No more excuses

The Bush administration is adding fuel to the fire by parroting Sharon, writes Mohamed Hakki from Washington
In his latest salvo against Yasser Arafat, US President George Bush accused the Palestinian Authority chairman of "enhancing terror" with a boatload of smuggled arms. He accuses the leader of the Palestinian people, who is incarcerated and humiliated, of fomenting violence against Israel. This boat incident is one of the more dubious in a long series of incidents which now comprise a pattern of Israeli provocations and Palestinian suicide counter-attacks. The pattern is there for anyone who wants to trace the latest Israeli atrocities against the Palestinians.
It took the US administration three weeks to come to the conclusion that this "50-ton shipload of heavy weapons" that the Israelis seized and accused the Palestinian Authority of smuggling from Iran, is actually a Palestinian plot. Now President Bush is accusing Arafat of enhancing terror, not fighting it. A young American intern at a Washington think-tank asked: "Since when were armaments valued by weight? And what about those Israeli tanks which are used to subject the entire Palestinian population to closure and demolition? How much do they weigh in tons?"
Before this latest statement I, and most Arab Americans, started to question whether this administration truly wants peace between Israel and the Palestinians. A high-ranking official at the Department of Defence asked me, "after all the statements by the President and Secretary Powell that we are not fighting Islam and that they want to see a Palestinian state, do you still doubt US intentions in the Middle East?" I said, "Actions speak louder than words. The track record of the Bush administration, in the last several months at least, indicates that there is no genuine desire for peace or any intention of seeking an equitable solution."
In the current issue of Foreign Affairs, Khalil Shikaki, associate professor at Birzeit University, describes three conceivable types of settlement: a comprehensive agreement aimed at ending the conflict, a stabilisation package designed to tone down the violence and shore up the status quo, and a transitional agreement that would be somewhere in between. He continues to say that "a comprehensive one would settle all the issues in dispute, including Jerusalem and the refugees, and end the conflict." But for this to happen he lists three conditions that need to be met. First, the Israelis would need to bring into government a leadership and coalition less wedded to an ideology of a greater Israel and willing to withdraw from almost all occupied Palestinian territories seized in 1967 and evacuate most of the settlements. Second, there would need to be a US administration passionately committed to making the process succeed. And third, the old and young on the Palestinian side must achieve a unity of purpose.
Unfortunately, the only passion I see in this administration is Bush's passion for the person of Ariel Sharon, whom he will meet this week for the fourth time. No matter that the butcher of Beirut is facing trial in Belgium for war crimes and is the one responsible for the dangerous deterioration of the whole situation. But President Bush has yet to meet Chairman Arafat. This is the same passion that is driving America's so-called even-handed diplomacy in the Arab-Israeli conflict toward a policy of overwhelming support for Israel and pressure on Arafat. It is the same passion that drove the White House to express its understanding of Israel's confinement of Arafat to virtual house arrest. Bush expressed his "understanding for the reason that Israel has taken the actions that it takes."
Ironically, the kind of passion for peace that is required to build the bridges needed only comes from the solitary voices of the peace camp in Israel. In an open letter to Shimon Peres, Gideon Levy, writing in Ha'aretz, says "The government of which you are a senior member, the foreign minister, is no longer the government of last resort; this government is a government of crime. Your silence and inaction can no longer be justified by any excuse." He goes on to say, "You have imprisoned an entire people for over a year with a degree of cruelty unprecedented in the history of Israeli occupation. Your government is leaving them with no semblance of normal life. No going to the market, no going to work, no going to school, no visiting a sick uncle. Nothing. No going anywhere and no coming back from anywhere. No day or night. Danger lurks everywhere, and everywhere there is another checkpoint choking off life."
Levy cautions against worse times to come. "The cycle of violence and hatred has far from reached its peak. All the injustices and evil perpetrated against the Palestinians will eventually blow up in our faces. A people that is abused this way for years will explode one day in a terrible fury, even worse than we have seen so far." Does President Bush read Ha'aretz?
But one does not hear this passion in Washington at all, neither from present nor past officials. Congress, which former presidential candidate Patrick Buchanan called "Israeli-occupied territory," is actually getting ready to promulgate a series of actions against the Palestinian people, starting with closing their office in Washington.
Richard Murphy, former assistant secretary of state, who has never been known to make bold statements, says he fears that the United States might be sliding down a slippery slope toward contributing to a civil war between Arafat's Palestinian supporters and his Palestinian foes.
What it boils down to is that the US is parroting the Israeli position. They both put the onus of the present state of affairs on one man: Yasser Arafat. Let us consider that for a moment. It suits the Israeli Prime Minister to put the blame on Arafat for a problem Sharon personally instigated (Sharon's sally into Al-Aqsa Mosque in September 2000) as the majority of the Israelis would agree. Some American former officials told me Arafat had to finish off his opponents. This is what the Algerians did in the early days of the revolution; this is what Ben Gurion did to all of his opponents. What they are forgetting is the historical differences.
In fact, Sharon makes sure that every time there is a respite in the violence, he assassinates one or more Palestinian leader. So even if the US is justified in pressuring Arafat to act against what they consider "terrorists", it is incumbent upon then to admonish Sharon when he commits what the entire world considers to be war crimes. Only then would they have the moral high ground from which to pressure Arafat. It is obvious that Sharon has made it a pattern to inflame, humiliate and paralyse the Palestinian people and their security services by his targeted assassinations, home demolitions, crippling closures and creeping reoccupation. Robert Malley, who was special assistant for Israeli-Arab affairs under President Clinton, says, "By his actions and not without help from the Palestinians, Mr Sharon has done all in his power to make it unfeasible for them to meet their obligation."
What needs to be recognised by the US is that it is not Arafat who plays into Sharon's hands, it is actually the US when young Hamas members see that when Sharon continues his policy of assassination, universally condemned except by the US, there is no way for them to think dispassionately about the chances of his government returning to the peace process. But when did the US ever give these same people the feeling that they were even-handed? When did the Palestinians ever feel that the international condemnation of Sharon's policies would not be aborted by the US? When did they ever feel that the UN Security Council could pass sanctions without a US veto? Or when did they ever feel that international observers, peace- keepers, monitors, or even simply onlookers could be invited as an arbiter or a referee without the US blocking it?
But if we allow ourselves to criticise the US we have to question Arab reactions, too. Saying "what can we do?" is not an excuse. Fear of displeasing America is not appropriate, under the circumstances. Arab leaders have many options. They can call for a collective summit meeting in Washington with President Bush. They can collectively say "enough is enough" and demand a change of policy for the sake of better relations for all future generations. They can recall their ambassadors for a cooling off period to show the American people their displeasure and disappointment.
Talk about starting an independent think-tank in Washington has been going on for several years without one practical step to implement it. They can at least begin by massively supporting the existing friendly think-tanks like the Middle East Institute and others. Starting an English-language satellite service beamed to the US would be a welcome idea. But if it is going to repeat the same failed message that they have in Arabic, then we will not get anywhere.
It is better to admit that we failed to get our message across and re-examine the validity of the message. Arab officials still go to their enemies, to institutions like the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, honouring them and demeaning themselves.
We neglect large segments of the US society like the evangelical Christians. It is not quite true that all Evangelicals are Christian Zionists. In fact, we do have a number of friends among them who disagree with the Christian Zionists who are only a subset of the Evangelicals. The Evangelicals gave the Prince of Peace award to former Egyptian President Anwar El-Sadat in 1978 and posthumously to Jordan's King Hussein in 1999. Arab Christians and Moslems alike need to reach out to this group. Their political clout in America reaches the highest levels both in Congress and the administration. "One intriguing question posed frequently in Israeli government and US Evangelical circles," The Washington Post asks in this Sunday's edition, "is whether President Bush who has been outspoken in his Evangelical beliefs, privately holds Christian Zionist views."
What is actually needed now, and what would greatly help, is not only an Israeli apology to the Palestinians for all the suffering they have caused them. As Uri Avneri says in a recent article: "What is truly needed is an equal American historical apology to the same people for aiding and abetting the Israelis... They are afraid to admit that they even inadvertently caused harm. They want to forget the whole thing and leave it to their insurance company (the United States) to pay the compensation." It is high time for the insurance company to admit their role in the Palestinian tragedy and pay up.
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