http://www3.haaretz.co.il/eng/scripts/article.asp?mador=4&datee=10/08/00&id=96151
Permission to kill
By Yitzhak Laor, 10/08/2000
On Sunday, November 30, 1972, British paratroops attempted to prevent
a march for human rights in the Northern Ireland city of Derry on the
basis of a judicial order making the Catholic march illegal. That
Sunday ended in the massacre of 14 demonstrators. Bloody Sunday will
never be erased from the blood-drenched history of the Anglo-Irish
struggle. The British are still studying the events that took place
that day in Derry's working-class neighborhoods. The massacre of
Palestinians in recent days will be with us for many years, not only
because it won the full backing of the media - Israel Television led
the favorable coverage, but the entire Israeli press followed in the
footsteps of the holiday-eve television reports. The old instincts
came into play: criticism of the Israel Defense Forces is prohibited,
because the IDF - God - acted this time as well.
The IDF did not defend Israel. Israel was not in danger. Permission to
kill has become "self-evident" even when it comes to defending the
thorn-in-the-side settlement of Netzarim. It is permissible to kill a
child in the arms of his father and to afterward deny that killing
"because he had no reason to be there." It is permissible to shoot
missiles at demonstrators, because at stake is not just defense of the
state or its citizens, but a "principle": one does not surrender to
violence. It is permissible to use violence to make others surrender.
And as usual, in summing up the entire event, human life is important
only when the human is not Arab.
The Israeli "self-evident" proposition worked overtime. The masses of
Palestinian demonstrators had the privilege to be shot at with live
ammunition and earned strong denunciations from the entire Israeli
media. "What can you do?" as if it were self-evident that live
ammunition be used to end such a struggle, as if it were obvious that
"we are all united" in demanding those liters of blood.
In exactly the same way, the closure of roads from Lake Kinneret to
the center of the country gave the right to treat the country's Arab
citizens as if they were children in the heart of the colonial
wilderness of the end of the 19th century, as if we had not seen the
television footage of truck and taxi drivers in Europe blocking roads
on the Continent to the point of totally paralyzing the economy,
without a single shot being fired. The press and the establishment
stood up for the "policeman of the Arabs," Police Major-General Alik
Ron. In any civilized country he would have been forced out long ago,
if only for his racist statements about the mayor of Umm al Fahm and
head of the northern branch of the Islamic Movement, Sheikh Ra'ed
Salah: "Sheikh Ra'ed has a fertile, Middle Eastern imagination."
But one can look for the background to the great massacre of these
terrible Days of Awe in the place where the great silence of the media
and the academic establishment can always be found: the main thing is
who is governing us when such things occur. If Benjamin Netanyahu were
prime minister now, we would have already heard cries to the heavens,
or at least some tough questions. This war is being waged by the
government of Prime Minister Ehud Barak, "our" government, of "the
left." And so, for the sake of peace of course, since after all
everything is for the sake of peace, everything is permitted.
The signal was given and the ground prepared for this horror after the
collapse of the Camp David talks. Out-and-out "doves" gave interviews
and wrote articles: Yasser Arafat, chairman of the Palestinian
Authority, betrayed them, Heaven forbid. They always wanted peace,
they paid a heavy price for peace, and now, when the Palestinians
could get from them the best peace that could be given to them (that
is, without quarreling with the settlers, without causing a "rift
within the people," without dissolving the coalition, without giving
up the "dreams of sanctity" that were born in the five historical
minutes that preceded the negotiations), Arafat - that is, the
Palestinian people - turns his back on them, the cooing doves, and
listens to the yearning of his hard-pressed people, without water or
work, crowded between bypass roads and sanctified settlements, because
everyone knows that "Beit El is the eyes of the country," or whatever
organ it is the latest trite metaphor.
How easy it is to beat your breast in contrition this Yom Kippur, when
the fist lands on the chest of your neighbor, Arafat or Ariel Sharon.
And you, your hands did not spill this blood, your hands did not fire
missiles at demonstrators, your voice did not denounce.
