As conflict intensifies, Arabs
and Israeli moderates become
polarized. The tendency is to
rationalize immoral behavior
that they normally cannot
accept. AS
PALESTINIAN-ISRAELI violence
continues, serious and respected
analysts are making incredible
insinuations about the
Palestinians: They are throwing
their young into the line of
fire.
Added to this
proposition are seemingly
reinforcing stories: The
Palestinian Authority "rewards"
the families of those killed
with a few hundred dollars;
Yasser Arafat has called upon
the youth to continue their
uprising; and the fallen are
celebrated by Palestinians as
heroes who go to heaven.
We
are not speaking here of suicide
bombers killing innocent
civilians but of teen-agers who
take to the streets in defiance
and throw stones at soldiers in
their own towns. Why do they do
it? Certainly not because Mr.
Arafat asks them to.
One can
argue legitimately about Mr.
Arafat's power or willingness to
restrain the demonstrations. But
it is a different matter to
insinuate that these children
are willing to die for Mr.
Arafat instead of admitting the
obvious: They were all born
under the humiliation of
occupation, have never known
full freedom and independence
and have been promised too many
times that relief is around the
corner. It takes a lot of
hardship to be willing to die,
whether you are an Arab, Jew or
gentile. Mr. Arafat may have the
power to restrain the young, but
they are not his soldiers -- or
even his admirers.
It is
still worse to insinuate that
families are encouraged by Mr.
Arafat to send their children to
die by the lure of financial
compensation. How many parents
can imagine such a thing? Where
is it not the case that
governments provide relief to
families who lose loved ones in
conflict?
It is correctly
pointed out that Palestinians
see their casualties as martyrs
who go to heaven, as if this is
theologically driven behavior
that does not repeat itself
elsewhere. Even without
conflict, how can one explain to
a child, or to oneself, the loss
of another child? Who has not
used the heaven explanation to
cope with the pain of losing a
loved one?
In coping with the
daily ritual of losing more
young lives, Palestinians face
the choice of blaming the dead
as foolhardy or expressing pride
that they refused to accept
their humiliating reality. And
where, in situations of intense
civil and political conflict,
have teen-agers not played a
role?
As conflict
intensifies, Arabs and Israeli
moderates become polarized. The
tendency is to rationalize
immoral behavior that they
normally cannot accept. Some
Palestinians cannot bring
themselves to fully condemn the
public lynching of two Israeli
soldiers, or to acknowledge that
some of the violence was carried
out by Palestinian snipers ("the
dead soldiers were really an
assassination squad hunting
Palestinians ... and look how
soldiers are killing our
children in cold blood, then
blaming us for it").
Some
Israelis cannot bring themselves
to see the wrong of shooting
dead so many Palestinian
civilians ("our soldiers must
defend themselves ... and the
Palestinians are inviting death
so they can garner international
sympathy").
Israeli Prime
Minister Ehud Barak, who, at a
moment of empathy, once remarked
that, had he been born a
Palestinian, he would have done
more than throw stones, now
finds it easier to blame the
excessive use of force on "the
tough neighborhood" -- as if the
most recent case of ethnic
cleansing, and the unfathomable
Holocaust, did not occur in the
civilized neighborhood of
Europe.
In the United States,
many of Mr. Barak's admirers,
impressed by his courage in
moving beyond any other Israeli
leader, find it hard to
criticize the troubled prime
minister for excessive use of
force. Instead, they overlook
the findings of credible human
rights organizations and dismiss
widespread international
sentiments to pin the blame on
the incredible hypothesis that
Palestinians care about their
children less than others.
Mr. Arafat is certainly not an
angel and neither is Mr. Barak.
In their careers, they have both
used violence for strategic and
political ends. War is ugly, and
civil war is uglier. The longer
they go on, the uglier they get.
It is understandable that, in
the high-stakes information war,
Israel and the Palestinian
Authority will spin events to
maximize international sympathy.
But there is a responsibility
among analysts who want to see a
lasting peace in the region to
avoid being drawn into the
skewed and self-defeating
interpretations of events that
the combatants themselves cannot
avoid.
Despite its reduced
clout in the Middle East, the
United States remains best
placed to help the parties break
out of the cycle of violence.
Its power does not derive from
an ability to force a solution
on either side but from an
ability to persuade.
Credibility, in this instance,
is more valuable than helicopter
gun ships. Only by maintaining a
clear moral vision can this
credibility be enhanced.
Shibley Telhami holds the Anwar
Sadat Chair for Peace and
Development at the
University of Maryland, College
Park and is a senior fellow
at the Brookings Institution.
