Alice in The Wonderland!

In maintaining the old and sordid biases against the Arabs, some American media are not helping their government to find peaceful ways to resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict. At a time when Palestinian civilians are being butchered by Sharon, we can read senseless sentences like this one:

A suicide bomber blew up a bus in northern Israel today as the United States and Arab leaders pressured Israel to end its incursion against terrorist groups in the Palestinian territories“! (USA TODAY: Matthew Kalman and Barbara Slavin).

Thus, those who were killed by the Israelis, as those who saw their houses wiped out by the tanks or smashed by the shells, are only terrorists!

Would these people ever grow up to see the world, as it is not as their illusions keep it? Just a few hours before the bus was blown up, Mr. Powell was under another illusion. He told the reporters in Cairo: ” With respect to the absence of suicide bombers, I can’t answer directly. But certainly, the overwhelming presence of the Israeli Defense Force in the area is having a deterrent effect”!

That was a mistake Mr. Powell. A mistake that has been wide spread by the Israeli propaganda. We all have listened to news reports and commentaries saying that the Israeli population has begun to feel more secure in the streets these last days because of the military incursion in the Palestinian territories! Well, then after the Haifa operation that killed no less than 9 persons, has the military intervention resolved the security problem? Do the Israelis really think that they have deterred any suicide bombing?

Here is another illusion expressed by Mr. Powell in Cairo: ” I would ask all leaders of Arab nations”, he said, ” all Palestinian leaders, to say to their people, and to say to people throughout the world, this is the time to stop this kind of activity” (i.e. suicide bombing)!

If the Secretary of State really believes that the Arab leaders have the least influence on the Palestinians and particularly those who vowed to sacrifice themselves for the sake of their fatherland, he is completely off the picture. Why? The answer is partially contained in the following newswire dispatched by IAP (Islamic Association For Palestine). It read:

” Palestinian political and civic leaders have asked Arab masses to stop shouting futile slogans against Israel and her guardian-ally, the United States:

” Your demonstrations won’t shake a single hair on Sharon’s body, if you are sincere about helping us, go and surround the palaces of your treacherous leaders”, said Dr. Mustapha Shawer, professor of Islamic jurisprudence at Hebron University.” (é)

” Other Palestinian leaders had harsh words for Egyptian President Mubarak and Jordan’s King Abdullah:

” It is disgraceful that the president of the biggest Arab country (Egypt) is allowing the United States to confiscate the free will of 70 mil Jou Egyptians in return for a few millions of dollarséShame, shame, shame,” said Ali Abu Ghazala, a Fatah (Arafat’s own organization) leader in the Hebron region.”

The same leader reproached to Mubarak that ” eighteen months of massacres, siege, house demolitions, blanket bombardment of Palestinian populations centers, in addition to the daily humiliation and confinement of his friend Yasir Arafat are not enough to convince him to act”!

But act to do what?

In 1967, the Arab street inflamed with rage and impatience, pressured a reluctant Nasser to send his army into Sinai. The Arab world was unprepared for war, but Israel, fully confident of its military superiority, itched to deliver a knock out blow. The result was the redrawing of the regional map, which lies at the root of the present conflict.

Are the Arabs today any more prepared to fight Israel?

They are numerous those among the Arab folks who wish that their governments moved to delivering a military blow to Israel. To hinder the demonstrations from turning against the government, the Saudis forbade them. No headache! Other Arab governments were enough sly to guess the dangers coming from the streets. They undertook to organize the demonstrations and to lead them from the beginning to the end. Thus, some parties in power pretended also to be in opposition! In taking the lead of the demonstrations in the streets, they made sure that the slogans would not turn against them. If people want to bark in the desert after a passing plane, let them do! After all, Sharon is far away, and the West Bank is a foreign country! Needless to say that in acting as he did, Sharon gave the Arab rulers the golden opportunity they were seeking to make themselves more “popular” in sticking to the street and adopting the same slogans. For them, indeed it costs nothing. The current crisis could even be veritable cement to their rule.

Are those rulers the leaders Mr.Powell is relying on to maintain the Palestinians in quietness? For some of them, Sharon (and before him Netanyahu) is a gift from heaven! The violence in the Middle East merely strengthens their grip on power at the expenses of democracy and human rights. For some others, the fear of losing everything (power and country) is pushing them to the wall: they would do anything to satisfy their supporters but to fight Israel. And it is this weird position that encourages Sharon to carry on with his war against the Palestinians. They keep asking the USA to act and to do something to stop Sharon’s madness, because they will never do anything themselves. And the Israeli Prime Minister knows that, as he knows that if the Europeans are boastful, the Americans will never really pressure them to an unbearable degree.

The latter are rather prone to believe the Israelis: Arafat is not necessarily part of their future plans. In 1982, Sharon’s aimed at destroying the PLO, driving the Syrians out of Lebanon, and bringing this country into Israel’s orbit under an Israeli vassal: Bashir Gemayel. And today, Israel has a list of Palestinian leaders whom Sharon wishes to be candidates to the same role, or at least to that of Saad Haddad, the former commander of the “Free Lebanese Army”(maintained by Israeli funds and weapons in Southern Lebanon, where today Hizbullah is acting).

That’s why Sharon called on the USA not to pressure him for “this is a survival fight for us”! The question is then not why he did not kill Arafat yet, but what is he waiting for?

To say that Arafat has lost or won is today meaningless. The man is é everybody may state that- perfectly powerless. To address him as if he was still at the head of a credible authority, as Americans and Europeans do, is not only abusive and absurd, but also ridiculous. And they know it. At the end of Madrid’s meeting between Powell, Jose Maria Aznar, and Igor Ivanov, Mr. Kofi Anan read this statement: ” We call on Chairman Arafat to undertake immediately the maximum possible effort to stop terror attacks against innocent Israelis”!

It is incredible! But this happened as the Israelis are invading the Palestinian towns and turning the PA into nothingness.

That’s exactly what Anan said!

“Innocent Israelis!”

Those people are occupying violently the territory of their neighbors, and they are still “innocent”! And Arafat is under the fire of his enemies, and all what he had built in the West Bank and Gaza is falling apart, and he is still asked to “undertake immediately the maximuméetc”!

I wonder: where are those people living? From any planet have they landed before writing their statement? Indeed, everybody knows the American biases. The statement suits their policy. But what about the Europeans and Russia? How could they associate themselves to such a rant just after declaring (i.e. the Europeans) that they would sanction Israel?

So, it seems that all of them see Arafat as quite powerful, under the bombs, but doing very little to hinder the “innocent” Israelis from invading his territory!

Well, let’s wish that this dream comes true at the hands of Mr. Powell. Maybe the latter is a wizard endowed with extraordinary occult powers! Maybe would he be able to replace Arafat at the head of a credible Palestinian Authority that will run a real country. A country that will emerge from the ashes of Sharon’s war, like by spell!

Then, Mr. Powell would be called Aliceé and the country would be the wonderland!