ARAB SUMMITS - RIDICULOUS SPECTACLES
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ARAB SUMMITS - RIDICULOUS SPECTACLES

March 27, 2001

"They will do nothing except talk and lie to their people."

U.S. PREVENTS U.N. ACTION TO PROTECT PALESTINIANS

Arab "leaders", the "client regimes", and Arab "summits", have been ridiculous spectacles for a long time now. Last time they met like this the American armies were descending on Arabia, getting ready to destroy Iraq and put one of their own, the despicable British-created Emir, back on his oil throne in Kuwait City. Those armies, and their associated legions, have never really left; and "the Arab world" today, as the Arab summiteers gather once again, remains neo-occupied by the Anglo-Americans and frightened into cowardice and submission by the little Israelis.

PALESTINIANS LOSE HOPE ON SUMMIT

By JAMAL HALABY

BAQAA CAMP, Jordan (AP - 26 March ) - Sabiha Abu-Kum gazed at the sky and said, ``Allah can only help us, not Arab leaders.''

``They will do nothing except talk and lie to their people,'' said the 47-year-old Palestinian, who took shelter in this dusty refugee camp after fleeing her home in the West Bank town of Ramallah during the 1967 Middle East war.

``Arab summits never did anything to us, so why should this one be any different?'' Abu-Kum asked Monday, referring to the two-day meeting of Arab heads of state which as opening in Jordan on Tuesday.

The summit is expected to discuss the fate of Middle East peacemaking under hawkish Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and support for the Palestinian uprising. More than 430 people have been killed in six months of violence in Israel and the Palestinian territories.

But differences over how to tackle an Iraqi request that the summit call for a lifting of 10-year-old sanctions have dominated three days of discussions of Arab foreign ministers, whose recommendations will be the basis of the summit's deliberations.

Abu-Kum's sentiment was shared by many refugees across the Arab world, who were pessimistic that the summit will help them return to the homes they lost in wars with Israel in the last five decades or end Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

In Lebanon's Ein el-Hilweh refugee camp, Palestinians echoed militant remarks.

``If Arab leaders really want to help us, let them open their boundaries with Israel to Palestinian fighters and provide them with weapons,'' said Mounir Makdah, a leader of Fatah, a breakaway faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

``It is only through the uprising that our state will be established,'' he said.

In Baqaa, the largest of Jordan's 13 U.N.-run refugee settlements housing some 1.57 million Palestinians, residents were equally angry.

``Peace with Israel has proved to be a big joke and what has been taken by force will not be restored by peace, but force,'' said Osama Abdul-Rahim, 24, an unemployed college graduate.

``Arab leaders will not allow this because they are protecting Israel to appease its guardian, the United States,'' said the native of Abu-Dis, a Jerusalem suburb.

Abdul-Rahim's neighbor, Ibrahim Odeh, 50, said Tuesday's summit, just like the one held in Egypt five months ago, ``is a waste of time.''

``Those summits are just talk shops and the best thing for the leaders is just to give money to the Palestinians and let them resist the Israeli occupation on their own,'' said the construction worker, who is originally from the West Bank town of Nablus.

On the other side of the camp, 17 miles northwest of the Jordanian capital Amman, Fawaz Ismail left a crowded mosque after performing Muslim noon prayers.

``I beseeched God to make Arab leaders stop selling their people and Palestine to the Zionists,'' said the bearded 30-year-old refugee, a native of Daheriyeh, a village near Hebron.

Sultan Abu el-Abed, 77, a retired carpenter from the Israeli town of Lod, said the Arab governments are ``acting like children.''

``They are quarreling over Iraq and Kuwait while innocent Palestinians are being killed each day by the hands of the Israelis in Palestine,'' he said.

``And what about us, refugees?'' he asked with a sigh. ``We're totally forgotten. This is the crime.''

U.N. UNABLE TO ADOPT MIDEAST CRISIS RESOLUTION

By Evelyn Leopold

UNITED NATIONS, March 27 (Reuters) - The U.N. Security Council failed to reach agreement early on Tuesday on a resolution aimed at ending six months of Israeli-Palestinian clashes before an Arab summit opened in Amman, Jordan.

"It doesn't look promising," said Palestinian observer Nasser al-Kidwa. "We think that we are almost at the end of the road with the negotiations with the United States and the Europeans. But we'll give it another try."

The Palestinians and their supporters had been pressing for a council vote before the beginning of the Arab League summit but missed the deadline. The council adjourned until morning.

However, a small group of key diplomats, including chief U.S. envoy James Cunningham and al-Kidwa, talked throughout the night, an indication there might yet be a breakthrough.

"We're close enough that we could agree if the others were willing to come on board. And we're far enough apart that we could easily not agree," Cunningham said.

Western diplomats are urging the Palestinians to accept a compromise or risk destroying any chance of a good relationship with the new administration of President George W. Bush.

One envoy said American positions went beyond what the former Clinton administration probably would have accepted, including expressing "grave concern" at the humanitarian and economic situation in the West Bank and Gaza and commenting on the expansion of settlements.

But al-Kidwa said that the seven nations who backed him on the council would put the original Palestinian-initiated resolution to a vote if there were no agreed text.

That draft calls for an unarmed U.N. observer force to protect Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza -- an action Washington would veto.

A resolution in the 15-member council needs nine votes in favor and no veto from any one of its five permanent members. A measure calling for a U.N. observer force failed in December because it obtained only eight votes, thereby sparing Washington the use of its veto.

The Security Council is trying to merge three general positions: the Palestinian one, a European compromise and the United States stand.

The Palestinians and their seven supporters on the Security Council want members to express willingness for an observer force or at least leave the door open for one by agreeing on an unspecified "mechanism" to protect civilians.

At least 349 Palestinians, 66 Israelis and 13 Israeli Arabs have been killed in six months of violence between Palestinians and Israeli soldiers.

And the United States, Israel's ally, has been negotiating intensely on a text that would not commit council members to any specific action without the agreement of both Israel and the Palestinians.

Western European members of the council -- Britain, France, Ireland and Norway -- have proposed a compromise draft, which is the basis for most of the negotiations.

This calls for U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to explore a "mechanism" to protect civilians but leaves it up to him to negotiate with the parties.

The Europeans want the council to play a role in the crisis but do not want any resolution that would draw a U.S. veto. They would abstain on the original Palestinian text.

Israel opposes any resolution. "It will keep this issue open for further and further harassment," Israeli ambassador Yehuda Lancry said. "The best way to encourage Israelis and Palestinians is to call for a quick resumption of negotiations, a call to end violence."

While Israel has welcomed Annan's quiet mediation, it does not want the world body itself playing a role. Arab nations can muster a majority of votes for any action in the 189-member U.N. General Assembly, which might deal with the issue if the council fails to adopt a resolution.

In practice, there can be no observer force without Israel's consent as no country would, under such circumstances, offer the United Nations personnel. But Palestinians want the council to acknowledge outside help is needed.


March 2001


Magazine



SHARON UPSCALES VIOLENCE TO UNPRECEDENTED LEVELS
(March 31, 2001)
Yesterday, on Palestinian Land Day, the Israeli army killed five Palestinians in Nablus and one in Ramallah during civilian demonstrations protesting the Israeli occupation. 150 Palestinians were injured, several of them in critical condition.

CHOMSKY ON THE MID-EAST CONFLICT
(March 31, 2001)
Well, just how dangerous is the crisis in the Middle East? There is a UN Special Envoy, a Norwegian, Roed-Larson. A couple of days ago, he warned that Israel's blockade of the Palestinian areas is leading to enormous suffering and could rapidly detonate a regional war.

FIVE PALESTINIANS KILLED AS WAR OF WORDS FLARES IN MIDDLE EAST
(March 30, 2001)
Clashes raged across the Palestinian territories Friday, killing five Palestinians, as Israelis and Palestinians exchanged fiery rhetoric on the traditionally violent anniversary of a 1976 Israeli crackdown on Arab demonstrators.

CLASHES ERUPT AMID WAVE OF ANTI-ISRAELI PROTESTS
(March 30, 2001)
Israeli troops opened fire with live rounds on Friday to try to halt Palestinians marching in cities across the West Bank and Gaza Strip to demand civil rights and an end to Israeli occupation.

AN ISRAELI OFFERS HOPE AMIDST THE DARKNESS
(March 30, 2001)
In the past two weeks, we are witnessing the beginning of a new phase: Israelis and Palestinians are extending a hesitant hand to each other, across the IDF's barricades and checkpoints.

A CONFLICT SINKING TO NEW DEPTHS
(March 29, 2001)
The conflict between Israel and the Palestinians has sunk to appalling new depths with several days of intensified violence that left children on both sides to form the bulk of the dead.

ISRAELIS STRIKE, NOBODY RESPONDS
(March 29, 2001)
The Egyptians and Jordanians could and should totally suspend their relations with Israel; but they do not. The Arabs could collectively demand Israel be suspended from the U.N. General Assembly; but they did not decide to do so at their little summit just ended where they in fact did nothing serious.

ASSAD & SADDAM "ATTACK"
(March 28, 2001)
Lot of rhetoric, more than expected in fact. But mostly a smookescreen for never-ending impotence and inexcuseable weakness. So much for the Arab Summit in Amman. Until those Arab "leaders" who have squandered the wealth and heritage of their countries, and indeed of their once powerful civilization, are replaced; until the "client regimes" of the Arab world are no more; this tragic spectacle known as Arab "summits" will continue to be a deep embarrassment and a historic tragedy.

ARAB SUMMITS - RIDICULOUS SPECTACLES
(March 27, 2001)
Arab "leaders", the "client regimes", and Arab "summits", have been ridiculous spectacles for a long time now. Last time they met like this the American armies were descending on Arabia, getting ready to destroy Iraq and put one of their own, the despicable British-created Emir, back on his oil throne in Kuwait City.

ARAB SUMMITEERS AND CROCODILE TEARS
(March 26, 2001)
"They will talk and talk and talk and look important and remain as always, impotent, indecisive and inactive. They might pledge a few pennies to the Palestinian dying or the mortally wounded, they might voice support of the 6-month-old Intifida, but nothing but pomp and ceremony will come of it all."

TIME TO FORCE A U.S. VETO AND TAKE SERIOUS ACTION AGAINST ISRAEL
(March 25, 2001)
What the Arab States meeting in summit in Amman on Tuesday should do is not a mystery: First they should insist on a U.N. Security Council resolution that has teeth; and if the U.S. vetos so be it.

THE U.N. AND THE ARAB LEAGUE CHARADES
(March 25, 2001)
The U.N. and Arab League charades have gone on for so many years now. Never has either body taken serious action when it comes to Israel. Always the U.S. is there to block the way, to twist things from potentially useful to impotent, to manuever so that the U.S. remains dominant internationally and Israel remains dominant in the region.

ISRAELI ARMY BRUTALLY ATTACKS PEACEFUL CIVILIAN PROTEST MARCH
(March 24, 2001)
Today at 1:00 p.m., the Israeli army fired sound bombs, tear gas, and rubber coated steel bullets at thousands of peaceful protesters at the Al-Ram checkpoint.

SHARON MOVING FAST
(March 24, 2001)
haron and company are now likely to move quickly to further "control" the Palestinians and establish their hegemonic and war-threatening policies in the Middle East.

Today in Occupied Palestine
(March 23, 2001)
Amr Moussa and the Arab political elite representing the "client regimes" have been deceived and acted foolishingly, as well as selfishly, for quite a long time now.

AL-JAZEERA - ARAFAT STILL TWISTS TO ISRAELI AND U.S. TUNE
(March 22, 2001)
Al-Jazeera satellite TV now feeds a hungry Arab world, one starved for so long that even this carefully-controlled Qatari-financed TV news and pictures source has met with considerable success.

WHAT SHOULD BE WITH ISRAEL
(March 22, 2001)
If the Arabs regimes were serious, indeed if they were truly independent, they would institute a Arab and Muslim regional boycott of Israel at this point, at least suspend all diplomatic and economic relations with Israel, and forcefully move to have the U.N. General Assembly suspend Israeli credentials (as was done with South Africa in the days of Apartheid) as soon as the U.S. again prevents the Security Council from acting in the days ahead.

ARAB AND MUSLIM GROUPS IN USA WORSE THAN EVER
(March 20, 2001)
We were wrong in our analysis earlier today. The Arab and Muslim groups did not even manage a few hundred protestors at the White House today -- the number was closer to a few dozen at most, including the handful of fanatical bearded and side-curled Naturei Karta Jews who are encouraged by these groups to show up these days.

WASHINGTON SCENE: ARAB AND MUSLIM GROUPS PROVE IMPOTENCE ONCE AGAIN
(March 20, 2001)
It's depressing, almost pathetic, to watch the Arab and Muslim American groups "protest" these days. Leaderless and strategyless, though as usual feverishly combining all of their capabilities together to create even this, the groups managed to bring maybe five or six hundred persons to the sidewalk across from the Washington Hilton last evening for a carefully self-controlled demonstration.

WHAT ISRAEL IS DOING IS "FORBIDDEN"
(March 19, 2001)
"What is being done in the territories is simply forbidden. To safeguard against such acts, people have established laws and norms; those who wish to return to the norms current a century ago ought not to be surprised when they are treated as pariahs - indeed, as ghosts from bygone days."

ARABS URGE U.N. TO SEND INTERNATIONAL FORCE TO PALESTINIAN
(March 16, 2001)
The Israelis will insist on a U.S. veto of any Security Council resolution involving any serious observer force. And Shimon Peres willingly serving Ariel Sharon as his Foreign Minister makes it much easier for the Israelis to deflect international pressures.

WE DIDN'T SEE; WE DIDN'T KNOW
(March 15, 2001)
The Palestinian people have many symbols, and one of them is Bir Zeit university near Ramallah - the secular intellectual center of the society.

SHARON COMETH
(March 14, 2001)
Monday in Washington the various Arab-American groups will stage a protest demonstration outside the Washington Hilton where now Prime Minister Ariel Sharon will be talking to the lead organization that makes up the Israeli-Jewish lobby in Washington.

U.S. MEDIA ESTABLISHMENT HELPS PREPARE SHARON'S WAY
(March 13, 2001)
Sharon's PR people are working hard preparing his way for a triumphant visit to the USA in a few days. They choose Lally Weymouth, long a "friendly journalist", for one of his first major interviews -- published in Newsweek this week.

ISRAELI CONCENTRATION CAMPS
(March 12, 2001)
If barbed wire were used, the symbolism would be too much like concentration camps of old.

BIR ZEIT UNIVERSITY CRIES OUT FOR HELP
(March 11, 2001)
As usual these days, the Palestinian people are being collectively tortured into submission with still expanding forms of bondage, oppression, and brutal force.

PERES FRONTS FOR SHARON AS ISRAELIS PUSH FORWARD MAJOR PROPAGANDA
(March 10, 200198)
Who is more despicable is debateable these days. But surely Shimon Peres is deserving of nomination. As Israeli army snipers pick off Palestinians and as Israeli army bulldozers dig trenches around Palestinian towns and cities, Peres fronts for the new Sharon regime telling the world the Israelis are going to "make life better for the Palestinians"!

TRENCH AND SIEGE WARFARE
(March 8, 2001)
The words, and the acts, go back before the bible itself -- trench warfare and siege. The Romans built walls and laid siege to Jerusalem and Masada. Trenches, though for a different purpose, became synonymous with World War I.

CRIES FROM PALESTINE AND CRIES FROM ISRAEL
(March 6, 2001)
My sister-in-law just called crying - about 4 hours ago Al-Bireh had about 3 minutes of heavy gunfire..... her neighbor, Aida, was walking back home on the Friends road from Ramallah after shopping for the Eid holiday.

OH MY GOD! CLINTON WON'T LEAVE THE WORLD ALONE!
(March 5, 2001)
They came to Washington -- the two-for-one power couple -- with the campaign promise to bring health care to all Americans; they left (but Hillary is already back on Capitol Hill) with the dangerous corporate for profit HMO's in power and more uninsured than ever despite the economic juggernaunt.

MIDEAST CONFLICT TEARS AT BROTHERLY BOND
(March 5, 2001)
Hostilities engulf West Bank siblings, who remain close despite their split between Jewish and Muslim faiths.

BOMB BLAST IN ISRAELI COASTAL CITY
(March 4, 2001)
A powerful bomb exploded during morning rush hour Sunday in a crowded open-air market in the Israeli coastal city of Netanya.

ISRAELIS LAY SIEGE TO PALESTINIAN CITIES
(March 3, 2001)
Sometime in the future there will be a day of reckoning for the Israelis. But that day is not yet here while the suffering of the Palestinians is, literally, more and more as each day dawns.

FIELD OF THORNS
(March 3, 2001)
The Palestinian uprising in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which in late September 2000 began as a wave of popular protest against Ariel Sharon's belligerent incursion into Jerusalem's sacred Haram al-Sharif, has developed into a full-fledged war of attrition against the Israeli occupation, which rather ironically paved the aggressive right-wing leader's path to power.

REGIONAL WAR PREPARATIONS AND PUBLIC OPINION MANIPULATION ESCALATE
(March 2, 2001)
Iraq responded to U.S. air strikes on Feb. 16 by deploying thousands of troops from six divisions to positions near the Jordanian border, triggering military alerts in Tel Aviv, Washington and in several Gulf capitals.

SHARON AND PERES TEAM UP
(March 2, 2001)
It was a massacre. Not since Sabra and Chatila had I seen the innocent slaughtered like this. The Lebanese refugee women and children and men lay in heaps, their heads or arms or legs missing, beheaded or disemboweled.

SHARON GETS READY TO ACT. ARAFAT GETS READY TO LEAVE?
(March 1, 2001)
Arafat and regime are about collapse -- i.e., the money and capabilities provided by the U.S. and Israel to keep the PA going are being cut off if Arafat doesn't shape up!

BLEAK FUTURE FOR BOTH PALESTINIANS AND ISRAELIS
(March 1, 2001)
Shimon Peres has many secrets to try to keep, and that explains his desperation to stay in power practically at any cost. Ariel Sharon knows this.




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