|
In
past war and destruction Israeli tanks clank and clatter through the West Bank, leaving a wake of shattered homes and lives spilled as easily as dropping a glass of water. When the tanks turn, it is with that peculiar screech of metal tread on concrete that once heard, no one ever forgets. Overhead, Apache helicopters and F-16s flit and dart, scorpions of the sky, from time to time unleashing lethal volleys of rocket fire on the houses below. The Apaches and F-16s are American-made, it is amusing to note. Or maybe not. Maybe nothing is amusing anymore. The center of the Jenin refugee camp is a heap of rubble, perfumed with the stench of decaying bodies. Jenin now resembles Berlin, 1945, after the Soviet Army crunched through, pulverizing everything that moved and everything that didn’t. And then came back and did it again, for good measure. Or Dresden, 1944, when American and British bombers fire-bombed the Venice of the North, turning it into the smoking rubble-pit of the North. This is how human beings make peace in the 21st century. If it seems like how human beings have made peace in previous centuries, that’s because it is. Only Arabs are terrorists. Ariel Sharon has always believed that peace comes only out of the barrel of a gun. He believed it as a youth, raiding Palestinian villages. He believed it as the Israeli Defense minister in 1982, when he orchestrated the invasion of Lebanon and Beirut. He believes it now. Only Arabs are terrorists. Deir Yassin is a monument to making peace with the barrel of a gun. Deir Yassin was a Palestinian village situated above the strategic road between Tel Aviv and West Jerusalem. The road was important because it was the only way of supplying the Israelis in West Jerusalem, and it was the scene of much fighting as the Arabs tried to enforce a blockade of West Jerusalem and the Haganah (the main Jewish fighting force) took over Palestinian villages overlooking the road. The U.N. plan at the time was to divide Palestine in three: a section for Israel (much smaller than today’s Israel), a section for the Palestinians, and Jerusalem, which was to be an international zone. The Arabs disliked the plan because they were the majority of the people in Palestine, and they felt it gave far too much land to the minority Jews. The right-wing Jews disliked the plan because they wanted all of biblical Israel for their homeland. On April 9, 1948, elements of two right-wing Jewish guerrilla groups, the Irgun (whose leader in Tel Aviv was Menachim Began, who later became the prime minister of Israel) and the Stern Gang (Lochamei Herut Israel) attacked Deir Yassin. Over the next two days, a massacre ensued. More than 100 Arab villagers were murdered — men, women, children, it didn’t seem to matter. Survivors reported that mothers nursing babies were shot. Children were lined up against walls and killed. Only Arabs are terrorists. The effect of the massacre at Deir Yassin was immediate. In its aftermath, Palestinians began fleeing the Jewish areas. The Arab nations decided that an invasion of the new state of Israel was their only recourse. And here we are, all of us, slouching towards Bethlehem. Israeli tanks clank and clatter through the West Bank, leaving a wake of shattered homes and lives spilled as easily as dropping a glass of water. Smoke hangs like a shroud. Only
Arabs are terrorists. Beau Elliot is a columnist for The Daily Iowan at the University of Iowa. This column was distributed by U-Wire. |
|
|
TCU Daily Skiff © 2002 |
||