18 - 24 July 2002 Issue No. 595 Editorial	Current issue Previous issue Site map
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875		Recommend this page

First things first

Two days of meetings in New York and Washington between the US and those parties directly involved in the Middle East peace process have served to underline the increasing isolation of the US as it heedlessly continues to offer unconditional and unquestioning support to Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

Nor is opposition to the Bush administration's version of how a settlement might be achieved limited to the three Arab foreign ministers -- from Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan --taking part in the meetings. Representatives of the EU, UN and Russia have all characterised as illogical the endlessly repeated US demands for the removal of Yasser Arafat before talks to end Israel's occupation can begin. They have emphasised that they respect the will of the Palestinian people, and will continue to deal with Arafat until the Palestinian electorate decides they should not.

Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan, fuelled by the conviction that there can be no military solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, retain hopes that Washington might be persuaded to soften its stand. The three countries' foreign ministers, in today's meeting with President Bush, will stress that brutal Israeli tactics in the occupied territories, and the ongoing siege of over three million Palestinians, can only further destabilise the region.

Reforming the political and civil landscape in Palestine, drafting a constitution, strengthening the judicial system and building democratic institutions were Palestinian demands long before they became Israeli and American conditions. But they are demands that can never be met as long as the Palestinian people face daily humiliation at the hands of an army of occupation increasingly convinced that it can operate outside all international norms.

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