OPINI: NEGOSIASI MAUT

Opinion: Negotiating Death

By Zainab Al-Arabi

18/01/2009

By its statement of full support for Israel in its war on Gaza, the American Congress was sending out a message to the Arab rulers: Be quiet, or else. Sadly no Arab ruler replied with a forceful statement regarding this matter. None of them screamed at America, telling it to go to Hell demanding that the aggression stop immediately or America would regret it. Instead ‘negotiations’ began on what to put in any statement from the UN Security Council.

What ‘balance’ was needed for the resolution to pass. Remove this word, put in that word, and all the while Palestinians were dying by the hundreds.

You don’t have to be a supporter of Hamas, to say unequivocally that this is unacceptable; that relations between America and the Arab countries would suffer. Of course, the American ambassador to Libya has just arrived recently; therefore he is still enjoying ‘guest status’, according to Arab hospitality rules. We can’t hurt his feelings yet. But isn’t this what the world wants to see?

Arab rulers who no longer act hastily, radically, behaving quite civilly? Should we applaud them for not upsetting the equilibrium in the Middle East, thus contributing to the stability of the region? Thank you for not turning to violence and ‘terror’, for keeping your cool despite the deadly and heart wrenching situation. Each country has its own problems and doesn’t need any more headaches.

The Egyptian President has his own reasons - concerning security agreements - for keeping the Rafah border crossing closed, while negotiations continue in Egypt. I could understand his position if Gaza wasn’t being pounded, day in day out, by the Zionist army that is trying out new American weapons on the Palestinians. But then he too is to be commended for keeping ‘peace’ in sight, ignoring the Gazans’ suffering.

Why should I worry anyway? They’ll all work it out in the end, with or without us just as they have done before. As one Palestinian lady told me, “This time we are really on our own.”

In other areas of the world where there is armed conflict, the victims have the means to leave. They can walk, run to another place. Aid is able to reach them from international organisations. In Gaza there is nowhere to go, nowhere to hide. Three weeks of war, more than a thousand dead, and the Arab rulers are still undecided whether to meet or not; meet in Doha or Riyadh? They all want to be seen as moderates who do not support terror.

After the 2001 attacks on the Twin Towers in America, in all television programmes and in all policies, Muslims were told that they couldn’t say, “Yes, what happened is terrible, but…” Denounce terrorism or be thrown out of America or Europe, etc., the same should be applied to Western governments, and companies now. They can’t say, “What Israel is doing is terrible, but…” Stop business permits for companies who have branches in Israel, until they publicly denounce Zionist terror.

If Israeli Jews are themselves doing this, and are showing the Zionist state for what it really is, demanding this from Western companies is not asking for the impossible. Why are Muslims accused of turning into extremists because of ‘religious texts’, and not the Zionists? They take texts in the Old Testament literally.

Texts in Leviticus and Deuteronomy call for the destruction of Israel’s enemies without mercy. And if some will argue against that, then tell me why they claim that the land was promised to them in the Bible if they didn’t take it literally?

However, Orthodox Jews and Israeli writers are challenging this belief every day. They are denouncing their “country’s” inhuman treatment of Palestinians, questioning the very essence of its existence, and revealing unknown secrets of the military, and politicians –past and present.

In their newspapers one can find evidence of the growing fear that they have turned into an apartheid state. Some go even further accusing the government of using ‘ethnic cleansing’ against the Palestinians. The foreign minister, Livni, among other ministers, has in fact been quoted speaking of the ‘transfer’ of Palestinians.

In view of what is going on, some Israelis have come to realise that the only solution is a one-state solution.

This solution in itself a radical suggestion, it goes without saying that those who speak of this are called ‘traitors’ and ‘self-hating’ Jews. Taking a lesson from history the Zionists should realize that might does not last forever, and that the military monster they have created cannot be fed forever.

(The Tripoli Post)