Nationale
Identitäten bauen auf Mythen, und es ist zu befürchten, dass die Mythen
von Jenin und aus der Mukata zur Basis einer palästinensischen Sagenwelt
mutieren.
Uri Avnery
/ 13.04.02
"In Jenin I founded…"
105 years ago, the day after the First Zionist Congress in Basel,
Theodor Herzl, wrote in his diary: " In Basel I founded the State of the
Jews." This week, Ariel Sharon should note in his diary: "In Jenin I
founded the State of the Palestinians."
Of course, he did not mean to. Quite the contrary, his intention was to
destroy the Palestinian nation, its institutions and leadership, once
and for all, leaving only bits and pieces, human wreckage that could be
disposed of anywhere.
In practice, something quite different happened. Faced with the
onslaught of the biggest military machine in the region and the most
modern arms in the world, submerged in a sea of suffering, surrounded by
bodies, the Palestinian nation straightened its back as never before.
In the small refugee camp near Jenin a group of Palestinian fighters
from all the organization s gathered for a battle of defense that will
be enshrined forever in the hearts of all Arabs. This is the Palestinian
Massada – as an Israeli officer called it, alluding to the legendary
stand of the remnants of the great Jewish rebellion against Rome in the
year 71 AD. When the
international media cannot be kept out anymore and the pictures of
horror will be published, two possible versions may emerge: Jenin as a
story of massacre, a second Sabra and Shatila, and Jenin, the
Palestinian Stalingrad, a story of immortal heroism. The second will
surely prevail. Nations are
built on myths. I was raised on the myths of Massada and Tel-Chai, they
formed the consciousness of the new Hebrew nation. (In Tel-Chai, 1920, a
group of Jewish defenders, led by the one-armed hero Josef Trumpeldor,
were killed in an incident with anti-French Syrian fighters.) The myths
of Jenin and Arafat’s compound in Ramallah will form the consciousness
of the new Palestinian nation.
A primitive military robot, who sees everything in terms of fire-power
and body-counts, will n ot understand this. But Napoleon, a military
genius, said that in war, moral considerations account fo r three
quarters, and the actual balance of force only for the other quarter.
How does Sharon’s war look in
this perspective?
... The aim was, so it was claimed,
to "destroy the terror infrastructure". This definition is by itself
nonsensical: the "terror infrastructure" exists in the souls of millions
of Palestinians and tens of millions of Arabs, whose heart is bursting
with rage. The more fighters and suicide-bombers are killed, the more
fighters and suicide-bombers are ready to take their place. We saw the
"laboratories of explosives" – some sacs of material obtainable in
Israeli shops. The IDF is proud of discovering tens of them. There will
soon be hundreds more. When
dozens of wounded people lie around in the streets and slowly bleed to
death, because the army shoots at every moving ambulance – it creates
terrible hatred. When the army secretly buries hundreds of bodies of
men, women and children – it creates terrible hatred. When tanks overrun
cars, destroy houses, topple electricity poles, open water pipes, leave
behind them thousands of homeless people and cause children to drink
from puddles in the street – it causes terrible hatred.
A Palestinian child, who sees all this with his eyes, becomes the
suicide-bomber of tomorrow. Thus Sharon and Mofaz create the terrorist
infrastructure.
In the meantime, they have created
the foundations of the Palestinian nation and the Palestinian state. The
people saw their fighters in Jenin and believe that they are far greater
heroes than the Israeli soldiers, protected as they are inside their
heavy tanks. They saw their leader in the historic TV sequence, his face
lighted by a single candle in his dark, surrounded office, ready for
death at any moment, and compares him with the hedonic Israeli
ministers, sitting in their offices far from the battle-front,
surrounded by hordes of bodyguards. Thus national pride is engendered.
No good for Israel will come out of this adventure, as no good came out
of any of the previous adventures of Sharon. The concept of the
operation was stupid, the implementation cruel, the results will be
disastrous. It will not bring peace and security, solve no problem, but
it will isolate Israel and endanger the Jews throughout the world.
In the end, only one thing will be remembered: our giant military
machine assaulted the small Palestinian people, and the small
Palestinian people and its leader held on. In the eyes of the
Palestinians, and not only theirs, it will look like a tremendous
victory, the victory of a modern David against Goliath.
To discus this article:
hagalil.com/forum
Mit erhobenen Händen
Der Kampf im Flüchtlingslager Jenin endete
nicht exakt auf die Art und Weise, wie es die Palästinenser versprochen
hatten, nämlich mit einem selbstmörderischen Kampf bis zur letzten
Kugel...
Sperrungen in Jenin aufgehoben
Am Donnerstagabend verkündigte die israelische Verteidigungsarmee
(IDF) das Ende der Sperrung der Stadt Dschenin.
Es gab kein Massaker in Dschenin
Auch in Israel kam der Verdacht auf, dass die palästinensischen
Behauptungen wahr seien. Viele fürchteten, dass Dschenin auf die
schwarze Liste der Massaker, die die Welt geschockt haben, hinzugefügt
würde. Die israelischen Verteidigungsstreitkräfte trugen zu diesen
Befürchtungen bei, als sie eine vorläufige Schätzung von hunderten von
Toten im Lager veröffentlichten...
Der "Massaker-Mythos"
Israel betont,
dass von den etwa 1000 Häusern im Flüchtlingslager Dschenin etwa 100
zerstört worden seien. Die meisten seien vermint gewesen. In
internationalen Berichten tauchten aber nur die 100 zerstörten Häuser
auf, was eine völlige Verwüstung des Flüchtlingslagers suggeriere...
Die Ergebnisse sind im Voraus
bekannt
Israel kann nicht zustimmen, mit einem
Komitee zu kooperieren, das die Aktionen in Dschenin gemäß politischer
Betrachtungen diskutiert, ohne dabei das Gesamtbild von Dschenin als
"Hauptstadt der Selbstmordattentäter" und die gesamte Serie der
schrecklichen Anschläge, die zu dieser IDF-Aktion führten, zu
berücksichtigen...
haGalil onLine
14-04-2002 |