Jan 27, 2003 Op Eds

Jan , 2003 Opinion Editorials http://www.aljazeerah.info

He, the chairman of the world order, is sick and tired of seeing re-runs of old movies by the only one who holds the destiny of the people of Iraq at ransom. Both might think that they are excellent film producers but the world hardly appreciates their worldly cruelty to humanity in their pursuit of empire building and nation frightening! In the meantime, the third of the musketeers, is changing the rules of the sporting events of hunting — mainly Palestinian women and children and demolishing their homes to make room for more imported US and European Zionists to live in luxury.

For real openness to be realized he came up with a new rule. He is now for a borderless state that will embody the remaining Palestinians after the hunting game reaches its final moments. It is better for the Arabs of the twenty-two states along with their Arab League to wake up now before they are wakened by the nightmare of the extension of the border posts from the Gulf to the Atlantic. The twenty-two states would become “territories” within the empire of the borderless state which extends from the Gulf in the East to the Atlantic in the West. Then no political boundaries need be drawn nor geographical marks be required.

The plan of “no borders” for the Arab lands is worked out by the team of the Chairman and currently being executed. Might is Right with no consideration for human relations or international boundaries. The legal arrangements originated with the Treaty of Versailles signed after the first World War when the concept of “territories” was first introduced by Western governments. No Arab would be faulted if, he or she, considered this scenario to be cancerous. But he or she would be putting his or her neck on the block if he or she does not act soon to end the damage to humanity at large and the Arab nations in particular by stopping the atrocities of the three musketeers.

There are more enlightened voices and views about these dangers among the peoples of the World including the USA and Europe, than the worries and fears in the hearts of the millions of Arabs who are being sold for a song by the USA and the West.

The Arabs should use all the means at their disposal, from screaming to the Internet, with the sane billions around the World to awaken the consciousness of World leaders to put an end to the slaughter of the Arab people by the three musketeers. We are for the slaughter of sheep in two weeks time for religious reasons. It seems that they are in favor of slaughtering Arabs like sheep for materialistic expansion considerations. Arabs of the twenty-two states, you must wake up before you become citizens of “territories” in the empire of Zion.

Sharon’s war
Arab News, 27 January 2003

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon might not gain new votes in tomorrow’s elections following Saturday’s military incursion into Gaza City which killed 12 Palestinians and wounded more than 50. But this biggest Israeli raid on the Gaza City since the Palestinian uprising began more than two years ago will not hurt Sharon either. He can only benefit as he runs on a platform of no negotiations with the Palestinians and tough military reprisals.

Sharon is certain to defeat the new leader of the Labour Party, Amram Mitzna, who has pledged to withdraw from the Gaza Strip within a year. Mitzna is proposing first a call to the Palestinians for swift negotiations but then, if the Palestinians procrastinate or prevaricate, Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from all of Gaza and most of the West Bank, plus the completion of an impassable barrier to keep the Palestinians out of Israel. But Israelis, now an entirely post-Oslo people, are in no mood for Mitzna’s message of compromise. They feel that Labour’s last attempt at peace, under Ehud Barak, was a disaster and led to the past two years of violence that have seen more than 700 Israelis killed. But the paradox of this election is that under Sharon’s 23-month stewardship, five times as many Israelis have been killed in the intifadah than in any two-year period of Israel’s history, excluding wars. In two election campaigns, he made security his centerpiece but he has presided over more than two years of escalating conflict with the Palestinians with no peace or security in sight. And partly as a consequence of his inability to end the intifadah, Israel is now in the throes of its worst economic crisis in 50 years, with unemployment at 10 percent, growth at minus one percent and major cuts in social services to the poor, sick and elderly.

Sharon and his party have also been dogged by unprecedented charges of sleaze and bribery. Yet Sharon remains trusted — even though he has absolutely no vision for ending the 28 months of deadly violence. Despite paying lip-service to the idea of a Palestinian state, he promotes a settlements policy that absorbs into Israel large chunks of the land that would be essential to such a state and, in the name of fighting terrorism, has virtually destroyed any future self-governing authority. Recently, he staked out another hard-line position, claiming Europe was too biased against Israel to be a Middle East mediator and reportedly dismissing a US-backed plan for Palestinian statehood as not being realistic.

Because Sharon has continually risen unsullied and unscathed, tomorrow’s contest has instead become less about toppling him than about who will serve under him. The makeup of the next Israeli government will be crucial in determining how Israel responds to intifada and to a road map from the Madrid Quartet calling for the creation of a Palestinian state. Sharon’s Likud party is expected to win 33 or 34 seats. To get the minimum 61 seats in the Knesset he needs to govern, Sharon will have to form a coalition with a number of other parties. Neither the secularist Shinui Party, with its spectacular rise, nor Lapid, Shas or the National Union question Sharon’s right to lead; they simply want him to steer the wheel their way. Because neither Labour nor Likud will win enough Knesset seats to govern alone, they will be more dependent than ever on these small parties who in the end are likely to get more than half the seats in the next Knesset. Thus, more than half the Knesset will consist of parties which offer no answers to either the Palestinian conflict or the economy. A Sharon victory tomorrow will be certain but limited. He will have to unite with parties that are worse than he when dealing with the Palestinians, preventing any move that would increase security, improve the economy or endear Israel to the rest of the world. So the cycle of violence in the Middle East will continue. With an America preoccupied with a possible war on Iraq, Sharon’s war against Palestinians is likely to continue in an intensified form.

Blair is pursuing a high-risk strategy
By Neil Berry

Arab News, 1/27/03

Anxious to link Saddam Hussein to the general threat of anti-Western terrorism, Britain’s Prime Minister Tony Blair is abandoning rational argument in favor of uninhibited emotionalism. The other day he exhorted fellow British members of Parliament with doubts about the impending war to consider how they would have reacted had he informed them in the days before Sept. 11 that there were dangerous people in Afghanistan — people who needed to be dealt with as a matter of urgency. The prime minister was quite certain that nobody would have believed him. And yet just look what happened, he exclaimed — projecting as he did so the triumphal air of a barrister who feels that he can now rest his case.

Many among the British press hailed Blair’s House of Commons performance as a bravura stuff. Rather fewer seem to have pondered its actual substance. As a result, Blair’s improbable suggestion that timely intervention in Afghanistan could have prevented the catastrophe of Sept. 11 went largely unchallenged. One journalist, however, who found what the prime minister had to say less than cogent was the seasoned London political columnist Alan Watkins. With some reason did Watkins characterize Blair’s speech as so much “raving”.

If Blair’s efforts to justify waging war on Iraq are becoming increasingly frantic, it is not hard to see why. He is said to believe that if and when British soldiers begin fighting, the British public will rally behind them — after all, this was what happened at the time of the Falklands War in 1981 and at the time of the Gulf War ten years later. Conceivably, it could happen again. Yet at present, far from strengthening, public support for war is declining sharply; it may shrink still further now that Britain is at odds over the Iraq issue with its chief European partners, France and Germany — not to mention with Russia and China and much of the rest of the world. Opinion polls currently indicate that without a mandate from the United Nations, British people are against attacking Iraq by a margin of 2 to 1. Nor can Blair dismiss opposition to the war as springing merely from the “usual suspects”, from that familiar stage army of British “bleeding hearts” and anti-US leftists, such as the playwright Harold Pinter and the voluble old upper class socialist Tony Benn.

Apart from swelling numbers of ordinary people, the anti-war movement is attracting many media celebrities — individuals not exactly known for political agitation, like the football pundit, Jimmy Hill, and the former wife of Mick Jagger, Jerry Hall. Without doubt, opposition to the war is fast becoming as broad as it is deep. The organizers of the demonstration scheduled to take place in London on Feb. 15 (as part of a co-coordinated anti-war protest embracing many countries) are anticipating a turnout of historic magnitude.

It must be of particular concern to Blair that the Daily Mirror, a British popular newspaper traditionally supportive of the Labour Party, is emerging as the chief public medium of the anti-war movement. This week the paper invited like-minded readers to sign its front page anti-war petition. Some 15,000 people responded immediately. The paper also scored a not inconsiderable PR coup in recruiting to its peace campaign the Falklands War hero Simon Weston. A soldier who suffered disfiguring facial burns during the Falklands conflict, this esteemed figure wonders if the British public really has the heart for a war against Iraq. Weston has reservations, too, about how well-equipped the British Army is for fighting a war. Why, he demands, are the “best trained soldiers in the world” being asked to go into battle with rifles and radios of proven inefficiency?

Blair’s problem is that he lacks credible grounds for involving Britain in war against Iraq. There is no palpable provocation in this instance, no clear-cut casus belli — such as there was in the case of the aforementioned conflicts. The invasion of the Falkland Islands by Argentina in 1981 constituted an undeniable breach of international law. Ridiculous though the Falklands War appeared to many observers (the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges memorably likened his country and Britain to “two bald men fighting over a comb”), it could be justified as an honorable struggle to repel an illegal invasion, to right a flagrant wrong. The same was true of the effort to drive Saddam Hussein’s troops out of Kuwait. It was because both these military actions wore an aspect of legitimacy that ultimately the bulk of the British people backed them.

Launching a pre-emptive attack on Iraq, however — and without presenting evidence that the regime of Saddam Hussein represents anything like an imminent threat — is a very different proposition. Small wonder Blair is finding making the case for it to be a tough sell. Few share, it seems, the prime minister’s conviction that there is a link between Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden; few appear persuaded, either, that invading Iraq is going to lessen the threat of terrorism. Indeed, it may be that a lot of people are worried that starting a war will actually increase the danger of terrorist attacks in Britain itself.

What is perhaps handicapping Blair above all, though, is the growing perception that he is Washington’s “kept man”, a British prime minister who routinely does the bidding of his American masters. This perception is especially damaging in the eyes of his own party: That a leader of the Labour Party should have entered into so servile a relationship with a rampantly right-wing US leader is anathema to the party’s left-wing die-hards. But because the current American president is little liked or respected in Britain at large, it is also undermining Blair’s standing in the eyes of the whole British public.

Angered that he is widely seen as George Bush’s poodle, Blair recently declared that “anti-Americanism” is an unhealthy attitude, a “foolish indulgence”. At the same time, he insisted that his support for America over the matter of Iraq is based on what he truly believes is right. Yet in stressing that he is not the United States’ obedient servant, he is running the risk of seeming to protest too much — and of thereby simply entrenching the impression that he is in fact precisely what he claims not to be.

Blair believes that the Anglo-American relationship has served the world well — and that it will continue to do so. That America has in the past been a force for good in the world, many older Britons would doubtless agree. But in 2003 it is far from clear that most British people really want a leader who positively advertises their country’s status as America’s 51st state. By making more or less unconditional common cause with President George Bush, Britain’s impetuous prime minister is pursuing a high-risk strategy which may yet cost him his political career.

— Neil Berry, a London-based freelance writer since 1980, is the author of “Articles of Faith: The Story of British Intellectual Journalism”.

Who gave the orders to inspect a mosque?

By Firas Al-Atraqchi
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(YellowTimes.org) – A row has broken out between Iraqi officials and UNMOVIC over a controversial inspection of one of Baghdad’s largest and most populated mosques, the Al-Nidaa mosque.

Five UNMOVIC inspectors visited the mosque and interrogated its imam, Sheikh Qutaiba Ammash. They inquired as to the dimensions of the mosque and how many people it could house during prayers.

An outraged Ammash later held a news conference and asked, “Are the inspectors searching for weapons of mass destruction or are they trying to measure the extent of faith in our hearts?”

CNN’s Nick Robertson, speaking during a live broadcast, said that the head of the inspections team in Baghdad had no idea who gave the orders for the five inspectors to intrude upon the mosque.

Analysts in the region believe that the inspection was orchestrated by U.S. National Security Adviser Condi Rice to raise the level of tension between Iraq and the U.N. and provoke Iraq into the daring, if not foolish, act of non-cooperation. This would then give the Bush administration the excuse it needs to wage war unilaterally.

With only five days ticking until UNMOVIC’s dramatic report to the U.N. Security Council, the U.S. administration is facing an onslaught of domestic and international opposition to the military option. MSNBC today reported that seventy percent of Americans favor giving UNMOVIC more time to search for weapons.

While the mosque visit is sure to inflame many Iraqis, including many Shiites whom the U.S. administration was hoping would support regime change, it is unlikely that Iraqi officials will allow such an act to impede cooperation with UNMOVIC.

What is likely, however, is the growing sentiment throughout the rest of the Middle East and Asia that the current U.S. administration is increasingly hostile to Islam and is only pursuing strategic interests in the region.

In its desperate bid to change world opinion, the Bush administration has committed a grave blunder with the Al-Nidaa mosque inspection.

[Firas Al-Atraqchi, B.Sc (Physics), M.A. (Journalism and Communications), is a Canadian journalist with eleven years of experience covering Middle East issues, oil and gas markets, and the telecom industry.]

Firas Al-Atraqchi encourages your comments: firas6544@rogers.com

What may lie ahead in the Israeli war on Palestinians

Jordan Times, 1/27/03

ISRAEL'S "RETALIATION" against Gaza on Sunday for the firing of 7 Qassam rockets into southern Israel on Friday, which caused no casualties, was, at the very least, excessive. The death and devastation wrought by the Israeli army over eight hours of pounding the heart of Gaza were true to the ruthless modus operandi of Israeli occupation forces spurred on by two retired generals, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz. The military action, which left 12 Palestinians dead, around 65 injured, shops in shambles and Gazans in shock and disbelief, preceded the Israeli elections by two days. It was a typical Sharon show of force, with his typical disregard for the human and material toll his decisions have claimed. It was a show of force that he perhaps calculated will win his party a landslide victory. But something is astir.

Tomorrow Israelis will cast their vote in the Knesset elections and in the process they may not only change the political landscape of their country but also determine the fortunes of peace in the area. Unlike previous general elections, the upcoming polls are projected to not only keep Likud leader Sharon and his party at the helm but also push the Shinui Party to second place. If the Labour Party loses its position as a major political party, which it has held since 1948, the Shinui Party could well become a power broker in the formation of the new Israeli government led by Sharon.

On the domestic front, the Shinui Party platform is opposed to the privileges given to ultra-Orthodox Jews. When its leader Yosef "Tommy" Lapid, now 71, took over the party three years ago, he pledged to abolish the advantages granted to the ultra-Orthodox, including their exemption from military service, and their control over religious and other public institutions. As a libertarian and secular party, Shinui (Change) also calls for, inter alia, the acceptance of civil marriages. It is strong on civil and political rights across the board. Its emergence from oblivion to third and now possibly second place this year could bring Israel closer to Western democracies.

As for the peace talks, Shinui's credentials are moderate by Israeli standards. While openly rejecting Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat as an interlocutor for peace negotiations and blaming him and the Palestinian Intifada for the effective end of peace talks, the party nevertheless calls not only for an end to Jewish settlement programmes but also for the dismantling of most existing ones. The party also appears prepared to yield on the issue of sovereignty over East Jerusalem and is ready to accept the creation of an independent Palestinian state in return for an end to the right of return for Palestinian refugees.

While the Shinui Party may not be perfect from the Arab and Palestinian points of view, it could offer some hope for moving back to the peace talks. The hitch, as usual, is whether Sharon would opt to team up with the secular Shinui Party, which has expressed that it has no intention of joining any coalition government that includes the ultra-Orthodox Shas Party, or stick to the extremist parties in the formation of his new government.

Preparing the American people for war

Fahed Fanek

Jordan Times, 1/27/03

VERY FEW people believe that America is going to destroy a major Arab country like Iraq just in order to launch democracy, build a free market economy system and make Iraq into an example to be emulated by other Arab countries — Syria, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf especially.

Even fewer people believe that Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Vice President Dick Cheney and their ilk are impatient to go to war out of concern for the Iraqi people, or to protect the country's neighbours from Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, which no one — not even the CIA — is really sure exist at all.

Facts are what people believe. And the facts in this case say that the war America is about to wage on Iraq (using weapons of mass destruction, by the way) is just another step in a new American strategy designed to dominate the entire globe and build the greatest colonial empire the world has ever seen. Far from seeking to promote democracy in Iraq, what the Americans are really planning to do is to lay their hands on Iraq's oil reserves, help Israel control the Middle East on their behalf, and subdue Arabism and Islam, which “threaten” Israel's and America's security.

One does not need to be a genius to figure out that Iraq's neighbours are trembling in fear — not of Iraq, but of the war America is threatening to launch on Baghdad. All Iraq's neighbours have expressed opposition to America's plans. The Arabs don't see America as their saviour.

According to recent opinion polls, 75 per cent of Jordanians, for example, oppose America, 82 per cent are against America's attempts to spread its values by force, and 85 per cent expressed reservations regarding what the US is doing in the name of the “war on terror”.

No one, not even America itself, knows what dire consequences a war on Iraq might bring. The region will be plunged into chaos and the peoples of the Middle East will perceive the war as a clash of civilisations. Instead of securing American interests, a war would do the opposite, threatening American lives and interests and leading to even more terror.

Wars seldom achieve the aims of those who wage them. One has only to look at the consequences of World War I and World War II, the Korean War, the Suez campaign, Vietnam and the Iran-Iraq war. Even Israel's war of 1967 failed in its objective to achieve security for the Jewish state, turning it into an occupying power whose existence is constantly challenged.

The peoples of the Middle East, who have had more than their fair share of wars and upheavals, are familiar with the adverse effects of conflict. Unfortunately, American public opinion has not drawn similar lessons, thanks to the efforts of the American media that have been blindly following the lead of administration hawks. President George Bush knows this; if he doesn't, there are those who can illuminate him on these historical facts. Yet, he is busy preparing the American people for war — a process that has taken more than a year. Having invested so much time, effort and prestige in this project, Bush can no longer go back.

The Americans are a good, peace-loving people, and that's why it is extremely difficult to convince them of the viability of war. The American media, however, are working overtime to facilitate this task. Americans are being brainwashed into supporting war on Iraq. They have been persuaded that a small and beleaguered Third World nation like Iraq poses such a threat to the United States and its interests that it is worth spending billions of dollars and sacrificing thousands of American lives — besides opposing world opinion — in order to defeat it.

Are the American media up to the job? How independent are American journalists? And how committed are they to the ethics of the profession?

Credibility is a journalist's most important asset. It is a journalist's job to give his or her audience a true picture of events in order to help them understand these events and form an opinion regarding them. If the picture conveyed by a journalist is distorted or truncated, then he or she would have misled rather than informed his or her audience.

In an article he wrote for the Dec. 18 edition of London's The Independent, Robert Fisk described how some major American news organisations have become mouthpieces for the Pentagon and the White House, both in choosing what to broadcast or publish and when.

Fisk wrote that Roger Ailes, chairman of Fox News, who urged Bush to take the sternest possible measures against the perpetrators of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, turned out to be a faithful servant of Israel's interest. Uri Dan, Fox's correspondent in Jerusalem turned out to be a personal friend of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon who had tried to exonerate him of responsibility for the murder of 1,700 Palestinian civilians at Sabra and Shatilla in 1982.

Nightline's Ted Koppel, one of America's most respected anchormen, has gone on record to say that it is the duty of newsmen not to reveal facts until ordered to do so by the military. What are we to expect of Koppel and others like him if war were to break out in Iraq?

ABC admitted that it had known about the killing, last November, by the CIA of five Al Qaeda suspects in Yemen, four days before it broadcast the news, but it was asked by the Pentagon to wait. So now we know for who ABC works. The network delayed broadcasting the news to give the Pentagon time to concoct a story about the victims being important Al Qaeda activists and thus justify the Israeli-style assassination. At the time they were killed, the Americans were not sure who they were targeting.

For a journalist to be worthy of the name, he or she must be independent and critical. He or she must convey the truth as it is, without antagonising anyone or falling foul of the law.

US media failing in Middle East coverage

By Ahmed Bouzid

Jordan Times, 1/27/03

IF THE United States were a country where the mainstream press had the collective character and professional jealousy to make its own independent judgement about news priorities, rather than by default safely defer to the daily briefings given by the State Department, the White House and the Department of Defence, the following Jan. 15, 2003, UPI story would have grabbed the headlines, or at least made the front pages: “Israel is embarking upon a more aggressive approach to the war on terror that will include staging targeted killings in the United States and other friendly countries.”

As things stand, however, the story that Israel is planning to carry out assassinations right here, on US soil, has simply been treated as anything but that. As a nonstory. Also a story not worthy of the media's attention was the following news item from the Washington Post: “[Israel's] state attorney, Talia Sasson, had argued that [Arab Knesset member Azmi] Bishara and his political party, Balad, should be banned because they supported making Israel a state for all its citizens, which she said would contradict Israel's founding principle as a Jewish state.”

Is this the same Jewish state touted as the only democracy in the Middle East, as the only haven for the rule of law in a sea of anachronistic monarchies and thuggish regimes? And yet, not a word of indignation from otherwise moralising editorialists about an official statement from the Israeli government that openly declares that Israel is by definition not egalitarian and that anyone who would propose that it should be must be banned from participating in political life there.

We are now two years and four months into the second Intifada. During this time, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, B'Tselem, and the United Nations, to name just the most visible human rights groups, have all reported in great detail, with striking consistency and first hand, about human rights violations suffered by Palestinians at the hands of the Israeli army. And yet, the Associated Press, for instance, is still describing such human rights violations as if they were mere “allegations”, rather than established fact, or at least reported findings — as in the following from a Jan. 9, 2003, story: “Media reports also claimed the [Israeli] government was furious at Britain's decision to block exports of critical spare parts for Israel's Phantom fighter planes because of alleged human rights abuses by Israeli troops in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.”

Could it be that the AP reporter is simply not familiar with the findings of human rights groups? A very possible explanation, indeed, since some of their latest revelations have simply been ignored by the US mainstream media. For instance, little play has been given to a recent report from the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem that accused the Israeli army of engaging in the practice of using Palestinian civilians as human shields, in direct violation of the Geneva Conventions, as well as of rulings from the Israeli courts. In that report, “B'Tselem exposes a list of incidents in which the Israeli army violated a High Court of Justice injunction by using Palestinians as human shields. Little play has also been given to Amnesty International's Sept. 3, 2002, statement on the Israeli High Court of Justice's ruling “allowing the forcible transfer of two Palestinians from their home town of Nablus to the Gaza Strip on the grounds that they allegedly assisted their brother to commit attacks against Israelis”.

Amnesty went on to say: “Today's ruling effectively allows for a grave violation of one of the most basic principles of international human rights law — notably the right of any accused to a fair trial and to challenge any evidence used against them.” Such gross lapses in reporting could also explain why another AP reporter wrote the following on Jan. 5, 2003, the day two suicide bombers detonated in Tel Aviv: “The bombings also ended a period of relative calm. Previously the last bombing inside Israel was Nov. 21, when 11 bus passengers were killed in Jerusalem.” Perhaps the reporter who wrote that story was not aware that during this “period of relative calm”, B'Tselem released a report which revealed that over 80 per cent of Palestinians killed for “curfew violations” were children, many of them shot in the head, and that 70 per cent of those killed in the month of December were children, women and elderly. If he read his new item from the US mainstream media, indeed he would not know! And if a reporter on the ground is so uninformed, what are the chances that we, two continents away, can even begin to grasp the magnitude of what is really happening there?

The writer is president of Palestine Media Watch.

Sharon puts his money on a regional war

The Daily Star, 1/27/03

Ariel Sharon sent three messages with his bloody incursion into the Gaza Strip over the weekend. The first was a mere confirmation of what is already known: The former general laughably described as a “man of peace” by US President George W. Bush is in fact an avid proponent of conflict whose preferred method for prolonging it is to perpetrate wanton slaughter. The second was a belated election platform that serves notice of his savage intentions once Israeli voters have presumably reinstalled him in Tuesday’s balloting. The third was a challenge to the international community the first shot in the regional war that Sharon wants to grow from the seeds of Bush’s obsession with Saddam Hussein.
The pretext for the assault that began late Saturday night was that Palestinian militants fired homemade “Qassam” rockets into Israel from Gaza on Friday. The fact that the ineffectual Qassam strikes were launched only after Israeli helicopter attacks on residential areas was apparently not considered worthy of mention. Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz indicated that the assault was designed to “shake up the area,” but if he and Sharon had any thought of “deterring” the Palestinians (i.e. intimidating them into taking their licks quietly) they were sadly mistaken: At least four Qassams were fired into the Jewish state on Sunday.
In a sense, Sharon was being very straightforward. He and his advisers know the weekend raid into Gaza, the deepest in almost a decade, was devoid of military value. Even if anyone believes that the metal shops targeted in the incursion were actually used to build rockets, it is plain that the crude weapons’ use is made more likely, not less, by gratuitous aggression. The real mission was to create more “facts on the ground:” more dead and wounded civilians, more fear, more poverty, more tension. If Sharon can just get the Palestinians to come out and fight his US-funded 60-ton tanks and $50 million fighter-bombers with their flimsy rockets and 75-cent Molotov cocktails, he will have an excuse to make good on his threat to reoccupy all of Gaza. That, in turn, would ignite the region in the run-up to America’s invasion of Iraq and tend overwhelmingly to fuse the two conflicts as one in the collective mind of the Arab world.
While Sharon was engaged in exacerbating the crisis, poor Colin Powell was in Switzerland trying to mend the tatters of the Bush administration’s foreign policy in the Middle East. In a speech to the World Economic Forum in Davos, the secretary of state held out hope that an independent Palestinian state “is possible” in 2005 and added an acknowledgment that it should not be “diced into a thousand different pieces” by Jewish colonies. Sharon must have had a hearty belly laugh over Powell’s remarks, especially since the White House maintained a stony silence over the Gaza provocation. All that remains now is for someone to play a stringed instrument while Palestine burns.

Bring back the occupation

By Jamal Ahmad Khashoggi

The Daily Star, 1/27/03

The hour of war is drawing nearer and everyone in the region is fearful of what the evil Ariel Sharon might do, especially since US President George W. Bush to whom he is a “man of peace” has apparently given him free rein. Israel’s prime minister is waiting for an opportune moment when another Palestinian miscalculation would give him a chance to put his “final solution” into action. Sharon’s final solution involves getting rid, once and for all, of all Palestinians and gypsies.
Faced with bleak prospects such as these, the best possible outcome would be an official Israeli reoccupation of the Palestinian territories. After all, the Palestinians are effectively under occupation now except that they don’t enjoy the protection of the Geneva Conventions that an “official” occupation provides.
The Palestinians have suffered more humiliations and deprivation than any other people in modern history, yet even they have not experienced suffering on the scale of the systematic campaign of terror they are being subjected to by the present Israeli government. It is obvious that the Sharon administration is not terrorizing the Palestinians just because of its odious racism, nor out of a desire for revenge. Its objective is to break the Palestinian people’s will to resist so that they accept another bad “peace” deal.
The Israelis are carrying out their policy of terror skillfully and intelligently. They are not as stupid as the Serbs were when they used to provoke the world by slaughtering thousands of Bosnians in one go. Nor are the Israelis as indifferent as the Nazis, who destroyed the Warsaw ghetto with tank and artillery fire on the heads of its inhabitants (there are several Arab examples of this sort of behavior, but it is better not to mention them). The Israelis have not been using machetes to slaughter the Palestinians like the Rwandan Hutus did to the Tutsis, leaving their dismembered bodies out in the fields where camera crews could film them.
No, the Israelis have been carrying out their policies of ethnic cleansing slowly, gradually but effectively, assuming the victims’ role and brazenly announcing that they are acting in “self-defense.”
Yet the fact of the matter is that Israel has been committing a crime unprecedented in its magnitude against the Palestinian people. Slaughtering Palestinians has become part of electioneering there. Another fact is that the entire world knows what has been going on; the media regularly transmits news of the events going on in the occupied Palestinian territories to newspapers and TV stations the world over. While coverage has diminished recently, news is still there for those who look for it. It is very difficult to hide facts like the daily killing of five or six Palestinian children, demolishing homes (sometimes with their inhabitants still inside). Newspapers and websites (not necessarily Palestinian) are full of accounts of Israeli crimes that would make humanity blush.
Which brings us to the third fact: The world has lost interest in the Palestine question for a variety of reasons. While the Arabs have abdicated their responsibilities because of impotence, the rest of the world has either been sadistically enjoying the spectacle (you just have to read the odious commentaries published in the right-wing American press to see that), or has been cowed into silence by threatening American-Israeli campaigns that cannot tolerate anything that smacks of sympathy for the Palestinians’ plight. To cover up their aloofness, the latter have taken to blaming Yasser Arafat for not being as “appealing” a personality as Nelson Mandela or Mahatma Gandhi, besides blaming the Palestinian people for “espousing terrorism” and carrying out suicide attacks. “Choose the route of nonviolent resistance,” they tell them, “and we will support you!”
Israel won its greatest prize when the Oslo Accords were signed. After initially objecting, the Likud is currently using the agreement as cover for its campaign of slaughter against the Palestinians a slaughter that is being seen by the world as a “war” between the state of Israel and the “state” of Palestine (which, after all, has a flag, a Parliament, a police force and even a navy) that is supposed to be responsible for security in the areas under its control.
While the Israelis stress these aspects of Palestinian statehood, they are doing their best to undermine the prospect of a genuinely independent and sovereign Palestinian state ever being established. Statements by Sharon and Benjamin Netanyahu about accepting a two-state solution are all hypocrisies and lies. All that these two are interested in is proving to the world that there is a war going on between two states thus justifying Israel’s use of its overwhelming military superiority in “self-defense” of course.
Thanks to the historical error the Palestinians committed at Oslo, the legal status of the West Bank and Gaza as occupied land was lost. With the stroke of a pen, these areas became “disputed territories.” While foreign occupation certainly has its flaws including violating all the precepts of human rights it also has certain advantages. “Official” occupation is regulated by the Geneva Conventions, which impart certain rights on occupied peoples, and can thus prevent most of the daily violations Israel now commits against the Palestinians or at least document them. Contrast this with the current situation, in which Israel can evade its responsibilities because it is “at war with a foreign entity.”
The pre-Oslo years did not witness as much Israeli violations as are going on today. There were no systematic assassinations of Palestinian leaders committed on a daily basis, nor were homes so casually and imperturbably demolished. Air strikes were never used against Palestinian towns.
Immediately after the 1967 war, Israel practiced the worst-ever form of occupation. It appropriated land and destroyed entire neighborhoods in Jerusalem and Judaized them. Subsequently, though, Israel tempered its behavior in an attempt to impart a “Western” sheen on the occupation. The Israeli government passed “laws” regulating its troops’ behavior in the occupied Palestinian territories. No law, however, legislated for the use of Apache helicopter gunships against civilians.
The West Bank and Gaza must be redesignated Occupied Territories. This false “independence” has become a burden impossible for the Palestinians (and Arabs in general) to bear. Thanks to the provisions of the Oslo Accords, the Arabs have been precluded from interfering in the Palestine question, and have become mediators between the two protagonists. The most the Arabs can do is to make speeches and provide aid contingent on Israel’s agreement.
Arab jurists and legal experts would do well to look into the “prevailing legal status in the West Bank and Gaza” in order to determine whether it constitutes “occupation” or “independence.” It would be ideal if major Arab states like Saudi Arabia and Egypt support such an initiative by withdrawing recognition of the Palestinian Authority as a body responsible for running the Occupied Territories, recognizing it instead as a movement for national liberation, and as a leader of the Palestinian people (which is disputed by many Palestinians). The Arabs should declare that Israel bears full responsibility for the welfare of Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza, according to the Geneva Conventions on protecting civilians in wartime.
No one is in favor of degrading occupation; but in equal measure, no one should tolerate a bogus independence so humiliating to human dignity as the situation prevailing in Palestine. Bring back the occupation; at least it is more merciful than what Sharon is contemplating and what Bush and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld will surely acquiesce to.

Jamal Ahmad Khashoggi is a Saudi political analyst and the deputy editor in chief of Saudi Arabia’s English-language Arab News.

Iraq: America lacks partners to bankroll and fight her war

An Arab press review, By The Daily Star, 1/27/03

While Arab press commentators continue to weigh the implications of (a) the growing divide between the United States and much of the rest of the world over a war on Iraq; and (b) the closing statement issued by the foreign ministers of Turkey, Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan after their conference in Istanbul, the leader writer of the Baghdad daily Babil, which is owned by President Saddam Hussein’s son Odai, explains why he thinks the United States is in a quandary about initiating hostilities.
“In all their wars in various parts of the world,” Abderrazzak al-Hashemi writes, “successive US administrations have counted on two cornerstones. The first is that there should be some (non-American) sides to foot the war bill so that their contributions can later be channeled to American firms that produced the weapons and other gear necessary for the war. The second is that American soldiers be preceded into the battlefield by non-American troops who will pay with their blood for a victory that American soldiers can later claim as their own once they move in.
“The new dilemma facing America in its planned aggression on Iraq is that no one has come forward as yet to fund the war and there is not a sufficient number of states prepared to send their troops to die ahead of the American soldiers, now that most nations have become aware of America’s true motives namely, regime change in Iraq as a first step. They know that their warplanes, their missiles and their high-tech cannot change Iraq’s nationalist regime, which means that they will have to commit ground troops to face death in trying to occupy the country.”
Waleed Abi-Mirshed, writing for the leading Saudi pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat, sees the tug-of-war over Iraq dividing the US from most nations in the world as “the commencement of the collapse” of America’s “global governance.”
As soon as France and Germany defied America’s rush to war, he says, US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld dismissed the two countries as “old Europe,” suggesting that neither mattered much any longer in Washington after the balance of power in Europe had shifted eastward to new members from the former Eastern Bloc.
According to Abi-Mirshed, Rumsfeld is surely aware that his remark about “old Europe” made no sense. Europe could not have aged overnight, nor could its political and economic clout have shifted to the continent’s fringe states. What actually happened is that the United states could not under the administration of the Republican Party’s hawks tolerate the word “no” to its drum beating for a war on Iraq, even if it came from its closest European allies.
What this means, says Abi-Mirshed, is that the hawks in George W. Bush’s administration have “failed to help America pass the tests of the credibility of its global governance and of its ability to prevail over its double standards, whether vis-a-vis Iraq or Israel or North Korea.”
It’s too early, perhaps, to pass a final judgment on the future of America’s status as global boss under the Republican Party. But clearly the status has not survived long without being shaken to its roots under the Republicans because of the discomfort of its key partners and their disquiet, one after the other, over its unilateralist leadership style. Some in Germany accused it of lacking wisdom, while others in France accused it of being arrogant labels which until recently were restricted to the Soviet-Communist political lexicon.
Abi-Mirshed says if America’s closest military and political allies refuse its unilateralist leadership style, the least that can be deduced is that “the US has lost the moral legitimacy for global governance.”
Analyzing the outcome of the meeting of regional foreign ministers in Istanbul last week, Khaled al-Dakheel, associate professor of political science at King Saud University, suggests in the UAE daily Al-Ittihad that the communique issued by the six ministers following their meeting, while outwardly constituting a call for peace, actually strengthens the prospects of war.
The conference’s closing statement put the onus of avoiding war entirely on Baghdad and did not address Washington at all, which shows that the Arabs in particular are projecting a “weak and confused” position, he says. “The fact that Turkey a US ally and NATO member took the initiative for convening the Istanbul meeting and that most participating countries were eager to avoid mentioning the US in the final communique indicate that it was convened in coordination with Washington or on the basis of an understanding with it,” Dakheel argues.
The absence in the communique of any reference to the US administration, its role in the current crisis or what it should do to avoid war shows that “the countries neighboring Iraq are more fearful than ever before that war will break out” and “estimate this to be the likeliest possibility,” he says. It also shows that they had no hope that the Bush administration would respond to their demands, or that they feared provoking the administration into further hardening its position in favor of war.
Inter-Arab differences and Arab-Turkish disagreements on the text of the final communique dominated the meeting. Syria had pressed for including a demand that the US must observe and respect UN resolutions and cease threatening to wage war without seeking authorization from the UN Security Council. Damascus had also pressed for a demand that Israel comply with UN Security Council resolutions and be divested of the weapons of mass destruction in its possession. But Turkey, Jordan and Egypt objected to making any reference to Israel and the US, opting instead for a demand that Iraq should be dealt with “within the context of UN Security Council resolutions.”
The fact that Syria was overruled implies that the countries participating in the Istanbul meeting have a “strong sense of impotence about their ability to influence the course of the crisis,” Dakheel writes. So they decided to take the easy option of pressuring Iraq the weaker of the two sides in the confrontation “in the hope that it would respond and allow everyone to avoid a war no one wants, except the hawks in the Bush administration.”
Hence, their communique listed all the steps Baghdad must take to avoid a war, including the initiation of “national reconciliation” a euphemism for demanding that Baghdad embrace the various factions of the Iraqi opposition, which are mostly based outside Iraq and are collaborating with Washington to a greater or lesser extent.
The clear implication is that “the responsibility for choosing between war and peace falls first and foremost to the Iraqi leadership,” Dakheel says, adding that isolating Iraq in this way amounts to a “strong pressure tactic” on Baghdad to do its utmost to defuse the crisis that is suffocating the region.
Iraq’s ambassador to Turkey, Taleb al-Duleimi, who had called on the countries participating in the meeting to exploit their good relations with Washington to persuade it to refrain from attacking Iraq, must have been disappointed by the meeting’s outcome, Dakheel adds. But his words adding up to a “cry for help” also indicate that his powerlessness to influence the behavior of his superiors in Baghdad equals the helplessness of the six countries that met in Istanbul to slow the accelerating momentum toward war.
By making no reference to the US administration’s escalation of the crisis, its growing military buildup in the region and its threats to wage war, the communique, “at the very least, has given Washington the impression that its policies are justified.” The only “benefit” that may result from such last-minute intensification of the pressure against the Iraqi leader is that “internal cracks within the Iraqi leadership that some hope may develop into a coup in Baghdad” may result, Dakheel writes.
Mohammad Noureddine, a Lebanese specialist on Turkish affairs, has a similar reading of the Istanbul meeting. Writing for Qatar’s Al-Sharq, he says the meeting’s closing statement, which was riddled with “gaps,” “flaws” and “impossible” demands, is “a call to intensify pressures to topple the Iraqi regime as an initial step, and to justify war against it as a subsequent step.”
The differences at the meeting between Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia on the one hand, and Egypt, Jordan and Turkey on the other were startling, according to Noureddine. The former had wanted to mention the US, while the latter had wanted to omit any mention of the US in the final communique. The adoption of the latter option “is a certain victory for Washington,” he says.
The communique’s demand that the UN should be the arbiter of the crisis is “meaningless, given the flaw in the balance of world power.”
Its call on Iraq’s leadership to reconcile with its opposition and adopt measures to “establish democracy” is “unrealistic and cannot be implemented” since “everyone knows to what the Iraqi opposition is tethered,” he says, implicitly referring to its collaboration with Washington. That call, therefore, mitigated by a pledge to support the territorial integrity and security of Iraq, “is nothing more than a protestation of innocence of responsibility for shedding a friend’s blood” and actually raises fears for Iraq’s future territorial integrity. “Washington is the party that will be most pleased by the results of the Istanbul meeting” and will handsomely reward Turkey’s Islam-rooted government, which sponsored it, for passing a “very difficult test that its secular predecessors failed.”
Turkey’s new Islamist government has been playing a very clever, multifaceted political game aimed at gaining a leading regional role while pleasing the US, he writes. In his recent tour of regional countries, Turkish Prime Minister Abdullah Gul was conveying an honest Turkish position on the need to avert a war on Iraq, given that Turkey would be one of the main countries to suffer its economic consequences. But Turkey was also planning “not to burn its bridges” and to “activate its partnership with Washington” in preparation for war. So while Gul was promoting an anti-war agenda, his government was allowing US military experts to assess Turkey’s military bases “in preparation for what is to come,” and Turkey’s army-dominated National Security Council decided to help the US in the event of war, albeit in a “limited” way.
Gul heavily criticized Saddam but sent a minister of state, Kursat Tuzmen, and 300 Turkish businessmen to Iraq. And Turkish Foreign Minister Yasar Yakis staked a claim to 10 percent of Iraqi oil, resorting to an interpretation that far outdoes the arguments of even the most entrenched of Turkish nationalists, and “opening the door to a negative journey in Turkish-Iraqi relations.”
Turkey’s current policies resemble a “spider’s web” with threads that “extend and intertwine in every direction.” It coordinates with Iraq’s neighbors, builds bridges to Baghdad, consults with Russia and China, is open to military cooperation with the US, maintains a high-profile presence at the World Economic Forum in Davos, and enhances its relations with Israel.
Gul’s Middle East tour and Turkey’s push for a meeting of Iraq’s neighbors in Istanbul were a drive to portray Turkey as the “most prominent regional player,” Noureddine says. This provoked the sensitivities of the other regional states, which perceived Turkey as usurping the role of regional leader, and claiming the role of the “father” or the “senior brother.” This prompted the other participants to downgrade their representation to the level of foreign ministers, although Ankara had proposed a summit.
Noureddine also voices the fear that, in reality, the Arabs and Iran are colluding with Turkey.

Nothing to look forward to after the vicious attacks upon Palestinians
Gulf News, 27-01-2003
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In one of the most vicious attacks upon Palestinians in the past two years, Israeli troops entered Gaza City yesterday and killed 13 people, as a way to underline Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's show of strength for his new "get tough" security policy. It is very much to be expected from the Butcher of Sabra and Shatilla, for this is his renowned method of diplomacy, as a first and last resort to resolving problems.

It is a paucity of ideas or fresh thinking that has highlighted the Sharon regime's time in office. If, as seems likely, Sharon is re-elected as prime minister, then the Palestinians can have little or nothing to look forward to in relieving them of their plight. Although America has indicated that "The Quartet" roadmap will be presented to both sides after the elections, there appears to be nothing new in proposals. Even worse, in his address at the World Economic Forum in Davos yesterday, Powell called for "a change of policy, a change of direction and a change of leadership" on the part of the Palestinians, but only for the Israelis to stop building their colonies. No call to retreat to behind the 1967 lines. Thus indicating that the so-called roadmap is a non-starter before it has even been presented.

The faultlines in U.S. approach to Iraq
By Nasim Zehra | Gulf News, 27-01-2003
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In Pakistan, among government and non-government circles, the possibility of an imminent U.S. military attack on Iraq has raised major concerns. While taking the position of calling for a dialogue to settle the Iraq question and simultaneously supporting all multilateral actions against Iraq, sections of the government remain deeply concerned about the public reaction, after the attack actually takes place.

Mid-December the Pakistan Foreign Office carried out a scenario-building exercise to decide on the options available to it in case of war.

As a member of the United Nations Security Council, Islamabad recognises that it will be required to take a high profile position during the UNSC debate on Iraq.

The Pakistani public too, led by lawyers, human rights, women's and media, organisations are gradually becoming more vocal in their criticism of U.S. policy toward Iraq. On January 18, demonstrations were held across Pakistan to oppose a U.S. military strike on Iraq.

In Lahore hundred of protesters led by Pakistan's conscientious human rights activist Asma Jehangir marched to the U.S. Consulate and presented a protest note.

Significantly public protests against the U.S. cut across all ideological divides. Indeed like on democracy, it is on the Iraq question that Pakistan's religious political parties, the liberals and the handful of leftists all unite.

In Pakistan the relevance of the Iraq issue stems from Pakistan's continuous and deep involvement in Muslim causes especially the Palestinian question, ever since Pakistan's creation in 1947. Hence the supra-national Muslim identity of an average Pakistani and Pakistan's historic connection with Palestinians, raises for Pakistanis the fundamental question of U.S. intent and credibility.

While the United States engages in force accumulation and force deployment to increase its threat credibility, simultaneously its credibility is on the decrease in the context of the Middle East question.

The United States' current handling of the issue of the two I's – Israel and Iraq – is a study of complete contrasts. In Pakistan this study of contrasts is keenly followed at the opinion-making level.

In dealing with Iraq, the United States appears to be quoting chapter and verse from the laws of disarmament. But in Israel's case it wants the world to forget about the law. The end to the Middle East conflict is not possible unless the U.S. can force Israel to abide by international law.

There are laws and resolutions that call for an end to Israeli occupation. Continued Israeli occupation of Arab territory denies basic rights and freedoms to Palestinians. The U.S. continues to acquiesce in Israel's commitment to continued occupation of Palestinian lands.

The U.S. supports the occupier state through regular military, political and financial aid which leads to reinforcing Israel's occupational policies towards the Palestinians. Such unquestioned support also encourages Israel to sustain its belligerent position in the region.

What is Israel's occupation tool kit; the confiscation of Arab land in order to build more Jewish settlements, the expulsion of Palestinians, their arrest and imprisonment, the systematic torture in the prisons, the assassination of political leaders, the total absence of legal process, the demolition of homes, the uprooting of thousands of olive trees, the diversion to Israel of scarce water resources and the often indiscriminate killing of men, women, and especially, children. So much for Washington's commitment to global human rights.

In the United States itself there is criticism of America's Israel policy. The criticism is not widespread and certainly not at strategic policy junctures which can alter policy. Nevertheless it is scathing when it is honest.

Recently in a website journal James J. David, a retired Brigadier General and a graduate of the U.S. Army's Command and General Staff College, and the National Security Course, National Defense University, Washington DC, recounted the following main elements of United States Israel policy:

* Whenever Israel invades one of its neighbours or kills innocent civilians, the United States is prompt to veto any United Nations resolutions that criticise Israel. The U.S. could not even bring itself to condemn the Qana Lebanese refugee camp massacre in which over 100 civilians, including two American boys from Michigan, were killed.

Shielding Israel is an international embarrassment and places U.S. citizens in danger around the world, including our own soil, as we recently experienced with the Pentagon and the WTC attack. Israel must begin taking responsibility for its actions, and the erosion of our national prestige in order to protect Israel must stop.

* Israel discriminates against the Christians and Muslims who live within its borders in numerous ways, most notably by forbidding them to buy, lease, or rent 92 per cent of the land in the country, which is earmarked for "Jews only." Israel must decide whether it wants to be a democracy, or a state in which only Jews have civil rights. If it is to be the former, it must offer all citizens equality before the law.

* The influence of Israel's lobby and its political action committees has turned Congress and the White House into "yes men" for Israeli interests. Israel should get out of our politics and stay out. The promiscuous use of the label "anti-Semitic" to tar and feather any critic of Israel must also stop.

There is the constant reminder in Washington that Israel is a 'strategic asset' for the U.S. Once a former Senator James Abzourek pointed out, "to call Israel a strategic asset in the Middle East is like thanking the arsonist for calling the fire department that put the fire out."

Similarly Donald Bergus, a former ambassador to Sudan and retired diplomat, once wrote: "At the State Depart-ment we used to predict that if Israel's Prime Minister should announce that the world is flat, within 24 hours Congress would pass a resolution congratulating him on the discovery."

Given the current conduct of United States policy, it appears unlikely that despite its strong economic base and lethal military power, the United States will be able to convert its power into authority. Unless power is deployed for legitimate and credible purposes it cannot be converted into authority; authority which commands influence and clout in peoples minds.

Authority is the intangible which prevents and promotes tangible actions. It is the political and spiritual authority that individuals like Nelson Mandela, Pope John Paul, Quaid-e-Azam and Mother Teresa have enjoyed over different sets of people and nations. The common thread running through these individuals was their commitment to a sense of justice and fair play.

This has not been so in the case of the United States.

Indeed a powerful section of the United States formulates policy almost completely drained of justice and fairplay. Enamoured by tangible military power, these policy-makers believe greater geographical deployment of additional military power is the best route to increased personal, territorial and economic security of United States citizens.

While the battle cry of 'war on terrorism' dominates the international discourse on security matters what dominates the hearts and minds of millions around the world, including some in the United States is the blatant injustice that United States promotes. The anger that this generates is more lethal than any military weapon. For such anger often drains the human being of the fear of death.

Then the destructive potential of the angry is limitless; and to prevent the birth of this destructive potential is the biggest challenge of the United States.

This perspective is by Nasim Zehra, an analyst on Pakistani affairs based in Islamabad.

Voices of sanity echo in heart of America
By Dr. James J. Zogby , Gulf News, 27-01-2003
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Anti-war sentiment, on display during last week's mass demonstrations, is actually deeper and more wide-spread than those protests. To be sure, the demonstrations were substantial and noteworthy given the range of endorsers and organisers and the diversity of the actual participants. But, significant opposition exists on other levels as well.

In almost 50 cities across the United States, resolutions have been passed by city councils declaring opposition to the Bush administration's march toward war. Three items stand out. First is the range of the cities involved.

In the past, efforts such as this occurred in predictably liberal communities with large universities and a history of peace and social justice activism. So it is not surprising that university cities like: San Francisco and Berkeley, California (University of California); Ithaca, New York, (Cornell University); Madison, Wisconsin (University of Wisconsin); and New Haven, Connecticut (Yale University) have all passed such anti-war resolutions.

When the list, however, grows to include such major cities as Chicago, Illinois and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, then Washington had better pay attention.

Chicago's resolutions, passed just two weeks ago by a vote of 46 to one, echoes many of the themes found in similar initiatives passed in smaller communities. Major objections are raised against the Bush administration's "unilateral" foreign policy noting that: "A pre-emptive and unilateral U.S. military attack would violate international law and our commitments under the UN Charter and further isolate the U.S. from the rest of the world."

The resolution also chides the administration for failing to exhaust "traditional diplomatic efforts" and articulating a "clear strategic objective or outcome" both of which have cost the U.S. the "support of many of our important allies."

While acknowledging that "Saddam Hussain is a tyrant who should be removed from power, both for the good of the Iraqi people and for the security of Iraq's neighbouring countries" the resolution goes on to question whether or not "a unilateral U.S. military action would result in the installation of a free and democratic Iraqi government" and whether "U.S. military actions would risk the deaths of thousands of Iraqi civilians without guaranteeing the safety and security of U.S. citizens."

Finally the Chicago elected officials question the cost of such a war and conclude their protest resolution by objecting to a "pre-emptive U.S. military attack" and urging the Bush administration to "to work through the UN Security Council and reaffirm our nation's commitment to the rule of law in all international relationships."

A second issue to note in all of this national anti-war activity is the advanced state of the mobilisation even before a war has actually occurred. Congress may have been afraid to confront the administration's war build-up, but city councils, trade unions, churches, and other major constituency organisations have responded.

Polls show that the content of these anti-war efforts reflect the mainstream of public opinion. Even when a poll shows that two-thirds may express support of a U.S. invasion of Iraq, on closer scrutiny, the "softness" of that support becomes clear.

While the regime in Baghdad has no U.S. support, most Americans are not supportive of a unilateral U.S. war. They are wary of the dangers of the U.S. acting alone. They feel that the administration has not made a clear and convincing case, and they fear the impact of such recklessness on long term U.S. relations with allies and friends around the world.

A third item to note is the apparent spontaneity of the protests. While some efforts have been co-ordinated, and some groups have been instrumental in mobilising anti-war sentiment and providing communication links, for the most part there is a grassroots upsurge at work that is quite impressive.

As I have travelled about the United States, speaking before various community groups, I find anti-war sentiment to be widespread. Invariably, a statement expressing discomfort with Administration's Middle East policies and opposition to a U.S.-led war will generate an ovation from diverse audiences - whether student groups or gatherings of businessmen.

Given this, the widespread and still growing phenomenon of city-council resolutions, as a reflection of public mood, is important to note.

Another indication of the significance of this sentiment is its impact on the developing 2004 presidential contest. It is intriguing to watch the Bush administration attempting to make its case for a war. They may have the rest of the world convinced that war is inevitable, but they are not winning points at home.

When George Bush, senior, and his Secretary of State James Baker worked to confront Saddam Hussain's invasion and occupation of Kuwait in 1990 and 1991, they worked steadily to build public support. They started with the public opposed to a war - at that time, America's first since the debacle of Vietnam. But by making their case and building a massive international coalition, they gradually convinced Americans to support such an effort.

This administration has gone in the opposite direction. Public sentiment in favour of a war is diminishing and appears to be directly affected by our allies' rejection of such a conflict. As a result, the more the administration appears to boast that it will "go it alone, if necessary" - the more fearful and opposed the public is to such posturing.

Finally, this growing national sentiment is apparently having an impact on the Democratic challengers as well. Governor Howard Dean has been quite vigorous in promoting his anti-war credentials, using it to his advantage.

And last week, Senator John Kerry, a leading Democratic contender who voted in favour of the Bush administration pro-war resolution in the Senate, has begun to raise "grave questions" about the dangers of a unilateral strike against Iraq.

A note: what impressed Kerry was a television network sponsored focus group poll which showed the degree to which his position effectively resonated with U.S. opinion on the issue of war.

The writer, president of the Arab American Institute

India-Pakistan ties

By Mushahid Hussain, Gulf News, 1/27/03

PAKISTAN'S policymakers are perplexed by developments in India, with relations still strained and not likely to reach normalcy anytime soon. They have yet to gauge the extent of changes in India's own policies that might impact Pakistan.

The beginning of the 21st century is seeing several myths, carefully cultivated and nurtured by the Indian Establishment, shattered. These are with reference to the ideology of the Indian state, resulting in the vindication of the Two Nation Theory that was the driving force behind the 1947 partition.

Writing soon after the communal carnage in Gujarat last year, the prominent Indian journalist, M.J. Akbar, a strong critic of the genesis of Pakistan, was forced to concede that courtesy Narendra Modi, the BJP chief minister of that state, who was accused of complicity in the riots, the two-nation theory stood validated. For several decades running, it was fashionable for Indian intellectuals to deride the motivation driving the Pakistan Movement. They saw religion as a 'reactionary' or 'retrogressive' force that was an aberration from modern-day notions of nationalism.

Pakistan was presented as a different case altogether, as if there was something fundamentally wrong in the notion of rooting out an identity and nationhood on the basis of religion. Even on foreign policy, Pakistan's persistent pro-Americanism was dismissed as another case of dependency. In marked contrast, India propagated its image in the carefully cultivated Nehruvian image of a secular polity, a socialist economy and a strict adherence to non-alignment, while professing the Gandhian precepts of non-violence.

Ever since the BJP ascended to authority, the world has been witness to a remarkable transformation. There has been the corrosion and collapse of Nehruvian notions of state ideology, and an equally amazing vindication of the Two Nation Theory. This goes hand in hand with BJP's obsession to reshape the Indian image, identity and ideology rooted in their religion. Another myth laid to rest concerns the long-held view, by some even in Pakistan, that it was India that was more keen about promoting people-to-people contacts while an 'insecure' Pakistan was purportedly averse to such interaction.

Recent events belie this view. From bus journeys that helped poor relatives from either side easy access to both countries, to cricket matches and the Saarc summit, India has slammed the door shut to any contact with Pakistan and Pakistanis, both official and unofficial. Even the internationally respected human rights activist, Asma Jehangir, who is known for her anti-Establishment positions, was denied a visa to visit India recently, although she is working for the United Nations Human Rights Commission.

The Indian strategy seems to be aimed at achieving a two-fold goal: widening its hardcore conservative constituency that could pay dividends in the elections, and using the international political environment in the context of the 'war on terrorism' to push Pakistan into a corner. Their main theme has become, Pakistan is part of the problem, rather than part of any solution.

In any case, after September 11 2001, religion has been injected as a factor in international politics, more so in regional flashpoints like the Middle East and South Asia. Western political and intellectual leaders have been veering towards the view that the 'war on terrorism' is an expression of the much-talked-about 'clash of civilisations', although, thankfully, it is by no means official policy.

Among those promoting such a perspective have been the Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi, former French president Giscard and Russian President Putin, all of whom view the world as moving towards a cleavage drawn along religious and civilisational lines. With the war on terrorism focusing on the Muslim World, and even Muslim allies of the West not sure whether they are to be treated as friend or foe, Pakistan needs to rethink its India policy in the coming months. First, that appraisal requires an understanding of the adversarial neighbour's strengths and weaknesses.

India's strength emanates from its resilient democratic political institutions, its educational system that has managed to retain its quality (unlike Pakistan's) and its fairly vibrant economy, which lures in foreign investors into the world's biggest market barring China. These strengths have been translated into political and economic clout abroad.

Its weaknesses are derived from a combination of foreign policy failures and domestic problems that are endemic and continue to aggravate. Despite a cosy rapport with Washington and Moscow, India still faces a troubled neighbourhood with an absence of friction-free relations with any of its neighbours, big or small. China, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka are all at fairly high levels of discomfort, if not an occasional conflict, when it comes to relations with India. This serves as a roadblock in India's great power aspirations.

Regarding India's domestic problems, the prominent Pakistani-born British radical intellectual, Tariq Ali, gives an apt analysis in his book, The clash of fundamentalisms.

He writes: "The responsibility for a peace initiative rests with India. It is the most powerful state in the region. Its leaders should realise that the natural tendency of globalised capital and its imperialist masters is to break up states, not unite them. India's real problems are of its own making: its inability to push through social reforms that end the caste-system, its failure to accept that the Kashmiris are alienated beyond repair, its constant search for scapegoats to justify its own failures. India's tragedy is that as it seeks to become a global player, its politics is controlled by a gang of obscurantists in alliance with opportunists of every hue."

Given this context, Pakistan's India strategy should start thinking 'beyond the box' to a more imaginative, unconventional and pro-active, rather than a reactive approach. For starters, certain initiatives could be vital:

. Focus on the South Asian neighbours of India, all of whom share Pakistan's concerns regarding the Indian attitude that has put the future of Saarc in jeopardy.

. Don't use a tit-for-tat approach just because that is an easy way out.

. Take the 'battle for hearts and minds' into the Indian intelligentsia, and in contrast to India's restrictive visa policy, freely allow journalists, academics and NGOs from India to visit Pakistan.

. Build a new international coalition with non-governmental groups like Christian organisations, human rights bodies and other specialised groups that share some of Pakistan's concerns.

Only then will Pakistan be in a position to meet the new and different challenges from bigger neighbour, which are likely to grow in 2003. -

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