After the smoke has cleared, the dust has settled down and the initial fury blown over,humankind will wake up and realize a new fact: there is no safe place on earth.
A handful of suicide-bombers has brought the United States to a standstill, caused thePresident to hide in a bunker under a far-away mountain, dealt a terrible blow to the economy,grounded all aircraft, and emptied government offices throughout the country. This canhappen in every country. The Twin Towers are everywhere.
Not only Israel, but the whole world is now full of gibberish about “fighting terrorism”.Politicians, “experts on terrorism” and their likes propose to hit, destroy, annihilateetc., as well as to allocate more billions to the “intelligence community”. They makebrilliant suggestions. But nothing of this kind will help the threatened nations, much asnothing of this kind has helped Israel.
There is no patent remedy for terrorism. The only remedy is to remove its causes. One can kill amillion mosquitoes, and millions more will take their place. In order to get rid of them, onehas to dry the swamp that breeds them. And the swamp is always political.
A person does not wake up one morning and tell himself: Today I shall hijack a plane and killmyself. Nor does a person wake up one morning and tell himself: Today I shall blow myself up in aTel-Aviv discotheque. Such a decision grows in a person’s mind through a slow process, takingyears. The background to the decision is either national or religious, social and spiritual.
No fighting underground can operate without popular roots and a supportive environment thatis ready to supply new recruits, assistance, hiding places, money and means of propaganda. Anunderground organization wants to gain popularity, not lose it. Therefore it commitsattacks when it thinks that this is what the surrounding public wants. Terror attacks alwaystestify to the public mood.
That is true in this case, too. The initiators of the attacks decided to implement their planafter America has provoked immense hatred throughout the world. Not because of its might, butbecause of the way it uses its might. It is hated by the enemies of globalization, who blame itfor the terrible gap between rich and poor in the world. It is hated by millions of Arabs,because of its support for the Israeli occupation and the suffering of the Palestinianpeople. It is hated by multitudes of Muslims, because of what looks like its support for theJewish domination of the Islamic holy shrines in Jerusalem. And there are many more angrypeoples who believe that America supports their tormentors.
Until September 11, 2001 – a date to remember – Americans could entertain the illusion that allthis concerns only others, in far-away places beyond the seas, that it does not touch theirsheltered lives at home. No more.
That is the other side of globalization: all the world’s problems concern everyone in theworld. Every case of injustice, every case of oppression. Terrorism, the weapon of the weak,can easily reach every spot on earth. Every society can easily be targeted, and the moredeveloped a society is, the more it is in danger. Fewer and fewer people are needed to inflictpain on more and more people. Soon one single person will be enough to carry a suitcase with atiny atomic bomb and destroy a megalopolis of tens of millions.
This is the reality of the 21 st century that started this week in earnest. It must lead to theglobalization of all problems and the globalization of their solutions. Not in the abstract,by fatuous declarations in the UN, but by a global endeavor to resolve conflicts and establishpeace, with the participation of all nations, with the US playing a central role.
Since the US has become a world power, it has deviated from the path outlined by its founders. Itwas Thomas Jefferson who said: No nation can behave without a decent respect for the opinion ofmankind. (I quote from memory). When the US delegation left the world conference in Durban, inorder to abort the debate about the evils of slavery and in order to court the Israeli right,Jefferson must have turned over in his grave.
If it is confirmed that the attack on New York and Washington was perpetrated by Arabs – and evenif not! – the world must at long last treat the festering wound of the Israeli-Palestinianconflict, which is poisoning the whole body of humanity. One of the wise guys in the Bushadministration said only a few weeks ago: “Let them bleed!” – meaning the Palestinians and theIsraelis. Now America is bleeding. He who runs away from the conflict is followed by it, eveninto his home. Americans, and Europeans too, should learn this lesson.
The distance from Jerusalem to New York is small, and so is the distance from New York to Paris,London and Berlin. Not only multi-national corporations embrace the globe, but terrororganizations do so, too. In the same way, the instruments for the solution of conflicts mustbe global.
Instead of the destroyed New York edifices, the twin towers of Peace and Justice must be built.