Maof

On April 2, Donald Rumsfeld announced that Saddam Hussein had instituted a  $25,000 payment for suicide bombers.  How should the civilized world regard  this gruesome form of terror and Saddam's peculiar subsidy for it? We are familiar with murders committed by hired killers acting for the  mafia.  These are horrible crimes, but the persons ordering the murders try  to remain anonymous in order to avoid arrest and trial.  Saddam, on the  other hand, has advertised his support for the suicide bombers and the fact  that he ordered their actions, secure in the knowledge that he won't be  prosecuted for this.  Moreover, people are not killed one at a time; the  idea is rather "the more, the merrier."  The innocent victims are killed  only because of their race, religion or political opinions.

The suicide bombers have introduced a new weapon  cheap and easily  transported - into the business of terrorism.  And without a doubt, it will  spread around the world, not only to promote the political aims of various  extremist groups, but also as a way for tens and hundreds of mentally  disturbed persons to solve their problems. Anyone - tacitly sympathizing  with the suicide-terrorists - who thinks that this new weapon of  murder-on-command can be kept localized is mistaken.  If there is no  attempt to fight back against them, very soon the suicide bombers' attacks  will spread beyond Jerusalem.  Their bombs will explode on the  Champs-Elysees, on Red Square, on Broadway, on Picadilly, and on the  streets of Peking, Cairo, Baghdad, and Damascus, depending on who orders  and pays for the explosion and what are his goals.  And the suicide squads  may use weapons more dangerous and destructive than bombs strapped to their  waists.

Terrorism does not always involve weapons of mass destruction.  But it  always affects the minds of large numbers of people, destroying their sense  of security which is so necessary for a normal life, and it undermines the  rule of law, the foundation of our civilization.

Suicide-terrorists commit crimes.  Those who direct them and give them  orders commit crimes against humanity.  The criminal code includes a law  against incitement to suicide.  Despite the seemingly voluntary nature of  the suicide bombers' actions, incitement is always involved and those who  order these crimes, provide the weapons for them and make posthumous  payments for them should be held fully accountable for them.  If we don't  stop the epidemic of suicide bombers today,  it will very soon spread  around the world, fueled by petrodollars which will be used to provide  stipends for the bombers' children, pensions for their parents, and other  subsidies.  Moslems and Christians, Confucians and Hindus, Catholics and  Eastern Orthodox, Buddhists and Protestants, no one will be safe from the  explosions.

Sudden death will become an everyday occurence, and fear will be  omnipresent.  The idea that some states will be exempt from the plague is  an illusion.  You won't escape being eaten by an alligator even if you feed  your neighbors to him one-by-one.  Those who hailed the 1938 Munich  agreement in hopes that it would secure peace learned this much too  late.  They helped bring on World War II.

It has never been possible to stop the proliferation of a new weapon or  guarantee its complete destruction.  However,  international efforts have  succeeded in preventing widespread use of weapons such as atomic bombs  which threaten the existence of civilization or chemical weapons which are  clearly inhuman.

Suicide-terrorists have existed before in history, but they were a rare if  tragic phenomenon.  Today they have become a common occurrence, turning  this form of terrorism into a threat to everyone  everywhere.  Paradoxically, this evident truth has not yet heightened the  sense of danger usually caused by weapons of mass destruction directed  primarily against civilians.  The suicide bombers who blew up the World  Trade Center and the discotheque in Tel Aviv are such a weapon.  And it  makes little difference whether they acted on the orders of Bin Laden or  Arafat.

Despite all this, in Europe and America there is a growing anti-Israeli  hysteria whose battlecry is the defense of the Palestinian people, even  though Israel is conducting a necessary and just war not against the  Palestinian people but against world terrorism, against the terrorism  syndicate linking Al Qaeda, Hamas, Fatah, Islamic Jihad, et al.  The war  conducted by Israel is every bit as justified as the war conducted by the  anti-terrorist coalition headed by the United States.  Who is behind the  anti-Israeli hysteria and who pays for it we don't yet know.  But it is fed  by specialists discussing the inevitability of an oil boycott, by the  blackmail of Saddam Hussein, and by the personal ambitions of some  politicians and press lords.  The extent of this hysteria is impressive  it  has infected American students, Hollywood stars, European scholars, members  of the Norwegian parliament and human rights organizations.  Scientists  have been considering a boycott of their Israeli colleagues.  Two hundred  and sixty-nine members of the European Parliament voted for an anti-Israeli  resolution.  Members of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee have questioned  whether Shimon Peres was worthy of his prize. Perhaps Arafat alone should  have received the 1994 prize!

Politicians have a short memory.  They have forgotten how Arafat's Black  September almost destroyed Jordan, the murder of Israeli athletes at the  1972 Munich Olympics, and much else.  The hysteria has tragically isolated  Israel, but it is also dangerous for Europe and America where it has  stirred up a troubling wave of antisemitism.  And it is well known that  nothing is easier than fomenting antisemitism, but that it is not at all  easy to quench it.  And no one knows what new political leaders  what new  Hitlers  may ride this wave to power.  "Beat the Jews and save Russia" was  the slogan of Russia's Black Hundreds.  It seems that Europe and America  are sliding toward something similar.  And these are not the impoverished  countries of Africa and Asia, these are the centers of world democracy. Once we were caught by surprise and said "It can't be - Germany and  suddenly Auschwitz?  A country with its history, its culture!"  Everything  is possible when memory fails!  Perhaps the United Nations, the European  Parliament, the Council of Europe, and even the Nobel Committee will come  to realize - I only hope it won't be too late - that it is untenable to  demand the immediate creation of a Palestinian state or to award a Nobel  Prize based on fine words or even formal treaties.  They will understand  that the first step after adoption of the Security Council resolution  endorsing a Palestinian state must be the destruction of all terrorist  organizations in the lands bordering on Israel.  That's what Israel is  doing now.

The second stage, which should be the responsibility of the United Nations  or the countries overseeing the peace process, must be the creation of a  demilitarized zone separating the Palestinain state from Israel for a  significant period of time, and the formation or election of a new  Palestinian administration without past or present ties to terrorist  organizations.  UN or NATO forces should be responsible for policing the  Palestinian  territory.

Only after all this has been accomplished should peace negotiations  begin.  Peace in the Middle East can be reached only in stages and after  the unavoidable use of force to eliminate all terrorist groups.  Without  this, the efforts of peacemakers will be fruitless, and the Security  Council resolution will be remembered as a document that provoked violence  instead of advancing peace.

The United Nations and European organizations have to take clearcut  decisions with respect to the fight against terrorism.  They have already  wasted time by their failure to organize an international tribunal or to  adopt clear juridical decisions regarding terrorism in general and suicide  bombing - the new weapon of mass destruction  in particular.  Much else has  been left undone, allowing an ambiguous approach to the problem of  terrorism, adversely affecting relations among the countries of the  anti-terrorist coalition, and vitiating its initial success. Either terrorism, nourished by anti-semitism, anti-Americanism, and the  ambitions of some politicians, will win, or our common human reason will  defeat it.  No third way can be found!

I ask all who share my concern for our future, for the future of our  children and grandchildren, to support my appeal.

Elena Bonner          April 12, 2002

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