Shaul Mofaz blames Arafat. Saeb Erekat blames Sharon. Everyone has his scapegoat. Israelis (and recently, also a handful of Palestinians) are convinced that getting rid of Arafat will restore some sanity to the conflict. Palestinians (and quite a few Israelis) dream that ousting Sharon will bring back the hopefulness of Oslo. Meanwhile, suicide bombers are blowing themselves up and people are being murdered, assassinated and killed by mistake. Meanwhile, everything is one big mistake.
Those who blame Arafat are right. Arafat does not personally dispatch the suicide bombers, but he is guilty of mass murder - of Israelis and Palestinians. His silence, as his yes-men inform him of the latest terrorist attack, rings like a battle cry in the ears of the shaheeds [martyrs]. His decision, since October 2000, not to use his security forces to fight terror is the same as ordering the "engineers" to prepare more explosive belts. Denouncing Arafat is so easy. The leaders of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade - are all guilty of massacring Israelis and Palestinians. How convenient it is to hate them.
But that is not the whole picture. If it were, terror could be crushed within a few months. The terrible truth is that most of the Palestinians prefer to continue their national suicide. Most of the Palestinians are prepared to suffer the horrors of Israeli occupation as long as they manage to kill some Israelis along the way. It boosts their spirits. To see that Israelis are also dying makes them feel good.
How else are we to interpret the statistics? Sixty percent of the Palestinians support suicide bombings, according to a survey conducted last month by the Palestinian research institute, JMCC. Sixty percent are in favor, and only 30 percent against. Some may take comfort in the fact that support for these attacks is steadily declining: 74 percent in December 2001, 68 percent in June 2002. At this rate, maybe a solid majority will oppose them by 2007.
On the Israeli side, the indictments are also ready. Sharon, as everyone knows, is one of the most despised people in the world. The settlers are guzzlers of land and water. The Israel Defense Forces is portrayed at times as an army of cruel and heartless brutes. How easy, how convenient it is to shout: monsters, thieves, Nazis.
Yes, Sharon is guilty - no doubt about it. He has cunningly and consistently sabotaged prospects for peace. He is responsible for the deaths of Palestinians and Israelis. The settlers are accomplices to the crime: Every time a terrorist kills Israelis, the settlers, insistent on perpetuating the occupation, cannot wipe their hands of blame. The IDF has gone astray and killed hundreds of innocent citizens, far too many, in its just war on terror. The IDF is guilty, too.
But even that is not the whole picture. It is not even half the picture. Because if Israelis really wanted to end the occupation and live in peace, without buses exploding around them, they would not have elected Sharon by a landslide. They would not allow a few tens of thousands of settlers to sacrifice the state on their ideological altar. They would not send soldiers out on an impossible mission.
Some people trot out various surveys overflowing with good will. According to Tel Aviv University's Peace Index (April 2003), 65 percent of Israelis support the "road map" which calls for an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel. That certainly sounds encouraging, but the majority of Israelis are doing nothing to wake up from the nightmare they have been living through for the past 30 months. The distressing conclusion is that most Israelis would just as soon continue this double national suicide, living and dying in an atmosphere of constant horror and fear, sending their sons into an ethical trap in the refugee camps, rather than to give up a centimeter to the Palestinians.
There is no need to strap an explosive belt around your waist to be a terrorist. Every Palestinian who supports suicide bombers is a terrorist. They are all Hiba Da'arma, who blew herself up this week at the Afula mall. Because without support and encouragement, there would be no shaheeds.
Every Israeli who lets the settlers determine our fate is a settler himself. We are all conniving settlers. We are all Border Policemen. We all pushed Imram Abu Hamdiya out of the Jeep in Hebron.
Palestinians and Israelis asking themselves who is responsible for this ongoing nightmare do not have to search for guilty parties in the Muqata or the Prime Minister's Office. All they have to do is look in the mirror
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