Re: I have been reading all these posts about Israel and the Arabs.
What type of heartless and cruel people would come to a land, and kill or expel the inhabitants that have been living there for centuries? And then confine them to a small, impoverished speck of land? Why does the international community not cry out against these monsters?
19 October 2000
A lesson from recent history
By Akiva Orr
THE POLISH journalist Richard Kapuczinsky, who toured Africa in the 1970s, once wrote (I quote from memory): "When I arrive in a new country and I see civilian demonstrators facing armed soldiers who fire at them yet the demonstrators do not run away, I know --without knowing anything else about this country's history and politics-- that the days of the government that sent those soldiers are counted. Why? Because when citizens are not afraid to die by the army's bullets, what else can the government do to stop them except resign?
Politicians, and army commanders, refuse to learn this lesson. They continue to issue orders even when the writing about their future is on the wall. In the meeting in Paris French President Jacques Chirac said to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak: "All this was started by the provocation of Ariel Sharon. You overreacted with your violence. I was a battalion commander in Algeria and did similar things there. Today I know I was wrong then." (quoted in the Israeli daily Ma'ariv, 6 October, page 4).
France ruled Algeria for over a century. About a million French settlers settled there and dominated politics and the economy. The "National Liberation Front" (FLN) started the struggle for Algerian independence in 1954. The struggle lasted 10 years. Most of the French army were in Algeria and killed one million Algerians, many of whom had nothing to do with the FLN. Some of the French settlers tried to assassinate President Charles De Gaulle who first declared that "Algeria will remain French forever" but later ordered the French army to leave Algeria. The Israeli government assisted the French in Algeria. In operation "Fig Leaf" the head of the Israeli secret service, Meir Amit, agreed that Israeli agents would assassinate leaders of the FLN in return for French weapon shipments to Israel.
In October 1956, Israel invaded Egypt in collusion with France and Britain so as to enable her allies to invade Egypt to "separate the combatants." The purpose of this war was twofold:
1. To return the Suez Canal, which Egypt's President Jamal Abdel Nasser nationalized, to British and French ownership.
2. To topple Abdel Nasser who helped the FLN.
The Suez war ended in defeat for Israel, Britain and France. And the Algerian war, contrary to all experts, advisors and commentators who said that France would never leave Algeria, ended in France leaving Algeria.
The FLN won. Algeria became independent. All French settlers left Algeria. The Israeli government drew no lessons from the French defeat in Algeria, but Chirac, who commanded a battalion there, said: "Today I know I was wrong then." Barak too will say so after the Palestinian people are independent.
Those who learnt from the struggles of the colonial people for independence in the last 50 years know that the recent eruption of the Palestinian struggle, is --irrespective of its outcome, and despite all the dead-- a victory for the Palestinian people and all those who cherish freedom. This struggle has shown the entire world that leaders cannot dictate the fate of a nation over the heads of the ordinary people of that nation.
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As you see, not every colonial thrust wound up with a "happy ending" like Europe's colonization of America... Besides, remember the qualifier I used to describe Israel's colonialist endeavour --I said it's OUTDATED... I didn't label it bad or evil or inhuman or whatever. However, if you still want to liken it to the US's history then you should at least face the (hard) facts for Israel will never be able to herd the Palestinians into a few shantycamps with the casino business as their only breadwinner...
America's Indians could not rely on the so-called international community (ie world opinion) to further their cause because there wasn't any in the early 1800s... Likewise, there was no Indian League (Arab League of Nations) to summon; there was no overseas Indian-led countries supplying the world with crude oil; and, demographically as well as technologically, the civilization chasm between America's primitive tribes and European settlers was insuperable --so much so that, once exterminated, remaining Indians could not wage reprisals against the settlers and their allies. Whereas today's Arabs can strike back anywhere... Hence I'd rephrase SLSUSMAN's quote --Might is Right-- and rather say that Overkill is Right, sometimes (remember Algeria, Vietnam, etc.)
Gus. |
