I’m proud, not ashamed, to be a friend of the United States. But I’m frustrated.
The Palestinian people are burdened by tremendous suffering and calamity as a result of the continuing aggression of the Israeli government and the insane policies of its leader. While Islamic countries should continue to focus on fighting international terrorism, confronting Israeli violence against the Palestinians should be a priority.
I am sympathetic to the suffering of the American people and the anger of the American leadership over terrorist attacks on the United States. However, I now feel great sympathy with the suffering of the Palestinian people and the anger of the Palestinian leadership because of the terrorist Israeli aggression against them. I am saddened and feel pain for what happened to thousands of innocent people in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11. But I feel the pain and suffering of three million innocent Palestinians from a terrorist Israeli operation.
I understand and respect the priorities of the United States, but I also respect and understand the priorities of three million unarmed Palestinians. I acknowledge that the Palestinians’ greatest crime is their insistence on resisting the military occupation of their country. This strange principle of resistance to military occupation of one’s country seems to be difficult for many American political, intellectual and media elite to comprehend — even though it has been practiced by others in the past, such as Nelson Mandela in South Africa under apartheid and Gen. George Washington during British colonial rule, and even Menachem Begin during the British Mandate of Palestine.
These leaders from different countries and different continents share one thing in common. They were all labeled as terrorists by the occupying military force at the time. So what is the real crime, when the Palestinians resist the Israeli military occupation of their country?
No sensible person can accept or support the killing of innocent people anywhere in the world — and that includes innocent Israelis. This also applies to the innocent Palestinians. No sensible or decent person can accept the degradation of the dignity of an innocent person anywhere in the world — including the dignity of innocent Israelis. This also applies to the innocent Palestinians.
It makes no sense to ask President Yasser Arafat, who was elected by the Palestinian people and who is currently under siege inside two rooms, to stop the violence in the occupied territories while the Israeli forces destroy his security apparatus and kill and detain his security officers.
This is not an opinion, it is a fact. No leader in the world can guarantee that no one will resort to violence; but I can guarantee that a desperate and oppressed person whose dignity has been insulted and who is willing to die cannot be stopped by any means. I am convinced that the government, army and security agencies of Israel have lost the war regardless of how many battles they win.
The Palestinians are victims of the Israeli occupation. The Israeli people are also victims of the Israeli occupation. And now America’s worldwide interests are victims of the Israeli occupation. The policies of the Israeli government continue to prove that Israel is a strategic burden on the United States in times of crisis in the Middle East. Israel’s policy of violence against three million Palestinians — Christians as well as Muslims — is seriously jeopardizing the extent to which US policy can succeed in its declared war on international terrorism, which has enjoyed the support of the Islamic world from Pakistan in Central Asia to Morocco on the Atlantic Ocean.
I believe that the Islamic world, with its 1.2 billion people, will continue to fight terrorism, but priority should be given to a united stance in the face of Israel’s terrorism against Palestinians. Israel’s actions are changing the equation of, and seriously affecting, the international war on terrorism. This change has been imposed on us as Arabs and Muslims; we did not choose it.
Accordingly, the Israeli government should bear the full responsibility for this change in the position of the Islamic world. This is my personal view. I do not arrogantly presume to speak on behalf of the leaders and peoples of the Islamic world. But something tells me that if the near future proves that my feelings reflect those of the leaders and peoples of the Islamic world, then the danger is grave and imminent.
The big losers in the end will be the Israeli people, who elected a prime minister who has the audacity to compare Israel’s violence against Palestinians with what the United States is doing in Afghanistan. This is a big lie. The United States did not occupy Afghanistan, and it did not build settlements in Afghanistan, and it did not attack or humiliate the Afghan people. Based on international laws and norms, the United States was justified in defending itself following the attacks on New York and Washington on Sept. 11, attacks directed by officials in Afghanistan and their terrorist allies. What Israel is doing now is the exact opposite.
The Arabs have offered an initiative under which Israelis and Arabs would live together in total peace and security — a normal existence as peoples and sovereign nations. This is what the Arab leaders committed themselves unanimously to at the Beirut summit on March 27, based on the initiative of Crown Prince Abdullah, deputy premier and commander of the National Guard, which was endorsed worldwide, including by the United States.
The Israeli government has rejected the Arab offer of peace and has responded to it with violence, destruction and collective punishment against three million Palestinians.
Am I insane or a fanatic because I choose the Arabs’ offer for peace? Am I insane or a fanatic because I condemn the acts of violence against innocent Israelis? Am I insane or a fanatic when I condemn the Israeli oppression of Palestinians?
Is it difficult for the political, intellectual and media elite in the United States to decide between these two choices? Life is choices, so let us choose, as President Bush said, good over evil.
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(This article first appeared in The Washington Post)
