TV viewers watching from afar the bloody episodes in the occupied Palestinian lands and in the Jewish state have had a chance to see footage of two dances, but they have not been entertained.
Israeli soldiers and settlers literally danced last week after a Hamas resistance fighter blew himself up at an Israeli checkpoint, but failed to kill anyone.
Days later, thousands of Palestinians were singing and dancing in the streets of Ramallah, celebrating a more successful suicide bombing in Jerusalem, in which 16 people died while eating lunch, almost confident that their “heroic” premier Ariel Sharon was good to his word that he would guarantee them security.
And on Sunday, Palestinian resistance fighters proved once again that the Israelis were dead wrong when they cast their votes for the intellectual author of the Sabra and Shatilla massacre.
There is still more that Israelis have to fear from their leader and his “gang of assassins,” to quote Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmad Maher.
As the dust settles after an attack, whether Israeli or Palestinian, reality is created on the ground.
Most noticeable is the fact that the controversy over suicide bombings in the various Palestinian, Arab and Islamic camps is fading away. More and more people have become to believe that with Israeli soldiers killing roughly four Palestinians for every one of their losses, the only option left for a militarily occupied people is to fight with their bodies.
Despite official statements by the PA and some Arab countries condemning the deadly attacks, we have heard “moderate” Palestinian leaders identifying Sharon and his government’s policies as the impetus for the killing of Israelis. This comes as most of us, the Arabs, have recognized Israel’s right to live in peace if their politicians agree to return the land seized from us in 1967.
We have heard TV news anchors and commentators saying nothing against the “martyrdom attacks,” and almost all have hailed them as national resistance against an unlawful occupation.
All the differences among Muslim clerics, politicians, Palestinian government officials and the opposition have been put aside, opening the way for young Palestinians to end their lives in the most heroic way they can come up with, as almost all Arabs clap their hands in admiration.
But who wants this? It is true that, as Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak put it, violence is everywhere in the world and no one can guarantee an absolute end to it, but who wants to spend the rest of his life in a bloodbath?
Is there hope? Yes, of course. Let’s go to the basics, and let international law be the judge.
Israel and its world supporters want to push us into believing that our problem is breaking the “cycle of violence,” implementing Mitchell Report recommendations, freeing Orient House, easing the economic siege imposed by Israel on the Occupied Territories.
Meanwhile, it is only the Palestinian resistance fighters who are shouting “remember, there is occupation.” And they are paying with their young lives to make the deaf world hear it.
There is occupation, there are settlements spreading like cancer cells in Palestinian land conquered in 1967, and there are millions of refugees who want their right to return.
The Israelis must answer this question: Can you afford to give back what you have taken?
Because if you cannot, your young men and women will never enjoy a dance at a discotheque, or a hamburger at a restaurant in downtown Haifa, west Jerusalem or Netanya. Fathers will each morning kiss their wives and kids goodbye, never knowing if they will see them again, as long as Sharon’s military machine is rendering hundreds of Palestinian children fatherless over there on the other side of the wall.
Let the occupation end, and then there will be no more Israeli dances over the dead bodies of Palestinians, and the latter will have no need to dance over the bodies of their occupiers.
