Mid-East Realitieswww.middleeast.org

US DEMANDS OF ARAFAT, WORKS EVER MORE CLOSELY AND COVERTLY WITH ISREAL

September 19, 2001

U.S. DEMANDS, ARAFAT SURRENDERS (publicly), SHARON GLOATS (privately)

"I instructed all leaders of the security forces to work intensively on a ceasefire... and to abstain even in self-defence in response to Israeli attacks." Yasser Arafat yesterday

MID-EAST REALITIES © - MER - www.MiddleEast.Org - Washington - 9/19: The Americans are making "demands" on everyone right now. "You're either with us or against us" is the constant refrain. Risking revolution in nuclear Pakistan, bio terrorism at home, and even a real world war, what is going on in Palestine is not at the top of Washington's concerns for now -- but even so it must be all be manipulated, coordinated, and presented in public very carefully in view of the larger worldwide goals. Even though what has been happening in occupied Palestine, magnified on TV screens worldwide, is very much a part of the vortex of hatred and revenge that led to 11 September 2001, the Americans will never admit that in public and the powerful Israeli/Jewish lobby will certainly punish all who dare speak such heretical truths openly.

As usual much of the Western media, and that certainly includes the so-called liberal and internationalist among them including "The Guardian" in once Great Britain, are playing Washington's game. While the headline is accurate proclaiming that "force" by the U.S. brought about the "ceasefire", the idea that Israel was "brought to heel" to end attacks on the Palestinians is just part of the much larger conspiracy afoot. We've been through this cycle a few times in history already -- most recently at the time of the Gulf War, which then lead to Madrid, to Oslo, to "Apartheid Peace", to Intifada II, to Durban...and then to the World Trade Towers and the Pentagon.

The bottom line is the Americans are determined now to pursue their long-time imperial goals, and that one of their most unusual of enemies has provided them the historical moment and the international context. A war to impose a new world order -- one the Israelis are very much a part both because of their own goals in the Middle East and their significant power in the U.S. -- is now underway in the name of stamping out "international terrorism". The underlying realities and immense complexity of the actual conflict -- its broad dimensions and context, the grievances and motivations behind the hatreds and the passions -- will all be subsumed in a jingoistic and simplistic public presentation of good against evil, freedom versus tyranny.

Oftentimes, there are some in the grassroots who are much more candid and insightful than the big players on the international stage -- though of course finding them and hearing them is oh so difficult. In this case, before reading The Guardian's take on what is essentially Arafat's latest surrender arrangement, consider this extemporaneous commentary by Salah Musa in Canada heading up a group calling itself the "Jerusalem Defense Committee": "There is no doubt in my mind that this coming cease fire will hold. It will hold because it will serve the American Interest and allow the US to build another unholy alliance to destroy or cripple yet another Arab or Islamic nation. It will hold, because it will be in Israel's best interest. It will hold, because Israel will achieve a cessation of resistance while not giving up anything other than to stop shelling and killing Palestinians. But the Intifada did not start to stop Israel's shelling of Palestinians. It will hold because it is in the strategic interest of the US and Israel. It will hold, because it will serve the PA's primary and overriding objective of survival at all costs. It will hold because the PA can only think and act tactically. Just yesterday a Palestinian naively proclaimed that "they are going to solve the conflict, because America wants to solve it now" We are a nation of wishful thinkers!

"Does this scenario seem familiar? Did we see this play several years ago? Could this be a mini Gulf War and a subsequent OsloIII all over again? Did NOT the people of Iraq already paid the bill for this prostitution of our cause? Was NOT one of the prices of crippling Iraq the resolution of the Arab Israeli Conflict and forcing Israel to withdraw from the occupied Arab land. Or so we were told. Have we forgotten already? The Gulf war has yet to stop and Israel occupation is expanding, except for its forced and humiliating removal from northern Lebanon. Iraq has been crippled! The US is virtually occupying Saudi Arabia and Kuwait! We got Oslo and a man without any traceable Palestinian roots who likes to be called "president." A "president" who never seem to miss a chance to humiliate himself (and us) at the world stage on weekly basis. A president who has to be fed his short sound bites word by word much like a bad actor in a badly written play. If it does not hold it will not be because of lack of trying by the PA.

"Now ask yourself: Who would win the most from this cease fire? Who would loses? Why now? "Of course after the USA and Israel achieve their objectives, we will be back to square one and at much worse odds than now! Much like our position now relative to the first Intifada and prior to Oslo."

And now, the more conventional and political correct at the moment take on all this, twisted just right to suit the American government's way of wanting things to be presented and misunderstood:

U.S. FORCES MIDDLE EAST CEASEFIRE
By Ewen MacAskill, and Virginia Quirke in Jerusalem

[The Guardian - Wednesday, 19 September 2001]: President George Bush last night overcame a major hurdle to building an international coalition against terrorism when he forced the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, and the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, to agree to a long-sought Middle East ceasefire.

He used America's enormous economic and political clout to bring Mr Sharon in particular to heel, fearful that Israeli incursions into the Palestinian West Bank and Gaza during the past week would wreck his attempts to include Arab and other Muslim countries in the coalition. As part of a total rethink of the Bush administration's foreign policy since the New York and Washington attacks, the president is taking a tougher line with Israel in an attempt to secure a speedy end to a conflict that feeds Arab hatred of the United States.

The US secretary of state, Colin Powell, after speaking to Mr Arafat and Mr Sharon, welcomed the ceasefire as "an encouraging development". "We see some promise this morning," he said.

Under the agreement, the Palestinians will call off their fighters and Israel will pull its tanks back from flashpoints in the West Bank and Gaza. But last night the militant Palestinian Islamist group Islamic Jihad said it rejected the ceasefire. "Islamic Jihad in Palestine rejects the so-called ceasefire, which comes at a time when the Zionist enemy continues its aggression," the group said in a statement faxed to Reuters in Beirut. Mr Arafat's truce announcement was the most unequivocal yet. Speaking from his office in Gaza, he urged Palestinian fighters to exercise maximum restraint, even under Israeli fire. "I instructed all leaders of the security forces to work intensively on a ceasefire... and to abstain even in self-defence in response to Israeli attacks," he said.

He was in no position to resist Mr Bush. He was weakened diplomatically last week by demonstrations by Palestinians cheering the destruction of the World Trade Centre.

As part of a choreography worked out with the US, Mr Sharon responded by ordering the Israel army to pull its tanks and troops from Jenin, Jericho, Ramallah and Hebron, all in what are known as area A, under the control of the Palestinian authority, and which Israel should not enter. The Israeli army said: "The forces which are in Area A will leave completely." It added that its forces in Gaza and the West Bank had been told to "avoid any attacking activities against the Palestinians".

Late last night, the army had only left Jenin and there were exchanges of fire between Israeli troops and Palestinian gunmen in Hebron. Despite the battles, an Israel foreign ministry official said the ceasefire offered promise because it was taking place against the background of the attacks in the US. "The test will be in the field, but there is a good chance it will work because of circumstances."

Mr Arafat's biggest problem is in convincing Islamic fundamentalist groups to accept by the ceasefire. A senior Hamas official in Gaza, Ismail Abu Shanab, said that al though the group would continue to fight Israel in principle, it would not challenge Mr Arafat's decision for now. He said Hamas was not interested in stirring internal friction.

The Israeli foreign ministry confirmed that the ceasefire opened the way to a long-awaited meeting, previously blocked by Mr Sharon, between the the foreign minister, Shimon Peres, and Mr Arafat before the end of the week.

In an indication of the extent to which patience with Mr Sharon has ended, a senior British Foreign Office source described Mr Sharon as "the cancer at the centre of the Middle East crisis" yesterday.

US and European diplomats will follow up the ceasefire with a huge campaign over the next few weeks, with a procession of foreign ministers heading for Israel and the Palestinian authority to try to make the agreement stick.

Britain's foreign secretary, Jack Straw, who has been more critical of Israel than his predecessor, Robin Cook, and who protested to Israel last week over the incursions into Jenin, Jericho and Ramallah, said: "All of us have been deeply disturbed by the escalating violence in the region in the last week."

In the past few days, there has been enormous telephone traffic between Washington and Jerusalem and Mr Arafat's headquarters in Gaza. If the ceasefire holds, the next step will be to implement a peace plan set out earlier this year by the former US senator George Mitchell. Under the plan, Israel and the Palestinian authority will begin implementing confidence-building measures. Then after a few weeks, the two sides would return to the negotiating table to discuss the issues that divide them.

The UN envoy to the Middle East, Terje Roed-Larsen, who has been in close contact with Mr Arafat, said he believed the Palestinian leader's attitude had changed. "I think there's a strong belief that power is no longer in the barrel of a gun, that power now is based on diplomatic instruments to be used at the negotiating table."


Mid-East Realitieswww.middleeast.org

Source: http://www.middleeast.org/articles/2001/9/393.htm