THE EQUIVALENCE OF LIFE
BY JULIANNE MALVEAUX
I am amazed at the way the word terrorism is used in the context of the
escalating hostilities in the Middle East. When tanks raze Palestinian
communities, it is seen as military occupation as usual, but when Palestinians
kill themselves and others with suicide bombs it is seen as terrorism. The
victims of suicide bombs are seen as innocents, while those who die as their
communities are being razed are seen as "collateral damage". We are all
villains in this lopsided coverage of occurrences in the Middle East, we in the
press, we who talk to our friends, we who accept the judgment that one set of
lives is to be valued differently than another set of lives.
A life is a life. If I would mourn the deaths of Israelis who were victims of
suicide bombs, then I must mourn the deaths of Palestinians who have done
nothing more than lived in their homes as tanks came and conquered. If I would
speak of unlawful detainment in the context of the United States, then I must
speak of the unlawful detainment of a people on the West Bank. And if the
United States demands that our allies and financial dependents show up some
respect or suffer the consequences, then the President cannot tell Israel to
withdraw from Palestinian territories and shrug at their defiance without
embracing a whole range of double standards.
I realize that these are fighting words, since it is not politically correct to
mess with Israel. Why, then, should it be acceptable to mess with Palestinian
people, whose land has been occupied, statehood denied, and rights
systematically violated? If we look at public statements through the lens of
equivalence, they are almost amusing. For example, Congressman Tom DeLay said,
"We cannot allow the flame of democracy to be extinguished by a wave of
aggression". On paper, it is possible to wonder whose aggression is being
condemned and whose democracy is being extinguished. After all, Israel occupied
Palestinian land where Palestinians hardly have equal rights. However, in the
next sentence of his statement, Rep. DeLay makes his biases clear. "The
terrorists attempting to destroy the state of Israel should know that America
will never allow that to happen". There are enough terrorists to go around in
the Middle East, and some of them are Israelis.
It is easy to make PLO leader Yasser Arafat the scapegoat in the Middle Eastern
crisis. But imagine the nerve of one head of state saying he will essentially
depose another! Imagine the terrorism that Israel's Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon has directed at Yasser Arafat, surrounding his compound, cutting off
utilities, and threatening him because he cannot control the suicide bombers.
Can anyone, really, control suicide bombers? I see suicide bombs as
reprehensible, but understandable, acts on the part of people who are desperate
to fight back, who hardly have the means to fight. I shudder at the suicide
bombs and wouldn't want anyone I know to experience them. But I wouldn't
want anyone I know to experience terrorist tanks, either.
Part of the challenge in dealing with the Middle East is that those who want to
create peace want to ignore history. While Israel certainly has the right to
exist (and such right has been affirmed by many surrounding Arab states),
Palestinians also have a right to a homeland. And while Israel has a right to
exist, it has to be mindful of the bitterness that accompanied its creation.
Land was taken from others to create the state of Israel, and people who are
still living can point to their confiscated property, now occupied by others,
for which they were never paid. It is ironic that on one hand, some Jewish
people use the international courts to seek reparations for property they owned
in Germany before the Holocaust, but on the other hand they would deny others
reparations for the property that was taken to create the state of Israel.
Colin Powell, is on a losing mission as he travels to the Middle East. Ariel
Sharon has decided he can ignore President Bush and that there are no
consequences to his defiance. Congress is too weak to impose economic and other
sanctions on Israel for their defiance. As long as Israel takes an aggressive
position against the Palestinians, what do they expect in return? They may be
able to "dismantle" Palestinian leadership, but they cannot humiliate a
people without creating angry zealots who will eventually retaliate. If they
are ever to move toward peace, both the Israelis and the Palestinians must
understand and accept the equivalency of lost life.