Two weeks into the Iraqi war Palestinians see one occupation and one resistance, writes Graham Usher from Gaza "When I see Iraqis, I see us," says a Palestinian schoolgirl. She is looking at the front-page photograph of Tuesday's edition of the Palestinian Al-Quds newspaper. It shows a terrified Iraqi mother and her three children fleeing under a pall of smoke, shopping bags stuffed on their shoulders, flanked by armoured personnel carriers. It is Basra. "It could be Bureij," says the schoolgirl. The same comparison hits Palestinians every time they open a paper, switch on the TV or try to navigate the occupied realities that have long ruled their lives in the West Bank and Gaza. Footage of British soldiers raiding homes in Basra bear an uncanny resemblance to Israeli soldiers doing the same in Nablus. Images of Iraqi civilians surrendering under the barrel of American guns on the Baghdad-Basra highway remind all of the mass arrests that have occurred in Dehaisha, Tulkarm and Beit Hanoun. Shots of British or American bulldozers flattening walls with pictures of Saddam Hussein evoke memories of Israeli tanks doing the same to Palestinian Authority buildings in Ramallah last year. Nor is it only Palestinians who are struck by the similarities. On Sunday Israel's Maariv newspaper ran pictures of Iraqis sifting through the rubble of a bomb crater in Baghdad and Palestinians standing amid the debris of a destroyed apartment block in Khan Yunis. "Similar?" asked the newspaper. All too similar, answer the Palestinians. But it is not only at the level of imagery that the war in Iraq is starting to penetrate the temper and dynamics of the conflict in Israel and the occupied territories. It is also being felt in the cruel dialectic of resistance and reprisal. On Saturday a non-commissioned Iraqi officer detonated himself at an American army checkpoint near Najaf, killing four US soldiers. The next day an Islamic Jihad suicide bomber exploded outside the "London café" in the Israeli coastal city of Netanya, wounding 58. It was "a gift from Palestine to the heroic people of Iraq", said Islamic Jihad. This Palestinian-like resistance was soon met with an Israeli-like response, both here and there. On Monday American soldiers near Kabala killed 10 Iraqi civilians, including five children, after their car had "failed" to stop at a checkpoint. Israeli and Palestinian human rights monitors were swift to point out that of the 2,000 or so Palestinians killed by the Israeli army during the Intifada, 58 -- including 20 women and 13 children -- were slain at the checkpoints. On Tuesday the Israeli army razed the family home of the Netanya suicide bomber and four others belonging to men from the Al-Aqsa Brigades in the Al-Amari refugee camp in Ramallah. Israeli analysts believe it is only a matter of time before American and British soldiers will adopt the same methods to "deter" Iraqi civilians from hosting Iraqi fighters. So do the Palestinians. "Whatever else the American and British invasion has done it has widened our struggle -- the Palestinian and Iraqi resistance and the Israeli and American occupations are increasingly being seen as one and the same," says a Palestinian analyst in Gaza. And while the war in Iraq is only in the initial phase -- and this identification could change -- two consequences are immediately apparent, he adds. One is that such an equation can only strengthen those who advocate resistance to American and British plans for the region as against those who seek accommodation within them. On Friday Palestinians across the occupied territories took to the streets in solidarity with Iraq. The largest demonstration was in Gaza City. It was led and organised by Hamas, nor was there a poster of Saddam Hussein in sight. And the message was clear: the Palestinian identification with Iraq is neither with a leader nor his regime but born of facing a common enemy and forged out of a common nation, culture and civilisation. "The Palestinians share Iraq's history, suffering and sacrifice," said Hamas political leader, Aziz Rantisi, amid a blaze of Bush, Blair and Sharon effigies. "And we will defend ourselves against the conspiracy waged against Palestine and Iraq." The second consequence is that the longer the Iraq war rages the more it will hinder Palestinian efforts to reform, increasingly seen by most Palestinians as being the result of American and British pressure rather than a response to domestic demand. While Hamas was drawing thousands in Gaza City, PA prime minister, Mahmoud Abbass, was meeting with the Palestinian factions and parliament to "consult" with them about the new government he seeks to form. According to participants Abbass listened to their complaints, promised real internal reform and vowed that the PA would be bound by the rule of law. But his insistent message was that the Palestinians must inoculate themselves from the Iraqi crisis by striving to achieve "calm" in the occupied territories. In this way international pressure could be brought to bear to force Israel out of reoccupied cities in the West Bank. He received a muted response, at least from Hamas. "We want to see an Israeli withdrawal," said Hamas political leader, Ismail Abu-Shanab, who met with Abbass. "And if Abu-Mazen [Abbass] can achieve this through his policy we will do our part to help him. But if there is no withdrawal the Palestinians will resist and Hamas will lead the resistance. Resistance comes with occupation. This is what we learned from Hizbullah. And this is what the Iraqis have now learned from us".
