Linda S. Heard, Arab News

CAIRO, 6 April 2004 — Have you noticed how Israeli government spokespersons, when asked to defend their country’s aggressive stance toward the Palestinians, invariably invoke the US “war on terror”? Ask them why they rolled their tanks and bulldozers into a refugee camp and they’ll say they were merely fighting terror. Call them on their policy of extra-judicial assassinations and they’ll designate the targeted person as “a terrorist” and even go as far as to compare him with Osama Bin Laden as they did with Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the spiritual leader of Hamas. Take them to task on the fortified apartheid wall dividing the West Bank and they’ll say it’s the only way they can keep the terrorists out. A spin-off from Bush’s “war on terror” has been to provide Sharon with the perfect gift — a moral umbrella for Israeli crimes — at least in the eyes of those gullible enough to fall for it.

They’ve even called the duly elected leader of the Palestinian people the ailing Yasser Arafat a terrorist and feel perfectly free to publicly threaten his life too. At the end of February, Israeli forces carried out what can only be described as bank heists in Ramallah, carrying off with them an estimated $6.7 million under the pretext those were terrorist funds.

For the Israeli authorities “combating terrorism” is its new self-defensive, challenge-proof sound bite, in the same way the overused term “anti-Semitism” has been utilized to ward off any valid criticism of the Jewish state. Count how many times Ariel Sharon uses the word “terror” in his speeches. During one before the Israeli Parliament in June last year, he said it more than 20 times vowing “no compromise” in Israel’s campaign against Hamas as long as “fire, terrorism and violence” continues. Conveniently forgotten is Israel’s earlier support of Hamas, which it formerly considered a useful counter to that of Arafat’s Fatah movement.

It is true to say that Sharon is merely shadowing the American president when it comes to his frequent use of “terror”. Bush can hardly open his mouth without that word or associated words pouring forth. For Bush, fighting terror is of paramount importance; so crucial that climate change, massive defense spending, weaknesses in the economy, and critiques of his pre-emptive wars can be cavalierly brushed aside. If nations are tagged with a terrorist harboring/supporting/facilitating label, this is virtually the kiss of death.

I can hear you saying “of course terrorism should be wiped off the face of the planet” and you are absolutely right. We’ve all witnessed the horrors of the embassy bombings in Kenya, the toppling of the WTC towers, the carnage wrought in Bali, Turkey, Casablanca, Saudi Arabia and Spain. Terrorism must stop. But first there should be a properly thought out definition of terrorism and a way of dividing those with a legitimate right to oust an occupying force from their own land from actual terrorists who are driven by bigotry or a fundamentalist ideology. The Palestinian militant groups should fall into the former category along with the Lebanon-based Hezbollah, while the hydra-headed Al-Qaeda and its copycats are, indeed, terrorist groups.

In Iraq, too, words like “terrorists” and “terrorism” are being overused to suit the Bush administration’s spin on actual events on the ground. Until recently, the insurgency in Iraq was painted by the US administration as the work of Saddam-supporting remnants with foreign extremists flooding across the Iranian and Syrian borders (notice how they never ever cross over from those countries which are US allies). If we were to believe the likes of America’s viceroy in Iraq Paul L. Bremer, the Iraqi people are all happy bunnies grateful to the administration for invading their country and incensed by the Baathist insurgents congregating within the so-called “Sunni Triangle” ruining their chances for democracy.

Unfortunately for Bremer and his masters, recent events have exposed this stance as a fabrication. Last weekend it was Shiite followers of Moqtada Sadr who flooded the streets of Baghdad, Basra and Najaf protesting the closure of a pro-Sadr newspaper and the incarceration of one of his top aides. Numerous accounts of Fallujah residents have backed up the argument that their anger has nothing to do with support of their former president and all to do with resentment at foreign occupation. The uprisings in Fallujah were initially triggered when US troops commandeered their schools and later shot at demonstrators.

Furthermore the “terrorism” tag should not be limited to individuals or groups. Why should states, which perpetrate terrorist acts, be given carte blanche to do their worst in the name of “security”? Are we to suppose that states cannot be terrorist entities? In that case, was Hitler, responsible for the murder of tens of millions, not a terrorist?

When Israel sent its IDF tanks, armored personnel carriers and bulldozers into Jenin razing part of it to the ground, using civilians as human shields and preventing ambulances from reaching the sick and injured, was this not an act of terror? And what was the US campaign of “Shock and Awe” if not designed to instill the Iraqi populace with fear? Wasn’t the bombing of Baghdad’s Al-Amariya air-raid shelter during the 1991 Gulf War — which resulted in the incineration of over 400 hundred Iraqi women and children — a terrorist atrocity, bearing in mind the coalition was told of its benign purposes and given its coordinates in advance? I’m no lawyer, but if I were charged with defining who is a terrorist and who is not, I would say this: Groups or individuals seeking to defend their country from invading foreign forces are legitimate freedom fighters. Those who take their fight to third countries for the purpose of targeting civilians, together with those who use bloody methods to dislodge their own governments, should be labeled “terrorists”.

We must, however, acknowledge the rare exceptions because if we fail to do so, we would have to call the military wing of the South African ANC movement formerly “terrorist”. Subsequently, we would get into the argument “does the end justify the means”? If the methods of the ANC did not include violence, would South Africa still be ruled by an inhumane racist regime? Perhaps not since world opinion was long against it. In the case of Palestine and Iraq, world opinion is being deliberately manipulated by the occupiers. One example is the con that Iraq will be handed back to the Iraqis at the end of June when in reality over 100,000 foreign troops will remain on that country’s soil probably for decades to come.

Gandhi with his peaceful urgings to take up the spinning wheel and his salt march had it right. It worked for him and his followers. But all the spinning wheels in the world will not stand against the Israeli spin-masters who have hijacked the “war on terror” to suit their own ends, and their American mentors.

— Linda S. Heard is a specialist writer on Middle East affairs. She welcomes feedback at morgandewales@yahoo.co.uk