Tuesday, September 6, 2005
Here's a timely article from the Boston Globe featuring the cynicism (growing?) of many Arabs in the Gaza Strip toward the cult of martyrdom that surrounds them. There are several very interesting things here. One is that the featured cynic is none other than Jamal al-Dura, father of Mohammed al-Dura, who's tired of being the propaganda mouth-piece for the violence of the intifida (at no small cost -- not only has he aquired fame, but fortune as well...a wealthy sheik built the family a $100,000 home, for instance). Second is the mention of our own Professor Richard Landes and Pallywood. Finally, we read in the article about at least a few (a small minority, no doubt) Gaza residents who are openly expressing their cynicism toward the terror groups.
To the Globe's credit, they are careful not to assign blame in the death of al-Dura, saying he died "in a hail of bullets," but not saying who's bullets they were -- even making the point that the responsibility for the death is a matter of controversy.
Boston Globe: Some shunning the Palestinian hard stance
Nearly five years later, however, Dura says he has tired of mouthing the counterproductive mottos of Palestinian hard-liners. Instead, with Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip last month, he has turned to building a grand new home for his eight surviving children and he has forbidden his eldest son from joining any militant movement, at least until he finishes university.
''One martyr from this family is enough," Dura, 43, said at his home in Bureij...
...The Palestinian Authority had promised to restrain militant factions and make sure the Israelis didn't pull out under fire. But, according to the Israeli military, Palestinians opened fire 18 times during the disengagement, lightly wounding two soldiers. They also launched two Qassam rockets and fired 10 mortar shells, while Israel foiled three separate planned bombs...
...''Celebrate the achievement of your martyrdom," thundered Hamas official Subhi Rasheed, the imam at Friday prayers in Jabaliya, a refugee camp north of Gaza City. ''The Jews will never stop assassinating you unless the Islamic nation is strong."
Such rhetoric has long been the staple of places like Jabaliya, which is nicknamed ''The Citadel of the Martyr Warriors" because its youths have long fed the factional Palestinian militias, mostly Hamas and Fatah.
''Citadel of fools is more like it," declared Jamal abu Nasser, the owner of a taxi fleet whose dispatch center is across the street from the main Hamas mosque in Jabaliya...
Abu Nasser, 52, said he tired of the imam's kind of talk a decade ago. He is a no-nonsense businessman who holds forth for hours at his dispatch center, indifferent to the scores of young Hamas and Fatah supporters who can hear his scathing critique of the leaders he describes as ''corrupt, delusional militants."
''We cannot defeat Israel. Jerusalem will never be a Palestinian capital. This is empty talk," Abu Nasser said. ''Most people don't understand this reality."
Such opinions are a counterpoint to the kind of talk that is common currency in Gaza. Nearly every Palestinian in the Strip, when asked about the Israeli withdrawal, opens their reply with an identical phrase, borrowed from the speeches of their political leaders.
''I am happy, but my joy is not complete, because Israel still controls the sea, the sky and the crossings," said Mohammed Ahmed Moussa, 62, a grocer in Jabaliya.
But then, as if finished with the standard talking points, he ridiculed the Hamas supporters across the square.
''Let's be frank. If Israel didn't want to leave Gaza, no one could have forced them out," Moussa said. ''Those who claim the rockets and attacks made them leave are kidding themselves."
Moussa has been a member of Fatah -- the building block of the Palestine Liberation Organization and now the Palestinian Authority -- since 1965, but that doesn't stop him and his family from lambasting the Palestinian leadership...
...It is against this backdrop that the Dura family initially embraced its high-profile role. French television broadcast a now-iconic image of young Mohammed cowering in his father's arms before he was shot dead on Sept. 30, 2000. His father carries the scars of eight bullets that struck him, and his right hand is a ball of gnarled fingers he can't move.
There has been heated debate in recent years whether the Duras were even struck by Israeli bullets during the gunfight or whether they were instead hit by wild Palestinian gunfire. A campaign led in part by Boston University Professor Richard Landes has sought to portray the Dura case as an example of ''Pallywood," or theatrical Palestinian propaganda.
But there's no question that Mohammed became the most famous ''martyr" of the intifadah. His image was issued on postage stamps in Arab countries, and Algeria sponsored an international poetry festival in his memory.
Now, though, his family has eschewed the heated political posturing of most of their neighbors in Bureij. Most houses fly either a green flag for Hamas or a yellow flag for Fatah, but Dura flies neither from the roof of his apartment building.
Dura doesn't think the intifadah is over. ''This is just a truce," he said. He has returned to work as a construction contractor for the first time since he was wounded five years ago.
He is building a four-story apartment building for his children, full of luxurious touches like decorative molding on the ceilings. A rich Gulf sheik gave Dura $100,000 to build the new house, he said.
But his family's turn away from the spotlight shouldn't be mistaken as a full embrace of peace.
''I wanted to be a military commander," Iyad said. But the Palestinian Authority rejected his application to be one of the handful of students it sponsors to study at military academies in friendly Arab countries.
''Now I want to come back to Gaza and work as a prosecutor," Iyad said. ''I will be a lawyer, and others jihadis. Both are important."
In one of those odd twists of memory and association my mind plays on me, this reminds me of a series of discussions I'd been having with my father over the last year or so. Our discussion was about the price of gasoline and how many people seemed to still be buying up the SUV's and other large vehicles that got crappy mileage. People just kept blithely carrying on in the same old manner as though living in denial about the state of things. We admitted freely we too did this to at least some extent. It was always our theory that there would be a turn over point in the price paid when people would begin selling off the explorers and suburbans and going with reality because it could not longer be avoided. It appears that point looks to be aroundd the neighborhood of $2.75 per gallon.
I wonder, what is the turn over point the jihadis will have to reach before they give up their theological and political SUV known as martyrdom. It's getting awfully expensive for some of these folks to be driving the carnage cart around town.
I don't know. It's an optimistic article and we can all use some optimism these days, but apart from these few unsubstantiated anecdotes, where's the evidence of this trend? And what's the level of Thanassis Cambanis's credibility and expertise vs. someone like Khaled Abu Toameh, who continues to paint a much bleaker picture? A guy named Jamal Abu Nassar (!) stands daily on the streets of Jabaliya ridiculing Hamas and lives to brag about it to the Boston Globe? Does that sound right to you?
No, it doesn't sound right to me. I'm too cynical at this point to take anything at face value, and I don't believe these comments -- which sources like the Globe like to go in search of to remind us that really, the common people just want peace -- really represent any serious turning of the corner. We've heard these tid-bits before. The al-Dura quote is interesting, though.
No, I agree this represents no turning point. Rather I guess I'm just wondering aloud where that turning point is exactly in Joe Arabs world. Without popular support, then groups like hamas et al are nothing more than gangs of thugs. Where is the leverage point to turn that popular support? What is the price that must be exacted? Will there be a coupon day for the all you can eat buffet at the arab casino as a result of that porice?
They're very good questions. And the answer I think is that the threshold for pain is very, very high in "Fear" societies with no viable alternatives -- with no one to run to if you express an opinion at odds with the accepted "National Narrative" -- and the Palestinians are very good at enforcing the National Narrative.
Part of the solution is supposed to be in strengthening the PA itself and its ability to enforce law and order in order to enable societal dissent. Of course, that assumes that the PA is actually interested in doing so as a real alternative to the terror groups. The jury is very much still out on that with very strong contrary indicators.
Dern it...had a long post all made up full of barbs and pointy edges about arab culture in general, then forgot to put in the security code :(
I'll see if I can put something back together later on.