Melville Cooke AS I sat to write these couple words on Tuesday night, I went for some water. As I passed the television I saw the madman of the moment, Ariel Sharon, looking grim and stopped in time to hear him talk about killing those who would wish to kill Israelis first. It was in response to the most recent suicide-bomber attack, which left 15 dead.
I felt very sad, looking at Sharon, ready to rush off and murder a few (score? hundreds? thousands?) more Palestinians in the stead of a person who is already happily dead. He just does not get it. Like George that son of a Bush, he just does not get it.
He must have left for the United States a very happy man, having shown the Palestinians exactly who is boss. And also having shown the world that Israel is above the law, rejecting a United Nations inspection team which would investigate the massacres euphemistically called incursions.
He must have thought that the matter was settled. Until this.
Like George W. Bush, Mr. Sharon believes that massive doses of force will settle all his problems. He believes that as long as his forces keep killing, his country will be safe.
He is, of course, wrong. Not because a person has been silenced it means that his views have changed, or there is any less murderous rage in his heart.
The bombing of the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon in the US was a terrible thing, a very wrong thing. So is suicide-bombing. But so is the indiscriminate bombing of Afghans.
And after Jenin and the rest of the "incursions," I am much less inclined to feel any sympathy at all for Israel over this latest suicide-bombing. And I can bet that the hearts of many Palestinians and people of Arab descent around the world must have pounded with joy.
By rejecting the United Nations inspection team and by refusing journalists entry to the affected areas, Israel has basically told the world that it has no business in knowing exactly how many people, innocent or not, its very efficient army has killed. We have only the few claims from Palestinians that the newsmongers have allowed to be aired.
And with the bodies buried in mass graves, bulldozers and all, we will never know.
Israel is not alone in thumbing its nose at whatever semblance of world authority there is. Her patron saint, the United States, has renounced formal involvement in the treaty which has created the International Criminal Court. Secretary of State Colin Powell has said that the Bush administration will notify Kofi Annan that the United States now considers itself no longer bound in any way to its purpose and objective.
The court, backed by 66 countries, will be formed this summer as the mechanism through which individuals can be held criminally responsible for genocide and such heinous crimes.
But, as Mr. Powell said, this is not a situation that the United States "believed was appropriate for our men and women in the armed forces or our diplomats and political leaders".
And they wonder why some people hate them.
Israel is, of course, enforcing the time-honoured right of Caucasian colonisers, to slaughter the native people in the name of peace and civilisation. The problem is, though, that in this Wild Middle East the predators no longer have anything like the murderous advantage of the six-gun over the bow and arrow.
Sure, they can kill a lot of people with tanks, helicopter gunships and missiles, but the victims can strike back. With nothing near the same force, but effectively, nonetheless.
In addition, communications have developed a lot since Custer's Last Stand - the history of this conflict will not be given the John Wayne treatment, where murder and genocide are glamorised.
Footnote: I find the idea of a 14-pound rat very fascinating. To put it in perspective, that rotund rodent is nearly twice the weight of a medium-sized new-born. It is a pity, though, that the creature could not have been examined to find out not how it had managed to get so large, but why it had not died from a heart attack. It had managed to do what we humans attempt to most times without success eat as much fatty fried food as we want and still stay healthy. No gym fee required.
Melville Cooke is a freelance writer.
