Ben Mavet -" son of death"by uri avnery
This expression
appears in the Bible, II Samuel, XII. King David has
committed a heinous crime, deliberately arranging for his
most loyal officer, Uriah the Hittite, to be killed in
battle, so he can have his wife, Bath-sheba, for himself.
The prophet Nathan denounces him for this deed, telling
him the story of the rich man who slaughtered the only
sheep of a poor man. David gets very angry and tells the
prophet: "As the Lord liveth, the man that hath done
this thing is a son of death!" To
which Nathan replies: "Thou art the man!"
Ironically, the Bible applied
the term to the greatest leader of the people of Israel,
who has committed an abominable crime. Now it is used by
the leaders of the state of Israel against Palestinians.
More than in
the "commentaries" themselves, this expression
in two Hebrew words: Ben Mavet ("Son of death",
meaning a person who must be killed)........
As if by order, this week these
detestable words entered the public discourse. There was
hardly a general, politician or correspondent who did not
roll them on his tongue with obvious relish. They had
never been heard before in the media. Now, suddenly,
everybody has started to use them. Rantisi was a
"son of death". Sheikh Yassin was a
"son of death". The other Hamas leaders
were "children of death".
A week after the ship of peace was
solemnly launched on its perilous voyage from Aqaba
harbor, it was hit by a torpedo. It is not yet clear
whether it is wrecked or can continue on its way in spite
of the damage.
The story of its voyage so far:
An Israeli helicopter gunship tried to kill Abd-al-Aziz
al-Rantisi, one of the leaders of the political wing of
Hamas. He miraculously survived. Immediately afterwards
the gunships killed other Hamas leaders. Clearly, this
was the beginning of a campaign to kill the leaders of
all the wings of Hamas - military, political, social,
educational and religious.
Such a campaign is, of course,
the outcome of long preparations, which take weeks and
months. It was evidently planned even before the Aqaba
summit conference convened, but postponed by Sharon in
order to afford President Bush his moments of
photographic glory on the shore of the Red Sea.
Immediately after the President and his entourage went
home, radiant with success, the machinery of death went
into action.
In establishing intent,
all courts around the world act upon a simple principle:
a person who carries out an action with predictable
results is held to have intended that result. That is
true for this campaign, too.
The killing of the Hamas leaders
(together with their wives, children and casual
bystanders) is intended to attain the following results:
(a) acts of revenge by Hamas, i.e. suicide bombings,
(b) the failure of the Palestinian Authority's efforts to
secure the agreement of Hamas to a
cease-fire,
(c) the destruction of Abu Mazen's political standing
right from the start,
(d) the demolition of the Road Map,
(e) compensation for the settlers after the removal of
some sham "outposts".
All five objectives have been
achieved. Blood and fire cover the country, the media on
both sides are busy with funerals and mutual incitement,
the efforts to establish a hudnah (truce) have stopped,
Sharon called Abu Mazen a chicken without feathers, the
Road Map is toterring , Bush has mildly reproached Sharon
while directing his wrath at Hamas.
The "dismantling" of
the phony settlement-outposts, a joke to start with, has
been stopped. Construction activity in the settlements is
in full swing, and so is the building of the
"fence" that is establishing a new border deep
inside the West Bank.
Excerpts from text by Uri Avnery
Another
appointment on the path to militarism
By Reuven Pedatzur
The appointment of Major
General Amos Gilad as head of the new political security
department in the Defense Ministry has two important
implications. First, the Sharon-Mofaz-Ya'alon axis, whose
members - the prime minister, the defense minister and
the chief of staff - have an identical approach
concerning the future of Israel's relations with the
Palestinians will be significantly reinforced. Second,
the trend of setting policy almost exclusively on the
basis of the staff work done by the Israel Defense Forces
will be strengthened. Amos Gilad will continue to be an
IDF branch in the Defense Ministry even when he steps out
of uniform.
There is nothing new about the dominance - unexampled in
any other democracy
- of the Israeli
army in setting policy, though in the present government
the phenomenon seems to be assuming extreme dimensions.
Civilians - and civil worldviews - have been totally
excluded from any involvement or influence in the
diplomatic process. The Knesset has long since been
neutralized with respect to involvement in decisions
involving policy and strategy, and the prime minister
does not usually ask cabinet ministers to take part in
setting policy. The few who are involved and who exert
influence on such decisions are army men, in and out of
uniform, who continue to view the world through a
gunsight. These people are Sharon himself, Moshe Ya'alon,
Shaul Mofaz - and now Amos Gilad as well.
They alone will formulate Israeli policy on the
Palestinian question. They will get their information,
evaluations and proposals for policy guidelines solely
from the army.
Two years ago, the State Comptroller already noted the
absence of "another body, in addition to the IDF,
which would be capable of supplying [to the political
level] an analysis that would include the full
implications of a given situation, from the systemic
level, to the strategic military level, and finally the
policy level."
The army thus remains the only instrument that
constitutes a "planning body" for the political
level, and its Planning Branch has become "the only
military-political integrative planning body" in
Israel. Gilad's new department will not have the tools
that are required to conduct policy planning, and he too
will have to rely on the IDF for information, evaluations
and data.
Thus it was the Planning Branch, and not civilian experts
or elected politicians, who drew up Israel's answer to
the road map, which will likely be the basis for the
political process in the months ahead. The problem is, as
the State Comptroller observed, that "a General
Staff body that engages in strategic analysis, manned by
army personnel whose point of view is mainly military in
character, is supposed to carry out a strategic analysis
on policy and civilian affairs for the political
level."
The prime minister has welcomed the establishment of the
new department in the Defense Ministry, as he knows full
well that the new body will not formulate new political
initiatives that run contrary to his worldview. Sharon
and Mofaz are familiar with Gilad's approach, which
dovetails well with their own. Gilad's position on the
Palestinian question is blunt and unflinching. He was
always against the Oslo Accords, he gave frequent
expression to his negative view of Yasser Arafat in
language replete with true hatred, and he insists
vehemently that Israel must not conduct negotiations
under fire. Most worrisome, though, is his tendency to
conjure up apocalyptic scenarios. In 1991, for example,
he said the Iraqis would fire nonconventional missiles at
Israel, in August 2001 he stated that Israel might find
itself sustaining five serious terrorist attacks a day,
and on the eve of the Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon he
said that the northern communities would be in perpetual
danger, as Hezbollah would attack with flat-trajectory
fire. That, it would be recalled, was also the opinion of
Mofaz and Ya'alon at the time.
Gilad's view of Israel's relations with the Palestinians
is apparent from his position as coordinator of
government activities in the territories for the past two
years. It would be difficult to say that he tried to
assist the civilian population very much, even though
that is the essence of the coordinator's task, and
frequently it seemed that he welcomed the government's
tough policy.
The attitude toward the media of the individual who was
appointed "national commentator" during the
just-concluded Iraq war is apparent from several of his
statements. "There is a pathological pattering here
that is endangering the security of the state," he
scolded reporters who attended his briefing ahead of the
war. And in a lecture he delivered in November 2001, he
said, "The media are serving terrorism, uncovering
military and operational secrets, distorting reality in
favor of the other side, and have no red lines."
The appointment of General Gilad as head of a department
in the Defense Ministry another step in the process of
militarization that Israeli society is undergoing. It's
one more contribution to the removal of policy and
diplomacy from the people's elected representatives and
their placement in the hands of the army.
|
