What is the definition of a brave leader and a great soldier? If I had the means I could pose this question directly to President Musharraf who has during an interview with German newspaper Der Spiegel stated that the present Israeli prime minister, Arial Sharon is a brave leader and a great soldier. But I do not have the means to climb so high and face the President. I am a small fry; actually I am just small and no fry because this statement has already fried me.
I still doubt the authenticity of this statement, maybe he was misquoted, as in the case of Iran.
If Arial Sharon is a brave leader and a great fighter, then pray what is the fault of Hitler and Stalin? They deserve to be included in the list of braves and greats. Do I have to go into details about the bravery and greatness of Sharon, narrate what he did to the thousands of Palestinians in Sabra and Shatila, in the West Bank, in Jenin and Bethleham.
One of his greatest achievement is erecting the great wall of Israel, around the Palestinians imprisoning a whole nation. A few kilometres long, the Berlin Wall divided only one city, built within East Germany. It did not bulldoze entire villages or vandalize ancient olive orchards and yet, it was declared a symbol of oppression and cruelty unparalleled in human history by the West and the Americans. Even President John Kennedy of Jacqueline fame, stood near the wall and promised to remove every one of its bricks and declare, “I am Berliner”.
The great wall of Israel is mightier and higher than the Berlin Wall. It is being built on ancient Palestinian-owned lands and orchards, bulldozing everything that might come its way, turning a whole land into a gulag concentration camp. And who was the architect of this, hundreds of kilometres long wall; our brave and great pal, Sharon.
I had hoped that some day some president will stand in front of it and declare “I am a Palestinian”. Instead we find our president saluting the great soldier and admiring his bravery for such deeds.
I have been struck with another misfortune; for once I totally agree with Qazi Hussain Ahmad who has thoroughly condemned this statement. Our clergy has never been very sympathetic towards the Palestinians cause; their support was always Luke warm due to the leadership of Yasir Arafat who had a soft corner and understandably for the Soviet Union and progressive countries. Besides they could not stomach the fact that Palestine is a land of Christians also and some of their topnotch leaders like Leila Khalid, who invented hijacking as a protest and destroyed scores of planes on the ground and the firebrand George Habash were non-Muslims. And to add insult to the injury, Yasir Arafat married a Christian lady by the name of Suha.
I believe if the state of Israel would not have been imposed upon the Palestinians, there wouldn’t have been what is called terrorism today, the world would have been a peaceful place. The day the first Palestinian was uprooted from his ancestral land, the first village was bombed, the first child became a victim of Zionists and the first olive tree was uprooted to make space for the settlements, that was the day when terrorism took roots. No doubt the present acts of terrorism, including suicide bombers and blowing up planes etc. are highly condemnable and cannot be branded as symptoms of freedom struggle. Rather they are symptoms of sickness fired by sectarian madness. I remember the statement of an Israeli foreign office spokesman after a suicide bomb attack on a restaurant. He was moaning the fact these Palestinian terrorist are so uncivilized that they will not let us have our morning coffee in peace. When he was questioned about the bulldozing of refugee camps in Jenin, he shrugged his shoulders and said, Oh, that, we are just protecting ourselves there.
Sharon had a personal vendetta with Yasir Arafat. Starting from Beirut to the West Bank, he always regretted the fact that he did not kill Arafat in Lebanon and reiterated that he will murder him whenever the opportunity arose.
In the summer of 1975, once again due to the travel itch I packed my bags and headed for Beirut travelling through Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey, Syria and finally reaching the jewel of the East without realizing that the jewel was about to be destroyed by civil war. I was caught unaware. All I wanted was to visit the birthplace of Khalil Jibran, meet Palestinian poet Mahmud Dervish and then take a ship to Naples, Italy. But it was not so simple.
Beirut was about to explode and there were barricades all around and the sound of gunfire was louder than the voice of Ume Kalsum whose songs filled the airwaves 24 hours. While I was checking in Funduq Maaradulkabir, near Soleh Square, the receptionist asked me, “Do you have anything to protect yourself?”
I totally failed to understand the implication: “Protect myself from whom?”
“From the Phalangists who else. You see, ours is a Palestinian hotel and the Phalangists are our sworn enemies. Only last April they swarmed into our hotel and killed two of our guests, so we have to be careful. If you do not have anything to protect yourself, buy it from the open market.”
My room mate in the hotel was a Palestinian, Nasar, who despite insurmountable difficulties and cruelties did not leave his homeland and hung on. “Nasar how does it feel to live in Israel?”
“I don’t live in Israel Mustansar. I live in my ancestral Palestinian village.” His face was a typical homeless face although he lived in his home. “Israel is all around us like the walls of a prison. There are many Palestinians who do not trust us because we stayed back; travel on Israeli passports and papers. But tell me Mustansar, if each and every Palestinian leaves don’t you think the Zionists will be more than happy? As long as we are there at least we have a claim to our ancestral lands. Maybe in future some miracle might take place and we may have our own independent Palestine.”
Next day Nasar took me to a local PLO office where a burly Palestinian embraced me because I was a Pakistani. He told me that beside Christians, there are some Palestinian Jews who are fighting for them against Zionism.
The most interesting, and in a way most predictable character I saw in Beirut was a bald gentleman who, without fail, appeared every morning at about 4.30, beneath my hotel window and started firing a machine gun without aiming it at anybody. After every burst of firing, he would laugh like mad till he choked and then again start firing. He would hardly stay for a few minutes and then like a proper gentleman, adjust his tie, pull up his trousers and walk away.
The first morning when I heard the gunfire, right beneath my window, naturally I was devastated and woke up Nasar and asked him who this gentleman could be, a Phalangi or a Palestinian? He smiled contentedly, “He could be anyone. But don’t worry, he does not mean any harm, he is just having fun. Go to sleep.”
But I could not sleep while the gentleman was just having fun. How finally I managed to escape from Beirut is a long story. In short, riding a taxi, which was fired upon, I managed to reach the harbour and board a Turkish ship, Ekdenese. The ship had to leave the harbour five hours before the official departure time because the port authorities just told the captain to get the hell out of here before you become the target of rocket fire.
Ekdenese was the last ship to leave Beirut port for many weeks to come. When the ship sailed into the open sea, leaving behind a burning Beirut skyline, I noticed dozens of dolphins whistling, following our ship. It is said that ancient mariners considered it to be a good omen when the dolphins followed their boats. Their presence indicated that the sailors would reach their homes safely. The rootless, homeless exiled ship of Palestinians wandering in the world does not have the good omen of dolphins following it indicating that some day they will reach their homeland safely. Where are the dolphins now?
What is the definition of a brave leader and a great soldier? If I had the means I could pose this question directly to President Musharraf who has during an interview with German newspaper Der Spiegel stated that the present Israeli prime minister, Arial Sharon is a brave leader and a great soldier. But I do not have the means to climb so high and face the President. I am a small fry; actually I am just small and no fry because this statement has already fried me.
