[antiwar-van] Who has the higher MORAL grounds?

[hanna]

Following is an article you will not find in the main stream North American
media, especially not in the Canadian Asper's media empire. Remember the
media reports from Palestine after September 11!?!?
Hanna

"The consequences of Arafat's death festival will haunt us for years. And
for this cruel folly Israelis and Palestinians are likely to pay in the
currency of innocent blood." - Daphna Baram

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1349398,00.html

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Israel's death festival

Such unabashed glee is disrespectful and dangerous

Daphna Baram
Friday November 12, 2004
The Guardian

On November 5 1995, I went as usual to my office in East Jerusalem, next
door to the Orient House, where the Palestinian leadership had its
headquarters. I worked for the human rights advocate, Lea Tzemel. Lea and
myself, two Jewish Israeli women working in a Palestinian neighbourhood,
were already a familiar part of the street's scene. But this morning was
different. When I went into the corner shop to buy cigarettes, the owner,
Izzat Fraytah, greeted me with a grave face. "My condolences," he said. It
took me a few seconds to realise he was conveying his sympathy for the death
of the prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin, who had been assassinated the night
before by a rightwing radical.
Izzat was a sympathiser of the Islamist opposition organisations, and an
opponent of the Oslo accords signed two years earlier by Rabin and Yasser
Arafat, but his feelings were genuine. "It's a sad day for you," he said,
"and for us." During the day, dozens of the street's residents climbed the
four floors to our office to express their sorrow. Clients who came to
inquire about the fate of their family members were apologetic for troubling
me on this day of mourning.

I was overwhelmed by their decency, and embarrassed. I knew what a bitter
enemy Rabin had been to the Palestinian people. He was the one, after all,
who issued the order to "break the hands and legs of every stone-thrower"
during the first intifada, which led Israeli soldiers to break the limbs of
every young man in the villages of Beita and Hawara, leaving only one with
his legs intact, so that he could run and break the news.

 Many of the visitors who offered their sympathy had lost sons, husbands and
brothers to Rabin's "iron fist" policies. Thousands were still, despite the
Oslo accords, locked in Israeli administrative detention for "security
offences". The permanent closure policy on the West Bank and Gaza was taking
its economic toll on the people. And yet my neighbours' kind behaviour was
not unique. One by one the leaders of the Palestinian Authority were
interviewed by the Israeli media, talking of their grief. Arafat got special
permission to visit the bereaved widow, Lea Rabin, in Tel Aviv, and sat with
her, tears in his eyes.

All these memories came back to me as Yasser Arafat lay on his deathbed,
unaware of the glee expressed by most Israelis. The Israeli government
announced, as soon as he was flown to Paris, that he would not be allowed to
be buried in Jerusalem. Inbal Gavrieli, member of the Knesset, shouted at
Ahmad Tibi, an Arab member of the Knesset, that Arafat was "a dog". Many
Israeli politicians followed suit with insults directed at the dying
Palestinian leader. Israeli comedians, who nowadays shy away from political
satire directed at their own leaders, have been mocking Arafat with the most
degrading impersonations. A festive atmosphere has taken over the country.

"Rejoice not when thine enemy falleth," says the Old Testament, but too many
Israelis are blinded by hatred and self-righteousness to remember these
beautiful words. The consequences of Arafat's death festival will haunt us
for years. And for this cruel folly Israelis and Palestinians are likely to
pay in the currency of innocent blood.

· Daphna Baram is author of Disenchantment: The Guardian and Israel