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The Palestinians' anger
- The outburst of violence in Israel and in Occupied Territories
has ruined in a short time all the precedent peace achievements
so painfully obtained. How fast violence can be destructive when
peace is so slow to be established! To start a fire only a match
is needed, when a whole forest is on fire, how difficult it is
to stop it. But even when the fire is extinguished, it will take
many years to restore the forest in its original beauty.
It is the same for violence, when it starts how hard it is to
stop it, and when it ends, many efforts will be needed to convince
the former enemies to speak to each other again, to restore confidence,
to learn to live together.
During the Algerian war I was very surprised to see how quickly
the young privates arriving from France were forgetting all their
good manners to plunge into the violence, the repression and
to apply tortures. There was complete change of behavior. They
did not know that by denying to their opponents a status of human
being, they were ruining themselves. Still today, although hiding
behind their silence, they are suffering the consequences.
The anger of the young Palestinians is understandable; they have
been humiliated for many years, humiliated by the establishment
of Jewish colonies, by the daily difficulties to circulate through
all the checkpoints. Nothing has changed and their youth has
been robbed. Humiliation is the worst of all, it gives rise to
violence: he who saw humiliation shall reap the revolt.
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