Ariel Sharon's "war against terror" is a war against all Palestinians.

• Author: Tamari, Sandra S.
• Position: War and War Hysteria

Ariel Sharon wants the world community to believe that his latest actions against the Palestinians aim to root out "the infrastructure of Palestinian terror." However, examination of Israeli policies in this latest phase of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians reveals a much different reality. The March/April 2002 reinvasion of Palestinian lands and the siege of Yasser Arafat's compound highlight the major barriers to achieving peace. Settlements remain in place; the United States continues to fail to push for a just peace; and Israel refuses to end its military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.

Israel's recent military campaign was designed to eradicate Palestinian civil society and governmental institutions in order to leave Palestinians with no viable leadership to resist Israeli military occupation. Sharon's government recently announced a "new policy" of confiscating Palestinian land until terror stops. Instead, Sharon is using Palestinian resistance as an excuse for his well-known goal of reoccupation of the West Bank and Gaza and further repression of the Palestinian people.

Destruction of Palestinian Civil Society

The task of rebuilding Palestinian infrastructure will be hopeless without significant financial and technical aid from the international community. Mainstream US media reports tell us that the infrastructure of life itself and of any future Palestinian state-roads, schools, electricity pylons, water pipes, telephone lines-has been devastated. The World Bank estimates that it will cost $361 million to repair civilian infrastructure and institutions in the West Bank resulting from damage during the March/April campaign only. Reports from Ramallah and other besieged cities describe gratuitous vandalism of government offices, not-for-profit agencies, and healthcare facilities.

One example of destruction is the Israeli targeting of private radio and television stations. Daoud Kuttab, a prominent Palestinian journalist and manager of a private television station in Ramallah, wrote in the New York Times on April 6, 2002, that the Israeli army trashed the offices and studios of the television station causing irreparable damage. Equipment paid for by World Bank and European Union loans and grants were crushed indiscriminately. Staff of the TV station were arrested and held for questioning. Kuttab's television station had been an important part of internal Palestinian debates over corruption in Arafat's regime and...