News of bombing attacks in Arab capitals and the Palestinian territories and introspection on how Muslim countries should "face" the challenges confronting them recurred in the Arab press this week, writes Aziza Sami The Arab press reported bomb attacks in Riyadh and Casablanca targeting "American" and "Jewish and Belgian" interests. These were followed by a spate of suicide bombings in the Palestinian territories causing Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to postpone his trip to Washington amidst accusations that Palestinian National Authority (PNA) leader Yasser Arafat was leading an "axis of terror". Egyptian newspapers highlighted statements made by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on the anniversary of the Prophet Mohamed's birthday, stressing the need to adopt a "moderate religious discourse". A reformulation of Iranian--Lebanese ties in view of threats directed by the US to Hizbullah was also reported, as part of an unprecedented regional tour undertaken by Iranian President Khatami. Secret talks were also reported to have been held over the past months between Iranian and US officials in Geneva. A meeting was held in Paris between Qatari Foreign Minister Hamad bin Jasim Al-Thani and his Israeli counterpart Silvan Shalom. In Egypt, reports of an impending cabinet reshuffle dominated the opposition and independent press, with news of the brief hospitalisation of Prime Minister Atef Ebeid. THIS VICIOUS CIRCLE: On 18 April the London-based pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat wrote in its banner that "Mobile terrorists hit in Casablanca: 46 dead and tens of wounded: Bush warns of new attacks. Suspicions are directed to the Takfir wal Hijra organisation". The Egyptian national daily Al-Ahram on 18 April reported the event as "the [Casablanca] attacks target Jewish, Spanish and Belgian institutions: most of the victims are Moroccans". A small front-page headline in Al-Ahram read that "A Jewish settler and his wife die in a fedayeen operation in Galilee". This was rendered in Al-Hayat as "A suicide operation precedes the meeting between Sharon and Abu Mazen: acceptance of [Sa'eb] Erekat's resignation opens the door to political tug of war". On 19 April the attacks in the Palestinian territories took on new dimensions, with Al-Hayat reporting that "Sharon postpones his trip to Washington, and [orders] a complete closure of the West Bank and Gaza". The newspaper's banner read that "Suicide operations besiege Abu Mazen's government, and Israel accuses Arafat of leading 'an axis of evil'". Reports of bombing attacks against US interests and residential compounds in Riyadh on 12 May had dominated the press in the preceding days. Al-Hayat on 14 May wrote that "Riyadh accuses Al-Qa'eda, and Bush promises retribution to the 'murderers'". In Al-Sharq Al-Awsat , also on 14 May, Saudi writer Mashari Al-Zaydi, tracing the origins of the "terrorist group" that had undertaken the Riyadh bombings, wrote an article entitled "The Kitchen of Peshawer and the Concoction of Grenada". Al-Zaydi referred to "Afghan Saudis turning to Jihadist thought after the second Gulf War, and how they returned to Afghanistan to train in the camps of Osama Bin Laden." After 11 September, the "jihadist sheikhs" had become more vociferous, Al-Zaydi said, announcing their support of Al-Qa'eda against the war on terror. "This group had begun to pull the rug out from under the traditional sheikhs, becoming more active during the Iraqi war, issuing edicts, and becoming a reference for jihadist youth.The tug of war with the authorities had continued until the recent [terrorist] cell was discovered days ago, coming as a shock. We would be mistaken as a society if we do not realise the need for a major and authentic reform of our local religious discourse. This should adopt from Sheikh Mohamed Abdu his rationality, from Gawdat Sa'id his pacifism, from Al-Buti his understanding of 'jihad' and from Sheikh Shaltout his spirit of contemporariness. From the 'salaf' [predecessors], we must take a broad-minded interpretation of religious law, (fiqh), and from every school of fiqh present in the great sea of Islamic heritage, adopt what will enable us to live in this age and contribute to human civilisation and, before this, ourselves. I see nothing in the [bombings of] 12 May but sheer ugliness. However, if there is anything good here, then it must be that it will awaken us from a deep sleep and bring us out of this vicious circle." Meanwhile, the Kuwait daily Al-Qabas on 18 May published in its banner that "Washington tells the Gulf States: Prepare for a Ferocious Battle against Terrorism", while the London- based daily Al-Quds wrote in a headline on 15 May that "an Army of FBI agents is in Saudi Arabia to investigate the attacks". SHOCK WITHOUT AWE: On 13 May, Al- Ahram's banner highlighted President Hosni Mubarak's speech given on the occasion of the birthday of the Prophet Mohamed with the words that "Mubarak calls for a frank scrutiny of oneself by which to face our future and progress with our Muslim world". Smaller headlines read that "one of the most important factors of our strength is moderate religious discourse, and the rational interpretation of religion's directives". This was also the day that US Secretary of State Colin Powell visited Cairo, with Al-Ahram's headlines stating that the president had looked into the "roadmap" and conditions in Palestine. Editor-in-Chief of Al-Ahram Ibrahim Nafie on 13 May expressed criticism in his daily column 'Mawaqef' ['Stances'] of "those who believe that religion is a perpetual confrontation with 'others' different in culture and religion, (or) worse, those who think that confrontation must first be undertaken towards followers of their own religion". Referring to Egypt's hosting of the conference of the Higher Islamic Council, Nafie wrote that Islamic leaders had expressed their desire to "transcend what has happened and what is being plotted against Muslim culture. However, this will not happen without our rearranging, and revising our 'internal image', as President Mubarak said in his speech." Former Egyptian Defence Minister and analyst Amin Howeidy wrote in Al-Ahram on 13 May of "The Invasion of Iraq and lessons learned". Howeidy advised that the wise course to adopt when one's strength is incompatible with that of the other party was "to avoid confrontation, unless it is made inevitable, as happened between President Bush and President Saddam Hussein. What must now be done is to avert facing the wounded wolf [the US] unless we are able to engage with it in battle". Howeidy said that dialogue was a "must", warning against a recourse "to any weapon whose use would be considered as a crossing of red lines, instigating strong reaction from the other side". Howeidy contended that "what is needed to rectify the current imbalance of power and make Egypt truly 'pivotal' is not shouting and slogans, but construction, production and the enhancement of technological abilities. A review must be made of our armed forces and of anticipated threats now and after five or 10 years. This must be done in the light of present restrictions and treaties signed [by Egypt]. We must ask: can a battle be embarked upon without air cover? How can we face shock without awe? What should the relationship between the political and military leadership be, etc? We must monitor the current so as not be overtaken and in order to avert catastrophe". TO BE A LIBERAL: On 14 May, the Egyptian weekly newspaper Al-Ahali, mouthpiece of the left-wing opposition Tagammu Party, published an article by the party's secretary-general, Rifaat El-Said, entitled "The Muslim Brotherhood: Is there a Future?" El-Said reviewed a book by Abdel-Rehim Ali entitled "Scenarios Before the Fall", underscoring the question of which course the Muslim Brotherhood would follow after the 11 September attacks on the US had resulted in ending the "entente" between the Brotherhood and the Egyptian state. El-Said advocated that the Brotherhood adopt a trend represented by what the author called the group's "middle generation". The was characterised as more prone than other "generations" of the Brotherhood to self-review and assessment of the group's past record. El-Said lauded this trend, saying that "there must be a critical and comprehensive review of the Brotherhood's history and decisive condemnation of its major mistakes, such as the establishment of a secret military apparatus and terrorist activities. This should also encompass the ideas of the Brotherhood's founder Hassan El-Banna himself". He concluded with the question of whether "the Brotherhood [would] have the courage to follow this course" and whether "it is sufficient". Could this middle generation resolve the dilemma represented by "involving religion in politics and [the Brotherhood's] having posited itself as the representatives of divine will? There are many questions still to be answered". On the opinion pages of Al-Sharq Al-Awsat on 13 May Ghassan Imam wrote of "the return of the white man's colonialism", with Sawsan Al- Abtah writing of "Daggers in Throats". Al- Abtah was critical of the Jordanian authorities' arrest of Palestinian poet Moussa Hawamdeh and his sentencing for having "defamed religion" in a poem. "It is time", she said, "to conspire -- with all affection -- against authorities that have kicked our freedom around like a soccer ball, each vying with the other to score the highest points". Writing in Al-Hayat on 16 May the newspaper's columnist Hazem Saghiya wrote of "The Difficulties of Being a Liberal in the Arab world". This was the reprint of a speech delivered by Saghiya at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy in the US, Saghiya saying that the "Arab world's liberal agenda" included building civil society, religious reform, replacing "hollow' slogans like pan-Arabism" with national priorities of economic development, and building peace with Israel. This "historic project" would not be attained, however, Saghiya said, without the US's help and its pressuring Israel to stop building settlements and eating up Palestinian land. The US must do this, just as it put pressure "on Arafat, suicide bombings and anti-Semitic obscenities" wrote Saghiya, "because the question is one of land [taken by Israel from the Palestinians] just as it is one of terrorism". Saghiya admonished the US to change the negative images of itself projected to the Arab world of indifference, coercion, and, after 11 September, the violation of civil rights. "No liberal can ever be against America, whose essence is freedom, private enterprise and cultural pluralism. A liberal need not support the US administration in all it does. If he opposes it, it is not because he is anti-American, but because he is a liberal". FOLLOW THE EXAMPLE: Al-Hayat's banner on 13 May reported "Secret American-Iranian talks in Geneva related to Iraq and Afghanistan not bilateral ties". Another news item read that "Khatami in Beirut rejects American accusations and threats". On 14 May, Al-Hayat reported Iranian President Khatami as saying during his "historic" visit to Beirut that "We must not give Israel the chance to enlist American power in a manner serving its goals". Extensive coverage was also made of the Iranian president's "comprehensive political speech" delivered in the Lebanese capital, in which he said that "it is the people who determine the fate of each party, or group, not accusations or threats", in a reference to US pressures currently exerted on Hizbullah. Another news item in Al-Hayat read that "Hizbullah's future and Palestine are on the agenda of the Geneva talks". Al-Hayat's front page also gave prominence to the statement made in Tehran by Supreme Guide Ali Khameni that "resumption of ties with the US is surrender to the enemy". On 15 May Al-Hayat's banner reported that Khatami "condemned the Riyadh explosions and the provision of excuses for wars". The paper also highlighted the Iranian president's statement that "negotiations with the US will continue, and we reject sectarian or nationalistic rule in Iraq". Dawoud Al-Shiryan, writing in Al-Hayat on 13 May, commented that "what is required of Iran in the coming phase is that it not act as a theocracy. It must also reformulate its discourse and policies towards Arab Shi'ites, by desisting from regarding them as if it were their patron. This is detrimental to the Arabs who stood against Iran in its war with Iraq, casting doubts on their Arab and national allegiance". Al-Sharq Al-Awsat and Al-Hayat on 15 May highlighted the meeting held in Paris between Qatari Foreign Minister Hamad bin Jasem Al- Thani and his Israeli counterpart Silvan Shalom. Al-Hayat's headline read that "Hamad asserts Qatar's desire to undertake a role in reviving negotiations and establishing good ties with Israel, and says in a meeting with Shalom that peace is attainable with the recognition of others' right to exist." Al-Sharq Al-Awsat wrote that "Shalom asks Arab foreign ministers to follow the example of Sheikh Hamad", a smaller headline reading that "the Israeli defence minister accuses Abu Mazen and Dahlan of ineffectiveness in the face of Arafat". UNTIL WHEN? Writing in the Egyptian national daily Al-Akhbar on 15 May Editor-in- Chief Galal Dowidar asked "until when will American policy continue to play on our emotions with false hopes, and promises of a just peace which will end the continued Israeli aggression on Arab rights? If the past two years of President Bush's presidency have witnessed the worse decisions of partiality to Israel, how can anyone believe the seriousness of claims to be working towards a just solution to the Palestinian problem?" "The question is all the more pertinent with the election campaign for a second presidential term now impending, one where the Jewish vote will be a determining one. What is certain -- after the Palestinians have accepted the roadmap -- is that it is the Israelis who reject it. We as Arabs, and with us the whole world, have the right to ask what procedure Washington intends to take to make the roadmap that it devised respected and implemented. Can Washington stop its support of pretexts undertaken by Israel to cover the crimes of occupation and assassination daily undertaken against unarmed Palestinians?" "Egypt's position -- clearly stated by Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher -- is that the roadmap is a document made to be implemented, not modified as Israeli wants. We hope that what Maher has said -- that Washington refuses pre- conditions by Israel [regarding the roadmap] -- is true. The Israeli Prime Minister will visit the US on 20 May to hold talks with President Bush. We can only wait and see". NOT A GAS STATION: On 13 May the London-based Al-Quds was the only Arabic daily to publish as its banner the statement by the former British Minister for International Development Claire Short, who had just resigned, that "Blair is assisting Bush in his 'terrorising' of the UN". Al-Quds' Editor-in-Chief Abdel-Bari Atwan also wrote under the title "American Confusion in Baghdad" that "American decisions on the management of Iraq are characterised by extreme confusion, indicating that the administration does not have a clear plan on how to deal with this country after it occupied it and did away with the previous regime. The administration has decided to replace the team it appointed to run the country and start reconstruction, thus practically admitting [its] failure. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have emerged in demonstrations demanding evacuation and ending the occupation at the soonest possible time. The reason is clear: the civil American administration of post-Ba'ath Iraq was a disappointment, not at all congruent with the capabilities and experience of a super-power: the greatest in the world". "The democracy that Washington wants for Iraq and its people is unique", wrote Atwan, "having nothing to do with votes and free choice. If the administration does not want an Islamic state like that in Iran, nor a role for the Ba'ath whose members it has criminalised and prohibited from political participation, then what kind of democracy is this? To put it in a nutshell: America thinks of Iraq as a gas station, not a civil society whose heritage extends back thousands of years. It is painful that this America, which has not yet attained the stage of cultural 'weaning', should rule a country which 40 centuries ago gave the world its first written law, and established more than seven empires". UNTIL IT COLLAPSES: On 19 May the independent Egyptian weekly newspaper Sout-el- Umma wrote "the next blow: America starts the war for changing Saudi Arabia", adding that "after 11 September and American pressures on Saudi Arabia, the Kingdom lost its ideological support in Wahhabi Islam". The newspaper also referred to "the beginnings of a strong movement" by Iran "whose president visited Lebanon, Syria and Bahrain for the first time since the Iranian revolution. This augurs for a more prominent role for the Shi'ites, at a time when America is working towards upsetting the traditional balance of power between them and the Sunnis, from Iraq to Iran. When religion is the basis of power, then it will tend to the extreme. All the Saudi opposition is extremist, with not a single modern or civil-society organisation amongst them." Sout-el-Umma then quoted British columnist Robert Fisk's analysis that "American interests still reside with the [Saudi] Royal Family. Despite apparent tensions, the US administration will continue to support the Royal Family -- until it collapses." The Egyptian weekly newspaper Al-Arabi, mouthpiece of the Nasserist Party, on 18 May also gave prominence on its front page to Fisk's commentary. The independent Egyptian weekly newspaper Al-Osbou' on 19 May alleged that an article written by AUC professor and activist, Saadeddin Ibrahim, in the Washington Post had "incited the US against Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Libya and the Sudan" and "accused Egypt of responsibility for terrorism, at home and abroad". The newspaper gave a translation of Ibrahim's article, in which he admonished the US and the West to lead "through patience and active intervention" the Arab region towards democracy. On 14 May Al-Ahram reported that Prime Minister Atef Ebeid had been admitted to the Dar Al-Fouad hospital "for a check-up and treatment". The banner of the weekly Al-Ahali, issued by the left-wing Tagammu Party, meanwhile read on the same day that "Ebeid collects his papers: the decision for change has been issued, with the timing of implementation to be determined". Al-Arabi for its part speculated on its front page that there would be "a new government in July: [Chief of the presidential staff] Zakariyya Azmi the strongest candidate to become Ebeid's successor. Wali and El-Shazli to be removed, with an ascent by Gamal Mubarak's men". Al-Arabi also referred to "An American report which demands monitoring Egypt for violation of religious freedoms". I ONLY WISH: Al-Arabi published two articles critical of the spate of "fiery" statements recently issued by the Sheikh of Al-Azhar Mohamed Sayed Tantawi, from the war on Iraq to economic boycotts and Palestinian resistance. One article read "Our venerated Imam: speak well, or remain silent", the other shedding light on "The Contradictions of the Sheikh of Al-Azhar". Al-Arabi published on its second page its unsigned satirical weekly article, this time entitled: "The Government of Historic Moment Has it in For You". Resorting to favourite and much-used official terminology, the article described the cabinet as having moved, in the economic domain, "from one glorious achievement to the next" bringing about "magnificent things" like "structuralising structural adjustment, and speeding off with the heroic Egyptian economy from infrastructure to bone structure." News on the weekly paper's front page reported that an episode of the widely-watched television programme "Editor-in-Chief" featuring an interview with Hizbullah's leader Sayyid Hassan Nassrallah had been postponed to an undefined time. Al-Arabi wrote that it would publish a text of the interview in its issue next week. The newspaper also published an interview with author Mustafa Mahmoud in which he expressed his wish to see, "before he dies", Egypt ruled by "a president who has been elected".
