Go on, then. Find a Palestinian - man, woman, child . irrespective; refugee and downtrodden preferred. Now give them a good wallop and make sure it smarts. There, chalk one up for freedom. But freedom or the war on terror cannot be measured in the successful killing of innocents. Take the recent debacle in Lebanon where some 100 women and children have been wounded. The Lebanese Army has been given the green light to shell the Nahr el-Bared camp on the outskirts of the port city of Tripoli in hopes of destroying an alleged Al-Qaeda cell said to be operating there. Some 30,000 Palestinian refugees live in the Nahr el-Bared camp. The cell, said to number 100 Arabs of various origins, was accused of attacking Lebanese Army outposts and triggering a series of blasts in the capital Beirut. But beyond the military bravado and the hoo-ha of the war on terror lies the humanitarian face of conflict, which is increasingly turning ugly. According to exclusive footage from inside the Nahr el-Bared camp aired on Al-Jazeera International, women and children were scrambling for cover; fear in their faces, distraught as shell fire and gunfire reigned. Some women begged for help and shelter. International aid agencies have warned that the situation is rapidly deteriorating with thousands left without food, water, and medicine as the Army lays siege. "Bravo, I must applaud all the major Middle East powers for defying all analysts' expectations - just when you thought it couldn't get worse, sure enough, it did, said a prominent Egyptian journalist on the phone on Tuesday. Indeed. But let us not be surprised. The Palestinians are an accursed people it seems - at least in the Arab World. In Occupied Palestine, they are abused, murdered, and left homeless. In Iraq, a savage militia put into power by a powerless sectarian government has ignored international pleas to protect Palestinians who are being murdered in the country they have lived for more than 40 years. In Palestine itself, corrupt and self-serving politicians have twiddled their thumbs as Palestinian killed Palestinian forcing many civilians to opt to leave a holy land anointed in blood. And finally, in Lebanon. Again. For was it not the Palestinian presence in Lebanon that acted as one of the catalysts of the 1975 Lebanese Civil War? And was it not in hopes of eradicating the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) that Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982? The creation of Hezbollah, yet another militia with its own agenda and foreign backing, came about precisely because of the 1982 invasion. We remember the mini-war of 2000 and last year's destruction of Lebanon, which had only started to rehabilitate itself from the 1975 disaster. Al-Qaeda? What is Al-Qaeda but an excuse to wreak havoc and destruction, to derail peace, stability and economic revitalization? Al-Qaeda serves nothing but foreign designs to disrupt the progress of Arab countries. It has become a threat internally and externally. Internally because it creates a socio-religious schism. Externally, it becomes the boogeyman allowing the launching of such and such military operation. It seems someone wants to see the Palestinians suffer indefinitely. Someone wants Lebanon to frolic from conflict to conflict. The Middle East is becoming unraveled - the Iraq war and its aftershocks. Meanwhile, rather than move quickly to stem the divisiveness, we hear some religious scholars talk of the blessed potency of urine and the fraternal power of breast milk. Shame. Who do the Arabs have to look up to? The darkness envelops. One and all.
