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ASSAD & SADDAM "ATTACK"

March 28, 2001

NEWSFLASH: Three killed in suicide bomber blast near Israeli Army checkpoint.

"In the Palestinian view of the Arab summit [for Palestinian read Arafat], money is all that matters."

ARAB "LEADERS" PROVE NEED FOR REPLACEMENTS

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.

The following articles help explain the happening in Amman.

ISRAELIS ARE ALL NAZIS, ASSAD TELLS SUMMIT

FROM SAM KILEY, IN AMMAN

[The Times, UK, 27 March] PRESIDENT ASSAD of Syria called Israelis "Nazis" yesterday and offered to "forgive and forget" the decision of Yassir Arafat, the Palestinian leader, to negotiate with the late Yitzhak Rabin.

Speaking at the start of the first Arab League summit in a decade, Mr Assad overshadowed Mr Arafat's efforts to win support for the Palestinian uprising. His speech, which often assumed the tone of a lecture to the league's 22 heads of state and their representatives, was delivered as a suspected suicide bomber blew up a bus in Jerusalem, killing himself and wounding a dozen others.

Mr Assad said that the Arab world had been "too emotional" and had failed to analyse properly the election of Ariel Sharon to head a national unity government in Israel. He said that successive Israeli elections had proved that Israelis in general "gave us nothing and took everything.

"It is the Israeli public and not just the leaders who are like the Nazis themselves," he said in an improvised speech that could have been delivered by his father, Hafez, 20 years ago. The speech shocked foreign diplomats, many of them sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, who had gathered in Amman, the Jordanian capital, for the summit.

"This does not do those who want to help the Palestinians any good," a senior Western diplomat said. "It's the sort of speech which proves to the Israelis that the Arab world does not accept their existence and that the Arabs really want to destroy Israel."

Mr Assad's rhetoric took many people by surprise given his efforts to portray his country as becoming more democratic and moving away from its days as a Soviet satellite.

After medical training in London, Mr Assad has been working to open Syria to foreign investment and get the country wired into the Internet. Despite the need to impress fellow Arab leaders, Mr Assad's tough message appeared to exceed what was necessary to signal to the Sharon government that he is a man to be reckoned with.

Kofi Annan, Secretary-General of the United Nations, had hoped to persuade Arab leaders to see the problems faced by both sides in the Arab-Israeli conflict.

He criticised Mr Sharon's policy of besieging Palestinian towns and of "excessive use of force" in quelling riots. He said, however, that it should be recognised that Israel feels threatened and that it had a "legitimate right to live in safety within its own borders".

After Mr Assad's speech, Mr Arafat repeated his allegations that the Israelis have used "illegal weapons" against the Palestinians, but he also said that he wanted to return to the agreements reached with the Israelis in October last year, at Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt, which included a ceasefire.

The Arab leaders, who are also discussing Iraq, seem unlikely to reach an agreement about how to persuade President Saddam Hussein to give up his claim to Kuwait or how to seek the easing of sanctions against his country.

SADDAM CALLS FOR ARAB ARMIES TO STRIKE AT ISRAEL, IGNORES KUWAIT

AMMAN, March 27 (AFP) - Iraqi President Saddam Husssein called Tuesday on Arab states to mobilise their armed forces to liberate the Palestinian territories, rejecting any deals with Israel.

In a speech read to the Arab summit in Amman by Iraq's number two Ezzat Ibrahim, Saddam told Arab leaders to build "an army of men as concerned to sacrifice themselves as the Zionists are concerned for their lives."

"We do not agree to any deals on Palestine, all of Palestine from the Jordan (river) to the Mediterranean, including Jerusalem, its crown."

The speech did not mention Kuwait, which Arab leaders are working to reconcile with Iraq, a decade after Saddam sent his troops into the oil-rich emirate and sparked the Gulf war.

Saddam has rallied Iraqis to the Palestinian cause, offering millions of dollars and fighting forces since the intifada or uprising against Israeli occupation erupted last September.

ARAB MONEY FOR ARAFAT HELD UP - PA CORRUPTION CITED

By Danny Rubinstein

[Ha'aretz 27 March 2001]: What do Arafat and fellow Palestinian Authority officials want from the Arab summit, which opens today in Amman, Jordan? Palestinians are almost unanimous in their answer: they want money.

The Intifada uprising has bankrupted the PA. The Palestinian economy has, to a large extent, been brought to a crashing halt. Citizens pay next to nothing in taxes, and are in arrears in payments for basic services such as electricity, water and telephone. Israel refuses to transfer to the PA tax money that it has collected from residents in the territories; and several western countries have suspended payments to the PA.

These financial woes, however, are overshadowed by Palestinian expectations of Arab states. The main problem is that Arab states have yet to confer the handsome, one billion dollar sum that they promised the Palestinians at their last summit, five months ago in Cairo. In recent weeks, nary a day has gone by without articles and caricatures in the Palestinian media castigating Arab leaders for failing to pay up, and for their miserly disregard of Palestinian suffering.

With resentment boiling, reports and rumors percolated about how Arafat had threatened to boycott the summit if funds promised to the PA weren't delivered. Top PLO diplomat Farouk Kaddoumi, who took part last week at a pre-summit preparatory meeting in Amman with Arab foreign ministers, denied these reports. "It's inconceivable that a Palestinian leader wouldn't take part in an Arab summit," Kaddoumi said. "Arafat participates in summits of African states, events in which we only have 'observer' status."

Why haven't the Arab states been forthcoming, and transfered the money? Replying in recent months to this question, Arab leaders and diplomats have claimed that bureaucratic red tape is responsible for snags and delays. Arab spokesmen have hinted about fears that the funds might not reach their rightful recipients. In other words, Arab leaders are acquainted with (and some have disseminated) reports about Palestinian corruption, and they are wary that top PA officials will simply scamper off with the money.

Iraq's President Saddam Hussein, who recently sent funds to the Palestinian-controlled territories, ordered his men (most of them members of the small Arab Liberation Front organization) to disburse the money straight into the hands of families whose relations have been killed or injured in clashes with Israel. Saddam's men carried out this order. In some instances, the Iraqi money was handed out in official ceremonies, and the recipients published newspaper messages of gratitude to Saddam Hussein.

Naturally, the Iraqi money disbursement arrangements and lightly veiled hints about PA corruption have angered Palestinian leaders. Holding a meeting last week in Gaza with ambassadors from Arab countries stationed in the PA, Dr. Zakarye Alara stated that the PA would agree to the appointment of observers to monitor the disbursement of funds. Alara, a Fatah leader and PLO Executive member, warned, "Without your money, it's doubtful that we'll be able to continue the Intifada."

Palestinians who represent an array of political streams took part in this meeting with Arab ambassadors. Without exception, they reiterated this demand for money. Popular Front delegate Jamil Majdalouwi told the ambassadors that claims about PA corruption were nothing more than a pretext used to avoid delivering money. Abdallah Hourani, a nonaligned member of the PLO Executive, declared incredulously, "You'd think that we invented corruption." He added, "In fact, everyone knows that corruption is part of the reality which prevails in the whole Arab world."

Other participants at the meeting accused Israel and some Western states of circulating rumors about PA corruption so as to obstruct the disbursement of funds in the territories, spur the collapse of Arafat's regime, and bring an end to the Intifada. Seething with anger and bitterness about allegations of PA corruption, some Palestinian spokesmen have in recent days hurled brazen, defiant challenges at Arab states. Who needs your money, they've asked.

Insofar as it has been possible to follow reasons given by Arab spokesmen for the non-disbursement of funds to the PA, the corruption issue hasn't been raised in official pronouncements. The prevailing explanation is that due to large debts owed by the PA to many banks, funds transferred to the PA's accounts won't reach suffering residents in the territories. Instead, they'll simply be used to cover the debts.

The money issue dominates PA discussion of the Arab summit partly because Palestinians don't have many expectations on the diplomatic front. Resolutions denouncing Israel, and demands (raised by Jordan and Egypt) to cut off relations, will be proposed and formulated in one way or another. But they won't amount to anything other than rhetorical gestures. For half a year, the Palestinians have demanded that Arab states support their struggle against Israel. But, as months go by, the Intifada has become a routine matter, one which no longer galvanizes public opinion in Arab countries as it has in the past.

The Iraqi issue is the one diplomatic issue which, to some extent, worries the Palestinians. PA officials are concerned that some Arab leaders will try to put the Iraq issue at the top of the summit's agenda. Though most Arab countries support a full repeal of anti-Iraqi sanctions (or siege, in the familiar Arab usage)Kuwait has argued that the time isn't right for such a change. Speaking in elliptical, evasive tones, some Saudi leaders have backed Kuwait's position (the Iraqi problem is responsible for the Saudi decision to dispatch Defense Minister Sultan Bin Abdul Aziz as the country's delegate to the summit).

Some Arab leaders have proposed that the summit's prime focus should be an attempt to forge a reconciliation between Kuwait and Iraq. Such discussion has raised the question of whether the event is to be the "Iraq-Kuwait summit" or the "Al-Quds summit."

Jordanian and Egyptian officials have indicated that they want summit participants to tackle economic issues, particularly annulling the customs duties that Arab countries mutually impose one another, and encouraging of foreign investment. Yet it appears that Arafat and his men are confident that even if summit participants devote a lot of time to these non-Palestinian issues, the Arab states won't pose a diplomatic problem to the PA.

In other words, Arafat expects the Arab leaders to articulate unequivocal support for the Palestinian Intifada. Such pronouncements, he knows, will reflect mass, pro-Intifada sentiment in the Arab world. For Arafat and his fellow Palestinians, then, money remains the one loose end. Will Arab support for their struggle continue to come in the form of rubber checks, as Palestinian cartoonists depict it; or will the money finally be delivered? In the Palestinian view of the Arab summit, money is all that matters.


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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