[News] Robert Fisk:"By endorsing Ariel Sharon's plan George Bush has legitimised terrorism"

[News at freedomarchives.org]

By endorsing Ariel Sharon's plan George Bush has legitimised terrorism

What better recruiting sergeant could Bin Laden have than the President of 
the United States?

By Robert Fisk

16 April 2004

<http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/story.jsp>http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/story.jsp

So President George Bush tears up the Israeli-Palestinian peace plan and 
that's okay. Israeli settlements for Jews and Jews only on the West Bank. 
That's okay. Taking land from Palestinians who have owned that land for 
generations, that's okay. UN Security Council Resolution 242 says that land 
cannot be acquired by war. Forget it. That's okay.

Does President George Bush actually work for al-Qa'ida? What does this 
mean? That George Bush cares more about his re-election than he does about 
the Middle East? Or that George Bush is more frightened of the Israeli 
lobby than he is of his own electorate. Fear not, it is the latter.

His language, his narrative, his discourse on history, has been such a lie 
these past three weeks that I wonder why we bother to listen to his boring 
press conferences. Ariel Sharon, the perpetrator of the Sabra and Shatila 
massacre (1,700 Palestinian civilians dead) is a "man of peace" - even 
though the official 1993 Israeli report on the massacre said he was 
"personally responsible" for it. Now, Mr Bush is praising Mr Sharon's plan 
to steal yet more Palestinian land as a "historic and courageous act".

Heaven spare us all. Give up the puny illegal Jewish settlements in Gaza 
and everything's okay: the theft of land by colonial settlers, the denial 
of any right of return to Israel by those Palestinians who lived there, 
that's okay. Mr Bush, who claimed he changed the Middle East by invading 
Iraq, says he is now changing the world by invading Iraq! Okay! Is there no 
one to cry "Stop! Enough!"?

Two nights ago, this most dangerous man, George Bush, talked about "freedom 
in Iraq". Not "democracy" in Iraq. No, "democracy" was no longer mentioned. 
"Democracy" was simply left out of the equation. Now it was just "freedom" 
- freedom from Saddam rather than freedom to have elections. And what is 
this "freedom" supposed to involve? One group of American-appointed Iraqis 
will cede power to another group of American-appointed Iraqis. That will be 
the "historic handover" of Iraqi "sovereignty". Yes, I can well see why 
George Bush wants to witness a "handover" of sovereignty. "Our boys" must 
be out of the firing line - let the Iraqis be the sandbags.

Iraqi history is already being written. In revenge for the brutal killing 
of four American mercenaries - for that is what they were - US Marines 
carried out a massacre of hundreds of women and children and guerillas in 
the Sunni Muslim city of Fallujah. The US military says that the vast 
majority of the dead were militants. Untrue, say the doctors. But the 
hundreds of dead, many of whom were indeed civilians, were a shameful 
reflection on the rabble of American soldiery who conducted these 
undisciplined attacks on Fallujah. Many Baghdadi Sunnis say that in the 
"New Iraq" - the Iraqi version, not the Paul Bremer version - Fallujah 
should be given the status of a new Iraqi capital.

Vast areas of the Palestinian West Bank will now become Israel, courtesy of 
President Bush. Land which belongs to people other than Israelis must now 
be stolen by Israelis because it is "unrealistic" to accept otherwise. Is 
Mr Bush a thief? Is he a criminal? Can he be charged with abetting a 
criminal act? Can Iraq now claim to Kuwait that it is "unrealistic" that 
the Ottoman borders can be changed? Palestinian land once included all of 
what is now Israel. It is not, apparently, "realistic" to change this, even 
to two per cent?

Is Saddam Hussein to be re-bottled and put back in charge of Iraq on the 
basis that his 1990 invasion of Kuwait was "realistic"? Or that his 
invasion of Iran - when we helped him try to destroy Ayatollah Khomeini's 
revolution - was "realistic" because he initially attacked only the 
Arabic-speaking (and thus "Iraqi") parts of Iran?

Or, since President Bush now seems to be a history buff, are the Germans to 
be given back Danzig or the Sudetenland? Or Austria? Or should we perhaps 
recreate the colonial possessions of the past 100 years? Is it not 
"realistic" that the French should retake Algeria - or part of Algeria - on 
the basis that the people all speak French, on the basis that this was once 
part of the French nation? Or should the British retake Cyprus? Or Aden? Or 
Egypt? Shouldn't the French be allowed to take back Lebanon and Syria? Why 
shouldn't the British re-take America and boot out those pesky "terrorists" 
who oppose the rule of King George's democracy well over 200 years ago?

Because this is what George Bush's lunacy and weakness can lead to. We all 
have lands that "God" gave us. Didn't Queen Mary die with "Calais" engraved 
on her heart? Doesn't Spain have a legitimate right to the Netherlands? Or 
Sweden the right to Norway and Denmark? Every colonial power, including 
Israel can put forward these preposterous demands.

What Bush has actually done is give way to the crazed world of Christian 
Zionism. The fundamentalist Christians who support Israel's theft of the 
West Bank on the grounds that the state of Israel must exist there 
according to God's law until the second coming, believe that Jesus will 
return to earth and the Israelis - for this is the Bush "Christian Sundie" 
belief - will then have to convert to Christianity or die in the battle of 
Amargeddon.

I kid thee not. This is the Christian fundamentalist belief, which even the 
Israeli embassy in Washington go along with - without comment, of course - 
in their weekly Christian Zionist prayer meetings. Every claim by Osama bin 
Laden, every statement that the United States represents Zionism and 
supports the theft of Arab lands will now have been proved true to millions 
of Arabs, even those who had no time for Bin Laden. What better recruiting 
sergeant could Bin Laden have than George Bush. Doesn't he realise what 
this means for young American soldiers in Iraq or are Israelis more 
important than American lives in Mesopotamia?

Everything the US government has done to preserve its name as a 
"middle-man" in the Middle East has now been thrown away by this gutless, 
cowardly US President, George W Bush. That it will place his soldiers at 
greater risk doesn't worry him - anyway, he doesn't do funerals. That it 
goes against natural justice doesn't worry him. That his statements are 
against international law is of no consequence.

And still we have to cow-tow to this man. If we are struck by al-Qa'ida it 
is our fault. And if 90 per cent of the population of Spain point out that 
they opposed the war, then they are pro-terrorists to complain that 200 of 
their civilians were killed by al-Qa'ida. First the Spanish complain about 
the war, then they are made to suffer for it - and then they are condemned 
as "appeasers" by the Bush regime and its craven journalists when they 
complain that their husbands and wives and sons did not deserve to die.

If this is to be their fate, excuse me, but I would like to have a Spanish 
passport so that I can share the Spanish people's "cowardice"! If Mr Sharon 
is "historic" and "courageous", then the murderers of Hamas and Islamic 
Jihad will be able to claim the same. Mr Bush legitimised "terrorism" this 
week - and everyone who loses a limb or a life can thank him for his yellow 
streak. And, I fear, they can thank Mr Blair for his cowardice too.



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