People Must Be Impartial

As human beings, it is difficult for us to tackle any situation alone. We try to draw parallels with others who are subject to similar circumstances in order to relate with them. The problem is we are sometimes over-eager to find a foe that when a single similarity surfaces, we are ready to associate without thoroughly analyzing. It is my belief that Mr. Baram’s article was merely a premature notion of zeal stemming from the idea that the US’ war on terrorism is no different than Israel’s undeclared war with the Palestinians. Mr. Baram’s characterization of the situation is completely misguided as it is based on false precepts; he claims that Yasir Arafat and the Palestinians “posses strikingly similar ideals to the al-Qaida members.” It is a tragedy that someone may take this claim for truth. When the WTC was hit, the target was an ideology. In contrast, when a Palestinian blows himself up he does not care about democracy, capitalism or the Western way of life.

While acknowledging that Israeli civilian lives are at risk every day, Mr. Baram inconsiderately overlooks that for every Israeli death three Palestinians are killed. This is a trend that is consistent with Ariel Sharon’s aim to “increase the number of losses on the other side. Only after they’ve been battered, we will be able to conduct talks.” So, the question now becomes, who is the one that has no regard for human life? Mr. Baram softens our hearts by calling on us to “Imagine every activity, every trip outside of your own home, carries with it the risk of death,” but why is it that he fails to contrast that with the life of the Palestinian who need not go out of his or her own home to face this risk, but is rather humiliated by the Israeli occupation of apartment buildings and the daily showing of tanks, missiles, F-16s and apaches outside of their windows?

I find it infinitely depressing that the people who are adamant about never allowing the world to forget the atrocities of the Holocaust have, according to the New York Times, wrote identification numbers on the arms and foreheads of Palestinian prisoners, and on Tuesday, cut roads leading to a refugee camp in Ramallah and over a loudspeaker demanded that all men between the ages of 15 and 45 gather in the courtyard of a school. While being hard for some to believe, we must remember that any one group does not monopolize suffering, and in order to achieve justice, we must first be impartial.

While Mr. Baram exhorts us to imagine the suffering of Israelis, let us take a moment and accord the same to Palestinians; imagine being a Palestinian trying to go to work so you can provide for your family. However, as you try and make your way to work, you are stopped at a checkpoint, within your own village, subjected to humiliating questioning and then not even allowed to pass. Or, imagine you are a mother trying to bring your child to the doctor, and again, you are stopped for hours, when all you need is to get your child a flu shot. How do you think these children feel at the sight of their parents’ humiliation? What is the end-result of the continual reminder that you aren’t a free person allowed to carry on simple everyday tasks? And as a reward for your tireless day, you go home to find your home demolished because some irrational youth used it as a base to throw some rocks or even for no reason at all. Or, imagine you are awoken at 2 a.m. by bulldozers and tanks ordering you out because you did not get proper authorization to expand your home — God forbid your family grew after 1948, requiring you to expand.

Furthermore, Mr. Baram accuses Arafat of letting suicide bombers do the dirty work for him, a sentiment that is also shared by Israeli Prime minister Ariel Sharon. He criticizes him for not being able to keep the peace for seven days. While I am no admirer of Mr. Arafat myself, I invite you to enlighten me on how, as a leader, Mr. Arafat is expected to have control over his people when he was, first, subject to house arrest, then, on the day of his release, Israel so conveniently launches the biggest military operation since the invasion of Lebanon 20 years ago.

Israel espouses the greatest of hypocrisies when it claims to fight terrorism in the occupied territories all the while inflicting its own terrorism of a far greater magnitude. America’s war is not like Israel’s. While we may not agree with all of America’s goals when it sends troops to Afghanistan, it is at least fighting an entity that we know aims for the utter destruction of “Western” values and ideals. However, Palestinians who fight do not share these same aims. The Palestinian fighters’ only goal is to achieve an independent state, where they can live free, make a decent living and raise a family — standards that are very much Western. Therefore, any attempt to brand the conflict in the Middle East as being one-in-the-same as America’s conflict with terrorism would be considered misleading.

I would like to end by agreeing with United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan’s proclamation that Israel “must end the illegal occupation…stop the bombing of civilian areas, the assassinations, the unnecessary use of lethal force, the demolitions and the daily humiliation of ordinary Palestinians.”