11 - 17 April 2002
Issue No.581
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 11 - 17 April 2002 Issue No.581 |
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The living martyr of Ramallah
As the lights go out in Arafat's headquarters, Ahmed Abdel-Halim* sees dark clouds looming
The news reads like chapters from Dante's Divine Comedy. Yasser Arafat is penned up in his compound, Israeli tanks at close range. He refuses to surrender and calls on his people to remain steadfast. Sharon develops diabolical schemes to exterminate the Palestinians and eliminate Arafat. George W Bush backs Sharon. General Zinni, Bush's emissary extraordinaire, calmly enjoys the comfortable surroundings of King David Hotel. On Palestinian streets, hellish scenes of genocide continue. This is worse than the Nazi concentration camps of Poland, a Norwegian intellectual suggests. And it is not over yet.
Sharon has snubbed the Saudi initiative the Arabs endorsed in Beirut. The Zionist dream of taking over the "historical" land of Israel hovers menacingly over the region. The Arabs, sensibly, have addressed their latest initiative to the international community; for a Middle East solution is unlikely without international intervention, the active help of the United Nations, the US, the Russian Federation, the European Union, and the people of Israel. The Arabs are acting in good faith, but good faith is not enough.
Israel believes that, through war and mayhem, it can have its way. But military force cannot resolve such disputes. Israel's notion of security is suicidal. And it will backfire on Israel's primary ally, the US. With US connivance, Israel has opened a Pandora's box of unspeakable monstrosities.
The US, intoxicated with its sole superpower status, believes it can get away with anything. Wrong. This is just the kind of thinking that brings mighty empires to tragic ends. The US has alienated everyone, and is now devising infinitely devastating means of revenge. It has named an axis of evil, and a foursome of countries subject to nuclear threat. Iraq, Iran and North Korea; then Syria, Libya, Russia, and China. The hit list is long: countries that engage in terror, countries that support those who engage in terror, and anyone contesting the US's way of fighting terror. The United States is doing to the world what Israel is doing to the region, and both are taking more risks than they realise.
Thanks to US military aid, Israel is a military power to contend with. It is also vulnerable, geographically and demographically. For all its might, Israel is still a long way from achieving security for its people. It cannot have stability unless it is accepted in the Middle East. And it is not going to be accepted unless it implements UN resolutions and abides by its regional agreements. Israel's offensive against Arafat, the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian people is making it more vulnerable than ever. Once the dust settles, this will become clear. But for now, Israel is not in a mood to listen.
I had planned to write about the Beirut summit, the prospects it opened, and the reaction it deserves from Israel and the international community. But this topic was overtaken by the current flare-up, which was neither unpredictable nor inevitable. I, among others, have warned of this gruesome eventuality in recent interviews. So perhaps it is more helpful now to look further ahead and see what the future may hold.
Israel and the United States are in the process of losing their regional and international credibility. This will exacerbate the chaos rampant in the Middle East and elsewhere.
Violence will escalate in the Middle East, affecting US and Israeli interests across the world.
The role of the United Nations as a credible international arbiter will disintegrate. Countries will no longer bother with international law, and their actions will aggravate global chaos still further.
The Palestinian people and the Arab nations will survive and eventually repel the intruders, as they defeated the Crusaders in the past. Yasser Arafat and the Palestinians will become the symbols of Arab struggle.
The world will realise that an axis of evil exists, but it is not the one to which Washington refers.
The recent events and the steadfastness of Arafat, Ramallah's living martyr, will change the Middle East and the world for a long time to come. A whole generation of Arabs used to believe in the possibility of peaceful coexistence with Israel. The generation that lived through the 1973 War and President Sadat's peace initiative has been disillusioned. Israel's actions, undertaken with unconditional US support, are undermining the prospects of peace in the region. Even if Israel and the United State realise the error of their ways, it will take years, perhaps an entire generation, to redress the damage already done. The Arabs have turned away invasions in the past; they will do it again.
* The writer is an expert in military strategy and deputy director of the Centre for Middle East Studies.
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