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DAILY
PRESS SUMMARY
Thursday,
10 October 2002
Vol 8 Number
2646
The occupation troops launched at midnight yesterday a
new aggression on Yubna Camp near Rafah city when helicopters launched
a missile and then opened fire from their machine guns at the homes of
the citizens in the camp. Eyewitnesses said armed clashes took place between
the resistance men and the occupation soldiers while Dr. Ali Musa, Director
of Abu Yousef Najjar Hospital, declared a state of emergency in the hospital.
The aggression on Yubna Camp came a few hours after the aggression against
Rafah city which caused the martyrdom of two children and the injury of
15 others. Palestinian sources said the occupation troops, tanks, and Apache
helicopters moved inside the Palestinian lands in Rafah close to the border
strip. Medical sources in Rafah announced that the two martyrs in Rafah
are Mohammed Musa Ashour, 16, and Ahmad Fouad Radwan, 15. Meanwhile, in
Khan Yunis, nine citizens, including five children, were injured during
an occupation shelling at the market in the center of the city. Meanwhile,
the occupation troops invaded yesterday morning the town of Salfeet and
blew up two homes which belong to citizens who are arrested at the occupation
prisons. The occupation troops also arrested six citizens in Hebron and
two citizens in Toubas and one citizen in Tulkarem and another citizen
in Beitounia near Ramallah. (Al-Hayat al-Jadida)
Sources in the Israeli army admitted for the first time
through an interview with Yediot Ahronot Web page that most of the tests
conducted by the army could not link nine of the victims of the Israeli
massacre in Khan Yunis in any operation against Israel. The sources said
that in addition to the mother of a Hamas activist who shot by mistake,
it was found out that seven of the Palestinians killed in Amal Quarter
were not known or registered as armed men or activists in Palestinian factions.
The statements came despite the statements made by Occupation Army Minister
Ben Eliezer who said that most of the victims were perpetrators of operations
against Israel. (Al-Hayat al-Jadida)
Palestinian President Yasser Arafat called yesterday once
again for the implementation of the signed agreement and the resolutions
of the UN Security Council, especially Resolution 1435. President Arafat
denounced the Israeli military escalation. Following his meeting with an
American peace movement delegation in his office in Ramallah, President
Arafat told reporters: We are not asking for the moon but for the implementation
of what has been agreed upon. President Arafat pointed to the continuation
of the Israeli escalation in all the West Bank and Gaza Strip and against
the villages and cities and the Palestinian infrastructure and hospitals,
as what happened in Khan Yunis and the attacks in Hebron and Tulkarem.
He added: There is a clear Israeli decision from Israeli PM Sharon and
his Chief of Joint Staff Moshe Ya'alon and other Israeli officials to continue
with military escalation against the Palestinian people. President Arafat
said: We continue to send delegations to the US; today, there is Finance
Minister Salam Fayyad and before him there was Nabil Shaath and Dr. Saeb
Erekat. The US Administration is supervising the training of our security
elements in Jericho with the participation of our brothers the Egyptians
and Jordanians. (Al-Hayat al-Jadida)
Palestinian President Yasser Arafat rejected yesterday
a proposal submitted by US Secretary of State Colin Powell who called on
Arafat to hand over his authorities to new leaders. In an interview with
AP News Agency, Arafat wondered: Can anyone transfer his authorities to
others? Go ask Powell, will he accept to transfer his authorities? President
Arafat described the confrontations between the Israeli troops and the
Palestinians as part of the Israeli continuous escalation in all of the
West Bank and Gaza Strip. He added: Israel's goal is to destroy the Palestinian
infrastructure. (Al-Quds); Meanwhile, President Arafat's Adviser Nabil
Abu Rdeineh affirmed that there wont be any serious moves unless they are
discussed with president Arafat in person. The statement came to refer
to the boycott of the US Administration to President Arafat as Deputy Assistant
to the Secretary of State William Burns is coming to region on October
19, 2002. Abu Rdeineh said: We hope that Burns comes carrying binding practical
mechanisms and timetables to implement UN Security Council Resolutions
in a manner that can create the proper atmosphere for the peace process
and enable the PA to conduct the elections and conclude the reforms. (Al-Ayyam)
The US denied yesterday reports that its Secretary of
State Colin Powell was subjected to an assassination attempt by Palestinian
extremists during his visit to the region in April. The US State Department
spokesperson said there is no proof or evidence about the story written
by an Israeli writer who said that an ambulance full of explosives came
close to Powell's convoy during his trip from Ben Gurion Airport to Jerusalem.
(Al-Quds)
Palestinian President Yasser Arafat received yesterday
evening in his Office in the Muqata' the Representative of Archbishop of
Canterbury Reverend Andrew White and Sheikh Talal Sider in the presence
of Saeb Erekat and Nabil Abu Rdeineh. The meeting focused on the meeting
that was held yesterday between representatives of the three religions;
President Arafat was also briefed on the details of the upcoming meeting
in London. Reverend Andrew White revealed yesterday to Al-Quds newspaper
that preparations are underway to conduct a meeting in London after two
weeks to include religious leaders representing the three religions in
an attempt to reinforce the dialogue between the religions to put an end
to the bloodshed in the region and end the tragic situation that the Palestinian
people are suffering from and find proposals towards a solution to the
conflict between the Palestinians and Israelis, especially on the issue
of Jerusalem and the Holy Places. He added that the meeting in London will
be held under the sponsorship of Archbishop of Canterbury and comes as
continuation to the meeting that was held in Alexandria last January and
which came out with the Alexandria Document. (Al-Quds)
Gaza: this morning, two Palestinians fell as martyrs
during the Israel incursion in Rafah. They are identified as Ihab al-Mughayer,
16, and Thaer al-Hout, 12. Four others were injured including one child
who is in serious conditions. One Israeli rocket fell near one of the house
yet no body was injured but it causes many damages to properties. This
morning, Israeli troops blasted three houses in Rafah.
Hamas and Fatah representatives are scheduled to meet
today in Gaza to contain the regretful incidents, which were observed in
Gaza.
Hebron: Israeli occupation military continued their
raids to Palestinian houses in several towns in the Hebron District such
as Yatta, Dora, al-Tabaka and Hneineh, south Dora in addition to Wadi al-Harieh
area in Hebron.
Last night, Jewish settlers clashed with Palestinian
citizens in various parts of Hebron.
Nablus: Israeli occupation forces lifted the curfew
on Nablus for the second consecutive day since 110 days. The curfew will
be re-imposed at 6:00 p.m.
Gaza incidents
Saeb Erekat – Minister of Local Government
Q: How do you assess PNA efforts to contain the situation?
A: PNA is doing its utmost to deal with this crime in
the appropriate way and according to law. It never happens that a group
of people takes revenge from the authority and then finds protection and
justification for their act. This is not acceptable and it is destruction
to our political life. Those who justify the crime by saying that it is
part of revenge are in fact attempting to vandalize the society. There
should be a rule of law particulary under the current situation of blockade
on Palestinian people.
Q: Israeli military minister Ben Eliezer ordered the
evacuation of some settlements enclave. What is you opinion?
A: Mr. Ben Eliezer is directing that to media means.
We are aware that Ben Eliezer has approved implementing a settlement project
in Jerusalem, which is called E1 to connect between the illegal settlements,
which are allocating between Givat Zeive in the north to Male Adumim and
Goush Atsion in Bethlehem area.
For the separation fence, which is built by Israeli minister
of war is 360 meters long that is three times more than Berlin wall. Consequently,
thousands of dunums of cultivated land are being confiscated. All of that
is part of the policy of imposing new facts.
Amidst all of that, Ben Eliezer comes to announce that
he removed two unoccupied settlement enclaves. This is nonsense.
Q: US Secretary of State Colin Powell is talking once
again about taking some of President Arafat’s authorities to be given to
new leaders. What is your comment?
A: it seems that US is getting cover behind this demand
so that it will not undertake its responsibilities as co-sponsor of the
peace process or as a part that adopts declarations of the Quartet. Today,
they began to conduct a new crime of war. It is an attempt to blame
the Palestinian side and to say that Sharon who commits war crimes is in
self-defense.
Q: Is PNA aware of any new peace plan?
A: During the recent meeting between President Arafat
and Solana, the President asked him to present a comprehensive plan with
mechanism of implementation that account for contents of Mitchell Report,
UNSC resolutions: 1397, 1402, 1403, 1405, 1435 in addition of dispatching
international observers from the Quartet.
The President called for not dividing the issues and
to avoid any separation between the political and security tracks.
In fact, we heard from Solana that there is conviction
in this approach and that the Quartet will try to meet. He said that in
the coming days, the Quartet would convene a meeting to coordinate the
positions before the coming visit by the US envoy William Burns. Solana
expressed hopes that a new plan would be launched soon. We need a plan
that begins with the Israeli unconditional withdrawal from all of the re-occupied
land in addition of lifting the closure and blockade; releasing the prisoners;
ending assassination policy; halting settlement activities in addition
of getting the peace process back to its normal track.
Explosion in Israel
Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi – Member of Hamas Political Leadership
Q: What is your comment on the operation, which took
place in Bani Brak?
A: the Zionist terrorist enemy is practicing the brutal
kind of terror against the Palestinian people. Khan Yunis massacre still
exists in minds of the people. Therefore, Palestinian people have the right
to strike everywhere. It is not logical to be the victims of this terror
in Khan Yunis, while the enemy sleeps comfortably in Tel Aviv. This is
impossible.
The enemy should be stroke everywhere because it pursuit
us everywhere. As long as the enemy pursuits us everywhere, therefore it
should be hit everywhere and in every inch of Palestine as long as the
entire Palestine is being usurped.
Absolutely, this operation comes in the context of Palestinian
people insistence to hunt, strike and get rid of this enemy.
Q: Do you think it is a reaction to the incidents in
Khan Yunis?
A: all of the Palestinian factions of resistance have
threatened that it will react to all crimes in Khan Yunis and other areas.
Headlines
Egypt: Al-Ahram daily Oct. 10
* Mubarak: Bush’ speech gave Iraq an opportunity to respond
to international resolutions and disarm.
* Mubarak discusses with Solana the situation in the
region and the peace process. Maher: we have agreed to work together to
come out of this difficult situation.
* Indications of an international agreement on Iraq.
France presents new proposals to intensify the international inspectors’
mission.
* Chirak will visit the Kingdom Sunday.
* The King and the Queen receive Elizabeth Cheney.
* A Special Jordanian plan to carry the injured in the
Khan Yunis massacre from Al-Arish to Amman.
* Abul Ragheb: the international community is demanded
to implement legitimacy in more than one place in the world.
* Three children killed by the Israeli occupation soldiers
in Gaza.
* Sharon discusses in Washington “new rules” for his aggression.
* Solana expects developments in the settlement and escalation
of the crisis between Fatah and Hamas.
* Kuwait does not rule out the possibility of its army
enter Iraq.
* Presinski to this paper: Sharon will exploit the war
to deport the Palestinians.
* Arrests in Kuwait focus on the “Afghanis”. The American
forces shoot at unidentified targets.
* San’ah: no relation between Al-Qaedah and the fire
in the oil carrier.
* Lebanon carries out the experiment of bumping Wazzani
waters.
* The Saudi crown prince: foreign hands are a stumbling
block in the way of Arab economic unity.
* Yemeni opposition accuses the government of an early
forgery of the coming elections.
* Pentagon admits conducting experiments on chemical
war in the sixties.
* An American military official: we started talking to
Qatar on using the Adid base for attacking Iraq.
* In Morocco: the Minister of Interior succeeds Al-Yusofi
as a prime minister.
* The “Eden Army” adopts the operation against the French
carrier.
Jordan: Al-Rai daily, Oct. 10 - Threats are loud and the specter of war is retreating; by Tareq Masarweh
The American voice is still loud, but any loud voice has its limits and then it starts to decline until silence. It also seems that France, Russia, and China are getting closer to reaching reconciliatory resolutions at the Security Council while the American threats are cooling.
It is difficult to say that the nightmare of war has already
disappeared in the region, but there is a distance between threatening
of waging an imminent war against Iraq and pressuring its political regime
on the one hand and waging a war in a certain day like what happened in
1990-1991 on the other. This can be clearly noticed by those who read the
developments. We talk about an American unipolar regime as if the others
do not exist, which is incorrect, we do not have however to expect cold
war between Washington and Moscow.
As the Arab region helplessly awaits what seems inevitable, as the diplomatic as well as military preparation for war continues, a major event of ominous consequences took place in Washington, and took us by surprise here. The surprise is not because all our attention in the region is intensely focused on what the debate at the Security Council will produce, or how to prepare for one of the most serious threats closing in on us. No, and it must be painfully admitted that in this region we do not seem to have much more attention left to spare on any of the approaching dangers from any possible direction. It is sheer and negative indifference.
We read a lot about plans being drawn out for the region, about a new Sykes-Picot-style distribution of war acquisitions, in the manner the European powers had planned, during the course of the World War I, for the vast domains left behind the then disintegrating “Sick Man of Europe”, the Ottoman Empire. We read about partitioning Iraq, about redrawing the borders, about changing regimes, about enabling Israel to realise its territorial and regional ambitions without any obstruction, about a virtual recolonisation of the entire region. We also read about controlling the oil and the other natural assets that must be a prime target of the war. We do indeed read, speculate, invent scenarios, discuss, anticipate havoc, cast doubt on intentions and even realise the existential implications of all this. We do also warn of the dire consequences and the destabilising effects. But we do all that as if we were outsiders, indifferent observers, academic enthusiasts, and as if it weren't us, the people and the states that exist in this part of the world, sitting right where the blow will hit. Is there anything more amazing than the Arab League holding an emergency session to discuss a serious Arab crisis, such as the siege on Yasser Arafat or the reoccupation of the West Bank, and ending with an appeal to the international community to intervene while, when it condemns and regularly puts Israel before its responsibilities, it never tells us what the league itself should do?
This perhaps is what one should realistically expect from the Arab League in response to Washington's decision to recognise Jerusalem, all Jerusalem, East Jerusalem included, as Israel's capital. If the Jerusalem Committee determines that the significance of such an American measure is worthy of its time and endeavour, one should be in no doubt that a similar condemnation will be issued, accompanied by an appeal to the US to reconsider and a warning of the dangerous implications of such an “untimely” action for the “peace process”.
It is already four days since President George Bush signed into law a congressional bill that demanded the US government to consider Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, that the US embassy should be moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and that the US consulate in East Jerusalem should be attached to it, and the Arab Muslim response is still barely heard. The foreign minister of an Arab state described the move as “an encouragement to Israel”. Another said “it threatened peace and security in the region and the world”, but he did not explain how, or what, his government would do to protect regional and world peace from such a threat.
In the past years, Congress attempted to pass similar legislation on Jerusalem but it was always blocked by the White House on security grounds. Most likely, some consideration was given to Arab feelings towards the matter. This time, the president signed it, but neither the accompanying claim that the US policy on Jerusalem has not changed nor the notion that, as in the previous years, implementation would be hindered detract from the seriousness of this move.
The dangers implied in this major American policy change
on the status of Jerusalem cannot be further emphasised. It is an American
endorsement of all the previous Israeli illegal actions with respect to
the city, including the occupation, the annexation, the Judaisation, the
changing of the demographic and physical character of the city and the
building in it of 10 large settlements housing over 200,000 settlers.
By doing this the US is actually acting in complete disregard
of all the UN resolutions on Jerusalem, on which it had voted in favour,
and of all the provisions of international law. It is thwarting all the
basis on which any possible settlement of the conflict can be based, including
Oslo, Madrid, the recent Danish peace plan, as well as the “vision” of
the president himself contemplating a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem
as its capital. It is further revealing insensitivity, even contempt for
the feelings of hundreds of millions of Arabs, Muslims and Christians,
at a time when all efforts should be mobilised to heal the rifts and to
build bridges of understanding and solidarity towards more peace and justice.
And it is a corrupting move for Israel whose wild ambitions for colonial
expansion at the expense of everything right and legal should be firmly
checked, as a first step towards ending its brutal occupation and paving
the way for any possible reconciliation.
But for us in the Arab world the move means much more than all that. It means that we have become so insignificant as a nation that no longer does anyone take into consideration any response from us to whatever injury, insult or harm they may cause us. We have made of ourselves easy targets and it is not a mere coincidence that the three United Nations member states currently, and for many years already, under international sanctions are Arab states. It is not a mere coincidence that when a superpower wants to show muscle, it dispatches cruise missiles or sends its air force to bomb Arab capitals, often for no reason whatsoever, as when the US bombed and totally destroyed the Khartoum Pharmaceuticals compound in 1998 on the baseless claim that it was producing nerve gas for terrorists and Iraq.
It is also not a usual situation, and it is extremely difficult to find a parallel for it in history, that the US is preparing openly and against the expressed will of the Arab states and their league to attack and topple the regime in an Arab country while its interests in the region and its relations with the states of the region are perfectly secure, exceptionally cordial and normal. It is astonishing how the US can fully support Israel, provide it with all the money, the arms and the political protection it needs in its war against the Palestinians, and for maintaining its occupation of Syrian and Lebanese lands while, at the same time, the Palestinian leadership, as well as all those who continue to follow the mirage of the “peace process” pin all their hopes on American “justice” and fairness for settling the historic conflict and securing Arab lost rights.
The fact that an Arab country is targeted for destruction now, and that Jerusalem is granted to Israel as its capital, in addition to other ongoing abuses, is directly and closely linked to the sad reality of incompetence, loss of willpower, paralysis and defeatism that prevails in the Arab world. The Arabs are undeniably weak, but it is not the lack of military capability that is the problem. It is not only by military force that people defend their rights and protect their national integrity. There are countries in the world that do not have one single soldier and they are well respected and their rights and interests are well protected. That is precisely what we need in this part of the world. We need to shed layers of backwardness and mediocrity. We need to face the mirror and identify major defects in our national conduct and performance. We have no excuse, as a nation, for being fragmented, weak, impoverished (with all the wealth we have) and lagging behind in the fields of education, culture, governance, health, economic progress and social advancement. We cannot continue to claim a secure place amongst the civilised nations with our unique brand of democracy that guarantees some of Arab countries' leaders lifetime mandates with no less than a 99.999 per cent of constant popular support.
To be a victim of injustice does not guarantee one's automatic righteousness. The planned war against Iraq is certainly unlawful, unjust and wrong. The 12-year-long sanctions have been equally harsh and unjustified. Yet, the Iraqi situation and the position of the Iraqi regime is not perfect either. The present mess cannot be separated from what happened earlier. In the eighties, a decade of depleting war with Iran caused enormous damage to both countries, as well as heavy drain of Arab financial resources. The vast amount of wasted capital could have contributed enormously to much needed economic development all over the Arab region. That was immediately followed by a much more serious and costly Iraqi blunder with the invasion of Kuwait. The additional divisions this caused among the Arabs exposed them to all kinds of vulnerabilities, forcing them to mortgage their destiny to the same foreign powers which plan for more wars now and threaten our very stability, if there is any left. The Arab responsibility for keeping this malignant conflict alive and growing should not be disguised either. What has the Arab League, with all its glorious summits, been busy at during the last 12 years? And if the answer is absolutely nothing, what is the point in maintaining such a useless club which has only been accumulating failures?
Before we place the blame for what is happening in Palestine and in Iraq on everyone else but ourselves, we should be able to define our responsibilities and admit our spectacular failures. Yes, Israel is an aggressor with indefinite plans for expansion and colonisation, and it is securing the ultimate support of the US. The Jerusalem for Israel decree is unquestionably a direct product of that. But it is also a product of a more bitter fact, which is the total American disregard of, even scorn for, the Arab feelings and existence.
Does that justify our inability to defend our lands and our dignity? Being victims of a superpower-supported aggression does by no means cover for our decline or mean that the only course of action available to us is to sit helplessly receiving one blow after the other and, as the Arab League does, appeal for help from the international community. Neither it is building fighting armies and preparing for a counter-war that is required. All that is needed, and urgently, is to put together our shattered existence, conduct ourselves and our national affairs in a manner which will restore our dignity and command for us some respectability.
No change will ever happen, except for the worse, before we change ourselves and radically review our performance. Until that happens, we will continue to sit like lame ducks and count disasters.
* The writer is former ambassador and permanent
representative of Jordan to the UN. He contributed this article to The
Jordan Times.
The Saudi Arabian government supported, I dare say, by most Saudis does not want the kingdom’s relations with the United States to deteriorate further. Yet, we cannot under any circumstances abandon our Palestinian brethren and their just cause.
It is impossible for us to equate today’s Americans, who want to force the international community to recognize Israel’s occupation and Judaization of Jerusalem, and want to compensate their Israeli allies for every bullet they use to kill Palestinian children, with our brethren, who are clutching with their bare hands to their rights and all they hold sacred.
The distance between the American vision of peace and our own Saudi vision has become too great to bridge, especially after US President George W. Bush signed into law a bill requiring the US government to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of the usurping entity. Previous US presidents have always refused to sign similar bills, but the White House’s present incumbent merely said that he would not act on a bill he already signed into law.
We can understand and even cooperate with the Americans on other important issues such as oil, fighting terrorism and searching for a better future for Iraq. But cooperation on Palestine was difficult before the recent resolution and has become impossible after it was signed. All our arguments about the rights of the Palestinians to their lands and to their capital will be ignored, now that the US and Israel have become the same.
So how can we as Saudis reconcile cooperating with the Americans on certain issues with the great differences we have with them regarding Palestine? By heeding an earlier call to withdraw from the Oslo peace process. Saudi Arabia, together with all Arabs who have the Palestinians’ interests at heart, must renounce the conditions of Oslo, which have in fact become American-Israeli conditions.
The Palestinian leadership’s insistence on implementing the Oslo agreement is nothing short of bizarre, especially since the Israelis have made sure of destroying all the trappings of statehood enshrined in the agreement.
The Palestinians no longer have an authority, security organs, or a legislative council. They have been deprived of their dignity, yet they still talk of “free and fair” elections while the dark night of occupation shrouds the Palestinian territories.
You don’t have to be a prophet to know that the Palestinian elections next January will not provide a solution. This is assuming, of course, that elections are held at all. An old adage says there is no free will under occupation. And, as everyone knows, free will is an essential prerequisite for democracy. The mere idea that Israel is able to prevent Palestinians from casting their votes is enough to cast doubt over the entire exercise. Several Palestinian factions will certainly boycott the election and question its results and with good reason, too.
The one conclusion that can be drawn from the entire Oslo peace process is that Israel is not interested in having a partner for peace. The Israelis don’t even want to have a Palestinian Authority (PA) to ensure their security. What they want is a punching bag to kick around whenever Palestinians express their outrage at the occupation and decide to resist.
The Israelis have been pursuing this “punching bag” policy since they established their state in Palestine more than 50 years ago. They used it against those of their Arab neighbors who allowed refugees they were hosting to mount resistance activities from within their borders. The policy was a success, forcing all Arab states bordering Israel to rein in the Palestinians.
After Oslo, the PA was created as a new punching bag.
Now, Israel’s Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is pursuing the old policy with
gusto, especially with Washington endorsing his every move.
If we Saudis cannot do anything but advise others not
to become mere whipping boys, that they would be far better off leading
a movement for national liberation, we still can refuse to become part
of any Oslo-inspired “Quartet” or “Octet.” There has never been a
meeting with the Americans about Palestine without Washington asking us
to guarantee that PA compliance, and to do what we can to calm the angry
Palestinian street.
It is time for us to refuse. We should say to the Americans:
“How can we ask the Palestinians to stop their uprising if you have stolen
from them their most cherished dream? How can we deal with you as an honest
broker if you have embraced not only the positions of Israel, but those
of the racist Likud?”
Let us leave the American far-Right to fight its “holy
war” alongside God’s professed “Chosen People.”
Let them fight this war until they realize that no people
are prepared to abandon their homeland for Biblical gobbledygook that runs
counter to history and international law.
We should back the Palestinians clearly and transparently. As Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef said recently: “Our support for the Palestinians is a duty which we are proud to fulfill.”
Let us ask freedom-loving people all over the world for their help in rebuilding each Palestinian home demolished by Israel’s American-made bulldozers. Let us help the Palestinians build more schools and hospitals, and let us help provide the Palestinians with a dignified existence in order to deprive the Israelis of the ability to use their livelihood as a means of blackmail. These tasks are not the responsibility of Saudi Arabia on its own, but that of the entire world, which is no longer ignorant of Israel’s slow-burning Holocaust against the Palestinian people.
The only two things stopping world public opinion from
helping the Palestinian people are American pressure and Jewish blackmail,
which scaled new heights with the assertion by Sharon’s spokesman that
the Israelis were the victims and the Palestinians the aggressors
a position only supported by US Congress extremists and hate-filled ignorant
“televangelists” like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell.
So let us distance ourselves from Oslo and all that Oslo
represents. Let us increase our support for the Palestinian people. As
for the Americans, let them eventually realize the truth about Palestine
the hard way.
We offered them a peace initiative that would have transformed the entire Middle East had they been wise enough to embrace it. Had the Americans reacted favorably to the Saudi peace plan, the silent Arab majority would have even welcomed their upcoming invasion of Iraq.
Yet these are just hopes and dreams. The reality is that
we must take from the Americans the best and avoid the worst
that they have to offer. Oslo, needless to say, is included in the latter
category.
Of the many sociopolitical expressions that have worked themselves into our language and our fears, practically all come from American interpretations of phenomena in parts of the Islamic world. Terms ranging from “fundamentalism” to “terrorism” have come to be effectively equated with Muslim countries, or with dubious movements in them. Some are invariably used in tandem (“Islamic fundamentalism”) to essentially imply a third term (“terrorism”).
The latest term to conquer even the most mundane conversations is “weapons of mass destruction” (or its abbreviation WMD), which everyone now understands as being synonymous with Iraq’s supposed threat to civilization, courtesy of the convenient panic-spreading, tailor-made descriptions of the US government and its understudies. The American president has now described Saddam Hussein as a “homicidal dictator addicted to weapons of mass destruction,” but he failed to elaborate on how such obsessions originate.
The Middle East is a dangerous region indeed, but laying the blame at Iraq’s feet is forgetting that the world’s most lethal weapons are made by America and its allies, distributed at their discretion only to those deemed truly worthy of their technology (like Israel) or foolish enough to become their temporary mercenaries (like Saddam Hussein).
The end result is the same: Whether through Israel or Saddam, through conventional or other weapons, the US and its allies have not only caused tremendous hardship to innocent people (especially in Palestine and Iraq), but have also introduced weapons of mass destruction to the region. Using the concept of WMDs as a sudden validation for military intervention is thus not only irresponsible, but also adds to the acrimony that is swelling dangerously in an Arab world that understands only too well the real issues at hand.
Saddam’s madness is not new. It was apparent two decades ago, when he agreed to become the West’s proxy in the region, an opportune new pawn to supplant the deposed Iranian shah.
Saddam’s brutality increased throughout his popular years with Western powers as he fought (for them) today’s other Middle Eastern “axis of evil” component, Iran. Arming him to the teeth, the West used Saddam to wage war on Iran with chemical and other weapons although the US handled some jobs itself, namely when it downed a civilian Iranian aircraft with 290 people on board shortly before the Lockerbie bombing.
Unsure of how to achieve control of the oil-rich region and showing typical lack of foresight before eventually settling on a policy of “dual containment,” America had initially fueled the conflict by arming the two opponents simultaneously (as was revealed by the Iran-Contra affair) before focusing on helping Saddam. One result of this deception was a prolongation of both Iraqi and Iranian peoples’ suffering and a toll of well over a million victims on both sides.
As the US (with its allies) molded Saddam, it was also training and arming its future public enemy No. 1, the then-obscure Osama bin Laden, rationalizing that the supposed Soviet threat justified the espousal of an organized resistance, even an Islamic one. With such precedents, one can only recoil in fear at the identity of America’s “terrorists” of tomorrow, probably being trained at this very moment by CIA operatives.
America and Britain’s sudden pretense of horror at the use of gas, war on Iran or supposed weapons of mass destruction is appalling, if only because the WMDs in the region were implanted by them long before Saddam’s own crimes. American weapons of every kind have already killed, maimed and wounded countless people from Lebanon to the Gulf, leaving true destruction in their wake and having long reduced to ashes the illusion that the US could ever be an honest broker.
The US has bombed over 20 countries since the end of World War II and it has intervened and led operations changing the destinies of people in many others, but nowhere have American hypocrisy and duplicity been so blatant and so dangerous as in the Middle East.
For every UN resolution that Iraq has ignored, Israel has flouted 10, and for every resolution condemning Iraq to more sanctions, countless others attempting to rein in Israel have been vetoed by the sole superpower. More Iraqis and Palestinians have died pointlessly under the patronage of the US and its Security Council allies.
Still, most people fail to appreciate the impact of such biased actions on the populations they touch. In view of the interminable Israeli occupation of Arab land and people, the latter are not only upset by the flagrant double standards applied to Israel and to Arabs, but also by having been reduced to seemingly defend the hated Saddam while an attack on Iraq is being prepared.
Some experts consider that long-term repercussions to such belligerence are overestimated, playing down the invisible Arab street’s power or even willingness to object to military interference in the region, let alone to Arab regimes’ acquiescence thereto. This is a grave mistake, as the Arab world has been simmering for a long time, with regional leaders and superpowers alternating the intensity of the provocative flames at their fancy, oblivious to the nearing boiling point. With each additional injustice, units are ticking off the time bomb.
The Iraqi predicament cannot be judged within limited parameters or be separated from other issues in the region, foremost of which being the Palestinian question. As they mark two years of the most violent period in the history of their lone struggle against Israeli occupation, many Palestinians have affected fervor and put on a brave front, pretending to welcome “martyrdom” and encouraging sacrifices of all sorts.
In reality, however, most remain desperate people frantically calling for help and urging the supposed defenders of human rights to come to their rescue, only to see their dignity smashed over and over again. This constant humiliation has bred bitter frustration, precariously stirring emotions of resentment that dig deeply into the Arab psyche.
With autocratic regimes and de facto US collaborators in practically all their countries imposing severe consequences on those daring to challenge them, Arabs are fully aware of their own limitations. Therefore, many are trying to convince the West that its support of Israel is immoral, its disregard of Palestinians unjust and its harassment of Iraq baseless, wondering why they even have to explain that these issues are related to supposedly rational people living in a freedom and democracy for which they yearn.
The Bush-Blair duo’s marketed Iraqi WMDs are not the real threat in the region. Israel has and is itself a far greater WMD. Ultimately, the supreme WMD is the facilitation of tormentors’ enduring destruction of potential, of dreams of a better life, and of entire peoples’ hopes.
Nothing provokes revolt and extremism like despair, and nothing has created despair in the Arab world like the actions of the US and its allies.
The only question mark that remains is assessing which
injustice, be it in Palestine, Iraq or elsewhere, will finally tip the
balance and turn mass despair into mass response and true mass destruction.
Egypt: Al-Ahram daily Oct. 10 - Gaza massacre and confronting terrorism
A new wave of terrorist violence seems to be looming in
the Middle East in the coming period. The explosion in the French oil carrier
in Yemen, the attack on American soldiers in Kuwait, support such an expectation
and the belief that the Qaeda has resumed its activity in a different way
and new directions.
It is also clear from the recordings transmitted in the
last few days for one of the Qaeda leaders and its official spokesperson
that there are references to what the Israeli forces are perpetrating in
the Palestinian territories with cold blood to the degree that Sharon is
explicitly about the massacre in Gaza as if it was a successful security
operation.
Sharon’s doings will only lead to an acute wave of instability
in the region, and the terrorist acts of violence will find a strong justification
in his crimes. This will make fighting terrorism more difficult. Washington
should think seriously of condemning Sharon’ doings which are a reason
for terrorism.
………..no doubt the international campaign against Al-Qaedah
has dismantled its main structure, and prevented it from moving freely
and training its elements in Afghanistan. The terrorist acts in September
11, has disclosed its real face, and its ideological cover, after it has
become sure that no one has inflicted such a harm on Islam and the Muslims
like what this organization did by killing the innocent and terrifying
them against the teachings of Islam which calls for coexistence and tolerance.
Policies and strategies do not change by terrorist acts here and there.
While Arab newspapers give an account of speculation that the two young Kuwaitis who attacked US Marines on military exercises in the emirate may have been acting for Al-Qaeda, the Kuwaiti daily Al-Rai al-Aam quotes relatives as saying that they appear to have been motivated by the Bush administration’s support for Israel.
Newspapers highlight the Kuwaiti government’s vehement
condemnation of the incident and acting ruler Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmed’s appeal
to Kuwaitis to “be aware of the gravity of what is happening, and appreciate
the sensitivity and repercussions of the situation and the country’s higher
interests.”
Sheikh Sabah warned that the perpetrators of the attack
were trying to harm Kuwait, and vowed that the emirate would not rest until
it had apprehended and held to account “all those who stand behind this
matter.”
Offering his condolences to Washington, Sheikh Sabah stressed that the attack on Failaka Island, some 20 kilometers off the Kuwaiti coast in which the two assailants were shot dead by US forces after killing one Marine and wounding another was unprecedented in Kuwait. He said the incident would not hurt Kuwait’s relations with the US, but rather strengthen their partnership and their resolve to confront shared enemies, adding that Kuwaitis “have not forgotten that American blood was spilled on their soil during its liberation.”
Papers report that both of the attackers identified by the Kuwaiti authorities as Anas al-Kandari, 21, and his cousin Jasem al-Hajeri, 28 had previously been to Afghanistan (Hajeri also fought with Muslim volunteers in Bosnia), fuelling speculation that they may have been Al-Qaeda operatives.
But Al-Rai al-Aam says Kandari returned from Afghanistan two weeks before Sept. 11, and was subjected to “precautionary” interrogation by the Kuwaiti security agencies before obtaining permission to reregister in college. It quotes Kandari’s brother, Abdullah, as saying that he and Hajeri, who quit his job at the Oil Ministry last year, started making regular trips to Failaka Island two weeks ago, though their families had no idea what they were up to. But Abdullah said both had recently become increasingly infuriated at the US.
“On the day before yesterday, Kuwait TV was showing on the 9pm news scenes of the Israeli massacres in Khan Younis, and Anas exclaimed: ‘God is gracious, oh Americans! We’re coming to slaughter you like you slaughter us,’” Abdullah said.
Kandari’s mother told Al-Rai al-Aam her son had fasted for two days before the attack, and in previous days had repeatedly asked her to give him her blessings. “He used to be pained by the horrific sights of what was happening to the Palestinians at the hands of the Zionists, and he always used to say it is the Americans who feed this criminality,” she said.
Other family members said Kandari left behind a will explaining his behavior, “mostly focusing on what is happening in Palestine and what Muslims are subjected to in many parts of the world,” and bequeathing his money and belongings to “the mujahideen.” He had dropped his younger siblings off at school on the morning before the incident, “and kissed them as though it were the hour of parting,” one said.
The pan-Arab daily Al-Quds al-Arabi sees the attack on American troops in Kuwait as a reflection of how much public attitudes to America have changed in the emirate that, following the ejection of Iraqi forces by US troops in 1991, became renowned as by far the most outwardly pro-American in the region.
The paper reports that prior to the shock of the Iraqi invasion, a whole range of Islamist and pan-Arab nationalist movements found receptive audiences in Kuwait, and its relatively free press echoed their disenchantment with Washington’s anti-Arab and pro-Israel policies. “Now it appears that Kuwait’s Arab and Muslim roots are beginning to sprout again, breaking through a thick layer of phony infatuation with the Americans which some deluded Kuwaiti circles tried to use to distort the country’s image and isolate it from its Islamic and Arab milieu,” it says.
That was noticeable when Al-Rai al-Aam conducted an opinion poll last month, which revealed that 74 percent of Kuwaitis consider Osama bin Laden to be a hero, and share his view of America’s policies, Al-Quds al-Arabi recalls.
The anti-Arab and anti-Muslim attitudes adopted by Washington
since Sept. 11 have fueled a radical change in Kuwaiti public opinion,
as has Washington’s “blind support” for Israel and its brutal actions in
occupied Palestine, it says. “The Bush administration, which is busy beating
the war drums against Iraq and massing its forces and mighty military machine
as a prelude to occupying it and seizing its oil resources, will not pause
to consider the meaning of this attack on its forces by two Kuwaiti citizens,”
the paper predicts. “It will not draw lessons from it, just as it failed
to draw them from the events of Sept. 11.
Yet the attack on Failaka, coinciding with the attack
on the French tanker off the southern coast of Yemen, is just a foretaste
of how things could be in the region if war were to erupt and US forces
were to begin their blitzkrieg on Iraq.
“If the peaceable people of Kuwait have had their fill and can stomach no more of America’s bloodthirsty policies, how about the other Arab peoples in countries like Jordan, Yemen, Syria, Egypt and occupied Palestine?”
Writing in the Saudi-run pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat, Hazem Saghiyeh sees the attack on US troops in Kuwait as a “small sample” of what could sweep the region in the wake of a strike on Iraq.
This is a consequence of the “stagnation and fragmentation” that has afflicted Arab politics, he declares, which while largely homegrown, promises to have consequences that stand to be exacerbated by the policies and behavior of the United States.
Not just in Palestine and Iraq, but throughout the Arab world from Kurdistan to Qatar, from Lebanon to Sudan, from Jordan to Yemen President George W. Bush’s America has gone directly or indirectly “on the offensive,” either trying to establish new political arrangements or setting the stage for new conflicts, he writes.
Saghiyeh argues that given present political conditions in the Arab world, America’s aggressive pursuit of unilaterally enforced changes which has gone badly wrong and/or provoked undesirable backlashes in other places like Afghanistan and Bosnia is more likely to fuel divisions and trigger internecine conflicts than produce political reform.
“The issue, therefore, goes further and is more serious than the question of how American forces will be received in Baghdad,” he writes. “Let us remember that Israeli forces yes, Israeli were greeted gleefully in South Lebanon in 1982. But it was not long after they were rid of the Palestinian fighters that the Southern Lebanese themselves turned into resistance fighters against the Israeli occupation.”
In the Beirut daily As-Safir, Mustafa Husseini looks ahead to the consequences for Iraq of a prospective American invasion and says the Baghdad regime is unlikely to mount any “meaningful resistance” to an attack, and it is fantasy to expect there to be “popular resistance.”
He writes that the energies of the Iraqi people have been sapped over the decades by successive “tyrannies,” be they the British-backed monarchy or the “revolutionary” regimes that succeeded it, which proved just as despotic and corrupt and set the stage for today’s one-man rule.
Accordingly, in the aftermath of the American invasion, we are likely to witness a “race” for power between “traitors to the regime” and “traitors to the country.” The former are hidden within the regime, but are preparing to defect to its enemies and offer them their services. The latter, most of whose identities are known, live outside Iraq, where they have been “parading themselves like peacocks,” and “discussing their country’s future with its enemies while presuming to speak for it and for its people.”
These two groups of opportunists are likely to dominate the scene until such time as the Iraqi people “regain their breath and recover their health,” Husseini suggests. “No one who wishes Iraq and its people well would want this state of affairs to last much. But it might,” he warns.
In the interim, Iraq is likely to be ruled by a government that raises democratic slogans but practices “the democracy of exclusion rather than inclusion, and the democracy of forms, trappings and procedures rather than the democracy of empowerment.”
In the meantime, the issue of reconstruction, a genuine enough priority, will be used to drain the country’s coffers and “drown it in debt,” even if the US offsets that by forcing Gulf states to write off the war reparations due to them from Iraq. In effect, the Americans will be seeking to “turn the ‘oil-for-food program’ into the ruling regime in Baghdad,” Husseini says.
The ultimate aim of the war on Iraq is just that, rather than “regime change” or the elimination of weapons of mass destruction. The objective is to deprive the country of the capacity to develop and advance, he says. And that is not specific to Iraq, but in line with the Bush administration’s overall worldview and its attitude to the global economy, in which the Third World constitutes an underclass that “must sell what it has in order to eat, while those who have nothing to sell can simply perish.”
In stark contrast, a US-based Iraqi, writing for the Saudi-owned, London-based pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat, envisages his country turning into a “second Japan” under the benign auspices of the United States.
Adel Awadh maintains that the reason why the buildup to Washington’s move to “uproot Saddam Hussein’s regime” has taken so long is not because the military preparations warrant the delay, but because of “the political, economic and cultural preparations for the post-Saddam era.”
The US plans to establish a new democratic constitutional order in Iraq “in cooperation with whoever cooperates with it,” as well as new cultural and economic arrangements suited to the country’s ethnically and religiously diverse social structure.
Once that is in place, there is nothing to prevent Iraq
developing the same way Japan did after US forces occupied it following
World War II. The country has a wealth of natural resources and human talent,
and a long tradition of education and exposure to the West. If all these
assets, which Saddam has devoted to military use, were channeled into civilian
fields, Iraq could become the Arab world’s unrivaled economic powerhouse,
according to Awadh. Moreover, unlike in Japan, it would not take nuclear
bombs to uproot the militaristic regime and set the stage for the new order,
he suggests.