24 - 30 May 2001
Issue No.535
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 24 - 30 May 2001 Issue No.535 |
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The last option
Perhaps the Arab summit follow-up committee's decision to suspend all relations with Sharon's government is all that is left to the Arabs by way of response to Israel.
To achieve his objectives Sharon has used the same methods Milosevic deployed in the Balkan crisis. America's indecisiveness and Europe's cowardly refusal to interfere directly eventually ignited the conflict there. Like Milosevic, Sharon continues to respond to peaceful protests and demonstrations with missiles and F16s, occupy land subject to the Palestinian Authority and block food and medical supplies sent to the civilians under siege. The aim is clear: to strangle the Intifada and force the Palestinians to submit to his conditions. Sharon has one advantage over Milosevic, however: he knows the Zionist lobby will paralyse the American administration even if it decides to intervene to protect its interests in the Middle East.
When the follow-up committee's decision was announced, Arab-Israeli relations had already plummeted: the Egyptian ambassador had been recalled, Jordan had refrained from appointing an ambassador to Israel and the US-mediated Palestinian-Israeli meetings on "security objectives" had failed. It is hard to imagine a return to the negotiating table anytime soon.
Currently, the most pressing question is whether the Arabs have any options left. As Israel's aggression develops into a one-sided war, the military solution is no longer a viable option for the Arab states. The Arabs may have to use all the power at their disposal -- control of energy resources -- or die at the hands of the Zionist praetorians and their American protectors.
It is impossible to maintain a relationship with a "friendly nation" when it behaves in ways that undermine the interests and even the very existence of its supposed ally, which continues to treat the former with sincerity as a friend, placing all it has at its enemy's disposal. If there is no hope of American or European intervention, what is to be done? The fate of a nation cannot be sacrificed in return for dubious material or security benefits. Arab-American bilateral relations cannot go on governing national interests. The current circumstances suggest that a unified Gulf-Iranian-Iraqi-Libyan position on oil prices could be adopted, intensifying the energy crisis now threatening the West. The energy programme announced recently by Bush would suggest that the impending disaster is serious. The Arabs must capitalise on it to serve their own interests, by revising both production levels and prices regardless of the damage this might wreak on Western economies.
It may be difficult to organise a full-fledged boycott, but the Arabs could regulate production on a purely pragmatic cost-benefit basis that determines the best overall arrangement. Western policy in the Middle East, which the Zionist influence has come to govern, has given rise to the tragic events now going on in Palestine. If Sharon manages to achieve his objectives, at any rate, Arabs will have only themselves to blame.
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