7 - 13 March 2002
Issue No.576
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 7 - 13 March 2002 Issue No.576 |
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Risky posturing
The Arab world must be wary at present of falling into the trap of expounding empty rhetoric and engaging in mudslinging and unrealistic posturing. Such actions will do nothing to resolve the Middle East crisis or stop the Israeli war of repression against the Palestinian people.
No one can deny that Arab initiatives are the only way out of the current impasse, which has generated intense frustration and despair throughout the Arab world. Because Europe does little but wring its hands while Washington, the complicit spectator, looks on from the sidelines, Arab proposals are needed to reactivate a positive role by the international community. Israel must be forced to put an end to the terrorism that its military machine is perpetrating to impose its solutions on the Palestinians and the Arab world.
The importance of President Hosni Mubarak's talks with US President George W Bush stems from the potential for the US to play a positive role in the Middle East. It is clear that Arab-American relations are in need of a complete overhaul, not only to address the US's unconditional support for Israel and Sharon's whims, but also to clarify what the US means by its war against terrorism. Explanation of the US's goals is particularly urgent at a time when the pro-war members of the US administration are saying that the war should be expanded to include Iraq.
Regardless of the results of these talks, discussions between Mubarak and Bush should help to introduce a degree of transparency concerning the US's policy on the Middle East.
Meanwhile, the Saudi initiative has served to assert the Arabs' actual position towards the Middle East crisis, after the events of 11 September were used to portray the Arabs as enemies of peace and US interests. It is obvious, therefore, why Israel's defenders in the US have tried to downplay the significance of the proposal and have described it as a ploy by Saudi Arabia to improve its image in the US. What Israel's supporters have neglected, however, is that the Saudi initiative, which stipulates full normalisation in return for full Israeli withdrawal, is also an attempt to reactivate the American role in the region, without compromising the Palestinians' rights.
The Bush administration's view that President Yasser Arafat bears sole responsibility for stopping the violence is foolish. The fact is that the US is effectively encouraging Israeli policies, made clear, for instance, when the US vetoed the deployment of international observers in the occupied territories.
The difficulty of the present situation arises not only from the absence of frank exchanges with the US, but also from the lack of candour among Arabs. The Saudi "vision," as simple as it is, has caused discord among Arabs, with some developing misconceptions about it before finding out the details of the proposal at the upcoming Beirut summit.
At such a time, Gaddafi's attacks and threats to withdraw from the Arab League do no one any good, including the general himself.
It is pitiful that all of this mudslinging is occurring while Israel is continuing its monstrous extermination of Palestinian women and children.
If the Arabs succeed in arriving at the summit undivided, even without Arafat, there might be hope in finding a way out of the crisis.
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