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Israel undoubtedly thought it could
climb onboard the train of America’s War on Terrorism in
the wake of September 11th., but the hawks in the Bush administration
are not in complete control and Sharon has not (as yet) been given
a green light from Bush to topple Arafat. Sharon is steeped in
what Israeli historian, Avi Shlaim, has called the doctrine of
the Iron Wall, meaning that Israel will only negotiate with the
Arab world from a position of superior military strength. A corollary
of this doctrine is the ongoing use of retaliatory acts to control
terrorist incursions. And undoubtedly Sharon believes that a politically
leaderless Palestinian population will be easier to cast as a terrorist
people to be dealt with by security measures rather than political
agreement.
The doctrine, however, is no longer working. The Palestinian Intifada with its
tactic of suicide bombings has changed the nature of low level warfare. And the
retaliatory acts of the mighty Israeli IDF is serving to recruit yet ever more
volunteers for suicide missions. After the first suicide bomb by a Palestinian
woman, Wafa Idris, who is being lauded as a heroine across the Arab world, the
patriarchal Hamas announced that it did not need women volunteers since it already
had more male volunteers than it could use. Now the Israeli government wants
to build a protective ’wall’ of security measures along the eastern
boundary of Jerusalem in an effort to prevent terrorist incursions. While the
political process lies in tatters, the securocrats will increasingly run the
show.
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