पेरिस. Voices in इस्राएलका, now backed with the forceful intervention of President George Bush, are demanding that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon crown his पुन: प्राप्ति को वेस्ट बैंक by naming a new Palestinian leader. If he does so, it will be his second exercise in Arab king-making. The first was twenty years ago in लेबनान. Eighteen years and thousands of dead later, इस्राएलका was as happy to leave as the Lebanese were to see them go.
The parallels between the invasions of लेबनान and of the Palestinian Authority zones are too many to ignore. शेरोन holds Arafat responsible for Palestinian violence in exactly the way Israeli leaders used to blame. The Lebanese government, like Arafat, was too weak to stop a war whose roots go far deeper than whoever happens to be in nominal charge.
Following the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, the Palestinian commando movement came into being. And इस्राएलका मारा लेबनान after every Palestinian raid organised in बेरूत. The Israeli army waged a steady war on लेबनान’s cities, villages and infrastructure. In 1968, इस्राएलका destroyed thirteen civilian aeroplanes of लेबनान’s national airline at बेरूत airport, just as this year it destroyed the Palestinian airport in गाजा. इस्राएलका’s raids strengthened the Palestine Liberation Organisation in लेबनान then. And शेरोन’s siege and destruction of Arafat’s Ramallah headquarters has restored some of Arafat’s popularity now. In लेबनान, the Israel-PLO battles sparked a war that destroyed the Lebanese state. Israeli actions in the वेस्ट बैंक have crippled the PA.
जब इस्राएलका failed both to control the PLO in लेबनान and to destroy its popularity in the occupied territories, it invaded लेबनान – twice, in 1978 and in 1982. In 1982, the defence minister, Ariel Sharon, went further and played Lebanese kingmaker. After expelling 14,000 PLO fighters from बेरूत in August, he forced the Lebanese parliament to choose as president the Christian militia commander Bashir Gemayel. Israeli historian Benny Morris wrote in धर्मी पीडितहरू (John Murray, 1999), “इस्राएलका had forcefully lobbied for Gemayel’s election and, indeed, its troops escorted a number of deputies to the session.” The Israeli army flew President-elect Gemayel to northern इस्राएलका for a secret meeting with Prime Minister Menachem Begin at which Begin demanded that Gemayel publicly visit Tel Aviv or यरूशलेम and sign a treaty of peace with इस्राएलका. Gemayel resisted, saying that a treaty and visit would further weaken his credibility with the Muslim half of his population.
In the meantime, Sharon and Gemayel plotted an assault on the Palestinian refugee camps in west बेरूत that bears an uncanny similarity to इस्राएलका’s operations in the वेस्ट बैंक since March. The IDF would roll over the Green Line from Christian east बेरूत to seize key buildings and roads. Gemayel’s militiamen would be transported to the refugee camps to root out “terrorists” – in violation of Israeli undertakings to the संयुक्त राज्य अमेरिका to leave west बेरूत unmolested. Morris wrote that the plan called for Gemayel’s Phalange to “do the dirty work in the refugee camps, carrying out arrests, interrogations, and demolition of buildings.” Menachem Begin had already spoken of the “transfer” of Palestinians from south लेबनान, as some of शेरोन’s cabinet members urge the “transfer” of Palestinians from the वेस्ट बैंक लाई जोर्डन.
When a Syrian agent assassinated Gemayel, शेरोन put the plan into action. He told Gemayel lieutenant Elie Hobeika, as इस्राएलका’s Kahan Commission of Inquiry discovered, “I don’t want a single one of them left.” शेरोन said he meant “terrorists,” but there were no armed fighters in बेरूत’s Sabra and Shatila refugee camps. Hobeika, whose men slaughtered civilians for thirty hours under the light of Israeli flares, took him to mean Palestinians. The distinction was lost, as it was sometimes this year in Israeli attacks in the वेस्ट बैंक. Hobeika was due to testify in January this year against शेरोन in a Belgian court examining the Sabra and Shatila massacres, but he was assassinated. इस्राएलका’s Justice Ministry, meanwhile, announced that इस्राएलका would not ratify the International Criminal Court treaty because the tribunal “could consider the settling of Israelis in the territories as a war crime.”
लागि शेरोन to assassinate or remove Arafat and appoint a tame Palestinian in his place would repeat the mistakes of लेबनान. इस्राएलका कब्जा गरियो लेबनान and helped to destroy the Lebanese state. Twenty years later, शेरोन is reoccupying वेस्ट बैंक cities and dismantling the Palestine Authority infrastructure. शेरोन नाम लेबनान’s president, as some in his cabinet want to appoint a new Palestinian leader. He further demands that the next PA president do इस्राएलका’s bidding, as he and Begin ordered Gemayel to do theirs. The first policy was a catastrophe for इस्राएलका र लागि लेबनान. It led to the creation of Hizballah, Muslim fundamentalists who became the first guerrillas to drive इस्राएलका out of territory it had occupied. When इस्राएलका बाट फिर्ता लिए लेबनान in 2000, it had lost more soldiers and killed more civilians than in any war since 1948. If शेरोन disposes of Arafat and finds a Quisling, what reason is there to suppose he will succeed with a policy that failed before?
The other question is what, in शेरोन’s reckoning, would constitute the success of this week’s Operation Determined Path? If it is to assume military control and leave a Palestinian administration to collect the rubbish, he may succeed. If it is to increase the area under settler control of वेस्ट बैंक land from an already high forty-two per cent and integrate it into इस्राएलका, he may succeed in that as well. But Palestinians will go on dying to oppose him, because it negates their survival as a people. If the Determined Path is to achieve a peace for Israelis and Palestinians to live beside each other in dignity, failure is etched into its very bones.
Israeli foreign minister Abba Eban said in लन्डन in 1970, “History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives.” Do they have to exhaust them twice?
ZNetwork यसको पाठकहरूको उदारता मार्फत मात्र वित्त पोषित छ।
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