Admit it

There will be no peace in Palestine and Iraq unless Israel and the US acknowledge that they are occupying powers. But Rasha Saad sees no forthwith confession

---

Amid the continuing US assault on the Iraqi city of Falluja, Abdel-Bari Attwan, the outspoken editor-in-chief of the London-based Al-Quds Al-Arabi was quick to lash out at participants of the Sharm El-Sheikh conference on Iraq, describing them as "conspirators" for "failing to utter a word on the massacres in Falluja".

In an attempt to predict the outcome of the conference, Attwan wrote that participants will label national resistance in Iraq terrorism and at the same time will give the US and its troops a licence to shed more blood in Iraq under the pretext of fighting terrorism. "The Arab foreign ministers will not dare criticise the US massacres in Falluja, Samaraa and Ramadi. They also will not dare discuss sensitive issues such as US troops storming the Falluja mosque and killing injured and unarmed Iraqis or the US banning medical aid and food to the city for three weeks."

The conference is thus, according to Attwan, "a gathering of those who conspire against Iraq and not for those who seek to restore peace". Attwan did not think participants were capable of speaking about peace "since they are silent on US crimes and support the occupation.

"Peace will be restored in Iraq after the US withdraws its troops and admits its responsibility for all the crimes it has committed against the Iraqi people." Only then, Attwan says, will the Iraqis "elect their representative government [whose first task will be to] obtain suitable compensation from the US for all the blood and killing in their country."

Patrick Seale wrote in the London-based Al- Hayat newspaper on what he calls US President George Bush's gamble in Falluja. Seale said no one doubts that the US can take Falluja with its aircraft, tanks, artillery, night- vision equipment and other high-tech gadgetry of its armed forces. The question is whether the US can hold on to Falluja, and whether it will not have to deal with similar uprisings in other cities.

Seale says that to answer the question one should look at the nature of the opposition that the US is facing and of the sort of war the US is waging. "If one takes the view that the opposition consists of a finite number of terrorists [as the US claims], then killing or capturing them would seem to be a plausible ambition. If, however, the armed opposition in Falluja is merely the sharp end of a broad national resistance movement against a brutal foreign occupation and an Iraqi puppet regime, then the American task is far harder and seems bound to fail," he wrote.

The Arab press is still occupied with Yasser Arafat's death and the aftermath. Two topics in particular are being dealt with: What caused Arafat's death and the upcoming Palestinian elections. In an article in Al-Quds Al- Arabi, Mohsen Arafat, Yasser Arafat's brother, believed the president was poisoned, adding that he was transferred to the hospital in Paris 20 days after he fell sick. The article was published the same day that Nasser Al- Qidwa, Palestinian envoy to the UN and Arafat's nephew, was given Arafat's medical records. Mohsen Arafat, who is also a doctor, said he "does not expect much from such records which usually state the general reasons for the death but almost never give the real reasons behind a deterioration in the health of the victim."

Mohsen Arafat said he believed the real reason behind Arafat's death will remain a mystery because "there are poisons, the traces of which disappear after a few hours, and there is advanced technology in poisoning using radiation."

The article highlighted the results of a poll conducted by An-Najah University in Nablus this week in which more than 80 per cent of Palestinians believe Arafat was poisoned, and 93 per cent demanded that his medical records be made public.

The article also quoted Jibril Al-Rajoub, Palestinian National Authority national security adviser, describing the last hours before Arafat's trip to France. According to Al- Rajoub, the president's doctors -- Jordanian, Tunisian, Egyptian and Palestinian -- suspected that he died from a mystery poison in the blood. Choosing France as the venue for Arafat's treatment was, according to Al- Rajoub, because its hospitals use advanced technology in toxicology.

Focussing on the upcoming January elections in a post-Arafat era, Ghassan Tuweini wrote in the Lebanese An-Nahar that Palestinians should meet the challenge and succeed in moving on the way to a peaceful transition of power. Otherwise, Tuweini warns, "we will fall into the Israeli trap." According to Tuweini, Ariel Sharon is betting on "Palestinian terrorism" and "the outbreak of a Palestinian civil war to use as a pretext to tell the US and the world that the Palestinians and all the Arabs are not up to democracy and do not excel in anything except violence and extremism."

On the other hand, Ahmed Amourabi from the UAE's Al-Bayan fails to see the value of democracy in a nation that lies under foreign occupation that has absolute control over its resources and dignity. "Which should take priority: freedom from occupation and regaining land and sovereignty, or holding elections that bring an authority without power?" Amourabi sees that the issue is clear: a foreign power is occupying another people's land. The question is how can this occupation be overcome.

In Al-Hayat, Abdul-Wahab Badrakhan criticised Sharon's demands that Palestinian media stop their incitement before initiating a dialogue with the Palestinian Authority as a "test of intentions". According to Badrakhan, stopping media provocation is in sync with a similar request the US administration has made to all those who oppose its occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, including Arab countries. Bush and Sharon do not truly believe in the kind of democratic media that they desire to spread in Arab countries, and their request to stop incitement "sounds like an order coming from dictators of past ages".

"In Palestine, Iraq, everywhere, no one will accept occupation as a natural situation. It is a provocative one," Badrakhan wrote.

Whenever pressure increases to make occupation acceptable and desirable, the resisting force should become stronger. Moreover, according to Badrakhan, this will produce extremism and violence. "Occupation is incitement that should be stopped. Whoever has the power to eradicate disqualifies himself from giving lessons on media incitement."