ISLAMABAD, 6 April — With the Israeli war machine pounding the Palestinians resisting Israeli occupation and state terrorism, Washington’s present position on the Palestinian issue conveys complete moral and political bankruptcy. Mostly unarmed Palestinian civilians are facing tanks, F-16s, helicopter gunships all led by the blind hate and brutality of the popularly-elected Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. It is this lethal war machine that is expected to help ensure the security of Israel. In a morbid display of arrogance the American power dictates and demands what is eminently illogical. Yasser Arafat now restricted to the basement of his bombed and bulldozed headquarters in Ramallah, with no access to water, electricity and telephones, is expected to “do more to stop the violence.”
Arafat, reduced to candle-light vision and toilet-visits under Israeli surveillance is the Palestinian leader from whom the United States demands support against “terrorism.” The US President George Bush believes his anti-terrorism game is ‘on-the-roll.’ Anyone who threatens US’s strategic allies, condemns US policies and opts for the armed route to solving problems is of ‘terrorist’ vintage. Hence deserves elimination. With a conveniently ahistorical view of the Palestinian issue, Bush has only anger, no sympathy for the Palestinian bombers.
It must take either complete fear of the pro-Israeli lobby in the United States, a complete disregard of international law, a lethal historical amnesia, disdain for the Arab world or deep suspicion of the Muslim people for the US president to essentially support the current Israeli brutality. According to a former US envoy to the Middle East “US will give time to Sharon to go and clean the terrorist infrastructure in Palestinian areas.” The Americans are accusing Yasser Arafat for the “human bombs”, no different from the argument used by former President Bill Clinton, whose reasoning ran that any bomb planted in Israeli territories was much worse than the Israeli bulldozers that bulldozed Palestinian areas to build Israeli settlements. As if taking away the very elements of identity, home, land, politics, culture etc. are not an attempt to systematically ‘eradicate’ a people.,
According to a New York Times report of April 3, US Secretary of State Colin Powell has said he would consider meeting the Israeli and the Palestinian leadership next week. That has happened with Bush sending the secretary to the region. But what will that yield? If the intervention will be along the same old lines, seeking Israeli security from the occupied and frustrated Palestinians before demanding Israel to completely withdraw from Palestinian territories, no progress toward a just peace in the Middle East will be possible.
Washington’s mediation has repeatedly been on the side of the Israelis. The Tenet Plan was also in line with the Israeli demands. While the Palestinians insisted that the Israeli blockade of their territories be lifted and a settlement freeze announced at the same time as they take steps to clamp down on violence, the plan proposed that Arafat first take action against “terrorists.” He was expected to arrest hundreds of Hamas and Islamic Jihad supporters.
In effect Israel has demanded, and Tenet has agreed, that the very force that prompted the world to engage with the forgotten Palestinian problem, be curtailed. Israel would buy security through Arafat’s action while Palestinians would settle for Israeli occupation. After all no peace agreements have bought tangible moves toward an independent Palestine. Palestinians have been left clutching at straws — a statement from Washington calling for the Palestinian right to a homeland; a visit by the American interlocutor, a hand-shake from a US president for Arafat. Such is the utter humiliation, helplessness and naked frailty awarded by the ‘guardians’ of world peace to the victims of Zionism.
The indulgence of the same forces toward the Zionists have been so complete that all it has bought for the Israelis is insecurity and hate. This is the flip side of injustice. It devours its beneficiary. The innocent Israeli citizens seeking security, their children who deserve love and care, their young who deserve peace and a bright future, are all buried under the burden of injustice. All facing the brunt of frustration and defiance. In blindly buying into Israel’s real or imagined fears Washington has not served its ally well. Certainly not in the long run.
Washington’s ‘parenting’ of Israel has been disastrous. One of the US’ major Arab ally has spoken out on the US role in the Middle East. Commenting on the Arab expectations from the US the Saudi Foreign Minister Saud Al-Faisal said in an interview to the Time magazine that: “It is only the United States that supports Israel in every way — politically, economically and militarily — and that affects the policies of Israel. If it continues this guarantee of support, indiscriminately — “whatever you do, client state Israel, we will be backing you regardless of the actions that you take” — then peace is not going to come. In guaranteeing no peace and perpetual animosity, against continued Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands, between the Arabs and the Israelis the Saudi foreign minister said: “Sharon is driving the Middle East toward the precipice. Israelis rely on the superiority of their arms now. But how long will the superiority last?”
This is the message of perpetual irreconcilability, of perpetual instability in the Middle East and in the countries that support Israeli policies of enslaving if not massacring the Palestinian people. The world looks on as the very people that has kept through numerous gimmicks the memory of the holocaust alive is refusing to understand the pain and the injustice inflicted upon the wronged Palestinians. Such is the power of convoluted reasoning that Washington has locked itself into. However only more concrete political action by the Arab states, in support of the Palestinians, will force a rethink in Washington. Only then will Washington understand that the era of interim agreements is dead. It is time to start with the Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah plan; with Israelis conceding a Palestinian homeland and the Arabs extending recognition and engagement to the Israeli state.
