to kill some 250,000 people and to demolish the two towers in addition to the United Nations headquarters, two tunnels, the Gorge Washington Bridge and other heavily-peopled areas in the United States.

From a raw political and strategic point of view, the United States perhaps has no option but to talk and subsequently act tough, decisive and even ruthless -- to match terror with terror. After all, it can't sit back and "do nothing". This would only embolden the terrorists, the thinking goes. You must "hunt them down" in good old Texan cowboy fashion and "whip them". Terror tactics have always been a part of Great Power politics and now that the United States is the one remaining superpower, it has the weight of history to shoulder, all alone.

COLLATERAL DAMAGE

But aside from that "realistic" view of politics, after you have bombed areas that you decree to be eradicated, with attendant "collateral damage"(meaning innocent civilian lives), what would really be achieved? If Osama Bin Laden is killed or "brought to justice", the Taliban regime taken out or Saddam Hussein finally brought to his knees, will the U.S. be safe from terrorism?

The Pentagon's own Defence Science Board in a report in I997 admitted that "historical data show a strong correlation between U.S. involvement in international situations and an increase in terrorist attacks against the United states". And in a highly-reasoned, cogent December 17, I998, Foreign Policy Brief titled, "Does U.S. Intervention Breed Terrorism? The Historical Record", the Cato Institute provided the empirical verification of the Pentagon opinion. The formidable scholarly paper called for the greater U.S. understanding of the issues and concerns which drive people toward terrorism, rather than knee-jerk Great Power over-reaction.

But in a time of crisis when national pride has been as badly damaged as it was last Tuesday, rational, dispassionate thinking is hard to come by. The U.S. wants to avenge the blood of its innocents and the world is overwhelmingly on its side on this one. But for those who are disposed to some careful, reasoned analysis it is enough to note that the United States has in the past acted "decisively" by launching a full-scale war against Iraq, has bombed Libya, the Sudan and Afghanistan-and yet it did not prevent the greatest and most barbarous terrorist act of modern times. What will the US now adopt? Herodian justice, and wipe out the entire Arab world?

SOLUTION

More violence will never be the solution to violence. We have not learnt anything from human history, it seems, and when we see modern, sophisticated, 21st century men and women calling for the law-of-the-jungle solution, you wonder whether mankind will ever advance beyond primal instincts. For pragmatic reasons alone -- putting aside nationalistic pride -- war cannot bring peace. The best bet for the U.S. is to deepen its involvement in the Middle East peace process and bring pressure on Israel to deal more compassionately with the Palestinians and restrain its expansionism.

The major lesson of Black Tuesday is that once there is injustice and oppression anywhere, there is a threat to peace everywhere. It is a myth that only anti-American leftists, "haters of America and Israel" and the propagandised draw attention to the plight of the Palestinians. The New York Times' Chris Hedges in an article in the most prestigious journal on international relations Foreign Affairs (January/ February 2001) says "Gaza and the West bank have become the Middle East's version of the South African townships during the apartheid regime. Nearly all the indignities visited on South African blacks -- the lack of electoral representation, the dependence on work and travel permits, the curfews, the land confiscations, the arbitrary arrests, and the marginalisation from the growing economy -- are also part of Israel's relationship with the Palestinians".

The prominent Israeli writer David Grossman in an op-ed piece in the November 8 New York Times writes of the Palestinians' unacceptable status: "No state in the world would accept the presence of fortified, heavily armed enclaves in its midst, defended by soldiers of another country and bound to that country in dozens of mutually exclusive ways". The anger, resentment and hate of the Palestinians and Arabs is fed by the fact that the weapons which are used to repress them have been paid for by America. The United States supports Israel to the tune of US$3.3 billion annually-and $1.8 billion of that is military aid --- the largest support given to any country. U.S. aid to Israel is one-sixth of its total aid to the world. The Washington Report on the Middle East calculates in its January/February issue that between I949-2000 the U.S. has pumped some US$91.82 billion into Israel. In the minds of the terrorists who blew up the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Israel would not be a problem to them had it not been propped up by American money. One million Palestinians live in space just twice that of Washington DC.

Says Hedges in his article in Foreign Affairs , that influential journal which published George Kennan's now famous "Mr. X" article which launched the Cold War policy of containment: "Palestinian families are piled in boxy, concrete rooms capped with corrugated tin roofs weighed down by rocks. They have little furniture. Water and electricity come sporadically. Most are stateless."

The fact of the matter is that the U.S. has worked hard in the Middle East to broker a solution, but if the harsh truth be told, the Middle East problem is insoluble because fundamentalist mind-sets are involved and as the renowned political philosopher Isaiah Berlin said, great conflicts cannot be solved because they involve absolutist principles and uncompromising visions. Ariel Sharon came to power hailing East Jerusalem as "the eternal capital of Israel". The Palestinians do not want to compromise East Jerusalem. Yasser Arafat is regarded as reactionary to some hard-line Arabs and any compromise that he works out with the Americans will be rejected.

The pro-Arab commentators rarely mention the intractability and inflexibility of the Arab extremists and the real dangers which are posed to Israel's very existence by large numbers of people who believe deep down in their hearts that Israel has no right to exist. Anti-American propagandists fail to point out that a survey among Palestinians showed that 60 per cent do not believe there was a chance for peaceful coexistence with Israel and 74 per cent said even if they gained sovereignty over the hotly-disputed East Jerusalem, they would not recognise Israeli sovereignty over West Jerusalem. More frighteningly, a poll released in December found that two-thirds of the Palestinians supported "suicide operations" against Israel. How does Israel drop its arms and not take pre-emptive measures under these circumstances?

The Middle East situation is complex, but one thing is sure: More fire (violence) has never brought us nearer to a solution.

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