Editorial

Israel is Determined to Set the Middle East on Fire

During the past week Israeli forces have escalated their attacks against Palestinian targets within the occupied territories, killing dozens and wounding hundreds. The Israeli government has also announced that it will no longer recognize the Palestinian Authority or its leader, Yasser Arafat. The current upsurge in violence was initiated by the November 23^rd Israeli assassination of a leader of Hamas, which put an end to a two-month moratorium on suicide bombings by Hamas and Islamic Jihad. It is becoming clear that the assassination of the Hamas leader was a deliberate provocation by the Sharon government designed to encourage a new round of suicide attacks on Jewish civilians which would then justify an all-out war by Israeli security forces against a largely unarmed civilian population. Israel's aim appears to be the military occupation of and expulsion of the Palestinian people from all lands administered by the Palestinian Authority.

At the same time that it is escalating its genocidal war against the Palestinian people, the Israeli government is reported to be demanding U.S. air strikes against Iraq, the biggest military threat to Israel in the region. The Israeli government has already issued gas masks to all Israeli citizens in preparation for anticipated Iraqi retaliation against Israel with chemical and biological weapons. There is also talk of the possible use of nuclear weapons by Israel in retaliation for any such attack on its people by Iraq.

The tactics of the Sharon government are reminiscent of those used by the Hitlerite Nazis; namely, provoke a retaliatory attack by a prospective target, then pretend to be the victim in order to justify the use of massive military force. The fact that the Israeli Zionists are casually discussing the possible extermination of tens of millions of people in the Middle East for the sole purpose of maintaining their colonial hegemony over all of Palestine places them in the same company as the likes of Hitler, Mussolini and Tojo.

Meanwhile, in order to prepare American public opinion for massive air strikes against Iraq, in recent days President George W. Bush has expanded the American definition of "terrorism" to include any country which possesses weapons of mass destruction. The irony has obviously escaped him that such a definition would place the United States and Israel at the top of the list of terrorist states, followed closely by the other members of Bush's "alliance against terrorism".

For its part, the European Union has made it clear to both the United States and Israel that it is opposed to any expansion of Bush's "war against terrorism" to Iraq or any other country of the Middle East. It is also calling on the Sharon government to end its air and artillery attacks against the Palestinian Authority and to work towards a resumption of peace talks.

However, despite an apparent split in opinion within the U.S. administration, the United States is increasingly insisting on its right to take whatever unilateral action it sees fit, while the Israeli government is systematically fomenting full-scale war in the region. With no force capable of stopping them, it appears that an imperialist war against the entire peoples of the Middle East is rapidly becoming not only possible, but probable.