| Mid-East Realities | www.middleeast.org |
| "Don't start thinking that you can expel the Palestinians out to Jordan or anywhere else. It will be the biggest danger for Israel if you did it. I'm drawing your attention to this and advising you for the sake of peace and stability, don't let this be your thinking at all." Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak |
MID-EAST REALITIES - www.MiddleEast.Org - Washington - 3/16/2002: General Sharon and the Israelis may take what may seem like a pause now. The Americans would at least like them to do so in advance of the Arab summit at the end of the month. If the Palestinians are unable to strike further in view of Israel's and the CIA's unprecedented war to crush them into submission Sharon will undoubtedly say his tactics are working. If the Palestinians do strike back in new and possibly even harder ways -- as Sharon probably anticipates and has clearly provoked -- he will say there is "no choice" but to crush them further into submission; though he will coordinate the timing with the Americans, no matter what words are publicly uttered in Washington. And if world conditions allow -- for instance a major war on the sub-continent or in the Gulf -- Sharon can be expected to try to lead the Israelis on their own crusade to "transfer" the Palestinians and recast the area once known as Transjordan into the proverbial "Palestinian State". That is the real reason the Hashemite King in Amman is continually now warning of possible "catastrophe" ahead.
When the smoke clears from the approaching war Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden may both be gone from the scene, but not their legacies. Moreover, one or both King Abdullahs may also have departed as well, along with Yasser Arafat, and maybe even General Sharon. But the American Empire will remain. Whether the even greater Pax Americana-Pax Israelica now envisioned for the region by the Americans and Israelis will take hold is not a certainty. But even if that is the result for the immediate years ahead the historical price down the road a bit could well be eventually catastrophic.
Further wild-cards at this point: what will happen Pakistani with its nuclear weapons, and to Iran with its plans to build up its forces to attempt to resist Washington and Israeli dictate and possible attack.
American Vice-President, former Pentagon Chief, former White House Chief of Staff, Dick Cheney is in the Middle East now passing on orders and instructions to the various Arab "client regimes", laying the foundation for new ones when and where he can, making sure plans for the upcoming Arab League summit are crafted by Washington, and most of all laying the groundwork for "regime change" in Baghdad as well as in any other neighboring country if anyone should dare to defy the "you are either with us or against us" mandate.
JERUSALEM, March 16 (Reuters) - Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak has warned Israel against considering the mass eviction of Palestinians, which Arabs say Israeli rightwingers favour as a way to solve the Jewish state's problem with Palestinians.
"Don't start thinking that you can expel the Palestinians out to Jordan or anywhere else. It will be the biggest danger for Israel if you did it," Mubarak said in an interview broadcast on Israeli television on Friday night.
"I'm drawing your attention to this and advising you for the sake of peace and stability, don't let this be your thinking at all," the Egyptian leader added.
"No one is thinking of this," his Israeli interviewer responded, speaking in Arabic.
But an opinion poll published in Israel this week showed 46 percent of respondents backed "transferring" Palestinians out of the West Bank and Gaza Strip as an acceptable option to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
The term "transfer" was used instead of "expulsion" because it includes the idea propounded by ultra-nationalist Israelis that many Palestinians would quit the occupied territories voluntarily.
Political parties promoting "transfer" collected under four percent of Israeli votes in elections last year, but they have had ministers in government and openly discuss the idea, which many Jewish settlers in the West Bank and Gaza publicly back.
Palestinians launched an uprising for independence in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in September 2000. Over 1,400 people, mostly Palestinians, have died in the fighting.
A Palestinian group assassinated Rehavam Zeevi, then-tourism minister and one of the loudest proponents of "transfer," in October. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has said in the past that Jordan, home to a large number of Palestinian refugees, should become the Palestinian state.
Over 700,000 Palestinians became refugees in fighting that accompanied the formation of Israel in 1948. Palestinians say they were victims of ethnic cleansing, which Israel denies.
Palestinian fears of a repeat are strong and form a counterpoint to Israeli fears that many Arabs and Muslims seek to destroy the Jewish state -- fears compounded by Palestinian suicide attacks inside Israeli cities.
"There is a conviction among the people that they will not leave the land, they will fight to the last man. They have learned from 1948," said Hanna Nasser, mayor of the West Bank town of Bethlehem.
Newspaper commentaries throughout the Arab world have for months reflected the angst expressed by Palestinians on the street that Israeli rightwingers are planning a second "nakba," or catastrophe, as Palestinians refer to 1948.
"(Palestinians) are not prepared to embark on another mass exodus and leave their land to the million Jews who Sharon dreams of bringing in from around the world," an editorial in the London-based daily Asharq al-Awsat said this month.
Israel's Arab minority, which descends from Palestinians who did not leave their communities in 1948, is also worried about rightwing rhetoric calling for their expulsion.
"We are very anxious, we are very afraid," said writer Salem Jubran, from the Arab-majority city of Nazareth. "There are elements in the opposition and in the coalition government with thoughts of transfer."
"If they ever try to implement such a fascist ethnic cleansing, all the Middle East will be a bloodbath," he added.
"(The debate in Israel) is a symbol of the deep political and moral crisis of the official establishment in Israel. The world must be careful," Jubran said.
Israeli politicians often voice concern that demographic growth among the Arab Israeli community and the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip will make Jews a minority in the area within 20 years.
Arab Israelis form roughly 18 percent of Israel's population of over six million. Palestinians seeking an independent state in the West Bank, including Arab East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip number more than three million.
PARIS, March 16 (Reuters) - Jordan's King Abdullah has warned the United States against attacking Iraq, saying the stability of the Middle East cannot withstand such a war while the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is also raging.
In an interview published on Saturday as U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney toured the region to drum up Arab support for the U.S.-led war on terrorism, Abdullah urged the West to give Iraq a new chance of talks. That should be coupled with pressure on Israel and the Palestinians to halt their conflict, he said.
"I have told him (Cheney) that the Middle East cannot support two wars at the same time -- the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and an American intervention against Iraq," Abdullah, who met Cheney on March 12, told Le Figaro newspaper.
"To attack Baghdad now would be a disaster. The security and stability of our region would not be able to cope with it."
Cheney visited Jordan as his first stop in an 11-nation trip to Middle Eastern countries, as speculation grew that the United States is preparing to attack Iraq.
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell told French television on Friday however there were no plans to attack either Iraq or Iran, which along with North Korea have been named by President George W. Bush as forming an "axis of evil" because of their efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction.
Cheney was due on Saturday to meet Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Abdullah, who has joined a chorus of Arab opposition to the idea of U.S. strikes on Iraq while floating a peace plan for the Arab-Israeli conflict which has been welcomed by Washington.
Jordan's Abdullah said failing to resolve both problems peacefully would inflame the regional crises which had drawn recruits to Osama Bin Laden, the Saudi-born militant blamed by Washington for orchestrating the September 11 attacks.
"To win the battle against the extremists, we have to finish with conflicts which justify bin Laden's propaganda," he told the French newspaper.
"If we do nothing to solve the Israeli-Palestinian problem, if we add an expedition against Iraq on top of the conflicts in Palestine and Gaza, we are shooting ourselves in the foot. The West would simply be detested even more," he added.
Abdullah has generally strong relations with the United States, but faces domestic pressure from a public alarmed at the Israeli crackdown against Palestinians and wary of an assault on neighbouring Iraq. Jordan is one of four countries bordering Iraq which are part of Cheney's Middle East tour.
The United States has said it is determined to prevent Iraq acquiring or using nuclear, chemical or biological weapons, and is demanding unconditional international arms inspections.
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| Source: http://www.middleeast.org/articles/2002/3/702.htm |