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December 2002 Opinion Editorials http://www.aljazeerah.info |
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Human Price of the Israeli Occupation of Palestine Israeli daily aggression on the Palestinian people Mission and meaning of Al-Jazeerah
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Biljana Plavsic: Way
forward - The thoughts of former Bosnian Serb President Biljana Plavsic can only
be guessed at while she listened yesterday to former US Secretary of State
Madeleine Albright speaking on her behalf at The Hague Tribunal. Plavsic, who has pleaded guilty to crimes against humanity had, when
she was deputy to Serbian President Radovan Karadzic, shown no mercy or
concern for the plight of the Bosnians and Croats who were being butchered
by her regime. Yet here was a former adversary from the US, stating in
mitigation, that Plavsic had at least possessed the political courage to
push through the terms of the Dayton Agreement, which finally led to an
end of the blood-letting. She had been indicted for the more serious crime
of genocide, which charge had been reduced because of plea bargaining. As
her trial draws to a close and sentencing approaches, UN prosecutors will
still be exploring using her as a prosecution witness against Slobodan
Milosevic, the architect of Serbia’s genocidal policies. There will, however, be outrage, and understandably so, if this
72-year-old Serbian nationalist’s punishment is slight. She faces a
maximum of a life sentence. Some reasonable time in prison, over and above
the period she has been held during her trial, is important. Commuting any
sentence will make a mockery, not just of the UN war crimes process, but
also of all those in Bosnia who grieve for the thousands of lives that her
actions destroyed. However, the prize of convicting Milosevic could prove
too overwhelming and it may already be that a deal has already been
struck. Thus the appearance of someone as high-level as Albright as part
of her mitigation plea. It is already to Plavsic’s credit that she has not used the
scoundrels’ defense of Nazis after World War II, that they were only
carrying out orders and were powerless to change the wicked policies upon
which their government was embarked. She has admitted that she was an
active member of the Bosnian Serb government and she has said, with
apparent conviction, that she now sees that what she did was utterly
wrong. Any leader confessing to crimes and showing remorse is also having an
effect upon the nameless thousands who shared and supported the regime’s
policies. Some Bosnian Serbs, for sure, see Plavsic as a traitor, who,
when she became president, sold out their cause. But for the majority of
ethnic Serbs in Bosnia, and maybe for many other Serbs, their tacit
support for the disastrous and wicked policies that filtered down from
Belgrade is now a matter of shame. Plavsic’s confession and remorse can
thus express their own feelings. There is unfinished business for the Hague tribunal, not least the
capture and trial of Karadzic and others of his group. There is also
unfinished business for the ordinary people of the former states of
Yugoslavia. Reconciliation is their only way forward. In acknowledging and
regretting the awful truth of what happened, Serbs everywhere are taking
the first steps towards that healing. Their victims will find forgiveness
very hard indeed, but all the communities have to learn to live together
again and slowly rebuild the relations that were shattered so horrifically
when in 1992 Bosnian Serb guns opened up for the first time on Sarajevo.
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On
poets and pogroms - A teapot scandal erupted after Harvard's English Department invited the distinguished British poet Tom Paulin to give a prestigious lecture on campus. Some folks were shocked to discover the things Paulin had said in an interview with an Egyptian magazine. In that interview, Paulin apparently called the Brooklyn-born Jewish fundamentalist settlers in the Occupied Territories "Nazis" and said that they ought to be shot. From the left, The
Nation's Eric Alterman called Paulin's views "disgusting."
From the right, Andrew Sullivan labeled them "anti-Semitic."
Let's take a close look, beginning with the "Nazi" word. After
reading the press, both "liberal" and "conservative,"
you'd think Nazism and Jewish fundamentalism are miles apart, so many
miles apart that comparing them is not merely wrong, but disgusting,
anti-Semitic, beyond the pale, etc. You'd be surprised then to learn a few
things. "Transfer," ethnic cleansing, is popular among the general public in Israel as a political "solution." Among the fundamentalist settlers, however, expelling the non-Jewish inhabitants is not a matter of expediency, which would be bad enough. It is rather a divine commandment, rooted in the Bible and Jewish law. But "transfer" is just the tip of the iceberg. Many settlers also believe genocide is a legitimate way of dealing with the "enemy." The right (for the more extreme, actually the religious duty) to genocide is based on the biblical story of the genocide of Amalek (Deut. 25:17-19) on God's orders. Accordingly, Jewish fundamentalists believe "Arabs are the Amalekites of today." Such views are widespread among the Brooklyn-born settlers as well as among their supporters and sponsors. The root of the fundamentalist settlers' ideology is the belief that Jews are a 'chosen people,' superior to the rest of humanity and free of the moral obligations by which other nations must abide. Non-Jews are viewed as lesser beings. Some "moderate" fundamentalist rabbis do believe that after expulsion/genocide, there will be coexistence. The few remaining non-Jews will then recognize the Jews' superiority and be allowed to live according to the Talmudic laws for the so-called "ger toshav," namely, under severe limitations -- they must not be citizens; they should be prohibited from sexual intercourse with Jews; according to some, they must not own property, etc. This may not be the Nazi race theory letter for letter, but it isn't far off. Jewish fundamentalists in the U.S. and Israel don't just make racist comments. They also carry out terrorism in God's name. Ateret Cohanim, The Jewish Underground, the Jewish Defense League, Kach, Kahana Khai, Eyal, etc. are among the many groups that planned and/or carried out terrorist attacks against mostly Palestinian civilians from the 1970s onwards. One study shows that in the years 1980-1984, the Israeli press reported 380 attacks against individual Palestinians, leading to 23 deaths, hundreds more against private property, houses, cars, etc. and 41 attacks on Muslim and Christian institutions. For the years 1988 and 1993, B'tselem reports 62 Palestinians killed by settlers. According to Btselem's 1994 report, "Using weapons supplied by the IDF, individuals and organized groups initiate operations against Palestinians and their property in order to intimidate, deter, and punish. In many cases, these are planned operations, initiated carefully by groups of settlers, who are backed by the established leadership of the settlements. The operations ... include entering villages, shooting at houses and solar water-heaters, sabotage and torching of vehicles, violent disturbances, blocking roads, smashing windows, destroying crops and uprooting trees, harassment of merchants and owners of stands in the market including destruction of their wares, and so forth." These actions are done with the tacit support of the Israeli police and army. They are pogroms, namely deadly riots organized in collusion with the official authorities. These pogroms are carried out with the wink, wink, nod, nod of the state of Israel, and are often witnessed by indifferent IDF soldiers. Typically, the army refuses to protect Palestinians but does intervene to protect settlers from Palestinians who try to defend themselves against the pogromistas. After Baruch Goldstein's massacre of 29 worshipers at the Ibrahimi mosque, the Israeli army shot another 23 civilians in Hebron and imposed months of curfew on the victims, the civilian Palestinian population of Hebron – they didn't punish Kyriat-Arba, the fundamentalists' den. During the second Intifada, the pogroms intensified and grew larger. More than 80 Palestinians have been killed by settlers in the last two years. The "official" U.S. press is rarely interested in these pogroms and other violent incidents, some of which have been reported on YellowTimes.org. For example, "Hebron: Not allowed to live," "Settlers roadblocks," "Being a Jewish Fundamentalist," "Settlers carry out a Pogrom," "Gangs terrorize Palestinian villagers with police help," and "Settlers set fire to Palestinian olive fields." Scholars will surely find subtle differences between these pogroms and those suffered by European Jews at the hand of Nazi gangs and other anti-Semite thugs, but nothing that can justify calling the comparison "disgusting." The Jewish terrorist groups and their supporters are a minority, but they are hardly a fringe element. Among their supporters they count the leadership of the Gush Emunim settlers' movement. Their pogroms enjoy wide support among settlers and right-wing American and Israeli Jews (check these photos of "moderate" Jerusalem Mayor Ehud Olmert hobnobbing with Genocidal Rabbi Yisrael Ariel at the Temple Institute). Goldstein, whose tomb has become a shrine, is a hero among the fundamentalist settlers. Iga'al Amir, who assassinated Rabin in 1995, claimed to have acted according to Jewish law. Their actions have been defended and justified by influential rabbis in Brooklyn and Israel, such as Abraham Hecht, Dov Lior and Nahum Rabinovitch. Rabbi Meir Kahane, leader, chief proponent of Jewish racism, and founder of two terrorist groups, had a regular column for thirty years in the "respectable" Brooklyn-based Jewish Press, an influential publication with print circulation of 160,000. On its webpage the other day, they had an article that prepares the ground for the assassination of Amram Mitzna, the Labor candidate for the coming election in Israel, accusing him of reviving Hitler's "final solution" for Jews. Some will argue that the Nazi analogy is counterproductive, or that it isn't accurate. I can understand that. It is certainly possible to make ideological and practical distinctions between the Jewish fundamentalist settlers and their American supporters and the original Nazis. The Nazis didn't put such an emphasis on God and his commands. The settlers don't appeal so much to the science of race. But the similarities run much deeper. Both movements are racist, supremacist, totalitarian, anti-humanist, anti-democratic, and extremely violent. Both sanction expansion, conquest, ethnic cleansing, murder, repression and genocide. How on earth can comparing two movements with such glaring similarities be considered beyond the pale of acceptable speech, anti-Semitic, "disgusting," etc.? Why is the U.S. press, which twice a day lectures Saudi Arabia about Wahabism, almost silent about a murderous, totalitarian movement, with deep roots, bases, and funding in America itself? Paulin, as we remember, also said the fundamentalist settlers from Brooklyn should be shot. Before we look into that, it should be noted that he was, at worst, recommending to serve them a helping of their own porridge. Certainly, people who consider genocide legitimate, organize pogroms and worship mass murderer Goldstein cannot seriously complain that someone wants to shoot them. Paulin did not make an argument. He simply expressed his outrage at the settlers, using some very harsh words. He hasn't endorsed the murder of children, as Israel's apologist, Nat Hentoff, for example, insinuated. Support for violent struggle isn't support for any and all violence. But the vitriolic detractors of Paulin reveal no interest in intelligent debate about legitimate vs. illegitimate violence. At the core of Paulin's outrage, there is a simple moral intuition: that Palestinians have a right to shoot at people who cross the ocean in order to destroy their houses and livelihood, expel and kill them. This moral intuition could be rejected. Some pacifists, for example, will reject it because they reject all violence, even in self-defense. We have to respect this position. But the chorus that assaulted Paulin is far from endorsing pacifism. Take Larry Summers, for example. Harvard's president has expressed his displeasure at inviting Paulin to speak at Harvard. Summers doesn't stop at Paulin; he accused of anti-Semitism even people who support divestment from Israel. But when Summers worked in the Clinton administration, his colleague, Madeleine Albright, told an interviewer that the death of half a million Iraqi children was "worth it," (see FAIR's article). Unlike Paulin, Albright did justify the killing of a mind-blowing number of children. Summers did not resign in protest. He didn't say anything at all. Equally silent was the whole U.S. official media. One wonders what the reaction would have been had Albright said the death of half a million Jewish children was "worth it." Except for some versions of pacifism, the right to armed struggle against oppression is universally recognized. The doctors of the medieval church recognized the right to rebel against tyranny. The U.N. recognizes the right to engage in armed struggle for self-determination. Thomas Jefferson inscribed into the U.S. Declaration of Independence the right to take up arms against a government that proceeds with "a long train of abuses and usurpations." Indeed, many Americans believe they have a right to shoot a burglar who intrudes into their house to steal a VCR. How, then, can one deny the right to take arms to people who have, indeed, suffered a 50-year "train of abuses and usurpations," who have been dispossessed and expelled, who live under a vicious military rule for the last 35 years, without human rights, without civil rights, with even their own water taken from them, with sewage running in the non-streets of the world's most overcrowded concentration camps, with soldiers shooting at them at will and settlers, living on their stolen fields, attacking them at will? How is it possible to deny the right of people to take arms against those who work to disappear them? It isn't possible. And that is why none of those who attacked Paulin has any patience for discussing the rights and boundaries of legitimate rebellion and violence. Instead, they resort to name calling. Maybe, one could argue, Paulin's comments were not a good occasion to discuss the difference between legitimate and illegitimate violence. The problem is that, apparently, nothing is. Consider this: on November 15, Islamic Jihad launched a successful attack against an Israeli army unit, killing 13 armed soldiers and security personnel. Israeli sources lied about the incident, describing it as an attack on worshipers, allegedly, a "sabbath massacre." There was no massacre, only a lengthy battle, and it had nothing to do with worshipers. Yet the American media, as well as Bush, Powell, Kofi Annan, and others, bought into Israeli propaganda and condemned the "shocking and reprehensible attack." The fake "Sabbath Massacre" was a perfect opportunity to discuss the legitimacy of armed struggle. After all, by misrepresenting the attack, Israel implicitly acknowledged its legitimacy. Alterman and Hentoff could have praised Islamic Jihad for their choice of target, or for the zero collateral damage operation. Listening to the sound of the media silence, one fears the notion that brown people have a right to fight off their oppressors has become incomprehensible in the U.S. [Gabriel Ash was born in Romania and grew up in Israel. He is an unabashed "opssimist." He writes his columns because the pen is sometimes mightier than the sword - and sometimes not. Gabriel is the Middle East Editor of YellowTimes.org's News From the Front, located at the following URL: http://www.YellowTimes.org/nftf.html. He lives in the United States.]
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I was disappointed to hear that
President Bush declined to provide emergency financial aid to United
Airlines in the amount of $1.8 Billion to forestall bankruptcy.
Unfortunately, UAL did go into bankruptcy which will no doubt mean the
loss of thousands of jobs to Illinois families. As you know other
airlines are struggling as well.
When I came across the article below* which
reports that the Bush administration was planning to give Israel Ten
Billion dollars (5 times the amount UAL requested) to help support its
struggling economy and its unemployed workers, my disappointment turned
to shock and outrage that our President is helping a foreign nation
that has already received $1.6 Trillion from us in tax dollars
since 1973 (according to a recent economic analysis reported in the
Christian Science Monitor) rather than helping our struggling economy
and our working families.
Similarly, President Bush refused to give
federal employees their pay raises for 2003 which amounted to $13.6
Billion, yet turned right around and gave Israel $14.0 Billion. In
other words President Bush's concerns lie more with Israel's economy and
unemployed than with America's families. This is an outrage that
you in Illinois, the home of United Airlines, as well as the national
AFL-CIO, should join with the Federal Employee Union and strongly
protest the priority given to Israel over the United States.
Americans will join you if only they were made aware of this outrage in
the media and in television advertising. Our Economy is faltering,
our unemployment rate is rising, domestic education, health, and
environmental budgets are being cut while tax cuts are to be made
permanent for the wealthy, our elderly are without prescription drugs,
we have an emergency nursing shortage, our schools and roads are in
desperate need of funding, financial aid to colleges is being cut, money
to provide heat subsidies to the poor and elderly during this cold
winter with rising oil costs are cut, and so much more, yet President
Bush's budget priority seems to be Israel's needs and not the needs of
the American family.
It's time we as Americans demand that our
government take care of our needs with our tax dollars and not quietly
and stealthily ship it overseas to Israel for political expediency
simply due to the power of the Jewish American lobby that seems to
outstrip the Labor lobby that's working hard to protect America's
families.
It's time to question why our Congress has a
sensitive and compliant ear to Israel's interests and not the interest
of Illinois families and federal employee families this giving holiday
season. Where are the voices of Illinois' Senators and House
delegation on this national outrage?
Dr. Mohamed Khodr, is a physician in
residing in Virginia. He is a
contributing columnist to Al-Jazeerah.
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A dilemma for Arabs and Americans alike By Rami G. Khouri Jordan Times, 12/18/02
- WASHINGTON, DC — As the United States continues to gear up for a likely strike against Iraq, its policies in the Arab world are promoting two very contradictory trends. One is the expressed desire to promote democracy, pluralism and accountability throughout Arab political governance systems, now backed by tens of millions of dollars in US aid for programmes to this end; the other is the unspoken but active American promotion of more autocratic, often repressive, Arab political governance systems whose pervasive emphasis on maintaining “security” usually leads to political tension and some resort to violence. The contradiction is most obvious here, in the American capital, where the tendency to speak the language of Arab democracy while implementing policies that promote Arab autocracy is largely ignored, primarily because the priority here is purely to promote American emotional, political and strategic goals in the Middle East, regardless of the impact on local conditions. It has become obvious over the last two months that most Arab governments have not fared very well in their dilemma of how to deal with the massive American military power that is being unsheathed for use against Iraq, which indicates the initial success of the United States' strategic goals in the region. For, it seems to me that the ultimate target of American diplomacy and preparations for attacking Iraq is not Iraq itself, or Iraq alone, but rather a more compliant, acquiescent Arab world whose societies would never again serve as a source of the kind of terror that struck the US in September 2001. All the Arab countries in theory would seem to face three broad options as they weigh their response to the ongoing show of American power. They can enthusiastically participate in the American assault on Iraq, passively acquiesce in it, or actively resist it. In practical terms, though, the Arab countries do not have any real options at all, for two reasons: either they are highly dependent on the US for economic and military aid or they worry that choosing to resist the US will place them next on the hit-list of regimes to be changed or cultures to be domesticated. We witness today the unfortunate reality of Arab political de-sovereignisation — the process by which otherwise sovereign Arab governments and states lose their ability to make policy choices that respond to their own majority's sentiment and must rather chose policy options that reflect the preferred line in Washington. Some Arab states' preference for restricting their citizens' right to express their views and to oppose American, Israeli and Arab government policies leads to greater internal tensions, further anti-Americanism and broad grassroots frustration — a particularly virulent brand of frustration that quickly turns to alienation, radicalisation and even militancy if local economic and political poverty trends combine with the sense of humiliation and powerlessness that ordinary Arabs feel in the face of the use of American and Israeli power. Everybody loses from this dynamic (except perhaps a few arms dealers and equally slick salesmen who profit from marketing US programmes to promote Arab democracy). Thus, Arab countries as a whole continue to grapple unsuccessfully with the quest for balance between security-based policies and the demand for more vibrant civil society, democracy, political participation and accountability. It is troubling, for example, that public opinion in Arab countries where one is allowed to measure public opinion often shows high support for Osama Ben Laden and other extremists. I suspect that what we witness here is a convergence of those factors that cause growing frustration and anger among ordinary Arabs — factors that include domestic, regional and international issues that result in greater tension between Arab states and their citizens, as the popular will to express one's sentiments is countered by a more prevalent official Arab policy of curtailing such expression. When these tensions combine with domestic socio-economic disparities, political alienation and the dizzying trend of deteriorating political communication between the modern Arab state and its citizens, we witness the current problematic situation in most Arab countries. As the United States offers cash grants and impressive promises to promote democracy and pluralism in the Arab world, its actual policies promote precisely the opposite — a more repressive, restrictive political environment in which the perfectly legitimate and peaceful sentiments of ordinary citizens are not allowed to find meaningful expression through credible electoral processes or equal access to all through the mass media. This is an American problem at one level of seeking to promote a coherent, chuckle-proof, foreign policy, but much more of an Arab problem at the level of seeking to develop true security and stability through ensuring the dignity and rights of the citizenry.
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The reform package of Colin Powell By Hasan Abu Nimah Jordan Times, 12/18/02
- COLIN POWELL, in his important policy speech on the Middle East last Friday, drew a depressingly bleak picture of the situation in the region. Its countries and its peoples, their education, their economy, their political institutions, the status of their women, human rights and democracy, all lag behind and need to be reformed, he asserted. He supported his analysis by referring to a recent UNDP report that had earlier this year described the situation as indeed dire. And indeed, everything Powell said is true, but nothing is surprisingly new. What is new, and also surprising, is this keen interest on the part of the United States to launch now such an “ambitious” three-pronged “partnership” initiative to promote reform in the areas of business and private sector, education and political institutions, including the spread of democracy, human rights and improved rights for women. On the face of it, the initiative sounds like a “noble gesture”, and an opportune one too, because reform in the Middle East, and specifically democratisation, is urgently required. It is unquestionably the first step towards building healthy societies and healthy institutions in all fields related to human life and social progress. But there are important questions to be asked. First, why does the US want to commit itself to such a huge, long-term undertaking, while already heavily engaged in a war against terrorism and while actively planning for another, highly risky and vastly costly, war on Iraq? Second, how would such a plan be implemented, and how could the US expect to achieve any meaningful success with a pathetic budget of $29 million for the entire Middle East? Third, how could any planning for reform be possible while the region is submerged in uncertainty and political chaos because of the escalating, beyond control, century-long Arab-Israeli conflict, on the one side, and the awaited devastation and further destabilisation of the region once the US decided to start its attack on Iraq, on the other. Fourth, how could the US expect to reconcile the distinct contradiction implied in its initiative, as it is crystal clear that the democracy and the political reform, as sought by the “partnership initiative”, will only unleash more hostile anger at the US? Fifth, which model of democracy and what concept of human rights is the Powell initiative going to introduce? Hopefully, it will be neither the model nor the method of “democratising Iraq”, which Powell has in mind. Too obvious to even need answers, these questions can only indicate, and in no uncertain terms, that the initiative could not be serious and it should be no more than a soothing tranquilliser for the region and its people to maintain, if not improve, a convenient climate for the “peaceful” implementation of the other US designs for the region. We have, in this region, become quite familiar with similar open-ended, time-buying, pacifying promises which are often too vague to commit those who introduce them to any meaningful, visible or tangible action, while, at the same time, according them the credit of being courageous and forthcoming in recognising and in responding positively to the needs of the region. While Israel continues to brutalise the Palestinians with impunity and blatant cruelty, all the US, and much of the international community, do is to introduce “plans” and “visions”, much as in the story of the mother in our history who managed to exhaust her hungry children waiting as she was preparing a soup — which could never have been ready as it was no more than gravel and water — stirring until they would fall asleep. It is indeed a long chain of promises and no fulfilment, made up, since 1947, of countless UN resolutions, peace plans and initiatives of which only those serving the Israeli purposes would be implemented, while the rest would be shelved. Have we not been waiting for 35 years, not for the implementation of the landmark Security Council Resolution 242, but just to find out what exactly it was intended to mean. Recently, we have been nourishing our fading hopes with the “promise” of the Mitchell Report, then the Tenet understandings, then the Zinni recommendations, then the vision of the secretary of state (in his Kentucky policy speech), then President Bush's famous “vision”, in which he emphasised the principle of a two-state solution as a basic concept for the resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict. This vision of the president was adopted by the Security Council, as it was by the Quartet (the US, the UN, the EU and Russia). The Quartet, of which the US is a prominent member, conducted extensive consultations in the region and with the concerned parties, and held repeated debates until it finally managed to incorporate the “Bush vision” in a peace plan and gave it the distinct title of “road map”. As it was ready to be adopted and launched, the United States declared the plan not ready for adoption. The New York Times quoted some administration officials as saying that the delay resulted partly from heated Israeli objections, and that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has criticised the proposal and asked that the drafting be postponed until after Israel's elections in late January next year. (The New York Times, Steven Weisman, Dec. 13, 2002) This is the absolute reality amidst the prevailing confusion: Israel dictates and determines the agendas. Ideas can be presented and plans can be worked out. In the end, Israel alone is the one that decides. With the expiry of all the previous peace projects and their pacifying effects, a new plan is required, and here we have the ambitious partnership initiative of turning the region into a utopia of peace, economic prosperity, democracy, social progress, ideal education and respect for human rights. Admittedly, and quite obviously, the region does indeed need extensive wide-ranging political, social, educational and economic reform, towards which any help should be greatly appreciated and welcome. The basic reason for trailing behind the advancing world is the absence of democracy, which is the primary prerequisite for any progress in any field. The problem is that any offer to shake the region out of stagnation should be serious and genuine, and it should originate from a source whose credibility in respecting such noble ideals is beyond question. Sadly, the US, seen for long as the champion of freedom, democracy and respect for human beings and their sacred rights is now compromising, if not altogether abandoning, all these values in its frenzied pursuit of political hegemony, its ultimate commitment to protect Israeli violations of all such principles, and its dealing with the negative aspects of the unrestricted utilisation of arrogant military supremacy and the harmful application of double standards. Unless the promised reform for the region is meant to be, as suspected, a sugarcoat for a bitter pill or a delaying tactic, as the case was with the required Palestinian reform earlier, it should be necessarily preceded by determined effort to deal effectively with the Arab-Israeli dispute. The writer is former ambassador and permanent representative of Jordan to the UN.
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Bad dreams By Gwynne Dyer Jordan Times, 12/18/02
- I HAD the dream again last night. This time, it was about Orthodox Jews who were praying at the Tomb of the Patriarchs, ambushed in a narrow alley on their way back to their one-square-block “settlement” in the middle of Hebron city. Twelve Israelis are killed, mostly from the military escort that goes with them almost everywhere in Hebron. That settlement was actually removed after the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Treaty of 1996, but in my dream it is still there today, and there is no Palestinian state. Israelis are still all over what we used to call the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, and their gunships are firing rockets into Gaza City in revenge for the Hebron attack. The whole Middle East is on the brink of war. Crazy, I know, but it comes every night. I used to have another dream like this a long time ago, only then it was about World War III. In that dream, John F. Kennedy was assassinated in early 1962, not late 1963, so Lyndon Johnson was already president when they found the Soviet missiles in Cuba. He blew it, of course. Johnson was the best US president of the past half-century, as far as domestic affairs were concerned, but he was unsafe at any speed on foreign affairs. Look what he did with the Vietnam War. Well, he did the same with the Cuban crisis, and the missiles flew, and everybody died. Bad dream, but I haven't had it for decades now. Recently, though, I'm having this weird, highly detailed dream in which Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated before the peace treaty with the Palestinians, not afterwards. Do you recall that incident when a Jewish right-wing fanatic was caught with a pistol at one of Rabin's rallies in November, 1995, long before some of the settlers who were forcibly removed from the West Bank as part of the peace settlement actually shot him down in front of the Knesset in late 1996? Well, in my dream, Rabin is killed by the first guy, before the peace was signed. I knew Rabin a bit, in the way that journalists get to know the politicians they interview, and he clearly understood that he might be killed if he made peace with the Palestinians. Like Michael Collins making peace with Britain in 1923, that left the Protestant Unionists in control of a quarter of Ireland, he knew that a land-for-peace deal would enrage the no-compromise fanatics, and that they might take revenge by assassinating him. As they did, both in Collins' case and in Rabin's. But I don't think it ever occurred to Rabin that he might be killed just for talking about a compromise peace, even before he actually made the deal and closed down the settlements. In the dream, that's exactly what happens — and there is no peace deal. Not then, and not later. It looks at first as if Rabin's heir, Shimon Peres, will win the election after Rabin's murder on a sympathy vote, but then Hamas deliberately pushes the Israeli electorate into the arms of the anti-peace candidate, Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu, by carrying out a vicious bus-bombing campaign. Netanyahu stalls for three years, fending off the feeble pressure from Bill Clinton who occupies the White House for most of the 90s. (I forgot to mention that in my dream George Bush, who would never have let Netanyahu get away with it, lost the US election in 1992.) Then, in 1999, a well-meaning but clumsy general called Ehud Barak wins power back for Labour in Israel and tries to restart real peace negotiations — but by then, Yasser Arafat is even older, sicker and more indecisive, and Barak's own coalition cabinet threatens to fall apart every time he offers to trade concessions with the Palestinians. Eventually his cabinet does fall apart, and the frustrated Palestinians explode into a new uprising that involves regular suicide bombings against Israeli civilians, and the frustrated Israelis elect Sharon, of all people, to deal with it. (Yes, I know, it's unthinkable that Israelis would let Sharon near power again after all that he has done. But in the dream, they do.) There's over 3,000 Palestinians and Israelis dead already, and a new Middle East war coming up. Crazy, I know, and it's just not plausible that one man's premature death could change the world so much. (On the other hand, think what would have happened if Kennedy had died early....) The Middle East of the real world isn't all that great a place, but at least terrorism has died down and a couple of Arab countries are experimenting with democracy. It could be a whole lot worse. In the dream, it is. And now I can't wake up. The writer is a London-based independent journalist
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Are Iraqi exiles meeting in London
traitors?
An Arab press review by The
Daily Star, 11/18/02
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Are the 350-odd Iraqi opposition leaders
who met under US auspices at the Metropolitan Hotel in London for more
than three days to hash out a common vision of post-Saddam Iraq
“traitors” or “nationalists”?
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Mofaz leads charge for permanent hostility
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Israel has made a bad habit of pre-empting
the possibility of reducing tensions in the Middle East, and Defense
Minister Shaul Mofaz is doing his best to continue that ignominious
tradition. The most recent standard for such sinister behavior came last
March, when the Jewish state responded to a historic overture from the
Arab League by having its troops reoccupy the West Bank. Now, as if the
Palestinian and Iraqi crises were not enough to maintain an appropriate
level of unease in the region, Mofaz is renewing his threats against
Lebanon. For a country that claims it wants to avoid “new fronts,”
Israel sure finds a lot of ways to make them more likely.
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The lion prince
By Michael Young
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Prince Charles must have looked wistfully at Bashar Assad yesterday. Of the two heirs, the Syrian president got the better deal. He’s only thirty-something and doesn’t have to talk about architecture all the time. In fact, on Monday Assad talked about Hamas and Islamic Jihad, remarking: “Of course we don’t have in Syria what are called organizations supporting terrorism. We have press officers.” The doublespeak backfired in the face of Tony Blair’s more substantial announcement that he would host a conference next month to help Palestinians prepare for a viable state.Though Syria will not be participating, Assad can register Blair’s initiative as a minor success. It endorses the Syrian view that the Iraqi crisis is distracting attention away from the main issue in the region: the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. This point was made recently in a Los Angeles Times opinion piece by the Syrian Foreign Ministry’s Bouthaina Shaaban an uncompromising version of fellow literature teacher Hanan Ashrawi: “At this particular time, Iraq is only a diversion that may allow (Ariel) Sharon to flex his muscles and use his hundreds of tanks and missiles on unarmed Palestinians.” What Assad will want to remember less was how he contributed to spoiling Blair’s efforts to launch a regional initiative last year, as a counterweight to Washington’s focus on terrorism. At a joint press conference in Damascus, Assad embarrassed Blair by criticizing US military efforts in Afghanistan and reaffirming Syrian support for the Damascus-based Palestinian press officers. Assad has changed since then, thanks to the onset of war in Iraq. Yet while Blair’s initiative is welcome, it will not entirely satisfy the Syrians. When they want to address regional talks, they prefer Washington to London. And the Bush administration is said to have rebuffed Assad on presently committing itself to a comprehensive settlement that includes the Golan. Assad does have room to maneuver. The Americans are of two minds on their “road map” to peace, which they are formulating with their “Quartet” partners. There are some in Washington who would prefer delaying issuing the details of the plan until after the Israeli elections. The Quartet partners, however, are pressing for the details to be released this Friday. The Syrians can plainly see the road map is stumbling. They can also guess that it will soon be overtaken by a war in Iraq, and that regional dynamics at the end of the conflict might make the plan obsolete. That’s Assad’s hope, since he would ideally like a Madrid II format to resume regional talks, on condition Israel respects its prior commitments. Assad must be speculating about his fortunes after an Iraq war. Blair provided no assurances that war will be averted. The likelihood is that the US will issue a statement this week describing the colossal Iraqi weapons report as a dud. Britain has indicated it shares this view. In that context, Assad’s visit to London must have been Blair’s way of bringing the Syrians on board before any future UN action. This puts Assad in a fresh dilemma. The Syrians argue that a new UN resolution is required to authorize force against Iraq. Their calculation is that the French, the Russians and the Chinese will demand unmistakable evidence before voting for a military operation, making war less probable. The problem is that almost everybody will abandon that premise as soon as they see that war is inevitable, and that they can gain more by accepting it. If a new resolution is brought to the Security Council, and the US might agree to do so, the Syrians will have no option but to vote in favor. In London Assad was also, in effect, being invited into the bargaining over a postwar Iraq. The Syrians can be hardnosed when their interests are at play. Assad must have welcomed the chance to enter the Iraqi bazaar, even while some of his subordinates turn lachrymose when war is mentioned. Less clear is Assad’s position on the Damascus-based Palestinians. The consensus is that he will leave them be for the moment. He might, however, act against specific officials to purchase breathing space in Washington. Breathing space is all Assad has these days. With an Iraq war looming and Syria expected to pay a political and economic price in the aftermath, the president will take all the successes he can get. Tony Blair gave him a chance to be part of a future consensus on postwar Iraq. Assad is likely to accept.
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Fear and loathing on the King
Hussein Bridge
Daoud Kuttab
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What began as a temporary procedure aimed
at averting the possibility of a mass Palestinian exodus is turning into
an uncontrollable policy that is souring Jordanian-Palestinian relations.
For nearly a year now Jordan has imposed tight measures on the crossing of
Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza Strip into Jordan. The King
Hussein Bridge on the River Jordan is for most Palestinians the only
available passage point out of Palestine. Daoud Kuttab is a Palestinian analyst
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Hawks
poised to pick Baghdad's bones
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Musharraf
yet to fulfil promise of reforms
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