Beyond surface similarities

by Rima Merriman

Palestinians fear that the daily chaos and escalating devastation in Iraq, as shown on TV screens, are blurring the lines further in the minds of many between legitimate resistance to occupation, on the one hand, and terrorism on the other.

The violent scenes from Iraq, with their complicated and ever-shifting rationales, serve to undermine the Palestinian cause on the world stage. The reasons behind this blurring are the many surface similarities between what's happening in Iraq and what's happening in Palestine, especially for those who see only the steady diet of mayhem and who don't understand the contexts behind the violence.

There are similarities in the general nature of combat taking place in both Iraq and Palestine. The fighting is between well-equipped, technologically sophisticated occupying military forces against what is referred to as "militia", and largely Muslim militia at that. The weaker side in these confrontations has resorted to the deliberate targeting of civilians - through hostage taking and exploding of cars in Iraq, and through suicide bombings in Israel.

The Israeli and US sides use tactics such as collective punishment, large-scale imprisonment and torture, extrajudicial executions and the haphazard killing of civilians who happen to be in the wrong place, that is to say, in their homes or their neighbourhoods, at the wrong time. In this terrible game, it is not possible for either the strong or the weak side to claim moral superiority when it comes to the violence involved.

The inequality between the combatants is reflected also in the unevenness in the number of casualties of each side. Both the Israeli and the US soldiers are hard to hit, since their weapons and defences are high-tech and vastly superior. They cause damage from inside their tanks or from the air. But when they are hit, their response is brutal, resulting in the death of many on the other side, including civilians, and in the destruction of property. The US and Israel deny that they practise collective punishment when they retaliate in force. But their actions are exactly that. They spawn further terrorism and fuel the cycle of unending violence.

Yet another similarity between the Iraqi and the Palestinian scenes is the deliberate manipulation of language.

Neither the US nor Israel wants to call what it is doing occupation, which means "to hold by military force in contravention of international law". Thus, in the case of Palestine, one hears in the media misleading terms, such as "contested" or "disputed lands" in place of "occupation". Other doublespeak examples in both situations abound. "Anti-coalition forces" are now being called "anti-Iraq forces" and so on.

Certainly, Iraq is not occupied in the same way as Palestine is. Americans, Poles, Italians and Britons are highly unlikely to start building settlements in Iraq or annexing the holy city of Najaf or "transferring" Iraqis in order to take their land or preventing refugees from going back to their homes. It remains to be seen what the US will make of the will of the Iraqi people once/if voting does take place. Israel, we already know, is not pleased with the duly elected Palestinian president and is looking for ways to shove him aside.

The US will eventually leave, but not before it gets something back in return for the billions it has spent on its Iraq project - both material and in terms of its own public's opinion. Although it is difficult to know exactly what is going on in Iraq, one thing is certain: the US presence is a magnet to "insurgents" who will continue to strike at it, at US allies and at US interests in Iraq. These elements have come, we are told, from outside Iraq. The US is conducting its war on "global terrorism" right in Iraq rather than, say, in New York, and the Iraqi people are paying the price. Would the US government send F16 bombers to drop 500-pound "precision" bombs on Manhattan in order to route suspected terrorists? I don't think so.

The military tactics the US uses in Iraq are eerily familiar to Palestinians. Clearly, the Americans have taken note of how the Israelis have been conducting their occupation and have learned a lot from them. The US ought to take note of the results as well.

This article was published in the Thursday, September 16, 2004 edition of the Jordan Times. It is used here with permission.