The real target
By Jonathan Cook, Al-Ahram Weekly On-line, 22 - 28 May 2003
Al-Haram Al-Sharif is the real target of Israel's clampdown on its Arab "citizens" -- It was an operation organised with the kind of ruthless precision needed to capture Osama Bin Laden. In the early hours of Tuesday 13 May, hundreds of armed Israeli police and security officials massed at different locations in northern Israel and snatched senior members of the country's largest Arab organisation. The biggest catch was netted in the Jewish town of Hadera. Sheikh Raed Salah, the nearest thing Israel's Muslim citizens have to a spiritual leader, was arrested as he lay in a hospital room at the bedside of his terminally ill father, who died only hours later. The security forces had not forgotten to bring an escort of television crews and photographers who dutifully captured the scene as Salah was led away, in the white T-shirt he was sleeping in, for interrogation. The official reason for the sweeping arrests -- a total of 16 Arab leaders were taken into custody -- was that Salah's party, the radical "northern" wing of the Islamic Movement, which rejects participation in Israel's national elections, had been funnelling money to Hamas, thereby aiding its terror operations. Referring to some $10 million that had allegedly found their way to the militant Palestinian group, Israel's Public Security Minister Tzachi Hanegbi said, "we are speaking of lighting the bonfire of terror and throwing gasoline into it so that it will continue to burn." He added that the money had been "camouflaged in the framework of charity funds and humanitarian aid but its practical significance was in oiling the wheels of murderous terrorism". Almost no publicity was given to a later retraction issued by the police stating that there was no evidence linking Islamic Movement funds with terror activities, such as "explosives belts or munitions or anything similar that comes to mind when terror is mentioned". Instead the police settled for a much weaker claim; that Salah's group had "laundered" donations from abroad. This appeared to be legal euphemism for a new kind of allegation: the Islamic Movement's leadership was suspected of directing funds to Islamic charities helping the victims of Israel's military operations in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, including orphans and widows, those crippled by the army's tank shells and live rounds, and those who had had their homes demolished by the army.

The Arab condition
By Edward Said, Al-Ahram Weekly On-line, 22 - 28 May 2003
Why do the Arabs never pool their resources to fight for the causes which officially, at least, they support. And how much further can we sink? --  My impression is that many Arabs today feel that what has been taking place in Iraq over the last two months is little short of a catastrophe. True, Saddam Hussein's regime was a despicable one in every way and it deserved to be removed. Also true is the sense of anger many feel at how outlandishly cruel and despotic that regime was, and how dreadful has been the suffering of Iraq's people. There seems little doubt that far too many other governments and individuals connived to keep Saddam Hussein in power, looking the other way as they went about their business as usual. Nevertheless, the only thing that gave the US license to bomb the country and destroy its government was neither a moral right nor a rational argument but sheer military power. Having for years supported Ba'athist Iraq and Saddam Hussein himself, the US and Britain arrogated to themselves the right to negate their own complicity in his despotism, and then to state that they were liberating Iraq from his hated tyranny. And what now seems to be emerging in the country both during and after the illegal Anglo-American war against the people and civilisation that is the essence of Iraq represents a very grave threat to the Arab people as a whole. It is of the utmost importance that we recall in the first instance that, despite their many divisions and disputes, the Arabs are in fact a people, not a collection of random countries passively available for outside intervention and rule. There is a clear line of imperial continuity that begins with Ottoman rule over the Arabs in the 16th century until our own time. After the Ottomans in World War One came the British and the French, and after them, in the period following World War Two, came America and Israel. One of the most insidiously influential strands of thought in recent American and Israeli Orientalism, and evident in American and Israeli policy since the late 1940s, is a virulent, extremely deep-seated hostility to Arab nationalism and a political will to oppose and fight it in every possible way. The basic premise of Arab nationalism in the broad sense is that, with all their diversity and pluralism of substance and style, the people whose language and culture are Arab and Muslim (call them the Arab-speaking peoples, as Albert Hourani did in his last book) constitute a nation and not just a collection of states scattered between North Africa and the western boundaries of Iran. Any independent articulation of that premise was openly attacked, as in the 1956 Suez War, the French colonial war against Algeria, the Israeli wars of occupation and dispossession, and the campaign against Iraq, a war the stated purpose of which was to topple a specific regime but the real goal of which was the devastation of the most powerful Arab country. And just as the French, British, Israeli and American campaign against Abdel-Nasser was designed to bring down a force that openly stated as its ambition the unification of the Arabs into a powerful independent political force, the American goal today is to redraw the map of the Arab world to suit American, and not Arab, interests. US policy thrives on Arab fragmentation, collective inaction, and military and economic weakness.

Now U.S. has its own West Bank
By James P. Pinkerton, San Francisco Chronicle, May 23, 2003
WHAT DOES THE seemingly endless wave of suicide bombings in Israel say about prospects for peace in the Mideast? And not just for Israel, seeking to pacify 4 million Arabs within its territories, but also for America, seeking now to pacify 24 million Iraqis? Most Americans might not yet see the parallel -- the reality that the United States now has its own West Bank and Gaza Strip -- but the Arabs see it plainly. For a hundred reasons -- theological, cultural, historical -- Israel has a special place in the hearts of Americans. But Arabs aren't on the same page. Not every dispute over land can be settled peacefully. The Anglo-Saxons, for example, made little attempt to find "common ground" with American Indians as they pushed westward from Jamestown and Plymouth Rock. But the success of the United States in claiming much of North America speaks to the basic reality of territorial occupation. Such occupying is likely to succeed over the long term only when the population of newcomers utterly overwhelms the existing population. That's what happened in North America. But that process of overwhelming did not happen in Israel, especially after 1967, when the country occupied the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The Israelis had many reasons for that occupation, including the liberation of their biblical land-heritage, the restoration of Jewish holy sites and the establishment of defensible borders. But, for all that logic, they never persuaded the large Arab population, whom they were settling in the midst of, that Israeli suzerainty was desirable. Moreover, the demographic dynamic within the Jewish state changed after 1967. Whereas the Palestinians were just a fraction of Israel's population in its pre-1967 borders, today, when the West Bank and Gaza are included, Arabs number about two-fifths of the total populace. It's that large population that makes attacks on Israelis feasible. Most Americans have little sympathy for the Palestinians. But after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, after Afghanistan, after Iraq, events in the Mideast are no longer a matter of distant discussion; the region is central to American foreign policy. And, to put it mildly, the United States is having a hard time making either the Afghans or the Iraqis like us.

Is Iran the next target?
By Patrick Seale, The Daily Star, May 23, 2003
Now that Iraq has been conquered, hard-line American Jews, supporters of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, are urging the United States to overthrow the Islamic government in Iran. A systematic campaign of accusations, lies, propaganda and disinformation, very similar to the one which preceded the attack on Iraq, is now being mounted against Iran by a cabal of neoconservatives in Washington. As in the case of Iraq, the real reasons for the campaign against Iran remain uncertain and ambivalent. Is the goal to spread “democracy” in the Middle East so as to make the United States safe from “terrorism?” Or is it to destroy any regional challenge to Israel? The most likely explanation is that it is a combination of both. The neoconservatives, who now dictate the pace and direction of US foreign policy, consider that American and Israeli interests are identical and cannot be separated. To understand the way American opinion is shaped, one needs to read and listen to what is being said in the American press and in Washington’s numerous right-wing think tanks. The Weekly Standard is a leading organ of neocon opinion. Its editor, William Kristol, one of the most strident voices in favor of the Iraq war, has now turned his bellicose attention to Iran. In a lead editorial on 12 May he wrote: “The liberation of Iraq was the first great battle for the future of the Middle East. The creation of a free Iraq is now of fundamental importance. We are already in a death struggle with Iran over the future of Iraq. The theocrats ruling Iran understand that the stakes are now double or nothing ­ as success in Iraq sounds the death knell for the Iranian revolution. “So we must help our friends and allies in Iraq block Iranian-backed subversion. And we must also take the fight to Iran, with measures ranging from public diplomacy to covert operations. Iran is the tipping point in the war on proliferation, the war on terror, and the effort to reshape the Middle East. If Iran goes pro-Western and anti-terror, positive changes in Syria and Saudi Arabia will follow much more easily. And the chances for an Israeli-Palestinian settlement will greatly improve. “On the outcome of the confrontation with Tehran, more than any other, rests the future of the Bush Doctrine ­ and, quite possibly, the Bush presidency ­ and prospects for a safer world.”

A ‘road map’ for diplomacy or duplicity?
Editorial, The Daily Star, May 23, 2003
The “road map” for Israeli-Palestinian peace and mutual statehood that was midwived by the US and formally launched by the “Quartet” a few weeks ago has been passing through its first shaky moments; it continues to shake, albeit less violently. The news Friday that the US would “fully and seriously” address Israel’s concerns about the road map, while also not accepting any changes to it, reminds us of the good guy, bad guy routine, except that the US here is playing both parts at once. One has the right to be seriously concerned when the US says it is considering Israel’s concerns. For Israel has a long and lively history of stretching out procedural dimensions of Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations so severely that they end up obliterating the substantive dimensions. Israel has mastered the art of stalling, and also of demanding security guarantees so strict that they become impossible to implement, thereby killing any ongoing peace talks. The road map aimed in large part to prevent this from happening again. The Quartet did this by offering the road map as an integrated whole that could not be dissected and renegotiated. It sought to test the willingness of both sides to take those tough decisions that are required to break out of the occupation/resistance cycle and resume the approach to peaceful coexistence through negotiated agreements. Israel already succeeded in postponing the road map’s official launch for some months, and now it threatens to dampen the road map’s prospects of implementation by coyly saying it accepts the plan but also has reservations and concerns that must be addressed before any talks can start. The fundamental dilemma here ­ both obvious and diplomatically fatal ­ is that a plan that is designed to address the rights and concerns of both sides threatens to fall flat on its face because of pressures to pay more attention to Israeli concerns than to Palestinian rights. While this is neither new nor unexpected, it does come at a delicate moment that was supposed to transcend precisely this sort of partiality and discrimination in favor of Israel, and at the expense of Palestinian and Arab rights and the integrity of international law and UN resolutions.

This is tactics, not policy
By Ze'ev Schiff, Haaretz, May 24, 2003
Israeli policy today is focused more on two main aims. One of them is to make a good impression in Washington, but the major objective is to do everything possible so that Israel will not be blamed for the failure of the current move, at the center of which is the road map. That is, so that the failure will be perceived as the Palestinians' handiwork. -- What is the government of Israel's real policy in the conflict with the Palestinians? Most of the government ministers do not have a clear answer to this question. Nor does anyone in Washington. Is the government aiming for small and partial solutions, or does it want to maintain the insufferable status quo? And could it be that its real intention is to bring about the collapse of Palestinian society and not allow it to achieve a serious political entity at all? Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has made various declarations in various interviews, and has retracted some of them. Therefore, it is difficult to draw his overall policy from them. Government ministers who asked to receive in writing the list of Israel's 15 points of objection to the road map encountered Sharon's refusal. Only some of the objections were read out at a government meeting. The ministers also don't know what the American response was to each of the points. A few months ago the impression was created that a certain clarification had occurred in the government's policy on the Palestinian question. Israel led the reform policy in the Palestinian Authority. This was a good idea that was absorbed well in Washington, and U.S. President George W. Bush included it in his speeches. The negative attitude toward PA Chairman Yasser Arafat, viewed as someone who does not want to stop the terror and put an end to the conflict, was part of this policy. This policy was also absorbed in part in Europe. A new Palestinian government was established, headed by Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen).

U.S. weapons will be taking their toll long after war
By Conn Hallinan, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, May 22, 2003
When the Bush administration totals up the cost of the war in Iraq it better be prepared to tack on billions of dollars more to clean up the toxic residue left over from this conflict, specifically its widespread use of cluster weapons and Depleted Uranium (DU).  While the shooting may be winding down, the consequences of the United States using these controversial weapons will be around for a long time to come, with clusters taking a steady toll on the unwary and DU poisoning the air and water. Cluster munitions bombs, shells and rockets that release highly explosive canisters that shred everything from people to tanks have been an environmental nightmare since the war in Southeast Asia. Some 90 million cluster munitions were dropped on tiny Laos from 1964 to 1973, of which 30 percent failed to explode. The result is a national minefield that has killed and maimed more than 12,000 people, and which continues to exact a yearly toll of 100 to 200. The United States used more than 50 million clusters in the 1991 Gulf War. In the two years following the conflict, unexploded bomblets killed 1,400 Kuwaiti civilians. This deadly legacy continues, while there are no figures on the number of cluster weapons or DU ammunition used, they were deployed in the first Gulf War, Kosovo and Afghanistan and it is assumed they were used in Gulf War II. For example, the British humanitarian Mines Advisory Group reported in late April that unexploded munitions caused 52 deaths and 63 injuries in one week after the "liberation" of the Iraqi city of Kirkuk. Almost as deadly, Depleted Uranium is ubiquitous on any recent American battlefield. The United States used 320 tons of it during the first Gulf War, and 10 tons of it in Kosovo. Its resistance to enemy projectiles and its ability to turn hardened armor into margarine gives the United States an enormous advantage over any opponent who lacks it. Anywhere from 30 percent to 70 percent of DU turns into tiny dust particles, which may travel as far as 40 kilometers. DU is not very radioactive -- about the same as naturally occurring uranium -- but if ingested, according to the U.S. Environmental Policy Institute, it "has the potential to generate significant medical consequences."

The Bribe
By MIFTAH, May 22, 2003
Israel has found its most powerful political tool in the ‘road map’ and is milking it for all its worth. The U.S. administration, faced with rising pressure from the international community, needs to sell the image that it is throwing its weight on both Palestinians and Israelis to adhere with the peace plan. Yet the U.S. administration does not want to upset Israel and alienate the flourishing American support for Israel. Hence, a situation is created whereby if America is to ensure the ‘road map’ is not quickly written off as another failure without pressuring Israel, heavy concessions must be made to tempt Sharon’s government to fall in line. The initial step was for the Americans to make it clear to Sharon that like the Israelis, they also believe Mahmoud Abbas' chances of taking control of the Palestinian National Authority and disarming the various Palestinian militias are very small. That said, America does not want Israel to be seen as trying to obstruct Abbas and the peace process, and so they are willing to offer Israel incentives to officially accept the ‘road map’ that both sides know will never see fruition. The U.S. is, in simple terms, offering Israel a bribe to ensure they will not be publicly embarrassed.

Road Map or Road Kill?
By Rashid I. Khalidi, MIFTAH, May 24, 2003 
Apparently having learned nothing from the collapse of earlier efforts, the mainly American drafters of the road map included several features that almost guarantee its failure. One is the absence of a fixed timetable. Thus either party (in practice the Israelis, if the past is any indication) can hold up movement from stage to stage and within each stage. Another feature is the addition of interim phases to a process that is already prolonged. This means, in effect, the postponement of the most difficult aspect of the resolution of the conflict--the negotiation of issues like settlements, sovereignty, Jerusalem and refugees--until a third phase, which, if past practice is any guide, means indefinitely. The theory of interim agreements, beloved of pro-Israeli "peace processors" in the Bush I and Clinton administrations, should have been buried for good by now, after the spectacular failure of the Madrid-Oslo approach, which relied on such phased interim agreements. But this theory is resuscitated once more in the road map, in the form of a gratuitous proposal for "an independent Palestinian state with provisional borders and attributes of sovereignty." If the plan gets that far, this is a sure recipe for endless discord, which will be exploited by Israel to procrastinate further, while keeping the essentials of the military occupation and most Israeli settlements in business indefinitely, and restricting Palestinian control to as little of the occupied territories as possible--40 percent of the West Bank, if Ariel Sharon has his way. It is here that the road map is the most flawed. For in failing to focus on the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, about to enter its thirty-seventh year, and on Israeli settlements, which underpin that occupation, the road map misses an opportunity to end this conflict. Instead, it concentrates on Palestinian violence and how to combat it--as if it came out of nowhere, and as if, were it to be halted, the situation of occupation and settlement would be normal. This is a reflection of the preponderant US role in the drafting of this document. It is also a sign of why it will probably fail, for official Washington is obsessively fixated on Palestinian violence as the root cause of all the problems between Palestinians and Israelis.