A controversy is brewing over a petition against suicide bombings signed by hundreds of Palestinians Hundreds of Palestinian intellectuals have signed a widely-circulated petition calling on Palestinian resistance groups to terminate "martyrdom operations" against Israeli civilians in Israel proper, Khaled Amayreh reports from Jerusalem. Signatories to the petition, most of whom are affiliated with the Palestinian People's Party (PPP) and the Palestinian Democratic Union, or Feda, as it is known by its Arabic acronym, added their names to a document arguing that suicide bombings put the Palestinian national struggle at risk of being associated with terrorism. Moreover, said the petition, such operations provide Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon with a pretext for maintaining and intensifying the oppression of the Palestinian people as well as permitting Israel to evade the real issues, namely, the matter of its continued occupation. Finally, the signatories argued that suicide bomb attacks targeting Israeli civilians seriously impeded the growth of forces for peace within Israel who are essential to concluding a peace between Israelis and Palestinians. The relatively circumspect tone of the petition suggested that its purpose was not to condemn the Palestinian resistance, but rather to foster a democratic debate about the bombings and their moral and political implications for the Palestinian cause. This point was illustrated by Palestinian law- maker Hanan Ashrawi, one of the people who signed the petition, in an interview with Al- Ahram Weekly. Ashrawi said that Palestinian society needs to re-evaluate the various means and modes of struggle against the occupation in order to maximise political benefits and minimise harmful effects. "We have to objectively examine whether these operations help or harm our national goals, namely, ending the occupation and realising statehood." Ashrawi acknowledged that the terror Israel is wreaking on Palestinian civilians is the root- cause of the suicide bombings. However, she cautioned that Palestinians should refrain from resorting to terrorist tactics since to do so is "morally wrong and politically self-defeating". Most Palestinians wouldn't contest Ashrawi's reservations about the bombings and the political damage they cause to the image of the Palestinian struggle. However, many Palestinian intellectuals criticise what they view as the petition's "decontextualisation" of the suicide bombings. The petition, these critics note, fails to mention specific instances of Israel's use of force against Palestinian civilians, such as the artillery shelling of a crowded market in Jenin on 22 June, which resulted in the killing of three children and a man, and the maiming of 20 civilians. It is such acts of terror, most Palestinians argue, that make the resort to suicide bombings almost inevitable, regardless of how one views them ethically. One of the most outspoken critics of the petition is Professor Abdel-Sattar Qassem. He accused the signatories of "paying ample attention to the blood of Jewish civilians, while ignoring the blood of Palestinian children". "This petition ignores the daily massacres and acts of terror perpetrated by the Israeli army against Palestinian civilians. It is both unfair and unrealistic to ask the victims to end their resistance without demanding that the aggressors stop murdering and repressing the victims." Qassem, a professor of political science at Al- Najah University in Nablus and frequent critic of Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Yasser Arafat, also questioned the motives of those who signed the petition: "The fact that the petition was financed by the EU raises questions about the motives of those who signed it. Perhaps the people who signed it were more interested in meeting the aims of the donors than expressing objections to the resistance." Qassem also lashed out at the people who signed the petition, suggesting that they were relatively sheltered from the problems faced by the majority of Palestinians living in the occupied territories. "Those people travel and move freely in and out [of the occupied territories] and have neither been tormented by the Israeli occupation nor seriously scathed by the Intifada. Thus, their views are unlikely to reflect Palestinian public opinion." According to an opinion poll conducted by the General Information Department, a PA-affiliated body, 60.2 per cent of Palestinians expressed support for bombing operations inside Israel, while 86 per cent supported resistance operations, including bombing operations against Israeli soldiers and Jewish settlers in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza Strip. These results, however, bear qualification: the 1,137 poll respondents were interviewed at a time when Israeli repression had become particularly brutal. It is widely acknowledged that when people are under pressure and experiencing harsh conditions, as the Palestinians clearly are, that their views become more extreme. Consequently, such attitudes might be better understood as an expression of suffering than deeply-held convictions. This view is supported when one looks at the vacillation over time in popular support for suicide bombings which shows a strong correlation between higher levels of Israeli brutality and increased popular support for suicide bombings. Indeed, even Hamas, an organisation which views "martyrdom operations" as the Palestinians' last-remaining deterrent against Israeli brutality, readily acknowledges that such operations are not an ideal means for the Palestinians to work to achieve their aspirations for statehood. "If you guarantee that Sharon won't target Palestinian civilians, I will guarantee that we will not carry out operations against Israelis inside Israel," said Hamas official Ismael Abu Shanab in a recent interview with the Weekly. Hamas spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin repeated the offer this week, saying, "Have them [Israelis] stop killing our civilians, and we will stop killing their civilians." Hamas's position presumes that the key to stopping suicide bombings is in Ariel Sharon's hands as much it is with Hamas, Fatah, the Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Indeed, Sharon could, if he were sincere about putting an end to these operations, suspend targeting Palestinian civilians for a week or two to see how Palestinian resistance groups respond. However, experience suggests that Sharon would not take such an action for one simple reason: a restoration of calm would probably spell the end of his political career.
