Rasha Saad sees how Iran's nuclear accord with Brazil and Turkey can prevent conflict elsewhere Iran's recent nuclear deal struck with Brazil and Turkey was the focus this week. In the London-based daily Al-Hayat Patrick Seale wrote that the deal reached in Tehran last week could largely defuse the international crisis over Iran's nuclear activities if it is accepted by the international community. In "The consequences of Iran's nuclear deal" Seale argued that the move "must be counted as a considerable contribution to peace in the region and should be widely welcomed." According to Seale, the architects of the deal, Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan will win plaudits throughout the developing world for their mediation, "particularly among those who resent American pressure and detest Israel's unashamed militarism, not least Iran itself and most of its Arab neighbours." Seale pointed out that "what Lula and Erdogan have shown, however, is that, in dealing with proud and prickly nations like Iran, showing respect, friendship and a willingness to engage in dialogue, however difficult and time-consuming, can yield far better results than sanctions, threats and military confrontation." US President Barack Obama, Seale continued, seemed to have understood this when he entered the White House in January 2009 but to have since reverted to more traditional American arm-twisting. "If the Tehran agreement sticks, it can only further enhance Turkey's beneficent regional role as a mediator and peace-maker. The intractable Arab-Israeli dispute is in urgent need of its attention," Seale concluded. In the pan-Arab daily Asharq Al-Awsat Abdel-Rahman Al-Rashid wrote that the deal was a "painful and humiliating slap in the face of the American president". In "Iran has confounded the White House" Al-Rashid wrote that by reaching an agreement with Brazil and Turkey "Ahmadinejad has confounded all of Obama's plans, having postponed taking punitive measures [against Iran] several times in the hope of convincing Ahmadinejad to give up his nuclear weapons programme." Arab pundits also focussed on the possibilities of Israeli strikes in the region. In Al-Hayat, Hossam Itani wrote that the start of Israel's Turning Point 4 military war games, which coincided with the 10-year commemoration of the withdrawal of Israeli occupation forces from South Lebanon, had resulted in much tension and the talk of war in the region. According to Itani, all estimations and scenarios speak of a military confrontation, one which, if it were to take place, would be qualitatively different from the long series of skirmishes, invasions and military operations that the region has been witnessing for seven decades. "Military experts and their deputies speak of a level of violence and destruction reaching Israel and its enemies the likes of which is unprecedented." However, Hussein Shobokshi in Asharq Al-Awsat wrote that while the eyes of the Arab world are intensely focussed on fears of a possible Israeli strike against Lebanon or Syria or even Iran, "the biggest fear lies in the secret scheme being whispered about in the West Bank." Shobokshi explains that Israel continues to believe that the biggest obstacle to its expansionist policy and settlement construction activities is the human Palestinian "numbers" on the lands of the West Bank. Shobokshi points out that these days, Israeli reports are talking about a major war whose essential purpose is the focussed eviction of the population of the West Bank and expulsion to Jordan. The basic aim of this eviction scheme or "transfer", Shobokshi continues, is to undermine the proposed form of the plan to establish a Palestinian homeland, change the demographic facts, and transform the problem into a tragedy "outside Israeli borders". "Israel is staging daily miniature rehearsals in various parts of the Palestinian territories. Buildings are being demolished, lands are being razed and people are being displaced and barred from entering their homes. This is the scheme that will be implemented later but on a bigger scale and based on a broader plan." Shobokshi warns that Israel is preoccupying the world, including the Arabs, with Syrian Scud missiles, threatening Iran, and warning against the dangers of Hizbullah. "Meanwhile, it is focussing intensely on expanding its settlements and raising the degree of phobia in others surrounding it." The key to peace in the Middle East is deterring Israel and stopping its frenzied expansionist schemes that no one is trying to deter, Shobokshi writes. "Israel does not respect charters or pledges or norms. It shows no mercy on buildings, homes, churches, mosques or schools. Nothing is forbidden for the sake of more land that would increase its expansion and settlement building activities," Shobokshi wrote. In Al-Hayat Hassan Haidar focussed on reconciliation efforts in Yemen. Haidar wrote in "Yemen: the policy of the outstretched hand" that Yemen's president did well when he called for national reconciliation on the 20th anniversary of the unification of the two halves of the country, encouraged all opposition parties to participate in a government of unity, and issued an unexpected pardon for detainees from the two rebel movements in the north and in the south. Haidar, however, wondered if the president's initiative will "this time depart from the framework of reconciliation in the Arab fashion and represent a basis for laying down solutions to Yemen's worsening problems and for ensuring that internal and external crises and wars will not be repeated." Haidar wrote that Yemeni political parties have issued statements on the occasion of the commemoration of unity, all of which spoke of the difficult political and economic circumstances and of the state of tension in the north and in the south; the fragile truce with Abdel-Malik Al-Houthi's fighters; the increasing lawlessness in the southern regions; the tremendous rise in the cost of living; the lack of social and economic balance between all provinces; the evading of electoral promises, and much more. "And except for accusing the state of being behind all such calamities, and raising general slogans that befit any time and place, none of these statements put its finger on the wound or said what solutions they would suggest." Thus, Haidar concludes, "the call made by the Yemeni president to unconditional dialogue, which must result in a national unity government, seems on background an advanced step and an outstretched hand that should be met with a positive response from the different parties."
