The Arab world is not impotent
The world's largest oil reserves are still under Arab feet, writes John Whitbeck*
The feebleness, even on a rhetorical level, of the official Arab response to Israel's bombing raid deep inside Syrian territory has given rise to renewed lamentations regarding the humiliating impotence of the Arab world. As an editorial in Arab News (Jeddah) has stated, "Impotence is a strong word, but impotence is precisely what Arabs on the street feel." However, the impotence so widely perceived and felt is not an objective fatality. It is a political choice.
While its leaders may not realise it, the Arab world is not impotent. Indeed, it has it within its power to achieve Middle East peace with some measure of justice -- not in some distant future but soon and not through enhanced violence but through the intelligent and responsible application of restrained but sustained economic pressure.
A concerted, concrete and effective plan of action could take the form of a simple, easily understood and ethically unimpeachable "carrot-and-stick" approach, with both "carrot" and "stick" announced simultaneously.
First, the "carrot": The Arab League would formally reaffirm the wise and generous peace terms contained in its Beirut Declaration of March 2002, inspired by Crown Prince Abdullah's courageous initiative, which offered full peace and normal diplomatic and economic relations between Israel and all Arab states in return for a total end to the occupation of all Arab lands occupied by Israel in 1967. Some doubt that this offer, which was clearly the most generous one Israel will ever receive, is still on the table. The Arab states should make clear that, at least for the time being, it is -- and they should mean it.
Second, the "stick": The major Arab and Muslim oil producers would state that, until Israel complies fully with international law and UN resolutions, they will reduce their petroleum exports by increments of five per cent each month -- month after month -- and they should mean it.
It would, of course, be preferable if the United States, whose unconditional support of Israel has made possible its continuing occupation of Arab lands, were to undergo a moral and ethical transformation and if Americans were suddenly to realise both that Palestinians are human beings entitled to basic rights and that international law should be binding on all, not only by the poor, the weak and the Arab. Realistically, such a transformation is most unlikely to occur.
If Americans cannot be reached through their hearts or minds, they can be reached through their wallets. Money is the true religion of the United States. If oil prices were to soar and stock market prices were to plunge, Americans would start asking why, exactly, Israel should be permitted to continue defying international law and UN resolutions and denying Palestinians their basic human rights and why the United States, alone, should be unconditionally supporting it in doing so.
Since no American national interests are served by Israel's continuing occupation of Arab lands, no credible, non-racist answers could be offered, and, with oil prices rising, stock market prices falling and no reversal of these trends in sight, these questions would become more insistent with Israel's defiant position rapidly becoming untenable.
Under pressure from their only unconditional supporters, Israelis might well recognise that their own security will never be ensured as they illegally occupy Arab lands, and that only full compliance with international law and UN resolutions, in Palestine and Syria just as in Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon, is in Israel's own long-term self-interest.
While waiting for economic discomfort to stimulate common sense and produce the result that serves the interests of all, Arab and Muslim petroleum producers would suffer no pain or sacrifices. Each five per cent reduction in exports should result in a greater than five per cent increase in prices, and moderate but regular reductions in exports, unlike a sudden total embargo, should be technically, politically and psychologically sustainable.
Does no one in the Arab world recall the courageous leadership of King Faisal 30 years ago this month? For a brief, shining moment, the Arab world was respected. "Respect" is not a word anyone would associate with the Arab world today. Rather, as Western occupation armies command Iraq and high-profile figures in the Bush administration talk publicly of redrawing the map of the region to better serve Israeli and American interests, the Arab world's status approaches that of Africa when the imperial powers gathered at the Berlin Conference of 1885 to carve-up the continent among themselves.
There is nothing inevitable about this. Impotence is not an unavoidable fact, and despair and resignation are not the only options. The source of the strength which King Faisal wielded so effectively is still there. All that is needed is the courage and leadership to use it wisely.
* The writer is an international lawyer who writes frequently on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
