SUPPRESSING RADICALS

From time to time pundits express disappointment with Arab leaders friendly to the West who fail to "fully suppress Islamic radicals in their midst. They then admit that said leaders' "Arab street" supports Hisbullah's attacks on Israel. (As do most Iraqis, by the way.) Why is that? Could that hostility toward Israel have anything to do with the latter's brutal occupation and destruction of life and livelihood in the West Bank and Gaza for the past 39 years? (For a factual, unbiased report on this brutality and destruction, see Tanya Reinhart's Israel/Palestine [Seven Stories Press/New York], or check www.tau.ca.il/~reinhart. She is a professor at Tel Aviv Univ. and a columnist in Israel's largest daily paper.) Reinhart writes: "The Israeli army that defends our homeland behaves brutally, uses torture, fires upon innocent civilians. What justifies the behaviour of this army? We call it self defense but this is, I suggest, only the surface of our justification. (We think) our history of suffering, as a people, entitles us to the violence of our current behaviour."
Prof. Reinhart also points out: "During the period between October 2000 and December 2001, a clear picture -- beyond the countless details of daily brutality and cruelty -- of a systematic Israeli effort to break Palestinian society and destroy its infrastructures. A painfully
precise summary was offered by Taher Masri -- a Jordanian statesman of Palestinian descent --
in an interview with Newsweek in December 2001. Masri explained that Israel had been working on three levels: The first level 'is to destroy the economic infrastructure of the Palestinian territories, which are largely agricultural and, formerly, touristic. During the Israeli incursions into Bethlehem earlier this year, for instance, troops systematically trashed newly built tourist hotels.' As part of this strategy, in large areas olive and citrus trees have been cut down or bulldozed." Reinhart says, further on, that the number of olive trees destroyed exceeds 112,900, and the area of cultivated land destroyed land destroyed was 3,669,000 square meters. This is criminal behavour by anyone's definition.
And remember, in the Muslim world, we are joined at the hip with Israel. In fact, in Iraq, our troops are referred to as "the Jews." We have staunchly supported Israel in all its criminal behaviour, occasionally offering feeble pro forma protests that mean nothing to anyone. Israel
has now repeated its program of infrastructure destruction in Lebanon. And again we are defending these war crimes as perfectly okay. This is indefensible nonsense. We can't stand for justice in the world as long as we sponser and promote the glaring, grievous misjustice that has
continued for years in Palestine. (And now in Lebanon.) Terrorism doesn't just happen in a vacuum. It comes from rage and hopelessness. We need to understand and address the real causes.

Let me hear what you think! jgoodwin004@centurytel.net