| Mid-East Realities | www.middleeast.org |
MID-EAST REALITIES - www.MiddleEast.Org - Washington - 3/22/2002: While the mostly co-opted and cowardly "Arab leaders" -- the Arab "client regimes" -- fly their lavish private jets into Beirut 20 years after the Israelis besieged the city, destroyed the country, and attempted at great cost to bring Lebanon under their and American domination; the same Americans and Israelis are preparing the next wars of domination and the same "Arab leaders" are powerful and spineless to dare assert themselves.
The New York Times-blessed "Saudi Plan" is little more than warmed over Arab summit gesticulation that goes way back to the "Fahd Plan" and a previous Arab summit now 20 years faded. It was meant as little more than a pretense and a pacifier than, just as it is now.
Back then the same discredited "Arab leaders" said and "did" pretty much the same thing as they for the umpteenth time are doing now, endorsing the same old U.N. Security Council Resolution 242 that Israel defies more and more with each passing year. Just as today in coming to the real defense of the Palestinians they actually did the same nothing then about Israel's invasion of Lebanon -- which then went on to lead to an 18-year occupation that only recently ended; here too no thanks to the "Arab leaders" who are today even more impotent, more fractured, more co-opted, and more corrupt than was the case then -- and that's saying something!
Rather transparently at this point -- but you'd never know it from the American or Arab establishment media -- the Americans are saying one thing about "peace" and "plans" in public while feverishly preparing for a major war in private. The very fact that a Marine General is the "peace negotiator", a former Pentagon Chairman is the "Secretary of State", and the CIA Director is the "plan author" should give the media a few hints; but most of them are pretty thick-headed and self-serving as well. For some corrective analysis just read and ponder the two articles that follow -- but don't expect to learn the same on CNN, the news network you "really cannot count on".
Furthermore, the Arab "client regimes" are well aware of this basic situation. It's just that after so many years of mindless mediocrity, incestuous interconnections, glutinous money corruption, and political impotence, they not only know not what to do they don't even have the capacity to fully appreciate what is really happening while they tremble in fear from actually doing anything that could bring on them some of the American/Israeli wrath.
And so the "Arab leaders" continue to hide behind cheap slogans, expensive public relations campaigns, CIA "assistance", a largely bought-and-paid-for media, with heightened desperate hopes they won't be exposed as the Emperors without clothes or dignity they truly are.
US vice-President Dick Cheney reportedly told Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon that the U.S. was planning to attack Iraq 'first and foremost for Israel's sake.'
According to Israeli sources quoted by Israeli state-run radio Wednesday, Cheney asked Sharon to 'tone down' the confrontation with the Palestinians so as not to disrupt or disturb American plans vis-a-vis Iraq.
The sources quoted Cheney as saying that he expected President Bush to decide to attack Iraq in spite of widespread opposition in the Arab world.
Sharon said publicly Tuesday that Israel would bless wholeheartedly any American attack on Iraq, telling Cheney that the US 'can always count on us.'
Israeli press reported this week that Sharon was hoping that a decisive American onslaught against Iraq would demoralize the Palestinians and force them to concede defeat and put an end to the intifada.
However, Cheney and Sharon reportedly agreed to keep coordination and cooperation on Iraq behind the curtain in order not to embarrass pro-American puppet Arab regimes.
Cheney arrived in Ankara Tuesday on an 11-nation visit to the Middle East and Britain that many have said was aimed at drumming up support for a possible campaign to overthrow President Saddam.
Turkish leaders have repeatedly voiced opposition to any action against their southern neighbor.
'There is no question of any military action against Iraq in the foreseeable future,' Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit told reporters after meeting with Cheney. Ankara, the Turkish capital, was the last stop on Cheney's tour.
Cheney said in occupied Jerusalem earlier Tuesday that no decision had yet been made on whether to attack Iraq.
Turkish police tightened security in downtown Ankara hours before Cheney's arrival and detained 80 people for lack of proper identification, the Anatolia news agency reported. A few hundred people from trade unions and small left-wing parties protested Cheney's visit, shouting anti-US slogans.
Local reports said the Turkish leaders would tell Cheney that Turkey would not contribute any troops to a possible US campaign against Iraq. However, Turkey would discuss providing logistical support, such as the use of its air bases, the reports said.
Turkey, a close US and Israeli ally, has strongly supported Washington's anti-terror campaign in Afghanistan.
Turkey was a staging point for US attacks during the Gulf War and US planes are already based in Turkey's southern Incirlik air base from which they patrol a no-fly zone over northern Iraq.
But Turkey fears that a war in Iraq could further destabilise the region, devastate its fragile economy, and lead to the creation of a separate Kurdish state in northern Iraq that could in turn encourage similar ambitions among Turkey's 12 million Kurds.
Iraqi Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani also arrived in Ankara for talks Tuesday. Talabani was not expected to meet with Cheney, but in a previous visit the Kurdish leader said he opposed a direct US intervention in Iraq. [IAP News - 20 March 2002]
'We must first strike the Palestinians a heavy blow, before we can begin negotiating peace,' Prime Minister Sharon said on March 4th, only a few hours after Israeli security forces killed 17 Palestinians, 5 of them children. One of the adult fatalities was a 55-year-old woman from Jenin; another was Dr. Sliman Khalil, who was slain while evacuating the injured from a nearby refugee camp.
The evening before these recent killings, I went to a peace rally to protest the Israeli military infiltration into two refugee camps, where an additional 24 Palestinians had been shot dead. As I was walking from my car towards the Prime Minister's house, the sound of a loud explosion reverberated through the Jerusalem night.
The ensuing echo of ambulance sirens left little doubt in my mind about what had happened. An hour later, while standing with a peace sign in hand, my mother called the cell phone to check whether I was all right; she told me that a suicide bomber had exploded himself outside a synagogue, killing ten guests who had been celebrating a Bar-Mitzvah.
There is no longer any room for doubt: violence begets violence. And it is within this macabre context that one must interpret Sharon's decision to employ more force.
Sharon, to be sure, is not mad. Yet, he realizes that in the past few days 31 Jews and 52 Palestinians have been killed, joining the over one thousand people -- many of them children -- who have died since the second Intifada erupted in September 2000. At this juncture, then, there are only a few ways to make sense of Sharon's sanguine logic.
Sharon's declaration, which has been rapidly translated into policy, will surely guarantee one thing -- more blood will be spilled. But why, one might ask, does he want to escalate the violence?
The answer is straightforward. Sharon believes in a greater Israel, and the only way to accomplish this objective is through an all out war. For if enough Jewish blood is shed, Sharon might in fact gain the legitimacy needed to embark on such a campaign.
1948 appears to be Sharon's historical reference point. During that war, the fledgling Israeli government decided to ensure a Jewish majority within what would become Israel. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians either fled or were evicted by force from their homes, thus creating the Palestinian refugee problem. The Palestinians accordingly refer to Israel's War of Independence as Nakbah, or 'the catastrophe.'
Currently, there are about 200,000 Jewish settlers living on occupied land amongst three million Palestinians. One solution to the crisis would be to dismantle all the Jewish settlements, bring the settlers back home, and establish a Palestinian state within the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as its capital. This solution, however, is antithetical to Sharon's expansionist aspirations. It is thus becoming more and more apparent that Sharon is actually interested in creating a situation whereby he can expel hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their land. In order to do so, he needs a war. 5 March 2002
| Mid-East Realities | www.middleeast.org |
| Source: http://www.middleeast.org/articles/2002/3/717.htm |