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Sharon Flattens Another Bump in the Road

by Ahmad Bouzid, Jordan Times, September 30, 2003

THE RESIGNATION of the first Palestinian prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas, and the up-to-now unthinkable attack on the founder and spiritual leader of Hamas, Sheikh Yassin, are clear signals that we are entering a new phase, long planned by the Sharon war machine in its relentless war against the Palestinian people.

The Aqaba summit of June 5 was nothing more than an annoying little bump in the road for Ariel Sharon - a bump he dealt with in the only way he knows, which is by bulldozing any possibilities of starting political negotiations with the Palestinians while, at the same time, providing minimal gestures (and making maximum noise over them) that President George Bush could sell at home as signs of real progress, with the media making more than most out of the little scraps.

No doubt, Sharon was prepared to play that old and favourite game of his for at least a few more months, possibly up to the 2004 US presidential elections or up to the time when it became clear that Bush was unbeatable in the polls, whichever came first. But as it became patently clear that Bush was getting not stronger but weaker by the day, as he faced the Iraq mess and a ghost economic recovery, it became equally obvious to Sharon that Bush was quickly losing his stomach for shaking a finger at the Israelis for making a mockery of the roadmap. And so, Sharon is now pouncing on the opportunity to quickly move forward with his slightly delayed plans and dispatch the little annoying roadmap to the same grave where the Mitchell Report and the Tenet Plan were buried not long ago.

Facing an uphill election fight that promises to be far steeper than predicted only three months ago, chances are that Bush will not only sit on the sidelines and let Sharon do as he pleases, but will completely switch back to the "moral clarity" of the good old days, when everything could be blamed on Yasser Arafat and everything could be conveniently postponed until "after Arafat is gone".

Meanwhile, the wall will continue to be built, settlements will continue to grow, and the Palestinian population will continue to live in city-prisons. And worse, with the slow creeping of the unthinkable and the unspeakable becoming part of "respectable" discourse in Israel and the United States, nothing whatsoever can now be dismissed as beyond the realm of what Sharon can do to the Palestinian populations in the name of ensuring Israel's security.

And, of course, the Israeli PR machine has already engaged into hyper-mode, spinning the turn of events in the following, perfectly predictable way: (a) Israel accepted the roadmap, even though it felt that it endangered its security, (b) Israel fulfilled its commitments for Phase I of the roadmap, (c) Israel acted in a very restrained way all along, until it could no longer tolerate things, with the Aug. 19 suicide bombing, (d) Abbas never had a chance since Arafat was in control all along, and (e) now the United States needs to let Israel solve its problems "once and for all" by eradicating Hamas and other groups.

Basic facts will not only be ignored, they will also be fabricated, outright, bald-faced lies will be told, and the intelligence of the American people will be shamelessly and repeatedly insulted and violated. And all along, the US media will not only simply roll over and play half-dead, as usual, but will cheerfully accept the easy, comfortable way out, never bothering to ask the obvious questions, never pointing to the decades-old record of rejection from Sharon, his open refusal to accept a viable Palestinian state, his brutality, his war crimes and his relentless sabotaging of all chances, minor or major, at advancing political dialogue.

The media will again fail to connect the simple dots, will fail to look for or detect obvious patterns, never daring to stare reality right in the face, let alone break free from the mindless narrative sandbox in which they have decided to confine themselves.

And so, the mighty powers that could have acted to promote peace but instead chose to smother it, and then kill it and bury it, will be portrayed as the victims, while the powerless and dispossessed Palestinians will have scorn and anger heaped upon them. Who will win if we let this sorry tragedy go on and on? Only those who believe that all crimes can be forgiven as long as the criminal is the victor.

The writer is president of Palestine Media Watch and author of `Framing the Struggle'. He contributed this article to The Jordan Times.