THE government of General Musharraf seems determined to amend the Constitution despite the unanimity of opposition from most of the political parties. Even those parties which have been propelled into the political arena by the government itself have been compelled to register their opposition. This, however, would hardly deter the military rulers from amending the Constitution.

The two constitutional packages proposed by the National Reconstruction Bureau (NRB) contain various proposals for amending the Constitution. Some of these are of a peripheral nature which the government might perhaps dispense with in order to demonstrate its flexibility and spirit of reconciliation. However, there are other core amendments, particularly those that propose to alter the power relationship between the president and the prime minister and those that affect the status of the parliament. These proposals appear destined to enter into our statute books.

Before discussing the merits or demerits of the proposed constitutional amendments, the fundamental question that must be addressed is whether it is proper to introduce such wholesale amendments in the Constitution at a time when the stage is set for general elections.

General Musharraf has advanced two primary reasons by way of justification for rewriting the country’s Basic Law. First, he has argued that these amendments are necessary for creating checks and balances in our political structure. Secondly, he claims that he has the Supreme Court’s authorization to amend the Constitution.

Taking the second argument first, it may be stated that the claim made by the general on the basis of the judgment of the Supreme Court in the case of Zafar Ali Shah vs. Pervez Musharraf (PLD 2000 SC 869) is doubtful. The Supreme Court had granted this amending power to the military government for the interim period only (October 1999 to September 2002). The reason is obvious. Having allocated a period of three years to the military government, the court intended to facilitate smooth functioning of the affairs of the state during that period. Its intention was not to permit the general to rewrite the Constitution but to make only those changes that were necessary for carrying out day-to- day administration.

The Supreme Court had also categorically stated that no amendment shall be made in the salient features of the Constitution namely the independence of the judiciary, federalism and parliamentary form of government blended with Islamic provisions.

The proposed National Security Council (NSC) which is to be given a supra-constitutional status, coupled with substantial transfer of power in favour of the President vis-a-vis the prime minister and the parliament, would transform the nature of our political system. It would be anything but parliamentary. In the present form of government, parliament is the sovereign legislative institution. The government is chosen by and is accountable to the parliament (essentially the lower house — the National Assembly — which represents the will of the electorate through its directly chosen representatives).

In order to remain in power, the government must retain the confidence of the assembly. Under the amendments proposed by the NRB, the president will choose the prime minister and the National Assembly will ratify his choice. The survival of an elected government in power and indeed of the National Assembly itself, would be subject to the will of the president.

The proposed amendments envisage the dismissal of the government and/or the assembly if they fail to meet the standards set by the president. However, no penalty is provided where the president goes wrong. This is an acknowledgement of the infallibility of the president who would represent the establishment. As far as the NSC is concerned, its complexion is a sufficient reflection of the isolation of the prime minister. The president, supported by the military members, the leader of the opposition and some of the chief ministers, would always be in the majority in the council. It appears that General Zia has come to life again.

General Musharraf has also argued that the proposed amendments would create checks and balances in the exercise of power at the apex level and would restrain the prime minister from becoming an autocrat. As an illustration, he has cited the example of Nawaz Sharif. Indeed, Mr Sharif was intoxicated with power. The argument may be superficially convincing but hardly stands up to scrutiny. Nawaz Sharif had become despotic because of the phony mandate engineered for him through a heavily rigged electoral exercise. It was the size of his electoral strength which enabled him to run amuck and try to change the system. Is there anything in the proposed constitutional packages which could prevent another authoritarian from going berserk if he is given a similar electoral mandate? All the so-called checks and balances envisaged now could be dispensed with as swiftly as was done by Nawaz Sharif in repealing Article 58(2)(b). It is mere wishful thinking that constitutional amendments themselves having been made difficult, all future arbitrary amendments and repeals have been foreclosed. A Nawaz-like majority government could change the amending provisions now being contemplated. Thereafter, it will be a free fall.

The point is that the real guarantee against reckless abuse of power or despotism lies not in more amendments but in showing respect for the real choice of the people and allowing the political process to evolve without interference. In normal circumstances, the voters inevitably turn out a split mandate which is the best guarantee against authoritarianism. It was not the electorate which had created the mess in the elections in 1997. It was the manipulation by the intelligence agencies which awarded an absolute majority beyond his wildest dreams to Mr Sharif. However, nothing appears to have been learnt from that fiasco. The personnel of those agencies are once again out in the field working extra hours on their assigned agenda. The next election seems destined to be a replay of 1997 exercise.

General Musharraf further asserts that when politicians mess things up, people approach the army chief inviting him to save the nation and being a patriot filled with an altruistic motive, he has then to intervene. To avoid this, he wants a formal role for the military in the political affairs of the country. This, in his view, would avoid direct military intervention in the future.

In response to this argument, one is compelled to ask as to how is it that it in countries like Sri Lanka, India, Nepal, Iran, Lebanon and Malaysia where no calamity or political crisis becomes a pretext for the military to intervene while our army chiefs do for the slightest of reasons? In Bangladesh, the last COAS who imposed martial law was trained in Pakistan. No officer with military training in Bangladesh has dared derail democracy despite repeated provocations. Compare this to our situations. Ayub imposed martial law without any justification. Yahya wanted to continue despite the debacle of East Pakistan. Zia imposed martial law even after agreement had been reached between the government and the PNA. Gen Musharraf imposed martial law to avoid being removed as COAS. Why have misfortunes befallen us so often almost in a cyclical order?

It has been argued that since the army chief would be a member of the NSC, it would enable him to express his views to the government. But why should his views be so sacrosanct? He is no different from any public servant. The only factor which distinguishes him is that he has the military force to back up his views. What if his views are not accepted? What is there to stop him from derailing the constitutional again?

The counter argument is that there is a safety valve in the provision of dismissal of the government and the assembly by the president. If that is so, what is the point in having the NSC? Has any president ever dismissed a government and the assembly in past without the backing of the army chief?

There is little justification for creating an NSC or involving the military permanently in politics. The army should play the role commonly assigned to it in all democratic societies. With a hostile neighbour, there is more than enough for the military to take care of. Meddling in the political affairs of the country would not only create a permanent rupture between the military and the people but would also needlessly deflect it from its primary duties in respect of the country’s defence.

The amendments which weaken the political forces and subject the functioning of the representative institutions to the will of the establishment would seriously impair the democratic process. These must be resisted. On the other hand, some of the proposed amendments are indeed necessary and desirable. The present government has rightly floated the proposals for public debate. Let the debate continue and let this be part of the agenda for elections. Once the people have chosen their representatives, they would adopt the desirable among the amendments in accordance with the procedure already provided in the Constitution. The government must now restrict itself to a one-point agenda: holding free and fair elections in accordance with universally accepted principles. The ground realities, however, indicate an altogether different trend. This will further damage the country.

We must remember that no word in a statute book or an amendment in the Constitution would be sufficient to prevent the recurrence of the ills that afflict us. Democracy is neither a brainchild of a think tank nor comes to life through surgical action. It is a messy affair which evolves into a better form through a patient and painstaking working of the democratic process. Let the people speak for themselves and let no one pretend to be wiser than the people. Whenever the people have been trusted they have never disappointed. Whenever their choice has been tampered with, it has resulted in disasters.

It is indeed ironic that fifty five years after the birth of this nation, which came to life through an electoral exercise, we still have to argue the merits of a democratic system. Too many military interventions and too many autocrats have brought us to the brink. It is time to trust the ordinary men and women and let them be the masters of their destiny.

EVEN with the appointment of a Muslim as president, India cannot avoid being seen as a fanatically inclined Hindu country, experiencing what has been called by some Indian observers as a “pre-fascist upheaval”.

The National Democratic Alliance government of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, with its roots in the Hindutva ideology of the RSS, appears embarked on a strategy not only to marginalize the religious minorities but also widen the gulf between India and Pakistan wider and altogether unbridgeable.

How else can one understand the stubborn reluctance to deal with the problem of primitive communalism in Gujarat, where an estimated 2,000 Muslims have been killed by Hindu mobs in the past six months with the connivance of the official security agencies. Or Mr Vajpayee’s arrogant refusal to make even a token reduction in the strength of his forces massed on the border with Pakistan? Or the endless harangue of Indian leaders continuing to hold Pakistan guilty of “cross-border infiltration” of terrorists to bolster the armed uprising in the occupied state? Or the appointment of rank communalist L K Advani as deputy prime minister in Vajpayee’s cabinet?

From all accounts, the BJP-led coalition at the centre has already lost considerable popular support and may not be able to win enough seats to form a government after the next general elections due to be held in about two years time. It might have been ousted from power but for the fact that the opposition became “splintered”. The Congress has not succeeded in mobilizing the support of the other opposition parties against the BJP which now has a clear majority only in one Indian state — Gujarat. However, it is widely believed that by the time elections are held, the Congress may be able to regain some of its lost political support and present a moderate alternative to the BJP. This may have prompted the BJP to adopt an excessively tough line on domestic and external issues to keep the BJP in power and to appeal to ultra- nationalist sentiments.

When Mr Vajpayee became prime minister he had the reputation of being a moderate among BJP hardliners. He undertook the bus journey to Lahore and agreed to hold the summit in Agra. However, when he found many of his close supporters too strongly committed to hardline policies, he decided to shed his moderate image. At one time Mr Vajpayee was said to be in favour of replacing his chief minister in Gujarat, Narendra Modi. But after the communal frenzy in the state picked up momentum in February, he changed his mind. At the BJP’s national executive meeting in Goa in mid-April, he joined “the bandwagon to forge unanimous backing for Modi in line with the RSS stance to stand firm with its parcharak (activist)”. There he made the infamous statement that “wherever Muslims live in large numbers, they don’t want to live in peace with others.”

Since then, the BJP-led government has been indifferent to the fate of the Muslims in states like Gujarat, and is encouraging a mood of war hysteria against Pakistan. A noted Indian Muslim scholar, Prof Aijaz Ahmad of Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University, in a commentary published in the weekly Frontline observed that “the hysteria proved to be a point of culmination in the dogged campaign to identify anti-Pakistan patriotism (among Indians) with anti-Muslim sentiment”. Prof Ahmad concedes that Vajpayee’s strategy may have somewhat improved the BJP’s electoral chances since there are trends suggesting that there could now be “a far greater level of communalization of Hindu society generally”. Overall, however, there seems to be a feeling in India that the tide is turning against the BJP and its allies.

Aijaz Ahmad also states that the holocaust (in Gujarat) has not only shocked many sections of the Indian population but, “more crucially, brought RSS veterans to a point where there may soon be cases in European courts asking for extradition not only of Modi but also of Vajpayee and Advani for ‘crimes against humanity’; these gentlemen are on their way to becoming international untouchables.”

It would be naive to believe that the induction of a Muslim as president of India is indicative of a shift towards moderation in the policies of the BJP-led government, for the simple reason that the presidency in India is more of symbolic than substantive importance. Besides, Mr Abdul Kalam is known to have been fully supportive of the BJP government’s advocacy of nuclear weaponization and the ‘hawkish concepts’ of India’s national security.

India has to realize that by appointing as president an apolitical person known only for his reputation as an “inventor, missile developer, technology coordinator.... and a gung-ho apolitical votary of weapons of mass destruction”, it cannot defuse tensions in the region or attain political and economic stability for its billion people. Indeed, the trend is towards the opposite end, as shown by Mr Vajpayee’s refusal to make even a token reduction in the forces deployed on the border with Pakistan and his threats to carry out strikes at the so-called terrorist training camps in Azad Kashmir.

What is seen in Pakistan as the most blatant instance of Vajpayee’s coercive policies is his decision to appoint Mr Lal Krishna Advani as deputy prime minister. He is widely perceived as one of the most hawkish of the top Indian leaders and his appointment has prompted an eminent Indian political columnist to observe that “the BJP has merely shed its (mask) of sobriety and unveiled its real, hardline face”.

One redeeming feature in the subcontinental scenario is that even though the immediate outlook for India-Pakistan relations may not seem very encouraging. President Pervez Musharraf refuses to be impatient and give up his efforts to seek peace. In his meeting with the US secretary of state Colin Powell in Islamabad, he made it clear that even though Pakistan did not need to offer more concessions to India to resolve the dangerous situation in Kashmir, his stand remained very clear: “We need to start a dialogue on Kashmir and all of the other issues.”

This is the right approach to follow if there is to be a breakthrough in the military and political statement affecting the relations between the two nuclear armed neighbours.

THE time has come in Pakistan when a budding politician, holding a press conference about his career and his plans after October 10, may be asked by reporters to state if he has any intention of adopting dacoity as a concurrent profession. And such a question would not be confined to Sindh.

Because if Muhammad Khan from Mianwali, Punjab, described by an admiring public as a ‘bahadur dakoo’ a valiant dacoit, could be asked, after spending 23 years in prison (as it happened some time ago) whether he would go into politics, what is so surprising if the above question is put to a political leader?

Isn’t the difference between the two communities becoming blurred in many ways? At least all newspaper columnists seem to think so.

If the idea appeals to him, the politician-turned-dacoit would have the advantage of not having to hide his face behind a mask, since he would entering the arena almost to the beat of drums. Maybe a contingent of pressmen and photographers accompanies him on his first foray, that is if a clever PR man is there to handle the publicity.

The trouble with Muhammad Khan was (I believe he is dead now) that like a young crusader turned criminal — a phenomenon frequently seen in our action films — he claimed to have certain principles. Some forty years ago when he became notorious as a killer, he held these principles dear and clung to them. When he was released from jail, the world outside had changed almost beyond recognition. Now a really good man wanted to go and live behind bars to escape the evil men who stalked the country with impunity in the garb of politics.

The word dakoo itself is from the world of make-belief and romance. We don’t have such Robin Hoods nowadays. Today when we read of bandits — masked or unmasked — raiding banks and petrol pumps and kidnapping rich people for ransom, we call them dakoos. No, they are plain and simple criminals who have adopted high-grade thieving and even killing as a sideline for want of anything gainful to do in an honest manner.

In the subcontinent the dakoo was the hero, like Sultana Dakoo and Jagga Dakoo. They were towering figures made larger still by legend, some true and some contrived or imagined. It is said that Muhammad Khan was the last of the breed, though, on release from prison, he used to protest indignantly that he had never indulged in dacoity, having committed just a few murders to protect his honour and self-respect.

Let me tell you a story. It will give you an idea of the aura of terror and misconceived glory that Muhammad Khan had allowed to be built around himself. At one stage he had also shot at his own wife. In that context Mrs Muhammad Khan was appearing as a witness in a court presided over by a cousin of mine.

When asked if her husband had really tried to kill her she gave a reply that stunned the court room. Everyone was expecting that, like a faithful eastern wife, she would want to shield her husband. My cousin tells me that Mrs Muhammad Khan was a tall and stately figure who commanded instant respect. When this question was posed to her, she said proudly in Seraiki, “Of course he fired at me. Who else could have the guts to aim a gun at the wife of Muhammad Khan!” As the expression goes, they don’t make them like that any more.

When he came out of jail, Muhammad Khan called a press conference to clear misgivings about himself. If the journalists who sat before him wanted to settle old scores with him they should certainly have pushed him into politics. One cannot think of a worse fate for a man of his legendary reputation. He was never a petty criminal. In fact if they have categories among dacoits, he was a 24-carat, 22-grade killer. As a politician he would have automatically dropped down to the petty variety, in line with most others of the breed who are out to amass riches by hook or by crook.

But actually it is not hard going in Pakistan for a politician. You will see this proved after the coming general election. All that one has to do is to go on issuing press statements on matters that interest the public mind. That is what everyone does, especially if one is part of the opposition. The press is always accommodating. It will gave space (even prominent space, if properly approached) to any puerile nonsense from any Tom, Dick and Harry.

Imagine, say, Chaudhry Turrabaz Khan, chairman of the Toba Tek Singh PPP, calling upon Saddam Hussein not to repeat the folly over Kuwait but to forge a united front of Arabs to counter the threat to the ummah. Or Malik Mastaan Khan, chief of the Turbat PML, warning Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee to lay off Pakistan or be prepared for the consequences. Muhammad Khan would have had no problem getting people to dash off such statements to keep up his image as a politician. Proceeding cleverly he could even have been elected to the Punjab Assembly.

Somehow Mrs Tehmina Durrani Khar comes to mind. She was the umpteenth ex-wife of Mr Ghulam Mustafa Khar, the “Lion” of Punjab. She took to politics like a fish in welcome waters, at least in so far as press statements were concerned. But, in addition to her best-selling book, she confined herself in these well-drafted statements to one single subject — the misdeeds of the lion himself. In this proceeding, she forgot that her barbs and arrows were not causing even a ripple in the cool composure of her former husband.

Come to think of it, and agreeing with my brother columnists, there is hardly any difference left now between dacoity and politics, what with the habitual horse-trading (General Pervez Musharraf claims it will be made impossible by his amendments) and other shenanigans we have witnessed. As the British colonel in the old Indian army said when it was pointed out to him that he had sanctioned leave for Sepoy Natha Singh although it was Sepoy Prem Singh who had actually applied for it: “What difference does it make, old boy? Natha Singh, Prem Singh comes to the same thing!”

EARLIER this year, at a relatively high level meeting in London between Palestinian and Israeli representatives, both sides were offered a lesson in peace-making by rival sides in the Northern Ireland conflict.

A fortnight ago, when the Irish Republican Army offered an unprecedented apology for the loss of life and limb in a 25-year terrorist campaign, a British analyst wondered how long it would be before the Middle East belligerents are able to strike a similarly conciliatory note.

“Just as at various times, over various issues, Britain has apologized to Ireland, the US to the formerly enslaved of Africa, Japan to Korea and China, and the Germans to almost everybody, so, too, will Arabs and Israelis one day apologize to each other for all the harm that they have done,” Simon Tisdall wrote in The Guardian. “When that day comes, people will surely once again look back and wonder why it took so long and what was the point of all the bloodshed, the purpose of all the tears.”

A week or so later, after 10 children (the youngest of whom was two months old) and five other Palestinian civilians died in a military operation ostensibly aimed at eliminating Hamas leader Salah Shehada, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres did indeed utter a few words of contrition, describing “what happened” as “really regrettable”. His boss, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, had by then already offered a somewhat different opinion, gloating about “one of our greatest successes”. Sharon is reported to have personally masterminded the plan to use an F-16 to slam a one-ton bomb into a densely populated part of Gaza.

Not surprisingly, he was opposed to any sort of mea culpa despite the predictable international outcry — even the United States felt obliged to register a mild protest about Israeli “heavy-handedness” (although presidential spokesman Ari Fleischer was at pains to point out that George W. Bush “has been and will continue to be the first to defend Israel”). Of course, what Peres said does not quite add up to an apology. Tisdall is probably right in suggesting that it could be years before Israelis and Palestinians get around to acknowledging the harm they have done to each other and wishing that it could be undone. But regardless of where one stands on the question of moral equivalence between the violence of the oppressed and that of the oppressor, there can be little doubt that both sides have a great deal to be sorry for.

If the Israeli state does not have too many qualms about killing little children in the pursuit of what it perceives as its objectives, Palestinian suicide bombers are often equally culpable in this respect. There can be no conceivable defence for the murder of children, even if they are not specifically targeted. This argument could be stretched to include all civilians — which probably explains why the IRA went out of its way to make clear that it was apologizing primarily for the harm done to “non-combatants”, the implication being that members of the British security forces or loyalist militias who fell victim to Republican bombs or bullets were somehow legitimate targets.

One needn’t be an apologist for terrorism to recognize that it invariably emerges as a response to violence perpetrated or sponsored by the state. This does not necessarily justify it under any circumstances, nor is it usually effective in the long term; it may draw attention to problems, but it is unlikely ever to offer any reasonable solutions. Nonetheless, the shock and horror it elicits depends to a considerable degree on the identity of its victims: a bomb placed in a school or a public bus, for example, is likely to be greeted with greater public grief and anger than a mortar attack against a military barracks.

It is not altogether impossible to conceive of circumstances in which there could be some justification for acts of terror as a last resort: for example, an assassin’s bullet in Hitler’s head or Stalin’s heart could potentially have saved millions of lives. Notwithstanding the nature of the beast, the analogy cannot be stretched to Sharon, because even an attempt on his life could oblige the Israeli state to display the worst side of its nature. And let us not forget that in Britain, the Irish peace process seriously got under way not long after Margaret Thatcher had been ousted as prime minister. Such an outcome would have been highly unlikely had the IRA succeeded in getting her out of the way through less conventional means in Brighton in 1984.

Just as the protracted cycle of violence in Northern Ireland only came to an end in the wake of bold compromises on all sides, the Palestinian conundrum needs to be tackled via a visionary approach. Whether Yasser Arafat can provide this is an open question, but it is patently clear that Sharon is incapable of doing anything other than refreshing and deepening the wounds that divide the denizens of the holy lands. The slick and suave but slimy and vision-free Binyamin Netanyahu, who is waiting in the wings, would hardly constitute a significant improvement. If Israelis want peace and security, they will have to abjure the instinctive gun-slingers that the Likud party specializes in.

The Labour Party’s Peres is a relatively more decent warhorse, but it would be far better for them to find a younger leader — a man or a woman able to see more clearly the price that Israel has paid for its policies. Not only is the “security” it has always yearned for nowhere in sight following 35 years of repression, but in the eyes of many it has even devalued one of its primary raisons d’etre, the agonizing memory of the Holocaust, through recourse to Nazi tactics.

No one expects civilized behaviour from the Israeli state any more — which is why no one has bothered to ask why Shehada, who had spent many years in prison, could not have been arrested and made to answer before a court of law for any atrocities he may have masterminded. But even those who consider him to have been a legitimate target are finding it difficult to contend that the manner of his assassination was anything other than a war crime. Nor can anyone take seriously the half-hearted explanation that the military planners were unaware of the extent of “collateral damage” they were about to cause.

The scale of the enormity is compounded by revelations that the Gaza attack may have been intended to pre-empt a unilateral Palestinian ceasefire. According to a report in The Observer last Sunday, the initiative was the product of two months of discussions between leaders from the Tanzim — which is described as Fatah’s “field organization” and “the most powerful Palestinian faction in the Occupied Territories” — and diplomats from Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the European Union. It is believed to have had the blessing of imprisoned Tanzim leader Marwan Barghouti.

According to a text published in the Yediot Aharonot newspaper, the statement was to have said: “Tanzim and Fatah from this moment on will cease all attacks on innocent [Israeli] men, women and children who are non-combatants.” It would also have called on “all Palestinian organizations and movements to cease these attacks immediately, without hesitation or preconditions”. There are indications that Hamas would have fallen into step.

Israel has officially admitted that Sharon was aware of the initiative, which was being finalized at the very moment that an F-16 was releasing its lethal payload in Gaza. The bomb did not only claim 16 lives, it also killed the best chance there had been in at least 12 months for a break from the daily cycle of violence. The cessation of suicide bombings and other Palestinian attacks would have put Israel under considerable pressure to stop its attacks in the occupied territories. And, true to form, Sharon was determined not to give peace a chance.

When the time comes for apologies, as eventually it must, Israel will have to go out of its way to explain why it tolerated unrepentant warmongers at the helm for so long, why it reposed confidence in men with so much blood on their hands.

At the moment, that time seems very far away indeed. It’s worth remembering, though, that the height of “the troubles” in Britain’s last significant colony, the Ulster problem seemed as intractable as the confrontation in Palestine does now. Yet, despite decades of bloody sectarian strife and centuries of bitterness, and despite the ugly role played by the British state in prolonging Northern Ireland’s pain, the peace process that began nearly a decade ago remains more or less on track.

It has its ups and downs, and extremists on the fringes of the loyalist as well as the nationalist movements have tried to ensure that violence doesn’t become a thing of the past. Despite their best efforts, however, most parties to the conflict concur that a return to the endemic bloodshed of the past is all but inconceivable. The Ulster story isn’t by any means over yet, and there may well be setbacks before it can reach its logical conclusion, which would be rescission of the 1921 partition of Ireland.

What’s important is that the path to the future is being pursued by and large through peaceful means.

At the London talks mentioned at the outset, the Irish advisers underlined the importance of outside mediation. Notwithstanding the fate of the profoundly flawed Oslo accords, Palestinians and Israelis are reasonably aware that foreign interlocutors can facilitate agreements — although the point is, unfortunately, lost upon India in the context of Kashmir.

In recent days Hamas has, predictably, been carrying out retaliatory attacks amid reports of Israeli settlers going on the rampage. Unlike their Ulster counterparts, the warring sides are, by and large, yet to appreciate the futility of violence. This sorry, Sharon-dominated chapter will close one day. It won’t be the end of the story, of course. But even the grimmest of tales can conclude on an upbeat note. ‘And they lived happily ever after’ is a fate that the Palestinians deserve more than most other people. And one wouldn’t wish to deny it to the Israelis either.