Scapegoating Strategy
Was there ever a handier political strategy over the ages than the utility of scapegoat-selection? The ages-old success of strategically encouraging native unrest and dissatisfaction with leaders, whether political, religious or royal, to focus on the scapegoat of choice speaks for its utility. As one whose happenstance of birth firmly locates me within the scapegoat community of greatest utility, I can only admire, in a sense, the unerring recognition of despots, tyrants and dictators of all stripes of the willingness of the discontented mob to accept an otherwise-inoffensive stand-in as the receptor of public wrath.A group of dissenters gathers to make trouble for a ruling elite, and they're given a default object of blame. You feel collectively neglected, your harvests aren't reaping the cash windfalls you feel they deserve? Blame the Jews. Your lot in life is unacceptable, women aren't falling all over themselves to share your miserable hovel? Blame the Jews. Your neighbours have discovered a way to garner wealth that appears to be closed to you? Blame the Jews. Some entity has been spreading malicious rumours impugning your good character? Blame the Jews.
The scourge of the nations with their agenda to control world finance, politics, news distribution; the Jews have their greedy little fingers in every conceivable plot to gain power and hegemony, to bring glory to themselves at the belittlement, abasement, abuse of all others striving honourably to make their way in this troubled world. How could it be possible, after all, not to blame the Jews?
CBC radio this Sunday morning interviewed an educated Palestinian man who had long been resident in the United States, but decided a decade or so ago to move himself and his family back home - to Palestine. This man spoke of his efforts on behalf of the dreams of Palestinians everywhere to recapture their vision of their country, Palestine. He spoke of the oppressors of the Palestinians, their military/ political overlords, the misery of Palestinians living under the boot of Israel.
There was nothing, in his educated and objective estimation which might explain why Israel closes borders, maintains tenuous relations with its neighbours, treats Palestinians with unmitigated harshness, takes away their dignity, their opportunities for societal advancement. Israel is guilty of colonialism, of imperialism, of military abuse, and there is no room in his monocular vision for any interpretation other than malevolence against another people, the Arabs.
The suicide bombers, the Kassam rockets, the violent intifada, the jihadist militias, the self-proclaimed intent of fanatical leaders to destroy the State of Israel are to be understood as the normal result of pressing people beyond endurance; desperate people do desperate things. That Fatah and Hamas, brother Palestinians but tribal/religious/political foes wreak murderous havoc one upon the other is of no moment, for all this is a result of Israeli oppression.
When Camp David resulted in a potentially workable agreement for peace and the forging of separate states it was Israel which destroyed all hopes of the agreement reaching fruition, not Yassar Arafat and his odious machinations. Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas urges Palestinians to focus on fighting Israel, the enemy of all, yet his militias are busy murdering as many of Fatah factions as they can manage. Including a non-aligned religious leader, Sheik Adel Nasar, who was murdered in central Gaza.
Fatah issued this statement: "Sheik Nasar was killed after he came out of the mosque where he criticized Hamas after the crime committed by some of its gunmen yesterday,". Witnesses said Mr. Nasar's murderers pulled up to the car he had just entered after exiting a mosque in the Mughazi refugee camp, and sped away after shooting him. Mr. Nasar, it appears, often preached against Hamas, and just before he was murdered he critized Thursday's attack on the home of Col. Mohammed Ghayeb, a top Fatah official in northern Gaza, who was killed, along with seven of his bodyguards. In his sermon Mr. Nasar warned God would punish the killers of Col. Ghayeb and his bodyguards. For his troubles he was himself murderered.
For all of this, needless to say, it is not murderous tribalism that is to blame, for the Arab people, as the educated Palestinian-American man interviewed on the CBC this morning said, the Arabs are not a violent people. This desperate inability to confront reality, to accept the ongoing myth that Arabs are not responsible for the mayhem they visit upon one another, but that another entity entirely is, is pathetic in the extreme.
Particularly given that it is generally acknowledged that among the Palestinian population there is a greater majority which is highly educated than any other Arab country. Education avails nothing without native intelligence, without an inclination to begin to question an inconvenient truth; that it is not Israel, but rather their own inability to look at themselves and take responsibility for the self-injurious behaviour they visit upon one another - and their neighbours - that is at fault.
Can Palestinians really believe that it is desperation at their plight of oppression visited upon them by another country's military that causes them to behave in such inhumane ways? Is it desperation that causes men to visit death upon complete strangers, civilian men, innocent women and children? Or is it a sickness of blood-lust, a primal engagement in the excitement of war, death-dealing, flirtations with danger that quickens the blood?
A case is currently set to go to court this week; two terrorists who tried to kidnap and murder two teen-age, grade 9 Israeli girls who were were waiting on a street corner when a car with two armed Arabs stopped and the girls were pursued with the intent of packing them into the car. As the girls were being forced toward the car, an IDF car happened by and the kidnappers attempted escape. They were arrested at a checkpoint.
One of the girls will testify, reminding the court that the terrorists had weapons, a car, and even dug graves for their victims beforehand. They were intent on kidnapping and murdering innocents, and the two girls had been chosen as their personal sacrifice, their presumed revenge, to indicate their dissatisfaction with the State of Israel. This, presumably, is yet another indication of desperation of which the educated Palestinian-American spoke.
Isn't it past time that Palestinians spoke up sensibly on their own behalf, that they made the intelligent decision not to hold Israel solely responsible for their plight? Isn't it time for Palestinians to demand that their leaders begin to behave in accordance with civilized mores? Isn't it time for Palestinians to claim what belongs to them legitimately by legitimate, internationally-recognized means?
Labels: Middle East
posted by Pieface @ Sunday, January 07, 2007
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