A cycle of destruction
published: Monday | June 16, 2003
THE EDITOR, Sir:
ARIEL SHARON has been very devious in his destruction of Palestine and the Palestinians. When he provoked them to fury during his visit to the Temple Mount over a year ago, they responded with rioting and Israeli troops responded with bullets. Scenes of Israeli soldiers shooting Palestinian children throwing stones filled TV screens around the world and generated a lot of sympathy for the Palestinians, as well as more support for their cause.
Many potentially positive developments, in the past two years, were foiled by a judicious assassination on crucial moment. The cease-fire of December 2001, which had lasted for more than a month and aroused many real hopes, is a prominent case in point. But hardly ever before were the stakes quite so high - an ambitiously (re)launched peace process under the personal patronage of the president of the world's sole remaining superpower.
Two societies torn and weary by two and half terrible years and praying for a respite, opinion polls on both sides showing a high percentage in favour of making concessions, a hope against hope that this time the light in the end of the tunnel would prove real.
Palestinians are wounded or killed, their houses and cities are crushed, their government institutions are obliterated, their leaders are humiliated. All that just perpetuates Palestinian rage and revenge attacks. But when Palestinians strike back at Israeli civilians with suicide bombings, these open attacks are used against them, both in the media and by the Israeli military, which launches devastating counterattacks where they do their dirty work in secret!
The open attacks by Palestinians produce worse counterattacks by the Israelis and more secret destruction, which produces more open attacks by the Palestinians. So the vicious cycle goes on, and it's one the Palestinians are losing, as they're being ground down, humiliated, and destroyed in every way possible.
