In last Friday’s Guest Commentary, Fayyad Sbaihat blamed Ariel Sharon, the prime minister of Israel, for the recent mass murder of Israeli civilians by a Palestinian terrorist. Mr. Sbaihat suggests that his interpretation of the suicide bombing, “contrary to the way it [was] portrayed in the media,” provides Badger Herald readers with an accurate account of what really happened.
Unfortunately, he did no such thing. At a time when events in the Middle East demand serious analysis, Mr. Sbaihat offers UW students innuendo, conspiracy, and an intentionally misleading narrative.
Sbaihat accuses Ariel Sharon of killing Palestinians simply to distract disgruntled Israelis from domestic issues. Even more outrageously, he implies that Sharon actively wanted Palestinians to murder Israelis so as to aggravate public opinion. But the only evidence that Mr. Sbaihat offers to support these ugly accusations comes from two highly politicized Palestinian sources. The rest of his evidence emanates from the shadows of his lurid imagination.
Sbaihat’s argument requires him, therefore, to string together a series of unproven assumptions to meet his forgone conclusion: Ariel Sharon is responsible for all the bloodshed. Such a skewed premise of what led to the slaughter of Israeli civilians on January 29 is deceptive and dangerous, as it diverts our attention from the reality of the situation: Israel is engaged in a war against terrorist organizations that explicitly call for the complete destruction of the Jewish State.
The problem with Mr. Sbaihat’s insinuations resides not only in his contrived argument that Ariel Sharon is killing people for political gain, but also in his glaring omission of facts. For example, to elicit sympathy from his readers, Sbaihat claims that the recent terrorist bombing in Jerusalem was the direct result of an “unprovoked attack” in Gaza by the Israeli military. According to the New York Times and the BBC, however, Israeli soldiers entered Al-Zaytun specifically in response to a month-long mortar and sniper attack on an Israeli settlement.
In addition, on Jan. 14, members of Hamas strapped an explosive belt to the body a young Palestinian mother, who then entered an Israeli checkpoint and blew herself up. In the process, she killed four border guards and wounded several Arabs and Israelis without discrimination. Mr. Sbaihat wants us to believe that the IDF’s subsequent incursion into Gaza was an unwarranted, malicious provocation manufactured by a ruthless Ariel Sharon. Journalistic evidence and Hamas’s public celebration of its first female suicide bomber clearly suggest otherwise.
Sbaihat also alleges that Israel is responsible for the collapse of negotiated ceasefires. He fails to inform his readers, however, that Israel was never a signatory to these ceasefires. In fact, the Israeli government never claimed that it would adhere to them, as it has decided to kill or capture terrorists before they commit murder.
In a direct challenge to Sbaihat’s accusations, the BBC recently reported that for the last five months “Hamas never declared a formal ceasefire…the movement continued to fire home-made rockets from Gaza against Israeli targets…the suicide attack [on Jan. 14] came with a message from the movement’s founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin — there is no Hamas truce.” By omitting such crucial information from his narrative, Mr. Sbaihat undermines his contention that he offers the UW community a sincere and informed analysis of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The most serious problem in Sbaihat’s essay is not, however, one of fabricated conspiracy or intentional omission. The most egregious error resides in his complete lack of moral accountability. By placing all blame for terrorism on the prime minister of Israel, Sbaihat unjustifiably exonerates Palestinian terrorist organizations from the horrendous crimes they commit — as if members of Hamas and Islamic Jihad were not humans but manipulated marionettes fulfilling Ariel Sharon’s every wish.
Committing mass murder is not the result of some shadowy Zionist plan to antagonize and subjugate Palestinians. It is, rather, a deliberate choice made by each individual killer, and encouraged by a political culture that promotes and sanctifies the destruction of innocent life. By failing to criticize or repudiate the conscious decisions made by suicide bombers, masked gunmen, and their leaders, Mr. Sbaihat has shown UW students that he is not willing to engage the difficult issues of war and peace.
Instead, Sbaihat provides Badger Herald readers with an empty choice: either a vicious, bloodthirsty aggressor in the figure of Ariel Sharon or a blameless, glorious victim represented by the Palestinians. Although this false dichotomy might superficially appeal to people who only see the world divided between oppressor and oppressed, it does nothing to better our understanding of the tragedies of the Middle East. Nor does Sbaihat’s misleading interpretation of Palestinian terrorism get us any closer to a real, lasting achievement: an end to the violence and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.
Patrick Michelson ([email protected]) is a graduate student in the Department of History.
