There is a Solution to this Filthy War - Foreign Occupation

Ariel Sharon's "peace" plan presented to President Bush in Washington last night - get rid of Arafat, devise a more obedient Palestinian Authority and keep building settlements for Jews and Jews only on Palestinian land - is fantasy.


That the Americans should smooth his way by claiming that Arafat's need to reform his authority is more important than a halt to settlement-building - the gormless contribution of Condoleezza Rice, the US National Security Adviser, to this sterile debate - shows just how out of touch the Bush administration is.

Sharon's hopeless attempts to suppress a vicious anti-colonial war are accompanied by all the usual psychological weapons: dishonest attempts to label any criticism of Israel as anti-Semitism, fraudulent assertions that the Israeli army behaves with restraint, mass rallies and continued attempts to portray Palestinians as beast-like, suicidal animals.

Sharon himself has now taken to blaming not just Arafat and his corrupt henchmen for the wicked suicide bombing of Israeli civilians. He now blames the Palestinians as a people. Only last month, in the Knesset, he was referring to "the murderous insanity that has taken hold of our Palestinian neighbours". If Palestinians as a people are now possessed of "murderous insanity", Mr Sharon is not going to make peace with them.