Participants in the slaughter

Here's a challenge — see if you can guess which newspaper printed the following condemnation of Israeli policies last Friday, a few hours before Israeli soldiers killed 44 Palestinians in a single day of attacks in the occupied territories: "The killing of innocent people is gradually becoming a norm, and that norm is being implemented in the service of a goal that seeks to deprive another people of its freedom and its human rights." Or this one, targeting Israeli military commanders in the West Bank and Gaza: "They are no longer ashamed to speak of war when what they are really engaged in is colonial policing, which recalls the takeover by the white police of the poor neighborhoods of the blacks in South Africa during the apartheid era." Of course, such hot-headed stuff couldn't appear in The New York Times; and it sounds way too pro-Palestinian to appear in the American media. Perhaps the European newspapers, then? Or the Arab press?

In fact, these statements were printed in an editorial published in Ha'aretz — Israel's most respected daily newspaper, loosely equivalent to the Times. Ha'aretz ran three opinion pieces and an unsigned editorial last Friday, all of them deeply critical of Ariel Sharon's policy. From the right-leaning Yoel Marcus, who admitted that Israel has become a "bumbling Goliath," to the left-leaning Ze'ev Sternhell, who noted that "in colonial Israel, human life is cheap," there was consensus on the folly of Sharon's policies and the desperate need for a new direction. When there is broad agreement in Israel over the disaster of Sharon's tenure, you have to wonder why the United States government is so reluctant to put any checks whatsoever on Israeli action. Although Colin Powell announced last week that trying to solve Israel's problems by "seeing how many Palestinians can be killed" was hardly a step in the right direction, Sharon has taken several further steps down this road since, culminating in the mass slaughter of Friday. As Ha'aretz's editorial noted on Friday, absent a clear plan for resolving the conflict, Powell's words seem especially empty: "One gets the impression that Sharon has been given tacit approval to continue with his policy."

As Israel's paymaster and principal supplier of weaponry, the United States has a substantial influence in this conflict, and bears significant responsibility for the occupation. In the 35 years since Israel invaded the West Bank and Gaza, the United States has funneled tens of billions of dollars in weapons and aid to successive Israeli governments — including the Apache helicopters and F-16s that have been attacking Palestinian towns and refugee camps. This past week, Palestinians have plucked shell fragments from the ruins of their homes that still clearly bear the mark of their U.S. manufacturers. In response to the deaths of more than 1100 Palestinians (outpacing the Israeli toll by around four to one) since Sept. 2000, however, the Bush administration has only two responses: Powell's detached remark and the return of Anthony Zinni, Bush's special representative, to the region. As we've seen, Powell's remark hardly stopped the killing. Can Zinni do any better? Does he have any concrete proposals? It seems more likely that Zinni will act as a fig-leaf to disguise the fact that the Bush administration is also uninterested in ending the conflict. Between Sharon's desire to bomb the Palestinians into submission, and Bush's eagerness to concentrate on other, less visible wars elsewhere in the globe, we're not about to get visionary leadership from the Israeli or American sides.

The options, then, are clear. We can either sit back and watch as more Palestinians and Israelis are killed (with the 4:1 ratio no doubt continuing), or we can try to shake things up from outside the political structure. Israeli army reservists have already created a stir with their refusal to fight in the occupied territories. Columnists from Ha'aretz have joined the call for public demonstrations demanding that Sharon's policies be stopped. These are good first steps, and provide a model for what Americans can and should be doing if they want to see a genuine peace in the region. You could write or call your congressman urging the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces and settlers from the occupied territories — the plan proposed by Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia last month. You could join demonstrations against the occupation, and remind pro-Israel supporters that those who actually live in Israel recognize that the current cheapening of human life through the killing of Palestinians constitutes "the most serious danger" to Israel's future. Above all, you could recognize that none of us is a spectator as the killing continues. Given direct U.S. aid to Israel, and the failure of the international community to intervene for more than 35 years of occupation, we are all participants in the slaughter. Nicholas Guyatt, a graduate student in the history department, is from Bristol, England. He can be reached at nsguyatt@princeton.edu.