If Israel is pushing for a strike on Iran it is to secure its hegemony in the region, not to eliminate only Iran, writes Ayman El-Amir* Israel is facing a predicament it has not been used to -- a change of the status quo to the possibility of focussed negotiations involving the United States over the question of Palestine and a two-state solution. For a decade Israel has been comfortable with the Bush- Sharon accord that the Palestinian people could only exist within the geopolitical parameters defined by Israel, which preclude self-determination, a viable state within the territories occupied in 1967, discussion of the existence and expansion of Israeli settlements, dismantling the racist wall that dismembers Palestinian land, rights of the inhabitants of Jerusalem and the right of return. Most importantly, any act of Palestinian resistance against the brutal Israeli occupation was to be treated as a heinous act of unjustified terrorism that calls for the most vicious response, with the Bush administration's blessings. Then a surprise paradox appeared on the scene. A new US president and administration came to power in Washington that declared the Middle East conflict as one of its early priorities and espoused the two-state solution. To confirm its commitment, it appointed a special presidential envoy to deal with the situation and sent its secretary of state to the region. Shortly afterwards, a new, extreme right-wing Israeli government assumed office and declared a policy towards the Palestinians that would have been the envy of the Nazis of the Third Reich. Meanwhile, all parties to the Arab-Israeli conflict will be filing to Washington in the next few weeks to present to the Obama administration their views on the matter as well as on other issues that they deem worrisome in the wider Middle East region -- mainly the rising influence of Iran. While the Obama administration is pursuing a separate track of dealing with Iran's nuclear programme through dialogue, Israel is mixing agendas, trying to shift the focus from its occupation of Palestinian territories to Iran's so- called nuclear threat. This is Israel's way of sidetracking the Palestinian problem. It feels that its platform policy direction towards the problem may be on a collision course with that of the Obama administration. In the last two years of the Bush administration wild speculations, fuelled by Israel, went around Washington and Middle East capitals as to if and when George W Bush would order a pre-emptive strike against Iran's nuclear facilities. In the last six months, the scenario was muted and with the coming of the Obama administration it was changed to dialogue, much to the chagrin of Israel. For an Israel that was so much used to shaping US policy for the Middle East in its own interest the change raises concern. It is particularly troublesome for a government that has positioned itself on the total negation of Palestinian rights and furthering all the actions that have been declared illegal and contrary to international law even by its closest allies. To add insult to injury, the Netanyahu government has brazenly adopted the attitude that occupied Palestinian territory is "the land of Israel" and that Israeli settlers have to be expelled "from their homes" to placate Iran. Israel does not want a peaceful settlement; it wants territorial settlement heavily guarded by military force and armed settlers. To impress his case on the Obama administration Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has called in his battery of media loyalists to expound the argument. One of them, Caroline Glick, a former Israeli army captain who served in 1997-98 as deputy assistant foreign policy adviser to Netanyahu when he was prime minister, writing in The Jerusalem Post, has recently criticised US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's statement before the House Appropriations Committee. Clinton told the committee: "For Israel to get the kind of strong [Arab] support it's looking for vis-à-vis Iran, it can't stay on the sidelines with respect to the Palestinians and the peace efforts." Glick reprimanded the Obama administration's "delusion" of thinking that in order to get Arab support for its contemplated action against Iran, Israel has to "expel its citizens from their homes and communities in Judea and Samaria" (the West Bank). She says that Egypt and Jordan, as well as Gulf Arab states, are as keen as Israel is "to neutralise Iranian power in the region by preventing it from acquiring nuclear weapons". The writer, who calls Arab kings and presidents "Arab cheerleaders", wonders that if the Arabs are so keen on Israeli military action against Iran, why should the Obama administration be so anxious to link Arab support to Palestinian rights? As usual, Israel is distorting the issues. The Obama administration has not made the resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict contingent on neutralising Iran's nuclear programme that, as far as the International Atomic Energy Agency is concerned, is not a proven weapons development category programme. Barack Obama has designated George Mitchell as his Middle East envoy and approved the appointment of Dennis Ross as special adviser to Secretary of State Clinton on the Gulf countries and Iran. While the two tracks run parallel, the administration is not oblivious of the fact that Israeli intransigence, its murderous campaign against the Palestinians, settlement of their land and mass persecutions that violate all provisions of international law, fuel radicalism in the region and beyond. Hamas, the Islamic Jihad and Hizbullah did not emerge because Iran wanted to create proxies to destabilise Arab regimes friendly to Israel but as resistance movements combating Israeli occupation in Palestine and Lebanon. Iran's support is more honourable than George W Bush's support of the blood-soaked policies of Ariel Sharon, Ehud Olmert and Netanyahu against Palestinian civilians. That is why the new radical Israeli government is irritated by the Obama administration's policy of separating the issues and reviving the Middle East peace process that had been nixed by George W Bush. That is also why Netanyahu loyalist writers are brandishing the scenario of a "pre-emptive" Israeli strike that would nip in the bud Iran's nascent nuclear programme. The message is directed as much at Tehran as towards Washington that Israel will torch the Middle East if Iran is not forced by the US to discontinue its nuclear energy development programme, in order to allow Israel to maintain its overwhelming military edge, or if Israel is pressured on the Palestinian people's rights. Netanyahu's cohorts have been escalating the war rhetoric, strongly indicating that Israel may have to move up its plans for a unilateral military strike against Iran's nuclear installations before it achieves further progress with its programme or before Russia supplies it with an upgraded S- 300 surface-to-air missile defence system. They further argue with Washington that if countries like Egypt and Jordan support an Israeli strike, and other Gulf countries like Kuwait, Bahrain and Iraq think that Israel is not moving fast enough against Iran, why should Washington insist on a fruitless dialogue? Israel cites for its argument the alleged network of Hizbullah saboteurs recently uncovered in Egypt and that is now under investigation as evidence that Egypt is as anxious as Israel to contain the rising power of Iran and to wipe out its proxies -- Hizbullah and Hamas. While Israel has established solid credentials as a master of pre-emptive military strikes, as it did in 1967 against Egypt, Syria and Jordan, it is playing with fire in the case of Iran. For its past 42 years of military occupation of conquered Arab territories Israel has proved to be a war-loving state. It does not care for peace; it wants to annex Palestinian and Arab territories in pursuit of its grandiose dream of Greater Israel at any price. No matter what its leaders advocate, Israel believes in superior military power, not peace agreements, as the best guarantee of its security and imposition of its expansionist ambitions. And it considers anyone who has the capability, even in conventional weapons, to challenge that as a mortal enemy. To achieve that, Israel is willing to torch the entire Middle East by triggering total war that would primarily undermine Western strategic interests, destabilise the region and threaten lifeline oil supplies. Netanyahu and his ilk are wild enough to risk everything to keep Israel's hold on the region, not to neutralise Iran's nuclear ambitions. It is in the best interest of the US, the Europeans and the Arab states that have been named as favouring an Israeli military strike to pronounce themselves strongly against Israel's cataclysmic plans. * The writer is former Al-Ahram correspondent in Washington, DC. He also served as director of United Nations Radio and Television in New York.
