Incongruities of Gujarat

AN Indian chief minister recently launched a drive to bring outside investment into his state and promote development. At one of a series of grand events to publicize the state, the chief minister spoke of its great potential. Asked what made his state so special, he replied: “(It) is a law-abiding and peace-loving state and it is growth oriented.” All very laudable, one would have thought, until one sees the full picture. For the state in question is Gujarat, and the Chief Minister Narendra Modi.

Gujarat and Narendra Modi acquired international notoriety 19 months ago. An arson attack on a train carrying Hindu activists killed 58 of them, and sparked the worst communal rioting in India since the Mumbai riots in the early 1990s. Over 2,000 people, the majority of them Muslims, were burned or hacked to death. Some of the worst horrors of partition were replayed in Gujarat in the spring of 2002.

The rioting in itself was bad enough. What made it worse — and contributed to the huge death toll — was the complicity, indeed active encouragement, of the state authorities. This applied to the civil administration, the police and the para-military force. All, and especially the former two, stood by as Hindu mobs went on the rampage. The woman who was burnt alive in her home, situated just 60 yards from a police station, and the Congress MP Ahsan Jafri who was killed several hours after he first rang for help, are just two isolated incidents. But they speak volumes about the level of official complicity in Gujarat’s season of madness.

Well over a year has passed since the Gujarat rioting. Many Muslims continue to live in refugee camps and makeshift shelters, too frightened to return to their old homes and neighbourhoods. Others have started making new homes in Muslim majority areas. What assistance they receive for survival and rebuilding comes from Muslim charities and other organisations. The state administration, headed by Modi, has done nothing for them.

Some 50 Muslims are in prison for their alleged involvement in the Godhra train attack that killed 58 Hindus. By contrast, not a single Hindu has been convicted for the 2,000-plus Muslim murders. Where cases have come to court, prosecution witnesses have been cowed into changing their statements or not testifying at all. In June, 21 Hindus were acquitted of burning 14 Muslims in a Vadodra bakery (known as the Best Bakery incident) after many of the prosecution witnesses withdrew their evidence. One said she lied in court because she had been threatened by senior Hindu political figures. The Indian Supreme Court strongly condemned the Gujarat government’s handling of the case, but those acquitted remain free.

Narendra Modi, chief minister at the time of the rioting, described it as ‘a natural reaction’ to the Godhra incident. He has always been unrepentant about what happened. (‘Unrepentant’ is actually too mild and ‘proud’ would be a more accurate description.) Last December, Modi fought a re-election campaign on the platform of the anti-Muslim rioting and won by a huge majority. The BJP’s seats in the state assembly went up from 117 to 126. The party had most success in the areas worst hit by the rioting.

It is against this bloody backdrop that one must judge Gujarat’s lavish self-promotion exercise last week. The main event, a three-day gathering of politicians (headed by Deputy P.M. Lal Krishnu Advani), captains of industry and businessmen, was titled: ‘Vibrant Gujarat — Global Investors Summit’. In his summit address, Chief Minister Modi made no reference to the violence that won him his position, preferring to highlight the investment potential of his state. When a BBC reporter tried to ask him about last year’s riots, he brushed her aside: “Gujarat is looking to tomorrow; Gujarat is busy with development”.

Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani did refer to the previous year’s carnage, but only as a minor triviality that could be forgotten: “Do not believe and do not be swayed by what you have read about Gujarat in the past year or so. It was sad and unfortunate but an aberration. Gujarat...is the land of Bapu, the apostle of truth, non-violence and universal brotherhood.” ‘Bapu’, more commonly known as Mahatma Gandhi, came from Gujarat. By coincidence or design, one of the week’s events — a festival to celebrate Gujarati khaddi production — took place on his birthday, October 2.

The many incongruities of Gujarat should by now be obvious. A state that just last year witnessed some of the bloodiest communal violence in India’s history, claiming to be a stable venue for outside investment. A state whose leader presided over that communal bloodbath, being re-elected with a bigger majority. A state and its leader that did not (and still do not) pay even nominal heed to human rights, law and justice, being lauded by the national government as a model for others to follow. A state that was the home of Mahatma Gandhi, apostle of non-violent political action and communal tolerance, being the venue for the bloodiest implementation of Hindutva.

How does one account for these stupefying contradictions? As she watched Gujarat sell itself to the world last week, the BBC reporter concluded that Gujarat “is a community in denial”. She was wrong. That first incongruity, between a violent, bloody yesterday and a prospering, advancing today cannot be explained by denial. It arises solely because Muslim life has no value in Modi’s Gujarat. Muslim murder there merits neither recording (it is rarely even a statistic), nor justice, or compensation, and certainly not remorse.

The re-election of Narendra Modi points to a a disturbing conclusion. Namely that a an extremist Hindu politician who can remove the competition and threat posed to Hindus by Muslim businesses, will not only be excused for his ‘communal cleansing’ but will also be rewarded for it. Muslims are the enemy: anyone who destroys them is a ‘saviour’. This so-called ‘Moditva’ is an extension of the basic philosophy of Hindutva, the BJP’s political creed. Hindutva demands an India exclusively for Hindus — Muslims must either convert, or live as permanent second (if not third) class citizens, or emigrate to Pakistan. ‘Moditva’ gives them a fourth option — death.

The incongruity between Modi’s actions last year and his being lauded by the BJP’s national elite, indicates the same lack of concern about Muslims on the wider Indian stage. Any reservations that the BJP government had about Narendra Modi evaporated as soon as he won Gujarat with a resounding majority. More disturbing, it also points to wider acceptance of ‘Moditva’. Some BJP hardliners are already hailing ‘Moditva’ as the key to electoral success for the BJP in other states.

As for the third incongruity — the denial of justice in Gujarat and its acceptance by New Delhi — there are innumerable precedents for this in contemporary India. Kashmir is of course the most prominent: human rights abuses have been the norm there for many years. In other Indian states there is widespread abuse for political reasons (in Punjab in the 1980s, for example) or for caste and communal reasons. The lot of a Dalit in the 21st-century India is arguably worse than that of a Muslim.

In accounting for the final incongruity — between Gandhi’s message and what is happening five decades on in his home state — many would blame the BJP and its creed of Hindutva. This, and the original Ram Temple-Ayodhya movement, certainly have been huge factors in the communalization of Indian politics and society. But ironically the key to understanding this phenomenon is yet another, deeper-running, aberration.

This is the incongruity between the place of religion in the Indian constitution and its place in Indian society. The former protects the rights of some minorities, but otherwise gives no room to religion in modern India. Constitutionally, India is a secular state. In practice, however, it is anything but. Hinduism, Sikhism, Islam, Buddhism, Christianity and a myriad of other ‘lesser’ religions are followed with a passion and commitment rarely seen elsewhere in the world. India is a land of believers. By imposing secularism on such a deeply religious society, Nehru laid the foundations for strains that would inevitably promote the extreme expression of religion and thus tear that society apart.

This is not to suggest that Hindutva — an officially Hindu India — is the route Nehru should have taken. There are many shades of grey between the black and white of secularism and Hindutva. Numerous other societies have grappled with the same problem and found innovative solutions that allow formal religious expression whilst preserving the rights and freedoms of minorities. India could and should have found such a happy blend.

Narendra Modi bears prime responsibility for Gujarat’s multiple contradicting, but many others have contributed to them. Getting rid of them therefore entails not just removing Modi, but addressing wider issues in Indian politics and society. As Gujarat and India rush to embrace modernization, however, neither has time for such ‘aberrations’.

Kashmir: the only solution

THE Kashmir dispute has bedevilled Pakistani-Indian relations for over five decades and no end appears to be in sight. Nawabzada Liaquat Ali Khan once said in 1948 that we will not give up our struggle for Kashmir even if it takes ten to fifteen years. It has now taken us 56 years and the dispute has not been settled. It would be well to examine its causes, the mistakes that we have made and to make a realistic appraisal of the situation as it exists today.

It is on record that Vallabhbhai Patel, the powerful minister in Jawaharlal Nehru’s government, had offered to Nawabzada Liaquat Ali Khan in 1947, that Pakistan should keep Kashmir and let India have Hyderabad. This offer was refused. Nawabzada Liaquat Ali Khan and presumably the Quaid-i-Azam felt that we could have both; Kashmir, because it had a Muslim majority, and Hyderabad because it had a Muslim ruler. It is also known that Shaikh Mohammad Abdullah, the chief minister of Kashmir, asked to see the Quaid-i-Azam in 1947 but was not given an interview. It is also known that the Maharaja of Kashmir was indecisive about acceding to India or to Pakistan. Without making any efforts to make contact with him, Khan Abdul Qayyum Khan, the chief minister of the NWFP, was allowed to unleash a tribal invasion of the state.

With the approval of the Pakistan government regular Pakistan army officers and men were allowed to join the government-sponsored tribal attack on the valley. When the tribesmen reached the valley, they began loot and plunder and after filling their vehicles began to return to the tribal area of the North-West Frontier leaving the small number of regular Pakistan army officers and men and a few tribesmen to mount an attack on Srinagar. Since this attack was delayed for about a week and because of the return of a large number of tribesmen to their homes, the Indian army got the opportunity to rush troops to Srinagar and save the city from the tribal hordes. The Maharaja fled the city and acceded to India.

The 56 years that have followed have been spent in futile political debates and equally futile diplomatic efforts to convince the world that India should be forced to honour its commitment to hold a free and impartial plebiscite in the state according to the Security Council’s resolution. By now, we should have been convinced that no plebiscite will ever be held. General Ziaul Haq annexed the Northern Areas of the state to Pakistan and declared that these no longer formed a part of Jammu and Kashmir. By separating a 100 per cent Muslim area from Jammu and Kashmir, we in fact acknowledged that there was no possibility of a United Nations-controlled plebiscite in the state.

Fifty-six years after partition, the position is that at least 80,000 people have lost their lives in Indian-occupied Kashmir, no meaningful progress has been made in solving this dispute, and the positions of the two countries have become harder. Pakistan’s official position remains that the Security Council’s resolution regarding holding a plebiscite should be implemented and although India claims Azad Jammu and Kashmir as a part of Indian territory, it appears to be willing to recognize the cease-fire line as an international border. Pakistan has failed to persuade India even to hold talks on this issue.

The various possibilities that have been talked about do not offer any real solution to the problem. The suggestion that the ceasefire line be converted into an international border is no solution, and no government in Pakistan could possibly consider such a suggestion. Another alternative, that the Chenab river be converted into an international border and the territory on its right bank excluding Leh and the adjoining non-Muslim areas as well as all the territory on its left bank should be a part of India.

This suggestion talked about by some well-meaning people on both sides does not offer any real solution to the problem. Even by making the river Chenab the dividing line, some Muslim majority areas will still remain on the left bank of the river and these will be a source of potential instability. The struggle for their ‘liberation’ is therefore likely to continue and this will bedevil relations between the two nuclear powers. Infiltration of the so-called ‘mujahideen’ will continue and the river separating the two, although a less porous border, will not be able to solve the problem.

A third and in my view the only solution to the problem is to recognize the state of Jammu and Kashmir as an independent country. The borders of the state are continuous with China, India and Pakistan. China’s border is virtually impassable and China now has no claim on any part of Jammu and Kashmir. China, India and Pakistan could jointly guarantee the inviolability of the borders of the new state and Jammu and Kashmir would then not be required to have any armed forces of its own. Its internal security problems could be served by a police forces. This would save it the back-breaking expenditure of maintaining its own defence forces, giving it an opportunity to use its considerable resources for the welfare of the people and for promotion of tourism, for which it has unrivalled potential.

Moreover, Jammu and Kashmir with its population of Muslims and Hindus as well as Sikhs would bring the people of India and Pakistan closer together and could in time, change the future of the subcontinent from an area of perpetual strife and suffering to one of amity and friendship where Muslims ad Hindus could live in peace as they had done for centuries before 1947. This would also give security to the Muslim population of India which is greater than that of Pakistan and which has made great sacrifices for its creation.

India could argue that if Kashmir is granted freedom it will open up a ‘Pandora’s box’ for India and the demand of other people who are seeking separation from India will be strengthened. There is however no parallel between Jammu and Kashmir and other territories such as Nagaland or Mizoram. None of these involve any other country and India has no dispute with its neighbouring countries such as China or Burma regarding these territories.

The narrow parochial interests of politicians and political parties which exploit human weaknesses to gather electoral support is, however, likely to come in the way of this entirely workable solution. It will however be a test of the leadership of the two countries. If they can rise above their narrow interests, their place in history will be assured and they will have given hope to over a billion people of the subcontinent.

The alternative is grim. Continued strife between the two countries and a rising tide of killings and massacres with both countries engaged in an unending arms race and both spending billions in purchasing aircraft, ships, missiles and expensive arms from the United States and western powers, thus enriching the already rich countries and impoverishing themselves. The majority of the people of South Asia whose population is likely to double in 25 years are already short of the bare minimum for survival and at the present rate of galloping poverty, will soon face starvation like millions in Africa.

The chances are that if we persist in our folly, we, the people of the Indo-Pakistan subcontinent, will before long destroy ourselves either by self-inflicted misery and hunger or by the use of nuclear weapons accidentally or intentionally, a weapon in which we appear to take so much pride.

Reinventing Quaid’s vision

IT has been obvious for quite a while that we Pakistanis are faced with the problem of identity crisis. But how acute, became evident to me while watching a recent TV programme. The topic of the discussion was Quaid’s vision of Pakistan. The participants were Dr Israr Ahmad, Prof Ghafoor Ahmad, Mr Hanif Ramay and Mr Ayaz Amir. In addition, Lt-Gen (retd) Hameed Gul, a former DG, ISI was invited to give his views on telephone line.

During the discussion Dr Israr Ahmad made two very unusual claims about the Quaid-e-Azim: (1) that he was not a secularist but wanted Pakistan to be an Islamic state modelled on Madina, (2) since a strong wind of secularism was blowing in the world at that time (1940-47), he found it expedient not to reveal his true vision of Pakistan. In support of his claim he quoted from an article published in October 1988, in which he had claimed that the Quaid had told him that he wanted Pakistan to be an Islamic state like that of Madina.

At this point Lt-Gen (retd) Hameed Gul was brought on line. He said that after a thorough study of the Quaid’s life, he had also come to the conclusion that his vision of Pakistan was of an Islamic state modelled on Madina. In support of his statement he said that when Lord Mountbatten was addressing the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan on August 13, 1947 and expressed the hope that Pakistan would be a liberal secular state, the Quaid had risen on a point of order and interrupting Mountbatten had stated that Pakistan would not be a modern secular state but an Islamic state on the model of Madina.

These statements are most incredible because they are contrary to all the known facts about the Quaid. Many Pakistani and non-Pakistani authors have written his biography and all are agreed on two of his basic traits. One, he was not a hypocrite and expediency was not his nature. He wore western clothes all his life without worrying that it would have a negative impact on his following among the Muslims of India who were, by and large, religious and conservative. He never kept a beard, prayed only occasionally and is not known to have ever performed Umrah or Hajj. But he was the most honest and incorruptible person, both in his private and public life, as has been admitted even by his worst critics.

His second well-known trait about which there is no disagreement was his thoroughly modern, progressive and non-communal outlook. He put the case of Pakistan on the basis of two-nation theory so that the Muslims in those areas of India where they were in majority did not have to live under Hindu domination. However, he did not want Pakistan to become a theocracy but a modern secular state in which all citizens irrespective of their race and religious beliefs would enjoy equal political rights, economic opportunities and religious freedom. It was this vision that he clearly enunciated in his famous August 11 speech before the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan.

It was for this reason that most of the religious leaders of pre-partitioned India and their parties were bitterly opposed to the Quaid. Many called him Kafir-i Azam, and an activist of one of these parties even tried to assassinate him.

The issue in Pakistan is not that of religious freedom for the Muslims. The issue is whether Pakistan should be a theocracy or a progressive pluralistic democratic state with equal rights for all its citizens as envisaged by the Quaid. Hence, those who believe that Pakistan should be Taliban-like theocracy should appeal to the electorate and get their mandate for it. Those who want theocracy in Pakistan must include in their manifesto the system of transfer of power so that on the death of the Ameer-ul-Momineen the nation may not plunge into a civil war as it happened in all the Islamic states and following the assassination of the third caliph, Hazrat Usman Ghani.

Such an honest approach will be truly Islamic and a vote for it by the majority will mean a real victory on its own steam rather than through a piggyback ride on the shoulders of the Father of the Nation.

The writer is a former ambassador of Pakistan.

e-mail: manalam@hotmail.com

Top priority to employment

THE Asian Development Bank which is assisting Pakistan in many ways, and stepping up that assistance currently, wants Pakistan to make determined efforts for adequate job creation.

The worsening poverty situation in Pakistan needs foremost attention of the government, says the country director of the Bank Marshouk Ali Shah, a Fijian national greatly interested in the rapid development of Pakistan. And he calls for “radical measures to achieve pro-poor growth.”

The ADB whose annual assistance is around one billion dollars has just announced 75 million dollars for promoting primary school programme in the country. And its director in Pakistan says poverty, unemployment and the static foreign and domestic investment are matters of concern for the Bank.

He is certain Pakistan cannot achieve a high level of growth without inviting foreign and domestic investment which has been static. And Pakistan should look into it seriously, which means earnest and serious attempt have to be made to attract investment.

He is not taken in by the claim of two billion dollars having been made in the textile sector or the foreign investment in the oil and gas sector. He wants far more investment to meet the needs of the people with a high degree of unemployment. He is also looking at a country where poverty is worsening, while the rich seem to get richer and the human development index is worsening.

In such a situation with its increasing unemployment suicides and rising crimes job-creation has to be on a steady and sustained basis, more so when external source of employment has become scarce, and wages in the country have become lower.

Mr Shah says there are structural problems which needed to be attended to for achieving higher economic growth. And growth in Pakistan depends substantially on agriculture, he says.

But Pakistan has to improve its manufacturing sector for achieving broad-based growth. The manufacturing sector has to play a vital role rather than the agricultural sector which is always at the mercy of weather and untimely rains.

Political issues are important, too, he says, and there is an urgent need to remove the stalemate over the Legal Framework Order, he adds.

The governor of the State Bank of Pakistan recently spoke at Dubai on ten reasons why foreign investors should prefer Pakistan to other countries. He spoke of also the fast emerging middle class which preferred foreign goods to the local. But he did not give sufficient attention to the political uncertainties, the law and order issue and the regional uncertainty which are truly important for the foreign investors. The sectarian killings from which there seems to be no respite are also important.

The World Bank’s Development Report - 2004 says that the services meant for the poor people seldom reached them, beginning with drinking water and primary schools. Although the per capita income of Bangladesh is lower than that of Pakistan, human development here is far worse. The main problem is fall in development spending as a percentage of GDP due to the fiscal squeeze and the pressure of bringing down the budget deficit.

The situation in this regard is so bad that Sunday’s papers reported that in a government school in the Sialkot region the headmistress and other teachers, instead of attending the school themselves, hired a low paid teacher to run the school which she did to the best of her over-taxed ability. What kind of education can be imparted in such a school is obvious but the local political and administrative system permitted that. And that may not be the only school of that kind in the region.

The World Bank Development Report says, teachers in schools are hired less on merit and more on how best to apportion patronage, particularly when abstention is not penalised. There is preference to build new schools than to run them well in Pakistan. What that means is when there is no democracy we have an excess of bureaucratic corruption. And when we have democracy we have political corruption based on patronage to sects, groups, caste, linguist factions etc.

When the World Bank president James Wolfensohn met prime minister Zafarullah Jamali in Washington he called for closer attention to the areas like education, power sector and civil service reforms. And to achieve that the bank is ready to raise its annual aid to one billion dollars from the current 600 million dollars. With poverty reduction on a sustained basis receiving worldwide attention and receiving large assistance, education for the poor and civil service reforms have become very important. But the aid spent one education or public health as happened under Social Action Programme I and II should not go into pockets of the corrupt.

If we receive more and more in the name of social and economic reforms but do not carry out those reforms or sustain them we shall be going deeper and deeper into debt. And when we do not have the money to repay we shall be mortgaging more and more of our residual sovereignty.

The World Bank and the ADB do not want the country lose Rs. 60 billion or more on running the KESC and the WAPDA power system. Twenty five per cent of the power produced by WAPDA and 40 per cent of the power produced by KESC is lost. The loss has not been sustained by supplying cheap power to the poor consumers. When we sell KESC before the end of the year we will get a low price for the system and I am told that after the privatization the new owners will have to employ the army to manage the system and collect the bills. And that can make the running of the power system after privatization very expensive. Then, is privatization the real solution for many of our high cost power problems?

Wolfensohn wants Pakistan to sustain its reforms programme and develop the sectoral reforms programmes needed to strengthen governance, institutions and regulatory capacity.

Meanwhile, the housing problem is getting more and more complex. The world urban slums will double their population to 2 billion in the next 30 years, says a competent agency of the U.N.

A new report by the U.N. Habitat based in Nairobi says the economic adjustment programmes are increasing inequality and social exclusion. And globalization accentuates the plight of the urban poor in many countries by destroying formal sector job opportunities. It says the efforts to improve the conditions of the urban poor have been feeble and incoherent over the past decade having peaked during the 1980s. Unplanned squatter settlements already account for 43 per cent of the developing world’s urban population, the report says and adds that two-thirds of the slum-dwellers live in Asia. But housing conditions in China have improved.

Pakistan now faces a backlog of 4.3 million housing units, says an official report. There are now 19.3 million housing units and 4.3 million needed to be added to that to meet the basic needs of 140 million. Around 300,000 housing units are being added annually but the overall production has to be raised by 600,000 annually to meet the shortfall in 20 years. Meanwhile more people would have come to the cities from the rural areas as the U.N. report expects the migration from the rural areas to the urban to continue. That means not only providing more houses but also more roads, schools, hospitals, parks, playing fields etc.

If the Katchi Abadis are improved in that manner more people from the rural areas will come to cities and seek jobs. And they will have to be provided jobs. Otherwise, begging, crimes and suicides will increase.

So it may be better to make the rural areas far better and brighter and increase the employment avenues for them there or create mid-city centres as China had done which solved a part of the problem. In a heavily populated country with small financial resources the problems are immense and we have to do everything possible to make the best use of our scant resources.

Sharon’s temptation

HANADI Tayseer Jaradat, who walked into Maxim’s restaurant in Haifa and blew herself up, killing nineteen other people and injuring fifty, was born and raised in the West Bank city of Jenin and never left Israeli-ruled territory in her life.

Nobody can cross the heavily fortified border between Syria and Israel except the United Nations team that has observed the demilitarised zone since 1973. So why did Israel ‘retaliate’ for the atrocity she committed in Haifa by bombing Syria for the first time in thirty years?

Israel’s attack on what Damascus calls a civilian area and Tel Aviv calls a Palestinian training camp was a small action militarily, but it is a very big deal. A thirty-year cease-fire has been breached, and a precipice beckons. Syria’s president Bashar al-Assad, less than three years in the job that his father held for thirty, is feeling deeply insecure. He has a hostile Israel to the west and now a large American army to his east in Iraq.

There may be a few worried neo-cons in Washington, watching the slide in President George W. Bush’s ratings and looking around for another plausible war against a ‘terrorist state’ to mobilise public support for next year’s election, who would be willing to take out an option on Syria, but the smart money in that race is on a US attack on Iran. And Israel’s Prime Minister Ariel Sharon probably doesn’t want a war with Syria either. It’s just that he has a problem with Israeli public opinion as a result of the latest terrorist attack.

Sharon has always insisted that Yasser Arafat, the president of the Palestinian Authority and for over thirty years the head of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, is behind the bomb attacks that have killed hundreds of Israeli civilians since the peace process broke down three years ago.

After the last big bombing last month, Sharon’s government said that it was considering the expulsion or assassination of Arafat. Now there has been another ghastly slaughter, and a lot of Israelis are waiting for him to put his money where his mouth was.

He would love to, other things being equal, but other things are not. The United States, Israel’s only real ally, does not want the violent upheavals that would ensue in the Arab world if the man who has embodied Palestinian aspirations for decades were murdered or driven into exile. Nor does it necessarily serve Israel’s purposes to destroy the only secular authority in the occupied territories and drive Palestinians into the arms of the Islamists who actually do most of the bombing.

On the other hand, it has long been the doctrine of the hard right in Israel that the very idea of a Palestinian identity is a false construct, artificially created by Arafat and the PLO. If that is true, then eliminating the purveyors of this false identity, Arafat and his old guard, would destroy the identity itself. Palestinians would revert to the narrower clan and tribal loyalties of three generations ago, and Israel would no longer face organised opposition to its designs on Palestinian land.

‘Politicide’, as Israeli academic Baruch Kimmerling defines this fantasy of his country’s extreme right, is a constant temptation to people like Sharon. It argues for the prompt killing of Arafat as soon as the political and strategic situation permits, and the situation will never be more favourable than it is now. However, common sense and the Israeli intelligence services will be arguing strongly that the practical consequence of murdering Arafat would be to turn the Palestinians over to the Islamist organisations that are the main sponsors of the terrorist attacks — so don’t do it.

Back and forth the argument rages, with the hardest of Israeli hard-liners insisting that handing the Palestinians over to the likes of Hamas and Islamic Jihad would not be all that bad. A few more Israelis might get blown up, but it would end once and for all the threat of a compromise peace involving the abandonment of some or all of the occupied territories, for the Islamists are no more interested in that kind of peace than Sharon is. Only he can decide — and he cannot decide.

Ariel Sharon never rose to the highest command positions in the Israeli armed forces, despite his many victorious battles, because his fellow officers judged that he had no feel for deeper questions of long-term strategy. He still doesn’t, and it’s plain that he cannot choose which way to jump. Kill Arafat, strangle what remains of the wretched ‘roadmap’ peace process, and infuriate Washington? Or carry on with the salami tactics that have served him so well so far, expanding the settlements on the West Bank and extending the wall that will ultimately place almost all of them on the Israeli side while talking vaguely of peace?

He wants to postpone the choice, and so to deflect Israeli popular demands for revenge he has engaged in a displacement activity: an unprovoked and unprecedented but essentially meaningless attack on Syria. With any luck, it will remain meaningless. With a lot of bad luck, it could end up as a real war.

— Copyright