Gone the moralist
The Arab press, writes Omayma Abdel-Latif, mourned the death of famed Palestinian intellectual Edward Said and dared to guess what the future will be like without him
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The Americans, according to Emgad Rasim of Asharq Al-Awsat, are seeing Bin Laden everywhere; al-Hayat's Habib Haddad views the truce between north and south in Sudan as uneasy at best
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This week the mood in the Arab press was sombre. The death of Edward Said, an icon of the Palestinian struggle, caused an avalanche of writing in the Arabic dailies across the region. It came at a time when the denial of Palestinian rights was taking new and more punishing forms by the day and against the backdrop of the third anniversary of the Intifada. The Quartet meeting late last week and the naming of a new Palestinian cabinet gave much food for thought in the press. It, therefore, appeared that this was a Palestinian week par excellence.
But there were other stories. These included the signing of a security deal between the Sudanese government and John Garang, head of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Sudan; an imminent deal on a prisoners' swap between Hizbullah, the Lebanese resistance movement, and the Israeli government, as well as events in Iraq which continued to remain the story of the week.
Throughout this particular week, though, acres of space were devoted in most Arab newspapers to pay tribute to Said, "the intellectual fighter, the activist, the humanist and the moralist", to quote some of the descriptions bestowed on Said by Arab writers. "Shall we feel sad for Said's death or for Palestine which is orphaned and cannot bear his horrible absence? We have already begun to feel the vacuum left by his death," wrote veteran Lebanese journalist Ghassan Tueni in the Lebanese daily An-Nahar on 26 September. Many Arab intellectuals wrote in honour of the activist who ceaselessly championed the cause of justice. Said, in the words of Talal Salman in the Lebanese daily As-Safir, provided Palestine what many could not offer. "He managed to place the Palestinian issue at the heart of the debate among American intellectual circles," Salman wrote. Another As-Safir writer, Hesham Melhem, the paper's correspondent in Washington, argued that "Said had the capacity to transform Palestinian aspirations and their struggle for freedom, justice and dignity into a human and global phenomenon. He forced the American intellectuals to realise, after a long wait, what it meant to have an entire people under siege."
Another Palestine-related issue which grabbed attention earlier this week was the meeting of the Quartet whose members drafted the Middle East peace roadmap. The statements issued stirred up debate in the press and came under scathing attack for being too "soft on Israel". The London-based daily Al-Hayat reported that "the Quartet has avoided making daring moves." In a more aggressive tone, the editorial of the Omani daily Al-Watan on 27 September best illustrated the sense of frustration and disappointment over the Quartet's work. It described the Quartet statement, which urged the Palestinians to renounce violence, as "the statement of the helpless. The Arabs were depending on the Quartet to act as an honest broker but it has proved itself to be no more than a mini-Security Council dominated by Washington which dictates to it the kind of resolutions it should adhere to," the paper said. Echoing the same line, several Arab dailies, including Al-Bayan of the UAE and the Saudi Al-Jazeera accused the Quartet of not only failing to live up to the expectations of acting as an honest broker but "supporting Israeli terrorism". The Jordanian daily Al-Dustour agreed. "The Quartet statement did not include a definite and precise stand on the practices of the Israeli government which has killed any prospects for peace. The Quartet should have been brave enough to state clearly who initiates violence and what is the primary cause for so-called Palestinian violence. The Israeli occupation creates the conditions in which violence becomes the only response. The Quartet failed to acknowledge that it was in fact the occupation and settlements which are the real causes of the conflict. It has remained captive to pre-conceived ideas. We do not think that the Quartet members are keen to exert any real effort or initiative to push forward a peaceful settlement in the region. Rather, they leave it all to the US to handle."
Taking a somewhat neutral stand, Jordanian Foreign Minister Marwan Al-Mu'asher, in an interview with Al-Hayat on 28 September, said both the Israelis and Palestinians had not honoured their commitments in the roadmap. He added that he still believed the roadmap was "not dead" but said there should exist a monitoring mechanism by which the Quartet could closely follow how the two parties were adhering to their commitments.
This week the Palestinians marked the third anniversary of their uprising against the Israeli occupation. The occasion came against the backdrop of naming a new Palestinian cabinet headed by Ahmed Qurei. Most papers commemorated the event with a mixed sense of defiance and concern over what the future holds for the Palestinian struggle. Al-Dustour on 28 September adopted a cautious approach in its assessment of the Intifada saying that the world had undergone tremendous changes during the past two years, "hence a change has taken place in the way the international community perceives the military operations carried out by the Palestinians in retaliation for the Israeli aggression..." This radical change of perspective, the paper observed, required that the Palestinians pause and contemplate. "As we honour the sacrifices of the Palestinian people during the three years of the Intifada, we hope that some lessons have been learnt, foremost of which is a better reading of the new regional and international order to manage the conflict more effectively in order to achieve national aspirations with fewer sacrifices."
The Syrian daily Teshreen was in a more defiant mood insisting that the Palestinian people have the will to continue their Intifada until they achieve liberation and the establishment of their independent state. [Israeli Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon would be committing a grave mistake, noted the paper, if he insists on continuing his bloody aggression against the Palestinians. "He failed to end the Intifada -- as he once claimed -- in a 100 days. Nor can he end it in three years. The Intifada will not end until the Palestinians are granted their national rights and the Israelis must understand this," said the paper.
The Lebanese writer Talal Salman, editor of As-Safir, noted in his article "An Israeli reading of the Intifada" on 29 September that perhaps the impact of the Intifada could be measured by one of its results: "lowering the morale of the enemy". Based on a recent poll conducted by an Israeli daily gauging the reactions of the Israeli public three years after the Intifada, Salman concluded that this was proof that "the enemy acknowledges the failure of its policies of systematic destruction and killing and its tactics of terror." "Now," Salman continued, "they are trying to throw the problem into the Palestinian camp by attempting to divide Palestinian ranks and push them to the brink of in-fighting, between that of a sterile government and a compromising leadership. But if Israel acknowledges its failure to end the Intifada -- even though the uprising is currently standing on its own with no support from the Arabs -- why then are Arab officials willing to make one concession after the other on the basic rights of the Palestinian people to a homeland, and of the basic rights of the Arab people to dignity and freedom? The Intifada remains the only viable option to preserve their existence and identity."
German efforts to mediate between Hizbullah and the Israeli government to strike a long-awaited prisoner exchange also featured prominently among the stories of the week. The London-based Asharq Al-Awsat reported on 28 September that Hizbullah's Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah was coordinating with the Palestinian resistance group Hamas to include hundreds of Palestinian detainees in the deal. The Lebanese An-Nahar noted that the number of Palestinian prisoners who are due to be freed under the agreement might reach up to 700. Reports that Marwan Barghouti, a prominent Palestinian activist, was among those to be freed were denied later by Israeli officials. In an interview with An-Nahar on 27 September, Mohamed Dahlan, the former minister of security in the Palestinian cabinet of ex-Premier Mahmoud Abbas, said that any prisoner swap which did not include Barghouti would not be considered a "good deal".
The peace deal struck between Khartoum and the rival faction headed by John Garang was received with mixed reaction in the Arab press, ranging from enthusiasm and optimism to caution and scepticism over the true implications of the deal on the unity and territorial integrity of Sudan. On 26 September the Qatari daily Al- Raya considered the deal to be "a Sudanese achievement". The deal, signed between the Sudanese government and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Sudan, the paper argued, was a historic move on the road leading to peace and put an end to years of bloodshed. But the Sudanese daily Akhbar Al-Youm in its editorial on 27 September entitled, "The face of peace", pointed to the need for transparency. The paper echoed the concerns of Sudanese citizens about details of the deal. "The Sudanese people should be in the know and clearly the reports about the details of the deal which were leaked to the press did not put people's fears and concerns to rest. On the contrary, the public has become increasingly sceptical and believe that this was an inadequate pact. The accord is shrouded in vagueness and causes confusion. Therefore, we call on the government to publish the full text of the accord so that the Sudanese people know what is going on."
Iraq continued to be the story of the week. Secretary of State Colin Powell's statement to allow Iraqis the chance to write up a constitution in six months was widely covered. In an interview with Al- Hayat on 28 September, Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk Al-Sharaa stated that Powell's statements reflected some goodwill on America's part. "The fact that they have begun to acknowledge the need to put a ceiling on their presence in Iraq is a good start -- if they are serious." When asked if he thought that the American occupation of Iraq was like the Israeli occupation of Palestine, Al-Sharaa said that while he did not see any difference in terms of form "maybe the content is different. It all depends on the true intentions of the Americans."
On 29 September As-Safir quoted Ghassan Salame, the former Lebanese culture minister and the UN envoy to Iraq, as saying that the purging of all the Ba'athists from all state apparatuses was "a real disaster" and that dissolving the Iraqi army was a "big mistake". Salame noted that this had led to a complete paralysis of Iraq's civil administration and suggested that former Ba'athists should be appointed and that sovereign powers should be transferred to a transitional Iraqi government before the end of this year.
US policies in Iraq came under brutal attack from a number of editorials and analysts. An-Nahar on 27 September believed the US was "in a real mess in Iraq" and that it sought an exit strategy by resorting to multilateralism. But Walid Shuqeer, writing in Al-Hayat on 26 September, argued that the American understanding of multilateralism does not mean that a radical change has taken place in Washington thinking. Washington, argued Shuqeer, understands multilateralism to mean that other nations will provide the United States with troops and money. "He [Bush] pretends that he wants the cooperation of the international body while he allows American committees in the State Department and the Pentagon to monopolise the writing of the Iraqi constitution and lay out the educational curricula which will be taught to Iraqi children. If Washington is going it alone on these two fronts, how can we be persuaded that it is genuine in wanting a proper UN role in managing the Iraqi scene?"
