Words from war
Stories of the two main regional conflicts kept the Arab press busy. Dina Ezzat surveyed the hotspots
Click to view caption |
In the Jordanian daily Addustour, Amgad Rifaie portrays Arab regimes as being all tied up
|
Stories filed on heated conflicts from Iraq and the occupied Palestinian territories could not have been missed in the Arab press this week. Even as reporters and editorial writers were kept busy by the growing story of American, European and cross- Atlantic initiatives for reform in the Middle East, the Arab press was still reporting the ongoing violence in these conflict areas.
The headlines of the news pages of the Arabic Algerian daily Alkhabar on Monday offered a good example. Reporting from Jerusalem, Alkhabar headlined: "Bomb on a Jerusalem bus kills and wounds passengers". And from Baghdad it wrote, "Baghdad shaken by a series of explosions".
The failure of the US occupation forces and Washington's appointed Iraqi Governing Council (IGC) to induce even a semblance of stability and security in a country that has been occupied for 10 months presented Arab papers with a steady flow of material this week. With many news stories and commentaries suggesting that signs of civil strife are apparent, it seems likely that Iraq will continue to take up a sizeable portion of the news in the weeks ahead, leading up to 19 March when Arab papers are expected to be inundated with stories marking a year since the invasion of Iraq.
It is hard to imagine that when Arab papers provide special coverage marking the anniversary of the fall of Baghdad on 9 April, there will be much positive news to report on Iraq since the future of this country in havoc seems rather gloomy.
"Where is Iraq heading?" was the headline of the editorial of the daily Bahraini Al-Ayam on Tuesday. Al-Ayam reflected the increasing concern that it might be only a matter of time before the various political and ethnic Iraqi factions, which cannot agree with the US, the IGC or even the UN on a mechanism and a date for a power transfer or on how to put Iraq back into shape, clash with one another. "Despite the [bloodletting], we hear these strange voices from Iraqi factions and their leaders, as well as the IGC, making strict demands and insisting on them... the Kurds want a federation... one faction is keen to have early elections... the other wants to delay the elections.... some want it an Arab country.... others disagree... and so on."
This and other editorials on Tuesday were published side by side with stories, excerpts and summaries of the report issued by the UN secretary-general's special envoy to Iraq, Lakhdar Labrahimi, that concluded elections were impossible before the 30 June date set by the United States for the transfer of power to the IGC.
For many, the conclusions of this report indicated that the status quo could last for a while in Iraq, prompting some well-known Arab commentators to dedicate their columns to warning of upcoming civil strife in Iraq.
In his column in the prestigious London-based Al-Hayat on Tuesday, Lebanese commentator Ghassan Charbale wrote on "Iraq and the prelude of Lebanonisation" in which he drew comparisons between the current developments in Iraq and those that preceded the 1975-1991 Lebanese civil war.
"Obviously, there are many differences between Iraq and Lebanon but those who have been following Iraq cannot but notice the signs of Lebanonisation. Iraqis should, therefore, think carefully about possible civil strife and warnings by Lakhdar Labrahimi," Charbale wrote.
One sign of Lebanonisation spotted by Charbale and other commentators, many of whom are Lebanese, is the increasing tendency among Iraqis to stress their ethnic affiliation. Another was the increasing power of ethnic leaders and the parallel decline in the popularity of political parties that do not represent any particular ethnic group.
This week the Arab press also warned, albeit on a lower scale, of inter-Palestinian civil strife. While news pages were reporting increasing signs that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was planning to execute his planned unilateral withdrawal from Gaza, fears were on the rise that the widely supported Hamas organisation and the still legitimate Palestinian Authority might end up fighting over who will control Gaza after the Israelis leave. Arab commentators -- as well as their Israeli counterparts quoted in the Arab press -- warned that such a struggle will only play into Sharon's hands, anxious as he is to persuade the world that Palestinians are incapable of settling disagreements peacefully.
The Palestinian scene had disturbing images to go with the brewing signs of a power struggle. This week, in addition to pictures of an Israeli raid on Palestinian villages to avenge Sunday's Jerusalem bus explosion, there were photos and stories on the wall of separation, pictures of long queues of Palestinians attempting to cross Israeli checkpoints and pictures of Palestinian men and women whose faces reflect despair and fear of endless misery.
"US and Israeli policies force chances of a settlement to the Palestinian problem to lessen", was the headline of a news analysis published by the Jordanian daily Addustour on Monday. The commentary was typical of other pieces in that it saw an unmistakable decline in US interest in finding a settlement to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict any time soon. At this point, the Jordanian daily noted, "the US is only pretending that it is seeking an answer to the Palestinian problem... but in fact it has [given up] on the declared [two-state] vision of US President George Bush. Let's face it, the developments of post 11 September have caused a clear decline in the international interest in working towards a fair settlement of the Israeli occupation of Arab, particularly Palestinian, territory."
The upcoming presidential elections, Arab papers have been warning, is now the key issue and that the Arab-Israeli conflict will be put on the backburner.
Many commentators seemed to concede that there was very little Arabs could do to stop Sharon from executing whatever anti-peace plans he has, be it the construction of the separation wall that snakes well into Palestinian territory -- without being in the least bit bothered by protests by the international community -- or indirectly imposing a long-term settlement by coupling the wall with a unilateral pullout from Gaza and perhaps parts of the West Bank where the chairman of the Palestinian Authority, Yasser Arafat, has been under curfew for almost two years.
This bitter sentiment was reflected by Egyptian commentator Mahmoud El-Maraghi in the Qatari daily Al-Watan on Monday. Reporting on a meeting of an Egyptian NGO that works on a solidarity agenda with the Palestinian people, El-Maraghi wrote, "We ask ourselves what can we do for the Palestinians when military [supremacy] has the upper hand? What can we do when Arab governments have given up on everything except lip service? And I answered: only Palestinians will be able to liberate their land; only Palestinians will be able to put an end to the intransigence of power; power can only be deterred by power."
