Lawless violence is equally abhorrent, whether conducted by dictators or elected representatives of the people, writes Haim Bresheeth* How refreshing was it to learn recently that death squads are not a method limited to "tin pot dictatorships" as some would have us believe, but also prevalent in the so-called Free World, or alternatively, the Western Democracies. In a London court it became clear that, though not the finger that pulled the trigger which killed Pat Finuchan, the famous Catholic jurist, the hands behind the scene were, on this and many occasions, the very services which were supposed to keep law and order in Northern Ireland -- the police and the intelligence services. We know that the law is an ass, but to find it is also an assassin is a bit of a shock for some. But why be shocked about this blatant illegal and immoral method of terrifying a whole community into submission -- Northern Ireland is not the exception -- rather, it is the rule. There is always easy and automatic agreement about the violence of dictators, and a general revulsion about historical figures such as Hitler, Idi Amin, Noriega or Saddam, once their usefulness for the powers-that-be is exhausted. While they are still useful, they are backed up with zeal, money and diplomatic effort, not just by the dominant powers, but many other fellow- travellers. For example, despite the widespread knowledge of their deeds, somehow their crimes seem to be ignored by the liberal media. For years Saddam was killing thousands every year, without this fact troubling the USA media too much -- after all, he was an important ally against the Islamic Republic of Iran. Israel has been acting illegally for almost 40 years in the Occupied Territories, but that seems not to be as important as Milosevic's illegal actions. While North Korea and Iran become targets of international pressure when their nuclear ambitions are unearthed, Israel stays totally un-assailed, despite the clear knowledge of its illegal nuclear arsenal -- after all, say its protectors, it is a "democratic state". So "democratic states", meaning states of which the West approves, can be above international law, and not just ignored when trespassing every international treaty, but actually supported financially, politically and militarily. After all, our violence is "democratic", is it not? It is not the same as the "undemocratic" violence of dictators, surely? Indeed, it is not the same. The violence of Saddam or Hitler is forced upon their stupefied nations, and there is no process of socialising the violence to make it belong to all sectors within the society. Such societies are indeed societies of fear, and those partaking in the violence are the exception rather than the rule -- most citizens live in fear for their life, and thus accede to violence without any real choice. The same cannot be said of the "democratic violence" so prevalent today. The USA House of Representatives, as well as the British Parliament, have both voted for the War in Iraq, based on a shameful combination of lies, misinformation, racism and imperialistic instinct. This they did despite much of the evidence being clearly fabricated, or at least of doubtful provenance, and in the face of a Security Council which was not supportive of this unilateral action without any legal basis, or a real rationale which was openly voiced. But not only did the elected institutions vote for this murderous adventure -- which, as was widely predicted, ended up in a fiasco and with Iraq in total disarray -- the public at large in both countries has done little to oppose the illegality of the action, and continues to be indifferent to the disaster its democratically elected government has meted out to Iraq. The media in both countries has shown itself to be a very obedient servant of the regimes, and when some have tried to break with towing the line, like Andrew Gilligan on the BBC, not only were they summarily sacked, but their whole organisation was shaken to the core by government rancour, losing the very senior managers who defended the right of the press for free speech. This acquiescence in the face of war atrocities, international war crimes, and torture carried out in the name of democracy is terrifying. That the intelligentsia of the most powerful nations on earth has failed to act, has failed to make a moral and legal stand is indeed a sad and deeply worrying fact, part of a new moral code of dealing with the others of the West, and especially with Arabs and Muslims. They do not qualify for the same treatment we would accord Europeans, and should not even expect it, they seem to tell us. The British Ministry of Defence has argued that the same nature of justice which pertains in Europe cannot be applied in Iraq -- "it is a war zone, and we cannot have an inquiry in every single case of death." Indeed, it is a war zone; and who made it into one? The documented murders, torture and oppression of this occupation are the implementations of the blueprints developed in another part of the Middle East, by another great democratic state, Israel. If Britain and the USA have not yet noticed what peace, democracy and prosperity this method has brought to the Israelis and Palestinians, maybe someone should point it out for them? The illegal actions of democratic states are a myriad more threatening than those of isolated and despotic dictators: such actions question and threaten the very nature of democracy, international law, and any rationality still resident in international politics. The continued aggression in Iraq, and by association, Israel's unpunished continued occupation and subjugation of a whole nation, are not just immoral, but present a danger for the continuation of a world modus-vivendi not just on security, but on many other issues, such as the environment or bio-diversity. If the USA and Britain will continue to act as the neighbourhood bully, they may well subdue the revolt in Iraq for a while, but they can never win the peace there by fighting, and the rest of the world is not keen to get entangled there as their subcontractors. If they will continue to be blind to something which is clearly seen by everyone in the Middle East and the rest of the world -- that Israel's continued occupation of Palestine is a crime which has to be righted, and is directly related to the crimes committed by both nations in Iraq -- then the chances for Iraq becoming a democracy of some kind, or of it being normalised are very remote, as are the chances of winning any fight against "terrorism". When most people on this earth conceive of the two allies (in violence) as being themselves barbaric, illegal and of using methods of punishing whole communities by bombing and strafing indiscriminately, who can be called a terrorist? How can such nations differentiate themselves from the despotic dictator they supposedly came to save the Iraqis from? To rid the world of dictators and regimes of murder and illegal occupation, one needs two basic requirements; the first is the principle that justice, the law and its edicts are indivisible -- they apply to all, or they apply to none. The second is emerging from the first -- anyone trying to rid the world of a bully in the name of law and order, cannot themselves act in the same manner which they themselves indicted him by. If the "democracies" have now borrowed the methods and moral imperatives of Israel, "the only democracy in the Middle East", then we are indeed entering a period of great danger, instability, even chaos. The intellectual elite of those democracies may act now, or they mat face the total eradication of international order, in the name of saving it. * The writer is an Israeli academic living and working in London. He is the co-editor (with Nira Yuval-Davis) of The Gulf War and the New World Order , published by Zed Books, and co-author (with Stuart Hood) of Introduction to the Holocaust , published by Icon Books .
