While I found the tone of this article a bit strident, the point is quit correct. Sharon is not interested in dealing with the root fo the conflict with the Palestinians, viz. the occupation and settlements. Bush has no interest in pressuring Sharon either. The inevitable result is that the “Road Map” will lead nowhere, and further violence is almost guaranteed.
“The outlook remains grim. The Road Map’s only clear design is to end Palestinian violence; that is, pacification in favor of the stronger party. It is an invitation to the Palestinians to surrender and leave their future in the kindly hands of Ariel Sharon and George Bush. This is not promising as Palestinian victimization has been too severe, the inducements offered for surrender are too slight and those kindly hands are not very forthcoming. We are in for further retail and wholesale terrorism, with uncertain, but not happy, future outcomes.”
Yesterday’s meeting between Bush and Sharon reinforced the validity of Herman’s analysis. Bush is in total sympathy with Sharon. This is not surprising and I don’t think it is a result of Bush’s trying to curry favor with the Jewish or Christian Right lobbies. Rather, it is a result of cowboy Bush having a deep-seated empathy for the Israeli position.
Last night we watched the movie Little Big Man which is precisely about the ethnic cleansing of the native Americans in the United States in the second half of the eighteenth century, and specifically the battle at Little Big Horn, which in US textbooks is known as “Custer’s Last Stand.”
The parallels to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict are striking. When I was in school, Custer was portrayed as a great hero protecting the brave American settlers from the Indians (who in today’s parlance would have been known as terrorists). But Custer was a genocidal maniac intent on ethnic cleansing. And the Indians, totally out-gunned by the overwhelmingly superior fire-power of the white man, were ultimately pacified and herded into “reservations.”
Bush no doubt sees the Israelis as the modern-day cowboys, and the Palestinians as the savage “Injuns.” Of course in the American story, the white man was triumphant, which is a moral stain that will never be erased from the American flag. However, the Palestinians are part of a much larger Arab and Islamic world. And it remains highly doubtful that even the combined strength of the mightiest nation in the history of the world, and the mightiest regional power in the Middle East, will succeed in pacifying that region. The resulting violence of the attempt to do so, is awful to contemplate.