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Journalism of Courage
It is ironic but not unexpected that 3500 years after the Hebrews fled their dismal life in Egypt and escaped eastwards to freedom across the miraculously stilled Red Sea, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians should be fleeing from the modern day descendants of the Hebrews — the state of Israel — who now play the role of the oppressive Pharaoh to the subjugated and dehumanised Palestinians in Gaza. The reversed political geography is politically stunning, and tragic for both sides.
More significant are the continuing implications of Israel’s repeated attempts to force neighbouring Arab states to assume responsibility for policing the Palestinian refugees and subduing the Palestinian nationalist resistance movement that were both spawned by Israel’s creation and the parallel exile and occupation of the Palestinians.
Two Arab leaders in particular suffer politically from this crisis — Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Israel and the United States have tried unsuccessfully to use both of them to control Gaza, thwart the rise of Hamas, and protect Israel from Palestinian wrath, just as they used the Jordanian and Lebanese governments to achieve similar goals.
But Mubarak and Abbas cannot play the role of Israel’s subcontracted jailer, strangler and starver of the Palestinians in Gaza, and expect to remain credible with their own people or other Arabs. When an Arab leader is caught between acting as an agent and surrogate for Israel and the United States, or showing support for the basic humanitarian needs of Palestinians, they will lean towards helping the Palestinians. They will also try desperately to cling to the material aid and increasingly vacuous political validation they get from the US and Israel. Mubarak and Abbas sway in the wind this week, buffeted by their own untenable confusion about whether their primary role is to implement Arab, Israeli or American priorities.
The equally bewildered American position was reflected in Condoleezza Rice’s macabre call to deal “creatively” with the Gaza situation. Why “creatively”? Is this a kindergarten finger painting class? Why not deal with the Gaza situation on the basis of more compelling adult criteria, such as legality, legitimacy, and humanity?
Israel and the United States refuse to do the hard work of making reasonable compromises that all the Arabs, including Hamas, have already suggested: to engage with all the Palestinians and negotiate, first, a long-term truce and, consequently, a permanent peace that is fair to all, that gives Israelis and Palestinians alike a chance to live in peace and dignity.
Excerpted from Rami G Khouri’s article, Agence Global, January 28
