IN the current carnage in Palestine, we have become so hardened to the images and descriptions of barbarity and bloodshed that we often only count the casualties in terms of the dead and the wounded.
To remind us of the human dimension of the tragedy, and to bear witness to the injustice being perpetrated against the Palestinian people by Israel, and to only a slightly lesser extent, by the rest of the world, Ahdaf Soueif ventures into the heart of darkness. The gifted Egyptian writer (now settled in England) is the author of Sandpiper, In the Eye of the Sun and, recently, The Map of Love and has published her searing impressions of her journey to Jerusalem and the West Bank in two recent issues of The Guardian.
In many ways, Soueif is the ideal person to undertake this wrenching journey: a practising Muslim, she has been educated in England and is intimately familiar with the idiom of secularism. With courage and honesty, she explores the trauma that has shaped the intellectual and emotional response of two generations of Muslims towards the West. However, there is no attempt at academic objectivity here: Soueif declares her sympathies in the opening paragraph of her narrative: "I have never, to my knowledge, seen an Israeli except on television. I have never spoken to one. I cannot say I wanted to. My life, like the life of every Egyptian of my generation, has been overcast by the shadow of Israel. I have longed to go to Palestine, but have not wished to go to Israel. And now I am going there."
I, too, have long wished to visit Jerusalem, but have vowed not to set foot in the city as long as it is an occupied territory. No doubt I will be long dead before it is liberated, but given Israel's short-sighted policies of violent land-grabbing and overbearing arrogance, I can see a point of time in this century when the effete and supine Arab governments will be forced by their own populations to adopt a firmer stance against the occupying power.
In the not-too-distant future, Muslim voters in America will get more organized and lobby for a more even-handed Middle East policy. Once Israel can no longer count on Washington's blind financial, military and diplomatic support, it will be forced to review its actions and policies. These changes will take time, but Israel's current bully-boy tactics have made them inevitable.In many ways the ancient city of Al-Khalil (or Hebron) typifies the Israel-Palestinian conflict. A city of 40,000 is being forced to live under curfew to protect a maximum of 400 Israeli settlers. Twelve thousand children cannot go to school, and fifteen mosques have been closed down. Soueif describes the plight of a local taxi driver who broke the curfew to drive a woman home from the hospital after she had had a baby. Israeli soldiers slashed two tyres of his taxi, forcing the woman to walk home with her baby, and the driver to try and change his tyres. The settlers deliberately throw their weight around, provoking the Arabs, secure in the knowledge that they will be protected by Israeli soldiers.
Muslims across the world have been dismayed and disgusted by the complicit attitude the West has adopted towards Israeli actions. They cannot fathom why the UN Security Council resolutions against the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait must be enforced rigorously and immediately, while SC Resolution 242 demanding that Israel returns to its pre-1967 boundaries can be wilfully and contemptuously ignored. Clearly, international morality and law is not equally applied.
Paradoxically, the Palestinians with their stones and slings are viewed as the aggressors while the Israelis with their US-supplied arsenal of missiles and helicopter gunships are the victims. But as the casualties mount, Palestinian resolve is growing firmer: an unarmed uprising is being transformed into a low-intensity guerilla war with Israeli settlers and soldiers being increasingly targeted by Palestinian militants.
And yet the West viewed Afghan freedom fighters with admiration as they fought the Soviet invaders of their land. Going back further in time, the French resistance fighters were heroes in the eyes of the West as they launched attacks on the Nazis. Others who have resisted foreign occupation have received praise and support. Why is it that almost uniquely, the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestine is not condemned? Indeed, it is the Palestinian resistance that is criticized, and the Palestinians are daily urged to accept whatever bits of land and scraps of autonomy the Israelis are generous enough to offer in a final settlement.
In Oslo, Arafat inexplicably accepted that Israel would control access to the towns his Palestinian Authority controlled, and his people would have to show their ID cards to Israeli soldiers. Now they have simply blocked this access and it is at these choke-points that clashes occur daily. These are the battle-lines where over 300 Palestinians have been killed and thousands of others wounded. Westerners often ask why parents permit teenagers to go out and join the intifada, implying that they do not care for their children as much as Europeans and Americans do. They ignore the fact that it is impossible to keep kids locked up in small houses for weeks on end. Often, children returning from school join the crowds confronting the Israeli army. As one mother tells Soueif: "We do not send our children to the Israeli soldiers! The soldiers come to us!"
It is easy to demonize all Israelis, tarring them with the same brush of brutality and arrogance. But the truth is that except for the soldiers and settlers who are in regular contact with the Palestinians, most Israelis living at a distance from the occupied areas simply ignore the problem. Liberals among them would be happy to hand over the settlements and accept a Palestinian state. But even the most liberal Israeli will not accept that Jerusalem could become a shared capital between the two people. And as long as Washington continues its knee-jerk support of this position, it is difficult to see how this deadlock can be broken.
Americans are often puzzled by the depth of resentment and hatred they encounter in much of the Muslim world. They see themselves as even-handed referees in the Middle East conflict and benefactors of countries like Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. For Muslims generally, and the younger generation specially, the creation of Israel and the decades of humiliation at its hand can be directly attributed to American policies. Indeed, in Muslim eyes the Zionist state is an adjunct of America, and is seen as a dagger planted in the heart of the Arab world.
On her return to London, Soueif writes: "I am angrier than before I went. And more incredulous that what is happening in Palestine - every day - to men, women and children, should be allowed by the world to continue.
The choices are in the hands of Israel. They can hand over the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem and live within their borders as a nation among nations. There are no choices for the people of Palestine."