Al-Jazeerah, September 3, 2006

Since Arabs are enjoying the fruits of Mr. Bush's promises of democracy, we felt the right to set some hypothetical questions. Of course, as every body knows, hypothetical questions need hypothetical answers.

If one was to ask what would have happened in Europe if Napoleon won in Waterloo he would go through a great deal of speculation. Therefore I hasten to put forward my hypothetical question: What if Canada simply declares that it finds it appropriate to kidnap the American President George bush? (Canada, by the way, has a lot of oil, second only to Saudi Arabia).

Of course the Americans will consider this as an act of war, they will not hesitate to give Canada an ultimatum to bring their president back, or Canada must expect the worst. And since the American media is fond of demonizing anybody who stands against US policy, Canada will be added to the axis of evil alongside North Korea, Iran and Syria.

The US Congress would hold an urgent meeting to declare Canada a terrorist country. The polls in US will show that the vast majority are in favor of invading Canada. The CNN TV will say that the episode is more dangerous than the Bay of Pigs crisis with Cuba in 1961, or even more dangerous than attacking Pearl Harbor!

This hypothetical question is asked on the light of the Israeli kidnapping of 18 Palestinian elected law makers and ministers, including the Speaker of the Palestinian Parliament, Dr. Abdul Aziz Al-Duwaik. This action has not been met by any objection by George Bush, who declared the past month that the root cause of the Israeli war on Lebanon was kidnapping (!!!) of the two Israeli soldiers (they were not kidnapped from their homes, but captured as war prisoners in a battle).

It seems that kidnapping of 18 elected Palestinian Members of Parliament and ministers from their homes is not a convincing evidence to Bush to link it with the root cause of the problem. This explains why George Bush did not say a single word about kidnapping the elected Speaker of the Palestinian Parliament.

Sadly enough the whole world is witnessing carelessly the atrocities of the Zionist state, which shows zero respect to the international law. Few examples demonstrate what the Israeli Zionists brought to Palestine and to the region.

First, they brought the culture of placing explosive cars in the Palestinian markets (as they did in Yaffa and Haifa in the thirties of the past century) .

Second ,they introduced the culture of mass murder and the culture of murder without borders (e.g. Dair Yassin, Sabra and Shatilla massacres).

Third, they brought the atomic weapons and weapons of mass destruction to a region which never thought of owning such weapons.

Fourth, they introduce the notion of the Jewish religious state which is a discriminatory policy (as it allows only Jews to immigrate to the country and does not allow Muslims and Christians who are indigenous population to return).

Sadly enough is not only the position of the Western political class but the position of some Western intellectuals who were told by Sartre that there is no neutral position between the occupied and the occupier. Just go and stay one day in Gaza or three days in the west bank to realize that much of the media talk about neutrality towards the two parties of the conflict is misleading.

The whole story is that there is an army which goes anytime, anywhere it wishes in the occupied Palestinian territories to murder innocent civilians who are defenseless. Most importantly, Israel is poisoning international relations by such actions.

Stopping Israel must be a part of the world efforts to stop blind violence and terrorism. To quote from a Norwegian politician, "if there is anything called Hell, the worst place there must be reserved to all those who see injustice in Palestine and say no word to undo it."

* Dr. Salim Nazzal is a Palestinian historian. He has written extensively on social and political issues in the middle east.E mail: gibran44@hotmail.com