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Transfer? Expulsion? Jordan is Palestine? Approaching the End Game

"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

"To attack Baghdad now would be a disaster.
The security and stability of our region would
not be able to cope with it." King Abdullah

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.

MUBARAK VOICES PALESTINIAN FEARS OF EXPULSION

By Andrew Hammond

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.

COUNTERPOINT TO ISRAELI FEARS

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.

JORDAN TELLS U.S. ATTACK ON IRAQ WOULD BE DISASTER

By Tim Hepher

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.

U.S. Middle East envoy Anthony Zinni held a first round of talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders on Friday and said the meetings with both sides had been "positive" in the wake of some of the bloodiest Arab-Israeli fighting in decades.



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March 2002


Magazine






Saudi Future Unstable; More Money to Secretly flow to Palestinians
(March 29, 2002)
What goes on in public and on CNN/Al-Jazeera is one thing. This is political theatre meant for all to see. But like the proverbial icberg the great bulk of what is going on is beneath the waves and hidden from regular view.

Arafat Surrounded - And A Letter from Bir Zeit University near Ramallah
(March 29, 2002)
"Reports are rampant, breaking news that there is a planned incursion, occupation, total destruction... who knows of Ramallah and so we have to act and act quickly."

Saudis plead, Bin Laden emals, Arafat sits, Jesse offers...US and Israel prepare
(March 28, 2002)
With the #2 summit Saudi suffering a stroke and hospitalized (how appropriately) at the American University in Beirut, the Arab League summit was even more of a circus and disaster than we had predicted.

The "Saudi Peace Plan"...of 20 Years Ago
(March 28, 2002)
In April 1981 Crown Prince Fahd of Saudi Arabia unveiled the "Saudi Plan" which then dominated the Arab League summit held in Fez, Morocco, in November.

Saudis Humiliated, Betrayed, and now "Invited"
(March 28, 2002)
Quite literally as Saudi Royal "Crown Prince" Abdullah was following his script in Beirut no matter what, the U.S. Government was announcing in Washington that he had "accepted" to visit the Bush Presidential Ranch in Texas at the end of next month.

"The summit is heading toward total chaos"
(March 27, 2002)
Today's "Arab Leaders" always seem to manage to bumble themselves from one disaster to another. Then the controlled media and commentators they either own or manipulate in one way or another mostly cover up for them, including such subsidized and sponsored English-language publications as "Middle East International" in the UK and "Washington Report on Middle East Affairs" in the U.S.

Arafat Unheard at Summit - Secret Israel Phone Calls to Cairo and Amman
(March 27, 2002)
How much is factual, how much is disinformation from Mossad, how much is twisted and spun....these are all legitimate questions needing consideration, especially these days. But there's no doubt Irish author Gordon Thomas has considerable connections in the murky world of intelligence and especially with the Israeli Mossad, and he's been on target with quite a few things in the past.

They Call This A Summit?
(March 26, 2002)
Readers of MER won't be nearly as surprised as most may be that journalists are already proclaiming the grand Arab summit in ruins and as the BBC correspondent concluded this evening, "they might as well go home now before it starts".

What a Mess the Arab World is in
(March 26, 2002)
Such a mess. "Arab Leaders" who are mostly inept and corrupt and miserably repressive. An Arab League that is impotent and crippled. Arab media that can't figure out whom to interview about what.

Huge Damascus Demo Screams About Sharon and Warns Arab Summiteers
(March 26, 2002)
History is repeating itself after 20 years, but everything is even worse today for the vast Arab world and its fast growing now over 200+ million.

"Grand Plan" For War On the Palestinians
(March 25, 2002)
As the impotent Arab League run by the corrupt and repressive Arab "client regimes" prepares to meet and do nothing real and serious as usual; the Israelis, with an American wink and much under-the-table help, are preparing even bigger assaults against the Palestinians.

Vital History - Origins of Israel's "Arab Problem"
(March 25, 2002)
In 1947, the then representative of the Zionist Organization in Washington, Nahum Goldman, urged David Ben-Gurion not to declare a "Jewish State" but rather to hold out for finding some way of accomodation with the Palestinians that could lead to a unified "bi-national state" ...

Draft Text of Arab Summit Resolution - More of the Same Sweet Nothings
(March 25, 2002)
Much too weak, fractured, and frightened to actually act in any serious and independent manner -- even in the face of such repeated Israeli and American provocations and humiliations -- the grand "Arab world", meeting in summit in Beirut later this week, is poised to essentially do nothing.

Europeans See Americans Far Better Than Americans See Themselves
(March 23, 2002)
Time magazine was wrong a few months ago, but understandably so under the circumstances and few really expect much more from the mass American media .

Cheney Admits US will attack Iraq 'for Israel's sake'
(March 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 ...

Threatening With Nukes Could Well Lead to Use of Nukes - Part 1
(March 22, 2002)
One dreadful day they will be used. That likelihood seems now to be growing, especially as irresponsible leaders in both the US and UK keep publicly threatening to do just that rather than insisting that such weapons should never ever be used ...

Marching toward an American Police State - Part II
(March 22, 2002)
The above title was used to headline an article published on Wednesday, the same day we now learn the federal government was raiding Muslim homes and organizations in the Washington DC area.

U.S. Shifting to Large once Secret Qatar Military Base for Regional Control
(March 21, 2002)
The Americans have apparently agreed to let the Saudis off the hook when it comes to Prince Sultan Airbase, the largest and most sophisticated in the region, as long as they are on the hook when it comes to controlling the Arab Summit and fronting politically with "the Saudi Plan".

A Plea to US and Europe: Don't Participate in Killing and Torture of our People
(March 21, 2002)
All of the American "client regimes" in the Middle East -- including the main ones in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan -- use censorship, intimidation, torture, and the omnipresent secret police, to control their societies and prevent popular expression against their policies and corruption.

NewsFlash: Some U.S. Forces Beginning to leave Saudi for Qatar
(March 20, 2002)
Just days after Vice-President Richard Cheney visited Saudi Arabia and other countries in the area there are reports coming from the region that U.S. military forces are beginning to move out of Prince Sultan Air Base, a facility the U.S. is said to have spent tens of billions of dollars to make the most modern command base in the region.

Marching toward an American Police State - "Washington Scene"
(March 20, 2002)
A FOX NEWS cameraman was accosted by Pentagon Police outside the building on Tuesday -- as he was shooting pictures of an arrest being carried out by Virginia State Police on a highway that runs alongside the Pentagon but outside Pentagon property!

Squeezing and Smothering Arafat To Death
(March 20, 2002)
The Israelis, and the Americans of course, have Yasser Arafat right where they want him now. He either does as he is told and paid or he's a goner...one way or another.

More Humiliation for the Arabs both in Palestine and at the upcoming Arab Summit
(March 19, 2002)
It's terribly humiliating of course, but the Israelis have now told Arafat, in public, that he can go to the Arab Summit in Beirut if he does as he's told and declares the fighting ended.

CIA ANTHRAX?!
(March 18, 2002)
We already know it was a CIA operation back in the late 1980s that resulted in American-created anthrax spors being sent to Iraq and paid for by the U.S. Congress. We've just learned that a secret CIA team has recently gone to Northern Iraq to secretly meet with the Kurds and help prepare the coming war there.

Angry Demonstrators Condemn both Israel and U.S. in Arab world
(March 17, 2002)
For a second straight day, thousands of Arabs took to the streets across the Middle East on Saturday to burn Israeli and American flags and express anger over the rising Palestinian death toll.

Greater CIA Regime Being Thrust on Palestinians
(March 17, 2002)
Now the Israelis ... are proposing to try to save the "Authority" of Yasser Arafat by putting CIA "monitors" in Palestinian cities, offices, and jails; and CIA listening amd "monitoring" devices throughout the Palestinian bantustans and "occupied territories".

Has The U.S. Lost Its Way?
(March 16, 2002)
We comprise slightly less than 5 per cent of the world's population; but we imbibe 27 per cent of the world's annual oil production, create and consume nearly 30 per cent of its Gross World Product and - get this - spend a full 40 per cent of all the world's defence expenditures.

Transfer? Expulsion? Jordan is Palestine? Approaching the End Game
(March 16, 2002)
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.

Massive New Super Bomb Being Built To Kill Saddam and Threaten All
(March 15, 2002)
With its soldiers beginning to even look a bit like the Centurions in the Star Wars saga, the U.S. appears intent on enforcing the new "new world order" through brute force as well as technological marvels and overpowering firepower and information gathering capabilities.

DEALING WITH COLLABORATORS, AT LAST
(March 15, 2002)
Like so many words, this one "conspiracy" is overused and misused by many. That makes it all the more important to know whom to trust and rely on, whom to take seriously, whom to discount.

Manger Square has become a wild, blood-drenched place
(March 14, 2002)
After nearly 35 years of increasingly brutal military occupation since the 1967 war, Palestinian society itself has been tortured and disfigured. The Israelis have used informers and all kinds of means to bring the Palestinians to their knees ...

The U.N.'s latest cowardness, impotence, and duplicity
(March 13, 2002)
It should be a Saturday Night Live skit...the U.N. uttering (or is the correct word stuttering) the term "Palestinian State" after the U.S., Europe, Ariel Sharon and nearly everyone else has other than the crazy Israeli racist fundamentalists.

The Latest As Israel's Slaughter of the Palestinians Escalates Still Further
(March 12, 2002)
Israeli forces killed 31 Palestinians on Tuesday in their biggest offensive in the West Bank and Gaza since Israel captured the territories in the 1967 Middle East war.

Journalists Carefully Targeted by Israelis
(March 12, 2002)
Israeli forces fired for 10 to 15 minutes from tank-mounted machine guns on a hotel where journalists were photographing armor targeting the al-Amari refugee camp early Tuesday.

"Nazi Behavior" Charges Arafat As Israelis Crush Palestinians into Submission
(March 12, 2002)
Nothing like this has happened to the Palestinians since the 1967 War. And this time the cowardly "Arab leaders" are simply watching and pretending; while those who claim to be supportive of the Palestinians in the U.S. are, disorganized, inept, impotent, demoralized, and used up.

Two Poems
(March 11, 2002)
These two unpublished poems were written by a 25 year old Israeliwoman at the time of the first Intifada.

Black Friday and Saturday in the once Holy Land
(March 10, 2002)
The war in 1973 was intense and almost lead to a nuclear confrontation -- remember the infamous "Kissinger nuclear alert"? But for most Palestinians alive today there hasn't been such a bloody day in their lives as on Friday at least 44 Palestinians were killed, hundreds injured.

Israelis Kill and Rampage - U.S. Rhetorically Complains but in Reality Helps
(March 9, 2002)
Serious and urgent questions need to be asked: Why have not the governments of Egypt and Jordan at the very least broken political relations with Israel; and why in fact are these governments actually preventing demonstrations against what the Israelis are doing?

The Israeli Spy CoverUp
(March 9, 2002)
In addition to the "spy coverup" there is now a "media coverup". "We stand by the story" said a FOX News spokesman on 20 December. But now "The Story No Longer Exists" and FOX News has covered up the story of what happened, and why.

American Univ in Washington - Second Rate and Third Class
(March 8, 2002)
When it comes to international affairs and matters relating to the Middle East serious and honest people should keep away from American University in Washington, DC.

Now the US Says it was the Iranians and the Palestinians not the Libyans. Right!
(March 8, 2002)
You just gotta love the Americans, no shame at all. All these years they have been repeatedly and loudly insisting it was the Libyans who bombed Pan Am 103 out of the sky over Lockerbie, Scotland - more than a decade of sanctions ensued in fact.

Israeli Spying on US - Spiked Story from FOX News - Who Done It?
(March 7, 2002)
Just who pressured FOX News? Why did FOX News cave in so easily? What now months later when an expanded story is not just coming back to life in foreign publications but appears to be the greatest spy scandal ever involving the Israelis spying on the Americans?

Israeli Spying On The U.S. - Essential Background
(March 6, 2002)
The world of spying, like the world of "black ops", is full of confusion, disinformation, and false leads. Those in the media, even the biggest establishment news outlets, usually lack the means (as well as the will) to penetrate very far into this world on their own.

LeMonde on the Israeli Spy Ring in U.S.
(March 5, 2002)
Tremendous pressure was brought to bear in a coverup in which the U.S. government is now thought to have participated.

Israeli Spy Rings Rolled Up in U.S.
(March 5, 2002)
Israeli spying on the U.S. has long been going on; but it is usually covered up or glossed over by the major American news media.

Arafat in Dog Kennel, Sharon in Twilight Zone, Hosni Lost in Space
(March 5, 2002)
After some 20 years in power Hosni Mubarak, chatting with George Bush II today at the White House, has helped lead his country to nowhere, the Palestinians to disaster, and the Arab world to impotent feebleness. More on Mubarak and his shameless Egypt to come -- for he as well as Saudi Abdullah are Lost in Space.




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