The verge of explosion
Arab reactions to American Middle East policy may jeopardise Western interests in the region, warns Ibrahim Nafie
The end of 2002 brought with it a complex set of developments. Throughout the year Israel continued its aggression against Palestinians, expanding the scale of its murder and terrorism and discounting the peace initiative presented during the Arab summit held in Beirut in March.
The Israeli army responded to that initiative with the reoccupation of most of the territories from which it had withdrawn; they embarked on acts of random killing in Jenin and Nablus and, had it not been for the American veto, their war crimes and crimes against humanity would not have gone quite so unnoticed. Indeed civilian and military leaders would have been tried in courts of international law for such atrocities, the intervention on the part of the international community conducted according to the principles conceived of and implemented to deal with the situations in Bosnia, Kosovo and East Timor.
While Israel was perpetrating its crimes the world followed the fate of Iraq with increasing trepidation. Iraq's increasing willingness to co-operate with the UN and Baghdad's announcement of its unconditional acceptance of UN resolution 1441, allowing international weapons inspectors unfettered access to all sites, did little to defuse the tension. Washington resumed its mobilisation, making no secret of its plans to direct military strikes at Iraq with the object of removing the current regime and install a new government, the aim being to guarantee its hegemony over Iraq for a long time to come.
A belief prevalent among Arabs is that, while 2002 was the year during which Washington prepared for specific actions in the Arab world, 2003 will be the year during which these actions will be undertaken. And the consensus among decision makers and public is that these actions will have a negative impact. The general pessimism has intensified to such an extent that many expect significant deterioration in regional conditions and a worsening in Arab-American relations which, even if avoided at the official level will be evident on the street.
What Washington will do in the region is unlikely to differ in essence from what it has been doing to people of Arab origin who live in America and allied countries. And there is no reason to suppose that Egypt will be exempted from the negative impact American actions are likely to have in the region during the course of 2003. It is from such a perspective that Washington's actions must be reviewed, and the Americans urged to limit the scope of the harm that will come with its misguided efforts to establish security and stability in a region where the West continues to have an important set of interests.
In this context it is important to bear in mind that it is perfectly possible for American actions on the Palestinian and Iraqi fronts to be undertaken in such a way as to help cement regional security and stability and protect American and Western interests. The central problem, indeed the core of tensions in Arab-American relations, is Israel's continued occupation of Arab lands in Palestine, Syria and parts of south Lebanon. Arab discontent with Washington's Middle East policies intensified following Sharon's rise to power. He responded to the Arab peace initiative by reoccupying Palestinian lands that had been liberated and undertaking, to a far greater degree than anyone before him, the destruction of the infrastructure of a nascent state fighting for independence. It was obvious to all, moreover, that Sharon was able to wreak such destruction only because he enjoyed the political protection and military support of Washington. The latter moved not an inch in response to the Arab peace initiative nor made the slightest effort to put an end to the various crimes committed by Sharon against Palestinians.
Arab public opinion also registered America's subsequent refusal to allow a Security Council international committee to investigate Israeli crimes in Jenin and the old part of Nablus and its willingness to promote a much curtailed fact-finding commission. Yet even then Israel refused to let the commission in, a fact that should, according to the seventh chapter of the UN charter, have resulted in a meeting of the Security Council to review the refusal of a member to implement its resolution and the ways, including the use of force, that might be applied to guarantee compliance. Yet Washington refused to let the Security Council meet, forcing the secretary-general to disband the commission. President Bush's speech concerning the political resolution of the Palestinian question on the basis of an independent Palestinian state was welcomed by the Arab public and by Arab regimes, yet it had no effect on the reality on the ground. Israeli aggression continued, with Israeli extremists threatening to strike capitals and bomb civil institutions. All this took place with the tacit agreement of the American administration and there was no genuine effort to stop the aggression or bring the relevant parties back to negotiations.
When Washington put forward ideas to calm the situation and reform the Palestinian Authority many Arab parties, with Egypt at the forefront, welcomed this seeming change in perspective and affirmed their willingness to work with the US and other international powers, including the Quartet, to implement a strategy that would first allow for calm and result in reforms and negotiations.
On a number of occasions I have suggested that Arab countries should collectively guarantee calm on the Palestinian side on the condition that Washington does the same with Israel. In the meantime reforms and negotiations would progress in tandem. The problem was, though, that Washington was unwilling to furnish the required guarantees. This was the missing link in the chain of containment, and without it Israeli forces were able to continue their perpetration of acts of aggression and murder. It is impossible to demand calm from Palestinian factions when Palestinian leaders are being assassinated. And it is increasingly clear that Sharon's government was determined to abort all peace efforts while using Palestinian acts of resistance as an excuse to embark on yet more acts of destruction and tighten Israel's control of Palestinian lands.
In similar fashion Baghdad's full co- operation with the UN and international weapons inspectors did not stop the US and the UK from mobilising their military forces in such a manner as to suggest that a decision has been made by Washington to strike Iraq irrespective of Baghdad's meeting all the conditions set by the UN. It hardly needs to be repeated that the problem can be resolved through the UN once the implementation of the decisions of the international community is guaranteed and Iraqi weapons of mass destruction are removed. The Arab public's questioning of the real reasons behind American and British mobilisation against Iraq, while Iraq's co- operation with weapons inspectors is yielding results, is wholly justified. Why not give negotiations a chance? The situation is made worse by claims from Sharon's government that Iraq transported some of its weapons to Syria and that a number of Iraqi scientists specialising in arms development are currently working in Libya. These accusations are being made without the least evidence to support them; indeed, no information as yet exists to indicate that there is any truth in them at all.
The issue becomes even more worrying because of the suspicion that such accusations, as voiced by the government of Sharon, are part of a broader American strategy in which Sharon is merely playing his part. Both the "rogue state" discourse and the nature of American-Israeli relations suggest that such statements are not idle remarks, especially since they were made within the framework of ongoing co-ordination between Washington and Tel Aviv. If these suspicions are true, implying that Washington already has plans for Syria and Libya, we will be facing a situation in which a regional explosion of Arab anger towards foreign, and especially Western presence in the region, is almost inevitable. Western, and especially American interests, will be the targets of this explosion.
An Arab public that has followed the Palestinian plight for so long and which learned recently about the decision to strike Iraq now has to absorb news of Israeli-American plans to target Syria and Libya. My feeling is that, should Washington fail to convincingly discount these suspicions, then the result will be a new and perhaps unprecedented phase of Arab enmity that could jeopardise Western interests in the region. It is up to Washington to make the final statement and prevent the region from falling into the abyss.
