July 28, 2006

The Spreading Rage

What led to World War II were not just Hitler’s imperial ambitions but also the submissive Anglo-American response to the march of Nazi military might, well before the global conflict’s advent. Chamberlain called it “peace in our time.” Churchill termed it “appeasement in our time.”
70 years later, it may be happening again.
The unhindered Israeli onslaught on civilian population and infrastructure in Gaza and Lebanon makes a mockery of the West’s claim that it has a soft corner for the underdog. It is more like the Israeli Goliath trying to suppress the Palestinian-Lebanese David. President Bush made no attempt to call upon Israel to cease hostilities, nor for it to minimize the disproportionate use of force. Such is Israel’s overwhelming influence on the Bush Administration that the American President was seemingly uncaring about the plight of 25,000 of his own US citizens stranded in Lebanon.
A heavily-documented study on the Israeli Lobby, by two distinguished American professors from Harvard and the University of Chicago, concluded that the Lobby works to ensure that “Israel gets a free hand with the Palestinians, and the United States does most of the fighting, dying, rebuilding, and paying.” The Washington Post Magazine, in its July 16, 2006, issue, notes that pro-Israeli interests have contributed over $56 million to US political candidates and committees, while pro-Arab and pro-Muslim groups have donated less than $300,000.
The Geneva Conventions explicitly prohibit inhumane treatment and collective punishment of civilian populations. Israeli Army Chief Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz announced deliberate targeting of Lebanese infrastructure – just as bridges and power plants were targeted in Gaza – and his intent to set Lebanon back by 20 years. It is, in effect, an open declaration of intent to flout the Geneva Conventions, and hence make a classic case for invoking sanctions under international law. This, incidentally, once again exposes the UN as well as the OIC as toothless organizations, reducing them to the role of bystanders.
While the West gnaws at the gnat of individual terror, it swallows the camel of state terror.
Muslim elites frequently rush to Western capitals to warn about the dangers posed to society by Muslim extremists. What is infrequently discussed is the larger danger posed to the world by sufferings to innocents caused by the extreme use of Israeli force and Western acquiescence to it.
The recent mayhem is a jolting reminder that the core dispute underlying the Middle East conflict is the injustice done to Palestinians. Here, US domestic compulsions, Israel, militancy, oil, and religious zealotry all mix together to create a lethal cocktail. This is the hub from which other contentious issues have branched off and mutated. It sends a clear message: no justice to Palestinians, no peace in the world.
If upper echelons in the Muslim world were as focused on safeguarding the interests of their people as they are on protecting their own power and privileges, then the world may see fewer of these cataclysmic and lopsided confrontations.
In the age of disinformation and media inequality, there is a role reversal in that the oppressed are often depicted darkly while the oppressors are shown as knights in shining armor.
Victor Hugo had said that a political outlaw has two considerations to contend with: the justice of his cause and the injustice of his fate.
Injustice, if left uncorrected, can metastasize into a spreading conflagration.
Anthony Cordesman, a noted analyst with Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies, observed, “Every Israeli action against Arabs feeds Arab anger against the US and undermines its influence.”
One of the favored topics among proponents of peace is how to develop an environment that converts swords – the instruments of war – into plowshares – the instruments of farming. The current climate in the Middle East, however, may push peaceful farmers into becoming warriors.