Avnery: The real aim

------ Forwarded Message
From: Gush Shalom <adam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sat, 27 Apr 2002 14:59:02 +0200
Subject: [GushShalom] Uri Avnery in Maariv: The real aim


GUSH SHALOM - pob 3322, Tel-Aviv 61033 - http://www.gush-shalom.org/

[This article of Uri, to appear in Hebrew in Ma'ariv, includes some
description of the 24-hour visit to Ramallah by 10 activists of Gush Shalom
and Ta'ayush.]

Uri Avnery
27.4.02

The Real Aim

The real aim of "Operation Defensive Shield" was not to "destroy the
infrastructure of terrorism".

This was merely a good slogan for uniting the people of Israel, who are
angry and afraid after the suicide bombings. It is also a good political
device, allowing Sharon to ride on the bandwagon of President Bush's "war
against international terrorism". Under the umbrella of "destroying the
infrastructure of terrorism" one can do practically anything.

If Sharon had really intended to "destroy the infrastructure of terrorism",
he would have acted very differently. He would have given the Palestinian
masses hope of achieving their national freedom in the near future. He would
have fortified the position of Yasser Arafat, the only effective partner for
peace. He would have strengthened the Palestinian security forces and
radically improved economic conditions in the Palestinian territories.

But destroying the infrastructure of terrorism is not Ariel Sharon's aim.
His program is far more radical: to break the backbone of the Palestinian
people, crush their governmental institutions, turn the people into human
wreckage that can be dealt with as he wishes. This may entail shutting them
up in several enclaves or even driving them out of the country altogether.

As Sharon sees it, this would be finishing off the job started in 1948: to
establish the real Israel, from the Mediterranean to the Jordan river; a
state inhabited solely by Jews. It was no accident that he openly supported
Slobodan Milosevic, the inventor of "ethnic cleansing".

When I wrote this a year ago, it sounded like malicious slander. Sharon was
still pictured as a man determined to fight terrorism, not as a person using
the fight against terrorism as a means to achieve quite different aims.

No more.

Four days ago I was in Ramallah. I sneaked into the town (Israelis are
forbidden by the military commander from entering the Palestinian
territories) in order to see it for myself. I visited the Palestinian
ministries. A shocking sight, indeed.

Take, for example, the Palestinian Ministry of Education. It is housed in an
imposing building, probably going back to British times, a mixture of
neo-Classic European and oriental styles. In front of it there was a rose
garden - "was", because a tank has crisscrossed it, for no apparent reason,
leaving only one purple rosebush in all its glory. Just so. To teach them a
lesson.

On the upper floor, where the archives and computers were housed, the
destruction was total. The computers were taken apart and thrown on the
floor, the safe blown open, the papers strewn around, the drawers empty, the
telephones crushed . Some of it was just plain vandalism. The money in the
safe was stolen, the furniture upturned, the papers dispersed. But when one
looked closer, the real aim of the operation became clear. All the hard
disks were taken from the computers, all the important files taken away.
Only empty shells remained. All the important contents of the ministry were
taken: the lists of pupils, examination results, lists of teachers, the
whole logistics of the Palestinian school system.

The Ministry if Health suffered the same fate. The hard disks that contained
all the information, state of diseases, medical tests, lists of doctors and
nurses, the logistics of the hospitals had been taken.

Even the people most critical of the Palestinian Authority admitted that
these two ministries - Education and Health - had been functioning well.
They have been utterly destroyed.

This happened to virtually all the Palestinian government offices. Gone is
the information pertaining to land registration and housing, taxes and
government expenditure, car tests and drivers' licenses, everything
necessary for administrating a modern society.

The lists of terrorists were not hidden in the land registration books, the
inventory of bombs was not tucked away among the list of kindergarten
teachers. The real aim is obvious: to destroy not only the Palestinian
Authority, but Palestinian society itself: to push it back with one stroke
from the stage of a modern state-in-the-making to the primitive society of
Turkish times.

This is true for the civil society, and even more so for the security
system. The headquarters of the security services were destroyed, files
burned, computers crushed, the information concerning armed underground
organizations and all other details pertaining to the war against terrorism
were obliterated. There is no better evidence of the aims of this operation:
not war on terrorism, but destruction of organized Palestinian society.

By the way, on that day I passed, with a group of Israeli peace activists,
through the center of Ramallah - from the mass-grave in the hospital parking
lot to the besieged headquarters of Yasser Arafat. We carried Hebrew posters
and encountered much sympathy and not a single sign of hostility. Even at
this time, the Palestinians know the difference between the Israeli peace
camp and those who are responsible for this brutal attack. Here, perhaps,
lies the only glimmer of hope.

----
Full transcript of the war crimes panel available on the Gush site
For Hebrew   http://www.gush-shalom.org/archives/forum.html
For English  http://www.gush-shalom.org/archives/forum_eng.html
French available at request
           
   
Also on the site:
photos - of action or otherwise informative
the weekly Gush Shalom ad - in Hebrew and English
the columns of Uri Avnery - in Hebrew, Arab and English
(and a lot more) 
http://www.gush-shalom.org
   
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