The refusal by US President Bush to meet with Palestinian President Yasser Arafat is a calculated snub — and it gives the lie to stories put out by Washington that it plans a new initiative to get Middle East peace talks back on track or that it supports a Palestinian state. It is also an unbelievably ill-judged decision when Washington is desperate for Arab support in the war against terrorism.
Bush, who has refused to meet Arafat since taking office, has to realize that he cannot kick Arabs in the teeth on the one issue that is of overwhelming importance to them — Palestine — and yet expect them to fall in line on global terrorism, especially when it involves bombing a Muslim country. He has to understand that while Arab governments want terrorism crushed, Israel’s terrorism against Palestinians and the lack of progress toward a Palestinian state are the more important issue for them.
No wonder ordinary Arabs view the Bush administration as irretrievably pro-Israeli. A meeting with Arafat would demonstrate nothing more than a commitment to revive the peace process. But even in that, Washington refuses to act impartially. It wants pro-Israeli concessions as a pre-condition to merely talking to Arafat. It is a very one-sided position.
Thursday’s attack on Arafat by US National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice only adds to the conviction that Washington dances to Israel’s tune. To say that the Palestinian leader is not doing enough to rein in militants is grossly unfair: Arafat’s hands are tied. To crack down on Hamas and Islamic Jihad would provoke a Palestinian civil war — and Washington knows it! But at least he, unlike the Israelis and the Americans, is doing his level best to try and prevent Palestinian anger from exploding out of control. Rice’s suggestion that there will be no talks with Washington until Arafat does rein them in is more than patronizing; it is downright foolish. In making demands of him that he cannot possibly meet as a precondition to putting the peace process back on track, Washington ensures that the process remains on hold — and the longer it is on hold, the greater Palestinians fury will become. Violence is fueled, not prevented by such shortsightedness.
Rice’s thinly veiled accusation of hypocrisy against Arafat — because he supports action against Al-Qaeda but not groups such as Hamas — is offensive. Hamas fights for national liberation. There can be no comparison whatsoever with Al-Qaeda. That she lumps them together shows that Washington has not even begun to understand the issues at the heart of the Palestinian-Israeli dispute.
Or is it that it does, and is playing the same devious game as Ariel Sharon, trying to discredit Arafat?
Even before the Sept 11 atrocities, Bush promised a Middle East peace initiative. There was nothing. Now he wants Arab support for the war against terrorism. But still nothing. Indeed worse than nothing: for while the Europeans, the Arab states, the Russians, the UN all agree that now is the time to revive the peace process, he blocks it, refusing to talk to Arafat.
And Washington wonders why the Arab world is angry with it!
