Time and the things it takes away

From Jenin to Falluja, official Arab ineptness is the soft underbelly of the resistance, writes Nayef Hawatemah*

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The Abbasid poet Abul-Atahiyah once said, "There is a cure for every malady, if you know what to look for. If you don't, there is no cure." We know the malady and the cure, yet we let the malady rampage through our gut. We're trapped in a vortex of fear, repression and ineptitude. We're caught in the net of lies Arab officialdoms weave, having lost direction, rhythm and vision. Our leaders can't resist and won't change. They see nothing but the elites surrounding them, the tip of the social hierarchy they dwell within. For them, the nation is not a force of change. The parties and syndicates, the full gamut of our social and cultural forces, are of no relevance.

A sea of blood runs in Jenin. A sea of blood runs from Palestine to Iraq. But nothing would disturb the death-like slumber of our leaders, from coast to coast. Meanwhile, our nations are dizzy with shock, writhing in pain, not knowing what hurts more, the claws of foreign foes or the grip of repressive compatriots.

Some Arabs who were kind enough to comment on Bush's gift to Sharon said that they were stunned by the bias involved, as if the US administration, or any of its predecessors, were ever even-handed on the Middle East conflict; as if it were possible to ever get something remotely fair out of the US, a country sworn to backing Israel's expansionist aggression.

The current Arab official dilemma is the illegitimate child of Arab inaction, of continuous surrender to US and Israeli ideas. The Palestinians are massacred by Israel's hand and America's money while Arab capitals idly condemn, but keep conferring with, those who order the killings in Jerusalem, Gaza and the West Bank. Arab capitals have embassies and commercial offices in Israel. Arab leaders disassociate themselves from the Palestinian resistance. All they aspire to being is a neutral mediator between the Palestinians and their butchers. Even the farthest Arab capitals from the front-line find a role to play in the chorus of mediation and normalisation.

Generations of young Arabs, born under the heels of totalitarianism, are now treated to a bitter replay of the Arab catastrophe of 1948, flavoured with a taste of things to come. Arab land and territorial waters have been opened to the march of occupation forces. Foreign armies have been cheered as liberators. Our Iraqi flank is bleeding, our Palestinian heart is being ripped out, and the knives are still out for us, for more.

With Arab countries wishing to stay on Washington's good side, the Arab League has made the Interim Governing Council a representative of the Iraqi people. This was done to make the occupation comfortable to the Americans, to stifle Iraqi resistance, to give the country a government manipulated by a US civil administrator. What can this be if not a throwback to the times of the 1920s when the British high commissioner told Arab cabinets what to do? But Iraqi resistance has changed all of this, and many of the backers of Iraq's so- called liberation now admit that Iraq is a country under occupation and is resisting.

Wretched are Arab regional policies. Wretched are the politicians who fake surprise and sorrow over US policy. Wretched is their reaction to Bush's recent statement in Washington, to his admission that US agrees with Israel's view of a final settlement not involving a return to the 4 June 1967 borders, a settlement not involving a return of the refugees to their homes.

Now we are told that the Americans are not even- handed. Thank you very much. A very good point indeed, but only if it were to propel Arab and Palestinian officials into formulating a policy of confrontation, into taking measures to restore even- handedness to US policy.

We don't need another set of negotiating terms that keep going up and down. We don't need another Geneva Accord. We need cohesion, not the fragmentation that made us forget the Arab peace initiative of Beirut, 2002. We need to defend the minimum rights of Palestinians and all Arabs. Is this possible? Yes, but at a price. We need a comprehensive Arab programme to defend Arab rights for land and sovereignty. Would Arab officialdoms yearning for US endorsement agree?

Arab official policies have lost their vision. The Greater Middle East Initiative is a case in point. To buckle under US and Zionist schemes is to condemn the entire region to further imperialism. The appetite of colonialists is not limited to Iraq or Palestine. The ultimate aim is to redraw the region's geopolitical map and interfere with the territorial integrity of each and every Arab country. Take a look at what's going on in Palestine and the Golan, in Iraq and Sudan. The Arabs are being recast in the role of tribes and dissenting factions, encouraged to pursue their individual ethnic and sectarian agendas. This is the gateway through which US and Zionist domination seeks to proceed.

The Arab League failed to hold an Arab summit scheduled to discuss urgent reforms. This in itself is an indication of how US and Israeli schemes have thrown into chaos Arab official ranks. Our officialdoms, long resistant to change, have lost their bearings, their rhetoric, even their ability to protest.

In this spectacle of chaos, let me keep things simple. I will not ask for immediate adoption of sustainable development programmes, for prompt free elections, for urgent peaceful rotation of power, or any of the overdue trappings of pluralism. I will ask for the minimum stand, for a programme of steadfastness, not even confrontation. This programme involves the following points:

First, international legitimacy must remain the basis for resolving the Palestinian-Israeli and Arab- Israeli conflicts. UN resolutions can restore balance to the roadmap and distance it from Sharon's, now US-approved, endless conditions. UN resolutions should stem the flood of concessions that is drowning our cause.

Second, the Palestinian and Iraqi resistances deserve a minimum of our moral and material support. And Syria must not be abandoned at a time when it is a target of US aggression.

Third, Arab capitals should stop dealing with Palestinians advocating concessions of the Geneva Accord type, and with Iraqis appointed by the occupation forces. Any cooperation with the above mentioned is demoralising to the Iraqi and Palestinian resistance.

Fourth, a modicum of Arab coordination, even among the remnants of the Arab official regime, is needed.

Fifth, tangible programmes of domestic reforms should be introduced, in order to fortify the home front against Israeli and US schemes aimed to fragment our land and peoples.

Is any of the above possible? It has to be, if we are to avert the multiple catastrophes ahead. The Palestinian and Iraqi people will continue to make further sacrifices on the altar of Arab freedom. Our task is to make their sacrifices meaningful.

A thousand years ago, the great poet Al-Khansaa said this to her Arab contemporaries, "Time and the things it takes away: it severs our head and leaves us the tail. It abandons us to a fate unknown. To the blighted company of dreamers."

* The writer is secretary-general of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine.