Issue: Suicide bombers in the Middle East

State of affairs in 2002

In March 2002 suicide bombers made life in Jerusalem and elsewhere in Israel unbearable. Fear escalated, but also the priorities for the Israelis seemed to shift away from any peaceful negotiation and even started to discuss openly, that is in public, the policy option of genocide.

Many voices indicated that they were in particular too disappointed with Arafat and had no longer trust that he could keep any of the organizations like Hamas from organizing further suicidal attacks.

All offers in the past, or what Israelis’ claim to have been good deeds on part of their various governments, so they claim, were not accepted. Especially the final straw of Arafat was not to have accepted the peace negotiation offer of Barak in the presence of President Clinton at Camp David in 2000.

In the case of suicide bombers in the Middle East the ones doing the deed are known to be Palestinians and for whose actions specific Palestinian organizations e.g. Hamas claim responsibility.

The suicidal bombing missions, in reality but acts of despair, follow also a confined or limited purpose, namely to address grievances related to a history shaped by violence since 1948 and the founding of the Jewish state.

It has nothing to do with the dimension of the ‘unknown’ that was evoked by the 11^th of September events in the United States. The month March came and went without finding any solution. Real fear due to ‘terrorism’ had gone beyond the ‘point of no return’.

May 22, 2002

Again a suicide bomber struck – three Israelis killed, and the one carrying the bomb. In CNN the spokesman for the Israeli foreign ministry speaks about the Palestinians wanting terror, not peace. They will get it only once they stop these attacks. At the same time, Sharon puts immediately the blame on Arafat and the Palestinian Authority. The reporter wonders if repeating the same arguments while denying that there is a ‘cycle of violence’ – to the Israelis what the Palestinians do is terror, while their assassinations is but rooting out terrorism (as it happened that same day: it is said one Palestinian was killed directly by Israeli soldiers) – will help bring about any peace.

The deeper issue of power is here at stake since the Israelis have to admit that even the incursion by the army could not nor never can stop these kinds of attacks. Basically the country has too many open borders as to defend itself against such kinds of attacks. The helplessness of power is never fully realized until too late.

Turning point: first female suicide bombers

One turning point in the suicide bomb attack was that for the first time women were equally prepared to do this deed. Given the Islam and also what had been until now the heroic privileges of only men, this astonished many observers.

What do the parents, relatives, friends, neighbors, teachers and other contact persons know in advance

At the same time, a repeated discrepancy between what the parents assumed to know about their children and what these children did, reveals another complex reality. Also the last one to die that way confirmed the usual tragic way of survival in a family of seven children with the father earning his living by being a construction worker for an Israeli construction firm. Neither he nor her brothers had any inkling what the eighteen year old was up to.

After the incursion in April

The tactics have changed and in reality so the despair on part of the Israeli government. At the beginning of June a car beside a bus carrying 13 soldiers and 4 civilians blew up. The blast was so powerful that the bus overturned twice. The bodies were ripped apart making it difficult to identify the remains.

Despite military curfews, restrictions at every possible checkpoint, the tactic of deception seems to have become more perfect as if the planning of these missions uses its own intelligence data. For instance, a couple used a fake passport of an identical couple with a Palestinian married to an Israeli woman. For a while until the truth was found out, Israel was shocked to learn that maybe a Jewish woman had participated in such a mission. They used also a car with Israeli license plates.

Blaming Arafat and the Palestinian Authority

As Steven Erlanger reported from Jerusalem, May 9, “the suicide bombing this week at a pool hall and slot-machine parlour near Tel Aviv, was aimed not only at Israelis but also at the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, whose credibility as a peacemaker was further tarnished.”(Steven Erlanger, “Atrocities against Israelis seem also aimed at Arafat”, New York Times, www.nytimes.com 11/5/2002).

He suggests that since many times an organization like the Hamas is involved, a group known to oppose Arafat, it makes one wonder what other measures could be adopted, if there was a real interest in co-operating with the Palestinian Authority rather than making it responsible for all failures in the Middle East.

As to what feeds equally into this blaming game is the one-sided approach taken when it comes to sabotaging steps towards peace while blaming the other side for all failures. That has been noted already in conjunction with the ‘Myth of Camp David’, that is the failure of Barak and Arafat to come to some meaningful agreement and since then Arafat being blamed for this failure.

The demand to end all violence

During the weekend June 8 – 9, 2002 President Mubarek meets President Bush at Camp David. At the meeting with the press, Mubarek offers a clear demand towards Arafat and the world:

Arafat should be given a chance
He has been asked to deliver, if not, then that will have consequences.

Plainly under deliverance is understood the end of all violence, meaning suicidal bombing missions.

While this takes place, another news is conveyed: 3 settlers have been killed. In trying to follow developments, and while everyone in Israel sees but two options: to wait for one or two more suicidal bombing incidences before Sharon will order much more a reprisal of Arafat than blowing up parts of his headquarters – in retaliation to the attack on the bus the Israeli army moved back into Ramallah for six hours and one shell burst into the wall separating the bathroom from Arafat’s bedroom (he was at the time of the attack in his bunker) – or else, in the logic of the ‘war against terrorism’ not wait but to act in a preventive manner.

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