Newsgroup: it.arti.cinema
Titolo: [OT] Nine wars too many

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/15/opinion/15FRIE.html
May 15, 2002
Nine Wars Too Many
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
If I were making a movie of the Arab-Israeli conflict today I would call
it "Ten Wars and a Funeral." Because the biggest problem in resolving this
conflict is that there are at least 10 different wars being fought over
Israel-Palestine, and we need to reduce them to just one to have any
chance of making peace.
Let's run down the list: A majority of Israelis are fighting a war for the
right of a Jewish state to exist in the Middle East, roughly along the
pre-1967 borders. But a minority in Israel today want a Jewish state
within the pre-1967 lines and a Jewish state in the West Bank and Gaza.
This was amply demonstrated by Bibi Netanyahu's stunt at the recent Likud
Party convention, where he tried to advance his political career and
embarrass Ariel Sharon by getting the lunatic core of the Likud to reject
any Palestinian state ever in the West Bank. These Israeli rightists and
settlers deliberately label any Palestinian resistance to the Israeli
occupation of the West Bank as "terrorism" in order to rope the U.S. into
supporting Israel's continued hold on the occupied territories as part of
America's global war on terrorism. Beware.
The same is true inside the Bush administration. The State Department sees
the Mideast war as a war over Israel's 1967 boundaries, and its focus is
"conflict resolution" ? diplomacy aimed at getting Israel to trade
occupied land for peace. But over at the Pentagon, the view is that Yasir
Arafat is no different from Osama bin Laden, and the other Arab leaders
are worthy only of contempt. The Pentagon sees the Israeli war to crush
Mr. Arafat as an extension of the U.S. war on terrorism and believes that
the most you can do with Arabs and Israelis today is "conflict
management," not conflict resolution.
This view is reinforced by the fact that the Palestinians are fighting two
wars. Yes, many Palestinians are simply fighting to get Israel out of the
West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem so they can establish a state there ?
not because they acknowledge the legitimacy of a Jewish homeland in
pre-1967 Israel, but because they know they lack the power to eliminate
it. But some Palestinians, and Mr. Arafat is among them, have not
abandoned hope of establishing a Palestinian state in the West Bank and
Gaza today ? through diplomacy and armed struggle ? and a Palestinian
state in pre-1967 Israel tomorrow ? through a baby boom and securing the
right of return of millions of Palestinian refugees. Israel still does not
appear on many of Mr. Arafat's maps. So let's cut the nonsense that the
only thing that all Palestinians want is an "end to the Israeli
occupation." I wish that were true.
Ditto the Arabs. Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Syria all claim they just want
Israel to withdraw to the pre-1967 borders, but anyone reading their
official media, which regularly spew articles comparing Israel to Nazi
Germany and extolling the virtues of Palestinian girls who commit suicide
amid Israeli civilians in Tel Aviv, would hardly be assured that for them
the only problem is the Israeli occupation ? and not the Jewish people's
right to a homeland in the Middle East.
And ditto-ditto the Europeans. Yes, yes, many Europeans really do just
want an end to the Israeli occupation, but the anti-Semitism coming out of
Europe today suggests that deep down some Europeans want a lot more: They
want Mr. Sharon to commit a massacre against Palestinians, or they want to
describe what he did in Jenin as a massacre, so that the Europeans can
finally get the guilt of the Holocaust off their backs and be able to
shout: "Look at these Jews, they're worse than we were!"
I just attended an Arab media conference and was on a panel with Eric
Rouleau, the Middle East correspondent of Le Monde, who said he had
recently spoken to some French generals who told him that what Israel did
in Jenin was worse than anything France did during the Algerian war. One
million Algerians were killed in that war and two million were made
homeless. So far 60 bodies have been recovered in Jenin, many of them
fighters. You do the math.
Frankly, I'm happy President Bush is getting more involved in Mideast
peacemaking. But he'll get nowhere unless he can get the parties
(including his own aides) to abandon all the other wars they're fighting
and to tell their own people, and each other, that there's only one war
left ? a war to determine the border between a Jewish state and a
Palestinian state. Anyone who's fighting any other war is an enemy of
peace and an enemy of America's national interest.
-- 
and life was set in motion / blurring the lines
making my mood as light as air / me intimate with fire.
  -- R.

 Europe today
what a whole big truckload of horseshit.