Sowing future terrorism in Iraq?

In a September 18 dispatch, the Associated Press quoted an Israeli military official as disclosing that the U.S. military "is showing an interest in Israeli software instructing soldiers on how to behave in the West Bank and Gaza." "The United States is looking at the Israeli policies as examples of how American soldiers can better handle a hostile population in Iraq," notes investigative author James Bovard. "That may not be the perfect recipe for peace in the American-occupied territory."

"The Israelis are justifiably anxious to protect themselves from the torrent of murderous suicide bombers," continues Bovard. "While some Israeli policies may reduce short-term casualties among Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), other Israeli policies stir up hostility that can help inflame Palestinians."

Perhaps the most inflammatory and counter-productive policy employed by Israeli occupation forces in Palestine is the doctrine of collective punishment, under which families of terrorists have seen their homes bulldozed by IDF troops, and the vacated housing plots are sometimes filled by Israeli settlers or military officials.

"From September 2000 through April 2003, Israel demolished the homes of more than 12,000 Palestinians," notes Bovard. "The rate of destruction increased sharply in early 2003, despite a lull at that time in Palestinian suicide attacks on Israelis." Many Palestinian Arabs have been killed in home demolitions.

The October 12 London Independent reports that U.S. troops in Iraq have begun to implement an Israeli-style policy of collective punishment. "U.S. soldiers driving bulldozers, with jazz blaring from loudspeakers, have uprooted ancient groves of date palms as well as orange and lemon trees in central Iraq as part of a new policy of collective punishment of farmers who do not give information about guerrillas attacking U.S. troops."

According to eyewitnesses, several children attempted to prevent the demolition by sitting down in front of the bulldozer; thankfully, they were dragged away. Eyewitnesses also said that "one American soldier broke down and cried during the operation."

Sheikh Hussein Ali Saleh al-Jabouri, a member of a local delegation that petitioned local U.S. military officials for redress, was paraphrased by the Independent as saying: "What the Israelis had done by way of collective punishment of Palestinians was now happening in Iraq." The local farmers are caught in a terrible dilemma: If they cooperate with occupation officials, they face reprisals from the guerrillas; if they refuse, they stand to lose their livelihoods. Palestinians caught between Israeli occupation forces and the thuggish internal security forces of Arafat's Palestinian Authority are in a similar bind. And the Israelis, of course, are trapped in a predicament of their own.

Our involvement in the deepening Iraqi morass, by way of contrast, is entirely optional. It should end--immediately.