HOW long can the Bush administration continue to deny what is a black-and-white reality? How long will it go on pinning the blame for the carnage in the Middle East on the victims rather than the perpetrators?

How long will it keep repeating the tiresome mantra of eradicating terrorism to justify the excesses committed by itself and its allies? Judging from the American president’s address last week, a very long time indeed. ‘Given his (Yasser Arafat’s) failure the Israeli government feels it must strike at terrorist networks that are killing its citizens.’

For George Bush suicide bombing is the starting point of the violence in the Middle East. Palestinians kill innocent Israelis; Yasser Arafat either refuses to take action against the militants or, worse, encourages them; and poor Ariel Sharon is left with no choice but to send in his tanks and helicopter gunships.

Suicide bombing is taking place on a massive scale in the occupied territories and Israel proper. The death toll in such attacks is tragically and unacceptably high. But George Bush should ponder on his own words — ‘an eighteen-year-old Palestinian girl induced to take her own life’. What induced her to take her life and that of a seventeen-year-old Israeli? What induced her to cause ‘the future’ to die?

Ariel Sharon, dutifully backed by the White House, would answer: the Palestinian leadership. George Bush, in the furtherance of his own war-mongering ambitions, would add: Syrian and Iranian encouragement and funding. Both are being ridiculous. An eighteen-year-old does not blow herself to bits and give up all chance of leading a normal life, getting educated, getting a job, having a husband and children — simply because others tell her to or pay her to. She does so because she has absolutely no hope that such a life will materialize.

The Oslo Accords of the 1990s seemed to offer Palestinians a chance to have an independent homeland with {East) Jerusalem as its capital. By no means a righting of the many wrongs done to them over the last century, but at least partial and palatable compensation for their suffering — and the hope of a future free of violence, occupation and humiliation.

All that was destroyed by Ariel Sharon. By his blatant provocation in marching into the Haram Sharif with one thousand armed men, by his pursuit of more settlement construction in the occupied territories, by his blunt rejection of the land-for-peace principle, by his policy of targeted assassinations, and by his waging war against the Palestinian people. The re-occupation of Palestinian-controlled towns and cities, and the attempted humiliation of Yasser Arafat, are just the latest events in a long history of anti-Arab abuse by the Likud leader.

Sharon’s policies have replaced hope with a deep anger. The terror and suicide bombing that he insists on blaming Arafat for, are the direct result of his own actions. It is Ariel Sharon who is responsible for perpetrating state terrorism on the people of Palestine, and for the reactionary suicide attacks on the people of Israel. To look at the latter in isolation from the former — and to attempt to curb the latter without addressing the former — is equivalent to the cliched treating the symptoms of a disease and ignoring its root causes.

This is the reality that George Bush stubbornly refuses to acknowledge. Turning a blind eye to the Israeli prime minister’s bloody record and his blatant pursuit of an ultra-Zionist agenda, Bush accepts Sharon’s excuse of ‘fighting terrorism’. Since September 11 that excuse has been used to justify all manner of violations of civilized norms and values by a host of governments: Washington, Moscow, New Delhi and of course Tel Aviv. [It will probably soon be used to conduct a petty military vendetta against Baghdad.]

The support given to Israel by America is unforgivable because it is so unjust — as described above, the victim being villified as the perpetrator. But it is doubly unforgivable because it increased the aggressiveness of Sharon’s military campaign. Israel’s re-occupation of Ramallah, Hebron, Bethlehem, etc would have gone ahead even without America’s green signal, but perhaps would not have been quite so dismissive of international opinion and hence perhaps slightly more humane.

As it was, with no check from Washington, Israeli forces felt no compunction in violating holy sites like the Church of the Nativity, or firing on UN convoys and foreign journalists. [Violating Palestinian rights is something they have never had any compunctions about.]

The understanding — almost apologetic — call by Bush on Thursday for an end to Israeli occupation was far outweighed by his condemnation of Yasser Arafat. The American president accused him of ‘betraying the aspirations of his people’ and failing to consistently tackle terrorism. There is no doubt that the Palestinian people have not been served well by their leaders — especially Arafat — but their current desperate situation is the consequence of Israeli betrayal of the Oslo Accords. Sharon, Barak, Netanyahu - they are the ones who betrayed the aspirations of both Israelis and Palestinians.

If Bush expects that Arafat can control the passions and emotions on the Palestinian street — especially now when they are running so high and when he himself is a prisoner in Ramallah — he is asking the impossible.

George Bush’s righteous sermonizing on Israel’s behalf adds fuel to the fire of Palestinian (and wider Arab) anger at Sharon. Their incredulity at the American leader’s distortion of reality is matched by rage. On September 11 the US suffered the worst terrorist attack in history, most probably because of its partisanship and injustice in the Middle East.

The US administration is spending billions on strengthening its already formidable military machine, has destroyed Afghanistan, is planning to do the same to Iraq — all to prevent anything like 9/11 being repeated. It needs to realize that the ultimate responsibility for that day’s carnage rests with Israeli leaders like Ariel Sharon and their White House backers. Until there is a fundamental change in these, both Israel and America will continue to face terrorist attacks.

The Middle East is burning, Mr Bush. If it blows up in a massive fireball the blame will not rest on Yasser Arafat, Sheikh Yasin or the Palestinian people. The blame will rest on Ariel Sharon.

SUBSEQUENTLY, civilian ministers were inducted and the Air Chief became governor of West Pakistan and the Navy Chief, governor of East Pakistan. This government is remembered for four things: The dismantling of one unit and the restoration of the old provinces in West Pakistan; the abolition of Basic Democracies; the restoration of elections through adult franchise and abolition of parity of seats between East and West Pakistan.

The holding of relatively free and fair elections in November 1970 resulted in a thumping victory for the Awami League in East Pakistan and its undisputed majority in the central legislature. This was an unexpected result.

Mr Zulfikar Ali Bhutto had all along been waiting in the wings to become the prime minister or the president depending upon the system of government adopted. There were several hurdles he had to cross:

(1) Build a credible political party with strength in the Punjab. He succeeded in this by appearing as the champion of Kashmir opposed to the Tashkent agreement, which he successfully projected as a sell-out. By championing the cause of the underprivileged through his catchy slogan of “Roti, Kapra aur Makan.” and lastly by his ability to communicate with the common man;

(2) After winning a majority in the 1970 elections in West Pakistan, because Mujib had an absolute majority in the Assembly, he could not be the next prime minister unless East Pakistan separated.

(3) His toughest problem was to eject the military from its hold on power.

As Punjab was unwilling to hand over power to East Pakistan, it gave Bhutto an opportunity to convince the military to prevent the transfer of power, and to find ways of suppressing alternative Bengali demands, through military action. Admiral Ahsan, the governor of East Pakistan resigned on this issue. When Lt-General Yakub Khan was directed to take military action, he simply left his command and came to West Pakistan and Lt-Gen. Tikka Khan was sent out to conduct this doomed exercise in stupidity.

The action of March 25 solved both problems. It fuelled the independence movement in East Pakistan and led to civil war which invited Indian intervention and support for ‘Bengali’ independence.

The record of neither party is very clean in the events that followed. Military defeat was inevitable and it came rather earlier than anticipated and by mid-December 1971 it was all over. Mr Bhutto had achieved both his objectives. Bengal was separated and the army so badly humiliated in the process that it was relieved to hand over power to him.

Punjab now had an absolute majority in the new Pakistan. For once the Pakistan army had accepted the supremacy of the civil.

Mr Bhutto happily proceeded to misgovern the country for the next six years. He had won the 1970 election in a bit of a landslide because the opposition had splintered. If one counted the main opposition party votes in West Pakistan they were only five or so percentage points lower than the PPP, but because of our first past the post system of elections the PPP won 60% of the West Pakistan seats.

By 1977 March when the next elections were held two things happened, first the opposition joined hands and apportioned seats to each component of the nine party “Pakistan National alliance.” Because of poor governance the People’s Party had lost some of its earlier popularity. However, the proceedings were so heavily rigged that it is difficulty to say what the result may have been in any reasonably fair election. The opposition refused to accept the results and launched a country wide agitation, which did not die down, nor could Mr Bhutto achieve an acceptable compromise with the leaders of the opposition.

As a result, Pakistan’s third martial law was declared on July 5, 1977. Military governors were installed in all the provinces. Mr Bhutto was temporarily released and elections promised in ninety days. For various reasons including a fear of Mr Bhutto’s renewed popularity with the electorate, the elections were postponed indefinitely and the former prime minister arrested on charges of murder. He was duly found guilty and hanged on April 4, 1979. Technically, it was probably judicial murder, but it nevertheless had a strong element of poetic justice.

This third Martial Law lasted fully for the next eight years until 1985. It differed from the two earlier ones in an important respect. The Peoples Party put up resistance in Punjab, which was quelled through arrests and public corporal punishment with crowds gathering to see the British style whipping of victims tied to trestles. Sindh put up a rather more spirited resistance and villages had to be burned and people shot to bring matters under control.

However, by 1985, there was pressure on General Zia-ul-Haq to restore democracy. He preceded this by holding a bogus referendum to establish his own legitimacy. No one turned up to vote but the Election Commission duly declared a large turnout of the total electorate in favour and that was that. Non-party elections were duly held and Mr Mohammed Khan Junejo was chosen and installed as prime minister. In spite of the provisions of the Eighth Amendment after three years in power, the Prime Minister became so confident that he chose to gallop towards the goal of civil supremacy.

He was unhorsed before he could get to the goal. The third martial law ended with the ‘plane crash of August 17, 1988.’ In its initial stages it had its usual accoutrement of military officers doing martial law duties but on the whole for much of the time there was not much overt military presence in civilian affairs.

From 1988 to October 1999 we had a series of four civilian governments. The PPP followed by the PML followed by the PPP and finally followed again by the PML. They governed equally badly but in slightly different styles. The one can be described as highway robbery at gunpoint with all the ill-gotten gains transferred abroad. The other was burglary coupled with the creation of assets in Pakistan and abroad. Miss Bhutto was and is an international citizen and is quite happy living in the West.

In spite of his addiction to Big Macs Mr Nawaz Sharif remained a Lahori. There was something a little too neat about this sequence. How was it that the dismissed party always failed in the next election? The army continued to hover in the background as was shown when the Nawaz government was reinstated by the Supreme Court and the COAS removed both the president and the prime minister, to break the logjam.

In his second term Mr Sharif made a serious bid for acquiring total power. Punjab’s problem had been solved in 1971 — it now had total majority in Pakistan. This, of course, was the beginning of a new problem vis-a-vis the smaller provinces and will have to be resolved at some stage. In the meantime, he successfully repealed the Eighth Amendment, thereby “permanently” removing the threat of summary dismissal by the president.

He passed a law against floor crossing thus obtaining almost complete control over his political party. Both amendments suited the leaders of all political parties as it concentrated power in the hands of the party leaders. He was frustrated temporarily by the Senate in his attempt to forge another amendment to this already much amended Constitution which would have enabled him to do as he pleased.

During this period in office his supporters stormed the Supreme Court and persuaded the remaining judges to support this action in ridding himself of the troublesome chief justice. He subsequently proceeded to unceremoniously sack the Chief of Army Staff for implying in a speech that things weren’t going all that well and some super-consultative machinery should be created. The same COAS had earlier avoided coming to the aid of the Supreme Court when requested by the C.J. so I suppose this could be considered a form of delayed retribution. Anyway, it probably upset the army no end. All this Mr Sharif had accomplished in the first year of his government.

Emboldened by his earlier success and the Kargil imbroglio, he decided to get rid of the COAS General Pervaiz Musharraf in a somewhat spectacular fashion. He was removed from office and his successor appointed while he was on his way back to Pakistan from Colombo.

There were some quick military moves in ‘Pindi and Karachi. The six o’clock news bulletin was cut off in mid-sentence and for the next several hours PTV regaled its audience with pre-recorded music. There was some back and fro movement of the PIA plane between Karachi and Nawabshah but finally the general landed safely at Karachi. The brothers Sharif were arrested by the Army and a new dispensation announced at about one a.m. the next morning. This military takeover was unique in that no martial law was declared.