With Sharon and Arafat locked in a cycle
of conflict, Palestinians are left to cower in their basements.
By Eyad El Sarraj in Gaza (IWPR Conflict
Report: Middle East, January 2002)
I don't observe Ramadan myself, but I usually join my father to break the daily fast. So it was that my brother Nasser, his wife, their three children and I were all around the table with him, as we awaited the call to sunset prayer which marks the end of the day's fasting.
As delicious smells wafted between us, a horrific sound cut through the air - an explosion. Many had been expecting heavy Israeli retaliation following the recent Hamas massacres in Jerusalem and Haifa. Naively, I had thought the Americans would not allow a revenge attack and would urge Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to show restraint. How wrong I was.
We were all ordered down to the basement by Nasser, in a state of extreme panic. We ran down the stairs, blast after blast shaking us to the core. As the food stood abandoned on the table, we could hear the call to prayer between sounds of explosions, which seemed to be getting closer.
We were terrified. Machine-gun bullets rained down. The rounds were close, almost next door. For a few moments I thought the Israelis had snapped and embarked on a final solution. Pale-faced, my niece, Yosra, asked if we were going to die. Her brother, Rajab, wondered why Palestinian forces could not shoot Israeli jets down.
A huge dark cloud blocked the horizon. Someone called to say it came from the ruins of president Arafat's office on the beach. As a new round of machine-gun fire started, Nasser ushered us into the bathroom. Ten minutes later there was silence.
A friend, Samir, called to say that he saw the planes heading away. He told me that people in the refugee camp where he lives were out in the streets shouting, Allah Akbar, God is Great. More defiant than ever, I thought.
When all seemed safe, we headed back upstairs to finally break the fast of Ramadan. But we were glued to the television instead and we soon realised that Sharon had ordered the destruction of Arafat's helicopters.
As Sharon addressed the Israeli nation, his rhetoric against Arafat was so extreme that I wondered if our lives had been reduced to a personal vendetta in which Sharon was determined to finish what he had started in Beirut. He looked and sounded dangerously determined - deranged, even.
President Bush issued an immediate statement saying that Israel had the right to defend itself. He seemed unaware of the contradiction in expecting Arafat to arrest militants and terrorists while Sharon is busy destroying the forces Arafat needs to do so.
Arafat is now besieged in Ramallah, condemned for not doing enough to prevent terror against Israel. Sharon treats him as a terrorist, while Foreign Minister Shimon Peres warned him to fulfill Israeli demands within twelve hours "or else". When he failed to arrest every name on a wanted list before that deadline, F16 bombing ensued.
Arafat is squeezed between Israel and Hamas, whose members vow to continue the struggle even while behind bars. The streets of Palestine yearn for an end to the suffering and an end to the occupation. As their despair has deepened, suicide bombing has gained majority support here.
When there was hope, such actions had no popular mandate. Today, Hamas is very popular, so is Islamic Jihad. Suicide bombers - martyrs to the Palestinians - are thought to ascend to a better life than the miserable one we are enduring.
Israeli raids on Gaza, Jenin, Nablus, Bethlehem and Ramallah are perceived by Bush as justified self-defence. It is bewildering for most Palestinians to see the victims of a tyrannical and obscene military occupation branded aggressors.
Whatever one might think of the Palestinian leadership and its record of preventing - or not preventing - terror and violence, it is incomprehensible that Bush could forget the root cause of this conflict, the original sin of displacement and subsequent military occupation.
It is tragic that Palestinians cannot see how violence is damaging a just cause. Had the Palestinian leadership chosen to resist the occupation by non-violent means, it would have retained the moral high ground. It would also have won the hearts and minds of all just and peace loving people, including many in Israel itself.
But the recent suicide bombs against Jerusalem and Haifa compounded both our own and Arafat's misery.
Not only was the murder of innocent civilians appalling in itself, it also demonstrates that Palestinians do not understand how the world has changed since September 11. There is no longer any support for terror, even in the most noble of causes. To practise terror is to become bogeymen, along with the Taleban.
Moreover, by responding to Israeli assassinations with violence, Hamas have been manipulated by Sharon. He uses their violence to justify his own ends.
Sharon sought to destroy Arafat's military bases along with the runway of Gaza airport. Why the runway? To prevent Arafat from leaving? Was the destruction a symbolic way of telling him he must stay put and follow orders or, like the fledgling Gaza sea port a few months ago, was it attacked for being a symbol of sovereignty and independence?
Sharon has a grand dream, a Jewish state covering the entire Holy Land. Has European, American, even Israeli talk of a Palestinian state sent him into a tail-spin? Talk of bringing an end to the Israeli military occupation threatens Sharon's dream. He needs to eliminate this threat, but he needs some justification. Palestinian militants have given him that in abundance.
But Sharon has also promised his people peace with security, which he knows cannot be delivered so long as the Israeli occupation continues. He could find himself trapped between a dream and a promise.
At night, I've taken to unplugging my fridge and switching off the washing machine. Every sound reminds me of an Israeli fighter plane. Colleagues have reassured me that I'm not unusual, it's a common response. At the same time, I couldn't help thinking of the Israelis and their fear of riding on buses.
As I write, Israeli jets are prowling the sky, with that menacing sound, following another suicide bombing. Has the Holy Land fallen to the devil? Or have we now seen the worst? I only hope we are passing our darkest hour, the one just before the first glimmer of dawn.
Dr Eyad El Sarraj, MD, D.P.M. is a Gaza - based psychiatrist.
