Once again Mr. George Bush Jr. has forayed into the arena of international politics with an attempt to introduce a peace plan on the Middle East, a region governed by domestic interests within the United States, and a US legislature throttled and stifled by a zealot Zionist lobby.
Waffling as he has been since he took office, Mr. Bush has possibly failed to notice daily incursions by the Israelis into Palestinian lands. Acts that brew the ingredients of violent retaliation. I suspect that CNN, Fox News and the New York Times are his sources of daily foreign events, a menagerie of one-sided journalism served in small segments that apparently is convincing enough for the general populace during the rushed dinner hour.
In his calling for an interim state for Palestinians until all the details could be worked out, I wonder how Mr. Bush envisions it working out. Isn’t that very much like inviting guests to a dinner party and have them nibbling on hors d’ouvres while the hosts decide what to prepare and serve as a main course? What should the Palestinians do in the meantime? Stand by and watch their homes being bull-dozed to the ground? Or better yet, watch the Israelis emulate the Soviets by building a fenced wall all around the refugee camps?
But first, he echoes, in words identical to those of his regional pit bull Mr. Sharon, "Arafat must go!" It seems in Mr. Bush’s assessment that Mr. Arafat has not done enough to curb violence against Israelis. Notwithstanding the fact that Mr. Arafat has been hardly in evidence to his own people locked up as he’s been in his compound, and the increasing butchery of the Israeli Army against innocent civilians of all ages in the occupied territories, Mr. Bush is adamant on this point!
Failing to grasp Mr. Sharon’s public and vigorous refusal to allow international peace-keeping forces into the region, or humanitarian organizations to aid the innocent and the maimed, or even to investigate possible war crimes against civilians, Mr. Bush is seemingly stuck on the groove of Mr. Arafat. Meanwhile, Mr. Sharon is busily proceeding with the building of settlements for Jewish settlers on illegally occupied land. It begins and ends with the suicide bombers, the Middle East according to Bush.
Perhaps Mr. Bush refuses to recognize that the struggle of an oppressed people, rooted out of their own homes and their own lands, knows of no other recourse than terror to fight back against a much larger and better equipped army. Or that a hopeless individual places little value on his life, futile in existence as it has been from the day of his birth. What is there to lose when one hasn’t anything to hold on to? Living under terrorism for several decades has brought forth mutations within a society that will remain uncontrolled as long as there is no hope in the horizon.
Instead, Mr. Bush is busily engaged in pushing the alarm buttons against terrorism everywhere else on the globe. An alarm call that is understandably falling on deaf ears in other parts of the world. I did not witness any terrorism in Korea or Japan during the recent World Cup, nor did I hear of any terrorist acts during the Royal Ascot races in the UK.
Your fight against terrorism is beginning to sound more like your fight for terrorism, Mr. Bush. Terrorism against those who disagree in principle against your foreign policies. Your "either with us, or you are a terrorist" validates your actions thus far. It is perhaps easier to bomb your opponents into submission rather than to try real diplomatic efforts to reach concrete and fair solutions. Exactly how many of the thousands of innocent people killed senselessly by the bombings in Afghanistan had a hand in the plot of Sept. 11, I wonder?
No, Mr. Bush. Your obsession of Arafat is not on the right track. And even given the chance to try to dissuade bombings against those who have illegally occupied their lands, I doubt if Mr. Arafat or any other politician would have much success as long as Israeli transgressions and Israeli generated violence against an oppressed people continue.
Perhaps Mr. Arafat’s ineffectual and unconvincing efforts at curbing violence mirror your own. From whiffs of dubious associations in the Enron affair, to your family’s ties with the Carlyle Group, to reports suggesting of White House knowledge of the attack prior to Sept. 11 makes me question if you are any more forthcoming than Mr. Arafat.
And if indeed Mr. Arafat is to be shown the exit door before any real peace can materialize in the region, shouldn’t you perchance be following the same path closely behind?
Tariq A. Al-Maeena , [email protected]
