When a whole people is seething with rage, it becomes a dangerous enemy, because the rage doesnot obey orders.
When it exists in the hearts of millions of people, it cannot be cut off by pushing a button.
When this rage overflows, it creates suicide bombers – human bombs fuelled by the power ofanger, against whom there is no defense. A person who has given up on life, who does not look forescape routes, is free to do whatever his disturbed mind dictates. Some of the suicide bombersare killed before they reach their goal, but when there are hundreds of them, thousands ofthem, no military means will restore security.
The actions of General Mofaz during the last month have brought this rage to an unprecedentedpitch and instilled it into the hearts of every Palestinian, be he a university professor or astreet boy, a housewife or a high-school girl, a leftist or a fundamentalist.
When tanks run amok in the center of a town, crushing cars and destroying walls, tearing uproads, shooting indiscriminately in all directions, causing panic to a whole population – itinduces helpless rage.
When soldiers crush through a wall into the living room of a family, causing shock to childrenand adults, ransacking their belongings, destroying the fruits of a life of hard work, andthen break the wall to the next apartment to wreak havoc there – it induces helpless rage.
When soldiers shoot at everything that moves – out of panic, out of lawlessness, or becauseSharon told them “to cause losses” – it induces helpless rage.
When officers order to shoot at ambulances, killing doctors and paramedics engaged in savingthe lives of the wounded, bleeding to death – it induces helpless rage.
When these and thousand other acts like them humiliate a whole people, searing their souls – itinduces helpless rage.
And then it appears that the rage is not helpless after all. The suicide bombers go forward toavenge, with a whole people blessing them and rejoicing at every Israeli killed, soldier orsettler, a girl in a bus or a youngster in a discotheque.
The Israeli public is dumbfounded by this terrible phenomenon. It cannot understand it,because it does not know (and perhaps does not want to know) what has happened in thePalestinian towns and villages. Only feeble echoes of what really happened have reached it.The obedient media suppress the information, or water it down so that the monster looks like aharmless pet. The television, which is now subject to Soviet-style censorship, does not tellits viewers what is going on. If somebody is allowed to say a few words about it, for the sake of”balance”, the words are drowned in a sea of chatter by politicians, commentators acting asunofficial spokespersons and the generals who caused the havoc.
These generals look helplessly at a struggle they do not understand and make arrogantstatements divorced from reality. Pronouncements like “We have intercepted attacks”, “Wehave taught them a lesson”, “We have destroyed the infrastructure of terrorism” show aninfantile lack of understanding of what they are doing. Far from “destroying theinfrastructure of terrorism”, they have built a hothouse for rearing suicide-bombers.
A person whose beloved brother has been killed, whose house has been destroyed in an orgy ofvandalism, who has been mortally humiliated before the eyes of his children, goes to themarket, buys a rifle for 40 thousand shekels (some sell their cars for this) and sets out to seekrevenge. “Give me a hatred gray like a sack,” wrote our poet, Nathan Alterman, seething withrage against the Germans. Hatred gray like a sack is now everywhere.
Bands of armed men now roam all the towns and villages of the West bank and the Gaza strip, withour without black masks (available for 10 shekels in the markets). These bands do not belong toany organization. Members of Fatah, Hamas and the Jihad team up to plan attacks, not giving adamn for the established institutions.
Anyone who believes that Arafat can push a button and stop this is living in a dream-world.Arafat is the adored leader, now more than ever, but when a people is seething with anger hecannot stop it either. At best, the pressure-cooker can cool off slowly, if the majority of thepeople are persuaded that their honor has been restored and their liberation guaranteed.Then public support for the “terrorists” will diminish, they will be isolated and whitheraway. That was what happened in the past. During the Oslo period there were attacks too, butthey were conducted by dissidents, fanatics, and the public aversion to them limited thedamage they caused.
American politicians, like Israeli officers, do not understand what they are doing. When anoverbearing vice-president dictates humiliating terms for a meeting with Arafat, he poursoil on the flames. A person who lacks empathy for the suffering of the occupied people, who doesnot understand its condition, would be well advised to shut up. Because every suchhumiliation kills dozens of Israelis.
After all, the suicide-bombers are standing in line.