Palestinians stunned by collapse of Saddam's regime

There was shock and disbelief in the West Bank and Gaza Strip Wednesday as Palestinians gathered around TV sets to watch US Marines and Iraqi residents knock down a giant statute of Saddam Hussein in Tahrir Square in central Baghdad.

"I'm stunned and appalled. I can't understand what is happening," said Rustum Abu Ghazalah, a 30-year-old shopkeeper in the center of Ramallah.

He and grim-faced fellow shopkeepers zapped from one Arab TV station to another with the hope of discovering that what they were hearing and watching was nothing more than a US-produced Hollywood film.

"This can't be true," grumbled Abu Ghazaleh. "Where are the suicide bombers? Where are the Fedayeen of Saddam? Where are the heroic Republican Guards?"

Some Palestinian officials, however, expressed relief that the war was in its final stages now that Saddam's regime has collapsed. They said they hoped that now the US and the rest of the world would pay more attention to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"We hope that Washington will now have time to solve our problems here," one official told The Jerusalem Post. "Let's hope that the US will now implement the road map plan for peace in the Middle East and force Israel to stop its aggression on our people."

Since the beginning of the war, many Palestinians have been staging daily demonstrations in support of Saddam. The protests have often turned into anti-American and anti-British rallies where Palestinians burned effigies of US President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

At least two Palestinian groups, Fatah and Islamic Jihad, announced that they had dispatched suicide bombers to Iraq to join in the fight against the US and British troops. Hundreds of Palestinian volunteers from Lebanon, Syria and the West Bank and Gaza Strip are reported to have arrived in Iraq to participate in the fighting.

"This is a sad day for all the Arabs and Muslims, particularly the Palestinians," said Nael al-Am, a 36-year-old grocery owner in Ramallah. He is one of the few merchants who still keep a large-size poster of the deposed Iraqi president. Friends describe him as a staunch supporter of Saddam.

"I invested a lot of money in buying a satellite dish and a new TV set because I wanted to watch the day the battle for Baghdad begins," explained the bearded shopkeeper. "I was sure that this was going to be one of the great battles of the century, where an Arab army would inflict heavy losses on the invading crusaders. I feel as if a dagger has been stuck in my heart when I see American soldiers strolling in the heart of Baghdad."

Salim Jaber, a taxi driver from the nearby town of Beitunia, said he decided to call it a day when he heard on radio the news from Baghdad. "I just couldn't continue driving," he said. "It was very difficult for me and the passengers. I've never seen such solemn faces. It was as if they had lost dear ones."

Many Palestinians said Saddam was the only Arab leader who sided with them both morally and financially in their confrontation with Israel. "He gave us a sense of pride because he was the only Arab leader who stood up against Israel and the US," said Abdel Majiud al-Bahs, a 46-year-old engineer. "Now that Saddam is gone, the Palestinians feel like orphans. We have lost an important ally. He was even more popular than Yasser Arafat."

Since the beginning of the intifada more than two years ago, Saddam has paid about 30 million dollars to families of Palestinian victims of the violence, including suicide bombers who blew themselves up in Israel. The money was channeled through the pro-Iraqi Arab Liberation Front, a tiny Palestinian faction operating in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The last time Saddam's representative handed out checks to Palestinians was last week.

Some Palestinians chose to vent their anger on the Arab media, especially al-Jazeera, Abu Dhabi and al-Arabiya TV stations, for broadcasting lies about the developments on the battlefield. "For the past three weeks these stations gave us the impression that Iraq had the upper hand in the fighting against the US and British forces," complained Yahya al-Natsheh, the owner of a boutique in al-Bireh, the twin city of Ramallah.

"Where is the liar [Iraqi information minister Mohammed] Sahhaf," he asked rhetorically. "He sounded and looked so confidant when he told us that the Iraqis were slaughtering the crusaders and mercenaries at the gates of Baghdad. Everyone believed that the Iraqis were cleverly luring the Americans and British into Baghdad, which was supposed into a huge graveyard for the crusaders."

Older Palestinians said the events in Iraq are reminiscent of the Six Day War, when Arab radio stations and leaders told their audiences that Israel was on the verge of defeat. They said the TV appearances of the Iraqi information minister, who remained defiant till the last minute, insisting that everything was under control and that the enemy had been defeated.

"Sahhaf reminded me of [Egyptian radio propagandist] Ahmed Said, who during the 1967 war, told us that the Israeli warplanes were falling like flies," said Abed al-Zamel, a 70-year-old retired schoolteacher from Silwad village near Ramallah. "Once again the Arabs have fallen victim to the lies of their leaders and media. We never learn from our mistakes. When the war erupted, I warned my sons not to watch Arab TV stations so they would not be disappointed and depressed when the truth eventually comes out."

In recent years, millions of words have been uttered and written about
the Palestinian problem, billions of dollars have been spent in attempts
to solve it. The result is thousands of dead, tens of thousands of
wounded, ruin of the Palestinian economy, severe damage to Israel's, and
the worst worldwide wave of antisemitism since World War II.

One can expect that the lavishing of more words and money on the
problem, without a fundamental rethinking, will again prove to be an
enormous waste of resources devoted to making a problem much worse.
Oddly enough, the concepts required for a rethinking are simple and the
conclusions to be drawn are evident. More likely, alas, there will be no
rethinking and the "Road Map" will be only the latest in a series of
wrong-headed initiatives.

1. The Essential Difficulty

The Palestinian problem is usually seen as a complex of difficult issues
that need to be resolved: borders, Jerusalem, terrorism, etc. It is a
mistake, however, to treat these difficulties as if they were of
comparable magnitude. Instead, one must distinguish between essential
and inessential difficulties.

DEFINITION: With regard to the Palestinian problem, a difficulty is
essential if, and only if, it entails the disappearance of the State of
Israel or of the Palestinian people.

Apparently, all the commonly mentioned difficulties are inessential
except one. The Jewish settlements are not an essential difficulty,
since their total removal would intensify the threats to the State of
Israel, but not entail its destruction. Conversely, apart from a handful
of small settlements in the heart of populated Palestinian areas, the
settlements present no obstacle to the creation of a Palestinian state,
let alone a threat to the existence of the Palestinian people.

Jerusalem is not essential in the sense defined: Israel could survive
even if the whole city, including all the Jewish areas, were abandoned
to the Palestinians. Vice versa, even if the whole city remains in
Israeli hands, the Palestinians could create a viable state without it.
For both parties, Jerusalem is a matter of pride and prestige, but not
of survival. Terrorism, too, causes endless tragedies and misery, but it
has never endangered the existence of Israel.

The one essential difficulty is this: that all the Palestinian factions,
from the most secular to the most Islamic, from the most democratic to
the most corrupt, demand the return of the Palestinian refugees, and of
all their millions of descendants, to those places in Israel where the
said refugees were living in 1948. Satisfying this demand would quickly
create an Arab majority in Israel.

Nor can this essential difficulty be removed by granting a "right of
return" simply in principle, but with all kinds of qualifications, in a
signed accord between Israel and Palestinian representatives. On the
contrary, any agreement by Israel to recognize such a right, even in
principle, will constitute, for the Palestinians, the validation of
eternal struggle against the State of Israel, with all the consequent
bloodshed and destruction.

2. The Fundamental Question

About the creation of a Palestinian state, too, millions of words have
been expended by politicians and journalists. All kinds of questions are
raised about secondary issues: borders, demilitarization, etc. But the
most fundamental question of all is rarely even formulated, let alone
answered.

FUNDAMENTAL QUESTION: Do the Palestinians want a state in order (a) to
make peace with Israel or (b) to pursue their struggle against Israel
from a more advantageous starting point and with greater resources?

Those who have ears to hear now have the answer. It comes not merely in
unison from all the individual Palestinian factions. The draft
constitution for the Palestinian state includes a clause conferring upon
all the refugees the permanent right to demand return. Through this
clause, the Palestinian state is defined as the means of permanent
struggle against the existence of the State of Israel.

3. The Dogmatic Chant

Now we come to a most painful topic. All the millions of words about the
Palestinians coming from the "international community" are, upon closer
examination, no more than endless variations upon one dogmatic chant.
That is, the same basic idea is chanted in unison by everyone and its
truth is unquestioned.

TYPICAL QUOTATION NO. 1: "I would have told the Palestinians that until
they stop suicide bombing, we're not dealing with them, but I would also
have told the Israelis that every new or expanded settlement they built
would cost them $100 million in U.S. aid..." - Thomas L. Friedman, New
York Times, March 2, 2003

This is the theme of countless speeches and articles by the politicians
and intellectuals all round the world: end settlements and end
terrorism, and peace can come. That includes major speeches by Bush and
Blair, by Straw and Powell, by all and sundry.

TYPICAL QUOTATION NO. 2: "The European Council last week called for the
early implementation of the 'Road Map.' Terror and violence must end. So
must settlement activity." - Tony Blair, February 25, 2003

TYPICAL QUOTATION NO. 3: "A Palestinian state must be a reformed and
peaceful state that abandons forever the use of terror... For its part,
the new government of Israel... will be expected to support the creation
of a Palestinian state and to work as quickly as possible toward a final
status agreement... As progress is made toward peace, settlement
activities in the occupied territories must end." - George W. Bush,
February 26, 2003

TYPICAL QUOTATION NO. 4: "The international community today shares our
vision for a lasting settlement as set out in a series of Security
Council resolutions for a viable Palestinian state based on the 1967
boundaries and an Israeli state free from terror, secure within its
borders, recognized by the Arab world." - Jack Straw, March 10, 2003

And so on, and so on. Underlying all such speeches and articles is the
same dogmatic chant, constituting the meager sum of all thought devoted
to the problem.

DOGMATIC CHANT: The Palestinians must end terrorism, the Israelis must
totally freeze settlement activities, then there can quickly arise a
Palestinian state whose borders will approximate the
1967 lines and the Middle East will know peace at last!

How many thousands of times have we heard this chant and even joined in
chanting it? But note: the chant mentions only a pair of inessential
difficulties, settlements and terrorism. It totally overlooks the
essential difficulty and it disregards the fundamental question.

4. The Irrelevance of All Recent International Peace Initiatives

All the peace initiatives that have been proposed, with massive
international backing, in recent years are themselves also merely
elaborations of the dogmatic chant. That is why all have failed. So also
the "Road Map" of the "Quartet," the most heavily backed of all
initiatives, both totally ignores the one essential difficulty and takes
for granted the false answer to the fundamental question.

So the Road Map will lead to one of two destinations. Either its
implementation will break down, and the Palestinian-Israeli war will
restart (from front lines closer to the Israeli population centers). Or,
even worse, its implementation will be completed, creating a Palestinian
state committed to eternal struggle with Israel (with a front line drawn
through the center of Jerusalem).

5. The Criterion of Any Solution

The above analysis also provides a criterion by which any future
international initiatives can be tested. More specifically, it provides
both a broad and a narrow criterion.

BROAD CRITERION: Any initiative to solve the Palestinian problem must
ensure answer (a) to the fundamental question by obliging the
Palestinians to eliminate the essential difficulty.

Besides that general abstract formulation, it is possible to define a
narrow criterion that anyone can grasp even without the finer details of
analysis. This is because of a simple fact that stares everyone in the
eyes, yet nobody sees it. For ten years, there have been over a million
Palestinians living in refugee camps under the jurisdiction of the
Palestinian Authority itself! Not one of them has been rehabilitated by
the PA, since it is PA policy that they will all stay there until the
day when they can march into Israel. Regardless of whether a Palestinian
state is created.

Thus there can be no peace until the Palestinians reverse this policy.
Moreover, the policy has to be reversed BEFORE the creation of a
Palestinian state, so as to leave no ambiguity about the purpose of
creating such a state.

NARROW CRITERION: Any initiative to solve the Palestinian problem must
oblige the Palestinian Authority to begin rehabilitating, in permanent
housing, all the Palestinian refugees under its jurisdiction; to make
substantial progress in this regard already before the creation of a
Palestinian state; as well as to omit any mention of a "right of return"
in the constitution of such a state.

6. A More Likely Scenario

Admitting that "we were all wrong" is not easy. More likely, the
international community will march on to the strains of the dogmatic
chant. So now let us see where the current version of the Road Map is
likely to lead.

In the speech just quoted, Jack Straw also expressed warm appreciation
for the newly nominated Palestinian prime minister. "Those who know Abu
Mazen know he has a fine track record in peace negotiations with Israel
and will lead the Palestinians very well..." This bold assertion is
evidence that Mr. Straw himself knows too little about Abu Mazen. At any
rate, one hopes that Mr. Straw spoke in ignorance of two significant
facts. (See Khaled Abu Toameh on "Arafat's new prime minister" in the
Jerusalem Post, March 10, 2003.)

FACT NO. 1: Mahmoud Abbas, alias Abu Mazen, is the author of a book in
Arabic entitled "The Other Side: The Secret Relationship between Nazism
and Zionism." The book seeks to refute "the Zionist fantasy, the
fantastic lie that six million Jews were killed." According to Abu
Mazen's findings, Hitler killed "only 890,000 Jews, as part of a joint
plot with the Zionist movement."

So much for Abu Mazen's "fine track record," pace Mr. Straw. Where is he
likely to "lead the Palestinians very well"? We might ask: Where might
Britain be led if the "international community" had pressed for the
appointment of David Irving as prime minister? We would be even sorrier
for Britain if David Irving were regarded as the most moderate British
politician available. But perhaps we should not risk maligning Mr.
Irving; in the realm of Holocaust denial, Irving is indeed moderate
compared to Abu Mazen.

FACT NO. 2: Arafat nominated Abu Mazen to become prime minister only
after the two agreed that responsibility for the Palestinian security
services will continue to remain entirely in Arafat's hands.

So the appointment of Abu Mazen makes no difference whatsoever in the
area of Palestinian terrorism. Most likely, therefore, terrorists will
start wreaking havoc in Israeli cities as soon as the Israel Defense
Forces withdraw from the Palestinian population centers, as demanded by
the Road Map. And that is where the Road Map will collapse, like all its
predecessors.

But let us consider the more disastrous scenario: the Road Map is
carried out to completion. In two years, there is supposed to arise a
Palestinian state committed to the "right of return." As soon as that
state is created, all the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon will be told
by the Lebanese government to go to Palestine. Not only will the current
PA refugee camps become permanent. Palestinian policy is to dump the
refugees coming from Lebanon predominantly in Jerusalem, so as to
pressure Jews to leave.

There will be firing not just from Beit Jala upon Gilo (separation: one
kilometer) but from the roofs of Jerusalem's Christian Quarter upon the
Jewish municipality (separation: one hundred meters). And when Israeli
forces retaliate... Once more, a massive international investment in
making matters worse.

### Malcolm Lowe is a philosopher and biblical scholar, who moved to
Israel from Wales 33 years ago.

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