Even peace is a problem
The Arab press reflected the gloom in the region. Dina Ezzat finds little reason for optimism even when there was good news
Readers of the Arab press this week had enough reason to feel depressed while reading their morning papers. There was very little good news to report on and hardly any reason for commentators to project optimism in opinion pages.
The headlines were constantly reflecting and forecasting trouble. And it was not just stories filed from Iraq and the occupied Palestinian territories that offered little, if any, prospect of hope. Equally depressing were stories from the Lebanese border with Israel, from the Syrian-Iraqi border and from Algeria and Saudi Arabia. Even the Sudan peace talks in Naivasha, Kenya managed to produce some disturbing headlines over the prospects of Sudanese unity.
"Political anger is demonstrated in riots in the provinces," headlined the daily Algerian Al-Massa on Tuesday as it reported the growing political dispute between Algerian President Abdel-Aziz Boutafliqa and his political opponents. This was only one of many stories carried by the Algerian press on the country's political unrest, including coverage of an attempted physical assault on the opponents of the prime minister before he escaped through the back door of parliament.
"Lebanon stands in the eye of storms: a snowstorm and a political storm over the [containment] of Hizbullah", was the headline of the Lebanese daily An-Nahar on Friday morning as it covered bad weather and bad political moods as international pressure increased on the Lebanese government to take a decision to post its armed forces in place of Hizbullah activists.
"Confrontation between terrorists and police continues," was a common theme in the Saudi press that continued to reflect on the continuous confrontation between the Saudi police and militant Islamist groups attempting to topple the House of Saud and expel from Saudi territory foreign military forces stationed there for over a decade.
"US officials accuse and Syrian officials deny -- Were Iraqi stockpiles taken to Syria?" was in Asharq Al-Awsat which continued to dedicate column inches to the ever-evolving story of the alleged possession of Saddam Hussein's regime of weapons of mass destruction.
Obviously, it was not at all unusual to read headlines and stories about disturbing developments in the occupied Palestinian territories, particularly the horrors sustained by Palestinian civilians at Israeli army checkpoints. Also given prominence was forced eviction in the occupied territories to allow for further illegal settlement building. On Sunday, the Saudi daily Al-Riyadh offered a long feature with shocking pictures under the headline, "Thugs of settlers attack Palestinian homes".
Even news of an around the corner Sudan peace deal was not reason for much comfort since it was coupled with many indicators about a possible splitting of Sudan into two countries: northern Arab Muslim and southern non-Arab Christians and animists.
News of another potential separation of a chunk of an Arab state came from Iraq. This week the Arab press had much to report about an intensive Kurdish effort to re-produce Iraq into a federation under which they will have the oil-rich northern part of the country as autonomous Kurdistan.
There were two particular stories that received most of the attention of Arab commentators and columnists this week: the failure of US President George Bush to make any reference to the Arab- Israeli conflict in his State of the Union address and the continued leaks from the US administration, particularly the Pentagon, regarding a possible limited US military strike against Syria to force Damascus to give in to Israeli demands regarding a settlement of the Israeli-occupied Goal Heights.
In her weekly opinion piece in Asharq Al-Awsat on Monday, Syrian Minister of Immigrant Affairs Bothaina Shaaban reflected on Arab disappointment regarding the State of the Union address. "It was surprising that the US president made no mention of the Middle East... This is an indication that we are about to get into an era where the US is giving up, at least for this 2004 electoral year, responsibility to work towards reviving the Middle East peace process," Shaaban stressed. But what was particularly alarming for Shaaban was the fact that Bush made no reference whatsoever to the separation wall that is being constructed by Israel in the occupied Palestinian territories and which is internationally recognised as a serious handicap to any existing peace efforts. Worse still, Shaaban noted, Bush referred to Jerusalem not as an occupied or even disputed city but rather as a city where there needs to be a war on terror.
"This means that the US, supposedly the main sponsor of the Arab-Israeli peace process, has decided that there is no problem with the Israeli occupation of Arab territories and that the so-called 'war on terrorism' is the only issue on the agenda when it comes to the Middle East. In this context Israel could continue to possess weapons of mass destruction, threaten Arab security, demolish Palestinian houses, kill their children and bring more illegal settlers and say that it is simply waging a war on terror."
Other commentators were also alarmed not only by what Bush did not say about the peace process but rather about the aggressive language he used to indicate the US determination to bring democracy to Arab countries.
Syria, many commentators feared, seemed like a prime target for the next possible US military move in the Middle East. "What do they want from Syria?" "Where is Syria heading?" "Syria in the eye of the storm" and "Worries over Syria" were some of the headlines of opinion pieces published this week.
A good example was the article published by the UAE daily Al-Bayan on Monday by chairman of the Arab Federation for Literary Writers Ali Aliqa Erssan. Under the title "Syria and continuous threats", Erssan warned of the tough language being used by American and Israeli officials against Syria. "The more Syria sticks to its rights and principles [regarding the Arab-Israeli conflict], the stronger the statements made against Damascus by the US and Israel... The objective is to force Syria to succumb to the will of the others and to give up any role it has in relation to the Palestinian question or the Arab order in general," Erssan argued.
Towards the middle of the week, the melancholy tone was broken by news of a deal struck between Hizbullah and the Israeli government in which more than 400 Arab prisoners in Israeli jails are to be swapped for the bodies of three Israeli soldiers.
Also on Tuesday, the editorial of the Jordanian daily Addostour noted that "amid the many disturbing news that has saddened the Arab world, the inauguration of the Arab gas pipeline on Monday by the prime ministers of Jordan, Egypt, Syria and Lebanon" was an unusually pleasant piece of news.
There was also the occasional, expected but superficial reflection of joy over the advent of Eid Al- Adha on Sunday.
Otherwise, there was news of political uncertainty, economic hiccups and the passing away of prominent Saudi writer Abdel-Rahman Mounif.
