From: "genet son of genet" <radiogenet-AT-hotmail.com>
Date: Tue, 04 Dec 2001 07:16:11 +0000


Robert Fisk: This terrible conflict is the last colonial war
'Arafat used to make the same expressions of grief when
his gunmen murdered innocent Lebanese'
04 December 2001
Can Ariel Sharon control his own people? Can he control his
army? Can he stop them from killing children, leaving booby
traps in orchards or firing tank shells into refugee camps? Can
Sharon stop his rabble of an army from destroying hundreds of
Palestinian refugee homes in Gaza? Can Sharon "crack down"
on Jewish settlers and prevent them from stealing more land
from Palestinians? Can he stop his secret-service killers from
murdering their Palestinian enemies – or carrying out " targeted
killings", as the BBC was still gutlessly calling these
executions yesterday in its effort to avoid Israeli criticism.It is, of 
course, forbidden to ask these questions. So let's
"legalise" them. The Palestinian suicide bombings in
Jerusalem and Haifa are disgusting, evil, revolting, unforgivable.
I saw the immediate aftermath of the Pizzeria suicide bombing
in Jerusalem last August: Israeli women and children, ripped
apart by explosives that had nails packed around them –
designed to ensure that those who survived were scarred for
life.I remember Yasser Arafat's grovelling message of condolence,
and I thought to myself – like any Israeli, I guess – that I didn't
believe a word of it. In fact, I don't believe a word of it. Arafat
used to make the same eloquent expressions of grief when his
gunmen murdered innocent Lebanese during that country's civil
war. Bullshit, I used to think. And I still do.But there was a clue to the 
real problem only hours after the  latest bloodbath in Israel. Colin Powell, 
the US Secretary of  State, was being questioned with characteristic  
obsequiousness on CNN about his reaction to the slaughter.  Nothing, he 
said, could justify such "terrorism", and he went on
to refer to the plight of the Palestinians, who suffer "50 per cent  
unemployment". I sat up at that point. Unemployment? Is that  what Mr Powell 
thought this was about.  And my mind went back to his speech at Louisberg 
University  on 20 November when he launched – or so we were supposed  to 
believe – his Middle-East initiative. "Palestinians must..."  was the theme: 
Palestinians must "end the violence";  Palestinians must "arrest, prosecute 
and punish the  perpetrators of terrorist acts"; Palestinians "need to 
understand
that, however legitimate their claims" – note the word "however" – "they 
cannot be... addressed by violence"; Palestinians  "must realise that 
violence has had a terrible impact on Israel".  Only when General Powell 
told his audience that Israel's  occupation of the West Bank and Gaza must 
end, did it  become clear that Israel was occupying Palestine rather than
the other way round.   The reality is that the Palestinian/Israeli conflict 
is the last
colonial war. The French thought that they were fighting the  last battle of 
this kind. They had long ago conquered Algeria.   They set up their farms 
and settlements in the most beautiful land in North Africa. And when the 
Algerians demanded independence, they called them "terrorists" and they shot 
down their demonstrators and they tortured their guerrilla enemies and they 
murdered – in "targeted killings" – their antagonists. In just the same way, 
we are responding to the latest massacre in Israel according to the rules of 
the State Department, CNN, the BBC and Downing Street. Arafat has got  to 
come alive, to get real, to perform his duty as the West's policeman in the 
Middle East. President Mubarak does it in  Egypt; King Abdullah does it in 
Jordan; King Fahd does it in Saudi Arabia. They control their people for us. 
It is their duty. They must fulfil their moral obligations, without any 
reference to history or to the pain and the suffering of their people.So let 
me tell a little story. A few hours before I wrote this article – exactly 
four hours after the last suicide bomber had destroyed himself and his 
innocent victims in Haifa – I visited a grotty, fly-blown hospital in 
Quetta, the Pakistani border city where Afghan victims of American bombing 
raids are brought for treatment. Surrounded by an army of flies in bed No 
12, Mahmat – most Afghans have no family names – told me his story. There 
were no CNN cameras, no BBC reporters in this hospital to film the patient. 
Nor will there be. Mahmat had been asleep in his home in the village of 
Kazikarez six days ago  when an bomb from an American B-52 fell on his 
village. He was asleep in one room, his wife with the children. His son 
Nourali died, as did Jaber – aged 10 – Janaan, eight, Salamo,  six, Twayir, 
four, and Palwasha – the only girl – two.  "The plane flies so high that we 
cannot hear them and the mud  roof fell on them," Mahmat said. His wife 
Rukia – whom he  permitted me to see – lay in the next room (bed No 13). She 
did not know that her children were dead. She was 25 and  looked 45. A cloth 
dignified her forehead. Her children – like so  many Afghan innocents in 
this frightful War for civilisation –  were victims whom Mr Bush and Mr 
Blair will never acknowledge. And watching Mahmat plead for money – the  
American bomb had blasted away his clothes and he was naked beneath the 
hospital blanket – I could see something terrible: he and the angry cousin 
beside him and the uncle and the wife's brother in the hospital attacking 
America for the  murders that they had inflicted on their family...One day, 
I suspect, Mahmat's relatives may be angry enough  to take their revenge on 
the United States, in which case they  will be terrorists, men of violence. 
We may even ask if their  leaders could control them. They are not bin 
Ladens, Mahmat's  family said that – "We are neither Taliban nor Arab" – 
but, frankly, could we blame them if they decided to strike at the United 
States for the bloody and terrible crime done to their family. Can the 
United States stop bombing villages? Can Washington persuade its special 
forces to protect prisoners?  Can the Americans control their own people?



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