What's the point of all this? Mainly to show that the Arab world is not, by any stretch of the imagination, living in the same world we are here in America, or Israelis are in Israel. Both America and Israel would shun such worship as unproductive lunacy. We work on a very different plane: leadership, not dictatorship, is the act of true strength. It is extraordinarily appropriate that Saddam is portrayed through a play and through a mass wedding that mirrors a piece of American fiction. The extremist Arab acts that we see today are just that in comparison with American and Israeli culture-fiction, acts wholly unreasonable and incomprehensible.
That's what disturbs me about Americans who treat Israeli actions on the same plane as Palestinian actions. They refuse to see that a culture in which 87 percent of the population supports the current suicide bombings has something fundamentally wrong in its societal philosophy. There is no doubt that suicide bombings cannot continue and pose the greatest moral wrong in war: the devaluation of human life. It is an unacceptable line of conduct, one that must be stopped as soon as possible. But to consider the actions taken by the Palestinian politicians (a group of scared, insecure and power hungry leaders) to the Israel political leadership (one that at least attempts to instill democratic values into its society) is merely ludicrous. To consider the Israelis equal to the Palestinians in their approach to war in order to justify the Israelis as peaceful and justice-seeking, while perceiving the Palestinians as bloody slaughterers, is to bring the Israelis down to a level that they don't wish to be on, either morally or politically. Yet that is what many of Israel's strong supporters seek to do: they hope to setup a parallel between Israeli and Palestinian actions that proves the Palestinians morally worse.
The problem is that this does little good, both in terms of a solution and in terms of helping to define Israel as a democratic state. The recent massacre at a Palestinian refugee camp in Jenin would be fully unacceptable to Israel-backers in any other situation. It is only in comparison with Palestinian suicide bombings that the acts can appear "not as terrible." The allegations are that the Israeli army razed houses without verifying whether there were occupants, used children as human shields, indiscriminately fired on civilians, carried out executions and blocked humanitarian aid. Already an Israeli soldier has admitted that he was ordered to fire regardless of whether he could see who he was shooting at; it is clear that necessary humanitarian aid has been blocked from entering Jenin, a possible war crime under the Geneva code. Nothing has been verified yet, mainly because Israel refuses to let a UN envoy into Jenin to inspect what happened. Israel claims that the fact-finding team will be biased against Israel from the beginning. If any one of these allegations is true, it appears that Israel will be the target of increased international criticism. The shame of this is that the incursion into Jenin probably did little good, while it left Israel open to the criticism that war normally carries with it. Even if Israel wiped out every single terrorist in Jenin, won't the Palestinian children (if still alive) be angered by being left parentless, homeless and starving? By killing one group of suicide bombers, Israel only encourages another group to be created.
The problem with the occupation has been that Israel appears to be doing just what it denounces-killing the opposition without a valid cause. Israeli incursions will not stop suicide bombers; they cannot stop suicide bombers. The only way to put an end to the Palestinians' ruthless war tactics is to put an end to Palestinian animosity. And while this may appear impossible, I'll remind readers of the 1950s in America when communism appeared even worse than Saddam Hussein. Americans hated and feared Russian power. Today, we are allies. We were at war with Germany in the 1940s. Today we are allies. And the Nazi regime carried with it a religious battle, much like the Islamic militants' cries today. Things will end. Things will change.
Eventually.
The problem is that Israel has decided to fight a battle of equals against a society that is not its equal. Democracy brings with it greater responsibility and Israel isn't willing to accept that. It wishes to wage a war with the same moral responsibility as its opponents (very little), but the international respect that a democracy deserves (very much). It's a very one-sided way of looking at things: they're bad, so they deserve what we do to them, no matter what we do.
But Israel, I believe, is above this way of thinking. I hope that, with proper U.S. guidance, Israel can understand that the only way it can survive this war is to make some form of peace with a people that currently has trouble understanding peace. It's not an easy task, but inroads are already being made. A U.S. proposal was accepted by the Israelis recently to let Yasser Arafat out of captivity. This is an important step toward helping restore some dignity to the Palestinians and, hopefully, calming the waters a bit. There is much more to be done and, surely, there will be many bumps in the road, but it is Israel's democratic responsibility that it stand not only on a higher moral ground than its enemy, but on a high moral road in general. The difference is what makes a democratic nation a democratic nation-what Israel wishes to become. Israel must, in the end, help teach the Palestinian world that fiction of the Iraqi type is unacceptable; reality must come now.