'Bully' for Carter and a 'kick in the leg' for 'Dubya'

“THERE YOU go again.” This phrase was almost jeeringly but effectively used by the “great communicator”, Ronald Reagan, in the one and only 1980 US presidential debate he had with then US President Jimmy Carter. A week later, “at the hands of” Ronald Reagan, Carter was defeated in one of the biggest landslides in the US presidential election. Yet, in the fields of peace, development and promotion of human rights, Carter has been “back” in the international scene again and again since his “going” from the US presidency. As he put it, with characteristic smile, in a speech to the Democratic Party Convention in 1984: “Here I go again. ... and I am speaking about the same things: peace, a fair go for all and human rights...”

One could add in the year 2002 that he has been assiduously working on these issues for more than two decades since he left office after his “failed presidency”. Now, the Nobel Peace Committee has deservedly awarded the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize to the 39th president of the United States, selecting Carter from among a record 156 nominations for the coveted prize.

The 2002 Nobel Peace Committee showed (with apologies to Jane Austen) “sense and sensibility” when it bestowed its coveted prize and honour on one of the (if not the) most intelligent, hardworking, decent and ethical of modern American presidents. Certainly, none of the living or former American presidents in recent — nay even distant — memory has worked so hard for the promotion not only of peace, civil and political rights but also of such other basic rights as the right to health especially among the people of the developing countries.

The late and renowned Harvard palaeontologist and historian of science Stephen Jay Gould wrote in his 1992 book `Bully for Brontosaurus' that Carter was not only the “most intelligent of US presidents since (Franklin) Roosevelt” (with the quip that “though of late the competition has not been that tough”), but that Carter was — and is — also “a wonderful and gracious man”. Gould narrated that Carter phoned him to inquire about Gould's health after his successful recovery from a rare form of cancer. Following Gould's praise of the term “brontosaurus” for a certain type of dinosaur one might delightfully, admiringly — and if I may put it that way — indeed affectionately, say “Bully for Jimmy Carter!” and the good people of the Carter Centre which was established 20 years ago and which has now received the honour that they so deserved.

No Nobel peace award would go without comment, controversy, dissent, criticism and even condemnation. Some, like that of the Kissinger award in 1973, would arguably arouse more comments and controversy than others. Even the awarding of Nobel peace prizes to such “saintly” (in the non-technical and non-denominational sense of the word) figures like Mother Teresa arouses some “demurrer” and dissent, if not emotions. Personally, the only two other Nobel peace awards that were awarded to individuals (rather than organisations) in recent years and kindled in me emotions of gratitude, appreciation and admiration were those to my fellow country person Aung San Suu Kyi (for the year 1991) and Kim Dae Jung (for the year 2000).

At times, comments made by the Nobel Peace Committee or its members can also be the subject of comment, if not controversy. For example, in its 2001 Nobel Peace Prize introduction speech in Oslo, on Dec. 10, 2001, the chairman of the Nobel Peace Committee said that the only other UN secretary general that can be positively compared with Kofi Annan is Dag Hammarskjold, the second UN secretary general. I might add that Hammarskjold — in an unprecedented break with tradition — arguably became the first and only person to be posthumously awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The chairman's remarks showed he considered Annan to be the “best” UN secretary general, bar perhaps Hammarskjold. The other five former secretaries general were therefore at least indirectly marginalised or disparaged by this “observation”. One wonders what the reaction of the truly self-effacing U Thant or even Perez de Cuellar, the third and fifth UN secretaries general respectively — both having done their very best in serving the United Nations — would be to such a commentary.

The chairman of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize Committee, Gunna Merge, has also been criticised by some for his comments when he announced this year's award to Jimmy Carter. Merge stated that the award “should be interpreted as a criticism of the line that the current [United States] administration has taken [against Iraq]”. He added that the award to Carter “is a kick in the leg to all those that follow the same line as that of the United States”. Though two members of the Norwegian Nobel Peace Prize Committee had “distanced” themselves from the chairman's comments, not all have done so. Indeed, at least one of the committee members has openly endorsed Merge's comments. A BBC commentator has criticised Merge for “politicising the Nobel peace prize process”. He also argued that Merge's comments “marginalised” and perhaps even “demeaned” the award to Carter in that it might have been “used” to send a message to the current Bush administration.

These comments can be described as amounting to “depoliticising the political”. Activities and awards like those of Nobel Prize Committees — even for the “technical” subjects like chemistry, physics, medicine, and yes especially economics and literature — are partly suffused with the “political”, at least in the broad sense of the term. Based on the likelihood of a possible costly and bloody war in Iraq, I would assert that there is nothing politically, morally and perhaps even diplomatically wrong with sending an explicit or implicit message to the current president in the White House. And that message to Bush and his cohorts is all the more justified when the recipient of the world's most prestigious peace prize this year is his predecessor and a former peanut farmer from Plains, Georgia.

As far as “using” Carter is concerned, the former president has only said that he has been humbled by and is grateful for the honour the Nobel Peace Prize Committee has bestowed on him. In his news conference, Carter — though he did not directly criticise the Bush administration — emphasised his strong belief that the current crisis concerning Iraq, (which in part has been engineered by the Bush-Blair — or is it “Dubya-Tony” duo?) needs to be solved in accordance with international law and through the auspices of the United Nations: the same message that was explicitly stated in the Nobel Peace Prize Committee's citation. At least some members of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee have, almost explicitly, made a comparison between Carter's “tireless effort throughout the decades for peace” and the exploitative, opportunistic, indeed almost jingoistic predilections of “Dubya” as far as the situation in Iraq is concerned.

Sadly, the “message” of the Nobel Prize Peace Committee may well be treated with contempt or will almost certainly be “politely ignored” by the current US administration. As far as the situation in Iraq is concerned, the US-UK administrations' aggressive “bilateral” efforts towards war against Iraq may prevail over the wishes and efforts of the “peace-makers” like Carter and the Nobel Peace-Committee, not to say millions of peace-loving people across the world.

Carter states that he accepts the award on behalf of the “suffering people of the world”. Marx once wrote about the desirability if not the necessity of making “suffering people think” and “thinking people suffer”. It is gratifying to see that one “thinking” person's thoughtful and dedicated efforts — in some small way as Carter himself has graciously stated — to relieve the suffering of some people have been recognised by awarding the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize to Jimmy Carter.

The writer is lecturer at the School of Law, University of the South Pacific, Vanuatu. He contributed this article to The Jordan Times.

America's 'Balfour declaration' targets the Arab and Islamic character of the Holy Land, by Melhem Karam

The Daily Star, 10/14/02

At the height of the US presidential election campaign between the Democrat “donkey” and the Republican “elephant”, one of the principal journalists on the staff of the Arabic weekly Al-Hawadeth wrote a piece of investigative reporting on the program of the George Bush-Dick Cheney tandem, facing the Al Gore-Joseph Lieberman tandem. It was the title of the piece that caught my attention: “The promise of Bush Jr. to the Jewish electorate: To transfer the US embassy to Jerusalem and entrench that city as Israel’s ‘eternal capital’”. The title stirred up my fears and doubts.
Cancelling all my appointments and engagements, I made a detailed reading of the article, which was to be the magazine’s upcoming cover story. I was astonished at the accuracy and precision with which currents of opinion in the Republican Party were analyzed, from the religious fundamentalists to the Texas oilmen, and with which the party’s alliances and vision of the world were discussed. I had a kind of shock on reading of one point of Bush Jr.’s political program, the one concerning the Arab-Israeli conflict. There, in an adoption of the Israeli viewpoint, it was insinuated that the US embassy would be moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem if the Republican candidate won the election.
I got in touch with the author of the article in question to ask him if he was quite sure of his statements, especially since, in the Republican election “platform”, no clear reference was made on moving the embassy to Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. It was made furtively with the aim of catching Jewish votes but without arousing Arab anger, especially the Gulf states, which had regarded the Bush clan with favor ever since the liberation of Kuwait.
The reporter told me that Condoleezza Rice, now the national security advisor, had travelled secretly to Tel Aviv, where she met with spokesmen for the government and the opposition, after being informed of the “principles and bases” of America’s alignment towards Israel. Then she overflew the West Bank in an Israeli army helicopter in the company of Ariel Sharon, then leader of the opposition, who -- it was reported by the mass-circulation daily Yediot Aharanot -- admired her brown legs.
In spite of all the data with which I was supplied, I decided, in my capacity as editor-in-chief, to replace the above-mentioned title with another. Recently, returning to the number of the magazine in question, I was struck by the precision of the investigation and its premonitory analysis, the more so since it came two years before the attempts to destroy the authority of President Arafat, to exterminate the Palestinian people, and to accelerate the colonization and Judaization of Jerusalem -- a process crowned by the dramatic moment represented by the signature by President Bush of the act of Congress affirming that the holy city was the eternal capital of Israel.
The act, passed by Congress, places the American consulate, set up in East Jerusalem before the Israeli occupation of 1967, under the authority of the embassy. This consulate, responsible for contacts with Arafat, has until now presented its reports directly to the State Department in Washington, bypassing the embassy in Tel Aviv.
It was a regrettable somnolence, or a political absence and a diplomatic negligence on the part of the Arabs that prevented action to thwart or torpedo such a dangerous decision before it could be adopted. The Arabs reacted tardily, after the dark cloud had appeared above the Capitol, at a time when the Sharonites were working assiduously in the corridors of power and influence to which the Zionists have such easy access, to have the bill passed.
Equity requires us to say that Bush signed the bill reluctantly and expressed reservations about its basic provisions, stating that he would ignore any that interfered with his constitutional responsibility for conducting the foreign policy of the United States.
But despite the game of reservations, the “2003 Foreign Relations Authorization Act” constitutes a practical step in the direction of recognizing Israel as Israel’s “eternal” capital. President Bush committed himself to this during his campaign in 2000 and approved this decision after the events of September 11, 2001, to reward Israel and to punish the Arabs and Muslims. This fact was not published in the American media but was consigned to diplomatic secrecy. It was recently revealed by statements by Condoleezza Rice, when she declared that her country wanted to teach the Arabs and Muslims the arts of democracy.
It is natural that the Arabs should be incensed, but it is not natural that their anger should be limited to words. Damascus has denounced the flagrant American prejudice in favor of Israel and its unlimited support for the Zionist state. Saudi Arabia has expressed “its disquietude and extreme concern”, noting that the American decision violated international legality and went against resolutions of the UN Security Council and, indeed, against American foreign policy itself.
Further, the act is a wrong message to Israel, encouraging it to use greater harshness and extremism towards the Palestinians. Egypt has deplored the law as a reward for the Jewish state when in fact there should be pressure on Tel Aviv to induce it to conform with the requirements of international legality. Jordan, the Libyan Jamahiriya, Iran and the Islamic World League, based in Mecca, have done the same, urging the United States to respect the historic and juridical rights of the Arabs and Muslims in Jerusalem, the site of many Islamic holy places, not least the Aqsa Mosque. But what has there been, apart from denunciations in the local press, to counter the new American “Balfour Declaration”?
The Arabs have not hitherto been able to compel, even partially, the US Congress, which is the citadel of international support for Israeli policies. That is why Congress takes advantage of Arab weakness to adopt the most prejudicial decisions in regard to the Judaization of Jerusalem and to entrenchment of its status as Israel’s “eternal” capital. This is the beginning of the end of the Zionist project, the eve of the beginning of the “war of transfer”, the strike against Iraq which will be used to uproot the Palestinians from their ancestral land and force them into a new exodus.
Writing in Le Monde, André Fontaine says, “Arab weakness emboldens the strategists in Tel Aviv and their American friends; it pushes them to play the precious card, aimed at making the Holy City their eternal capital”. Thus, he calls for an international stand in support of Islamic and Christian rights in Jerusalem. “It is better for them to arrive late than not to arrive at all”, he concludes.
Such is the secret of the Palestinian cry in the American “desert”, coupled with a question addressed to the Bush Administration: “How can American legislators decide the fate of a people in the most sacred of cities, by giving a sign of support for the Israeli occupation while ignoring a political solution and defying all beliefs and all rights?”

Arab cover on demand again

AMERICA DID not attack Iraq in 1991 until it secured the badly needed Arab cover, which was provided by Egypt and Syria at governmental level and all Arab Gulf states, at both governmental and popular levels.

At the time, those who volunteered to furnish America with the Arab cover in the political and military spheres, found a strong argument to justify what they did towards their peoples, namely the fact that Iraq has illegally occupied the state of Kuwait. They conveniently projected the conflict as taking place between Iraq and Kuwait and not between America and Iraq. They claimed that they were taking the side of an Arab party against another, based on the principles of law and justice.

Signs of American pressures to again secure Arab cover for the currently planned attack on Iraq are already perceptible, but so far, Arab governments did not oblige.

The US had no problem finding such “cover” for the 1991 Gulf war over Kuwait, as the Iraqi occupation of the tiny emirate enabled the Arab states that took part in the war to claim they were championing Kuwait, an Arab country, rather than siding with a foreign power, America, against an Arab country, Iraq.

But in 2002, those being prodded to provide America with Arab cover find it extremely difficult to do so, for now we face the prospect of blatant American aggression against a fellow Arab country, which leaves no Arabs, even if they have reservations about Iraq and its ruling regime, with any choice other than to oppose war and speak against it.

The pressure on Arab governments to yield to the US has been reflected in recent articles in the Arab press in general and the Jordanian press in particular.

Some pundits have been reassuring America that the Arabs will eventually abandon their hesitation and back America against Iraq, once its planned offensive actually gets under way. Others seek to justify American aggression by blaming it on Baghdad's provocative behaviour, as though Iraq's failure to submit instantly to American extortion is a form of provocation. However, the more discreet and less daring advocates of acquiescence to Washington couch their arguments in terms of future self-interest, stressing the need to curry favour with whatever new Iraqi regime the Americans may install in power in Baghdad.

Whether crudely or subtly put, such talk in the media will not change the blanket opposition of the Jordanian and Arab publics to American aggression, but it may be helpful to the American administration's hawks, for it gives the impression that Arab public opinion is divided between supporters of an American war on Iraq, and supporters of Iraq who oppose war — i.e., that Arab opposition to war is just one point of view among many, rather than the solid consensus.

It should be understood that destroying Iraq and installing a puppet government in Baghdad will give America and Israel free hand to redraw the political map of the Middle East, making Israel the unchallenged master of the region and America the sole custodian of the world's oil reserves.

During the forthcoming period, America will demand that its Arab friends declare frankly that they are with it in its quest to change the regime in Iraq. Its approach will be: You are either with us or with Saddam Hussein. And the providers of Arab cover will say that their goal is to end the suffering of the Iraqi people.