IS THERE A GRAY SIDE TO SUICIDE BOMBINGS?:

US and Israel's 'common cause' (Barbara Plett, BBC)

These are days of war talk, and the same sort of talk is coming out of Israel and the United States.

From Israel's Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon: "Israel will not surrender to blackmail. He who rises up to kill us, we will pre-empt it and kill him first. As we have proven there is no and there will never be any shelter for evil."

From US President George W Bush: "We will not wait to see what terrorists or terrorist states could do with weapons of mass destruction. We are determined to confront threats wherever they arise and as a last resort we must be willing to use military force."

It is the language of war against terrorism, used for both Iraq and for the Palestinians.

But are the two conflicts the same?

"The Americans and the Iraqis don't have a dispute about land, they don't have a political dispute about sharing the same area," says Israeli defence correspondent Alex Fishman.

"In Israel, we've got an historical, cultural dispute, it's a completely different story, you can't compare it."

So if the conflicts are different, why is the language the same?

Suicide bombings have certainly contributed.

They have reinforced Ariel Sharon's view that Palestinian violence is terrorism rather than a national struggle against occupation.

And, says analyst Akiva Eldar, they have also suited his political agenda.

"The suicide bombings is something that made it even easier for Sharon to sell this equation that we and you the Americans are in the same boat," he says.

"Because 11 September was a suicide bombing. Both in the US and in Israel it helped people to paint the conflict in black and white."

Looks like M. Chirac gets to play "Lucky Pierre". Posted by Orrin Judd at March 16, 2003 9:40 AM