Picture a room in the White House with the president surrounded by the most influential members of his cabinet. His national security adviser, Condo Leasing Rights, has a first draft of an important foreign policy speech. The Vice President, a Dick from the Cheney clan shows up with one senior Yiddish supremacist aide and another ‘expert’ who is a mover and shaker in the Christian identity movement, a doomsday cult that wants to expedite Armageddon. For ‘balance’, the CIA and State Department send in their most seasoned ‘professionals’, led by Colin Powell. A team of foreign policy risk management specialists from the Defense Department is dispatched to monitor the crafting of every word in ‘the speech’.
Prior to this gathering, intense consultations take place with NATO allies, Arab leaders and Ariel Sharon. A few trial balloons are floated just to test the waters. A week later, the initial draft of the speech has been amended twenty eight times. Every word has been carefully weighed to avoid ambiguity.
Absent from the White House meeting was Natan Sharansky, who had already given his input at a special meeting in Colorado described in a NewsWeek article.
“Vice President Dick Cheney was there, taking notes. So was Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy Defense secretary. The two Americans had been working with others on a major Middle East policy speech for the president, and though they had both met Sharansky many times before, his address struck a chord. Dump the region’s dictators, and make democracy a precondition for peace. “It was pretty much
the talk of the conference,” says Richard Perle, an influential Pentagon adviser who helped bring Sharansky to the forum.
Sharansky is hoping he had a hand in reshaping U.S. policy. At the conference, he says, he spoke privately with Cheney for more than an hour Saturday, two days before the Bush announcement. “More than half our talk was devoted to what would be said in the speech,” he says. Later Saturday, Sharansky and Wolfowitz were due at a dinner reception, but as an observant Jew, Sharansky said he couldn’t drive on the Sabbath. Instead, he and Wolfowitz trudged through a forest on foot to get to the dinner, their bodyguards in tow. “It gave us a chance to talk about everything-Arafat, international terrorism, Iraq and Iran and, of course, Jewish history, our roots and so on,” Sharansky says.”
The Washington Post, which happens to own NewsWeek, published an article comparing Sharansky’s speech with various lines from the Bush speech. They had virtually identical wording. For the record, Sharansky is an avowed right wing champion of the Israeli settler movement. Richard Perle is his ‘American’ clone.
Just for emphasis, this presidential speech went through twenty-eight drafts before it was delivered. The essence of the Bush/Sharansky speech is that the Palestinians might be granted a ‘provisional’ state if they bow to Sharon’s dictates. The occupation is not the problem. Rather, Palestinian agitation for freedom is the root cause of all the violence. Sharon’s brutality is not an obstacle to peace. It is Arafat’s lack of compliance with Sharon’s every whim that prevents an Israeli withdrawal.
Within a couple of hours after the speech, the Israeli army started to re-occupy all the major cities in the West Bank, placing a million residents under curfew. Sharon said he had a green light from Bush and Washington did not contradict him.
What every Arab should know is that George Bush has a new doctrine, jointly developed with the likes of Sharon, Netenyahu and Sharansky. The new doctrine is called Busharonism and is based on the simple premise that the Jews of the Middle East are infinitely more important than the Muslim and Christian Arabs of the Middle East. This doctrine allows Israeli thugs to romp through native Palestinian towns and villages, destroying, killing and maiming. All Sharon needs to do is describe such actions as ‘security’ measures and the Bush administration will give him a carte blanche to pulverize the natives. The security of Palestinians from Israeli harm is not an issue.
No American president has ever been as clear as Bush in his open disdain for the Arabs. A day after the speech he called the Palestinians a ‘corrupt society’.
Despite the clarity of the new BuSharonism doctrine, many pundits are still searching through the speech for ‘positive’ signs. The West Bank is now divided into 220 isolated islands living under a shoot-to-kill curfew as Sharon’s troops systematically terrorize Palestinian civilians. Every single Palestinian coffin now comes with a presidential seal of approval. And yet the Arab governments are sniffing around for ‘positive signs’.
Why do the Arabs refuse to accept the reality of Busharonism? The President of the United States is not searching for peace in our time. Justice and fair play are not part of his political vocabulary. Human Rights are not part of his agenda. Palestinian liberties and freedoms are far from his daily concerns. George Bush thinks he is the reincarnation of Andrew Jackson, who made a name as an ‘Indian killer’. Bush has no trouble embracing a warped psycho like Ariel Sharon who daily adds to his reputation as an ‘Arab killer’.
Busharonism is a doctrine that believes that the only way to deal with Arabs is to inflict pain that leaves visible scars, keep them under pressure and use collective punishment to assure that every Palestinian is left with a wound to remember.
The Arabs of the Middle East must now make a choice. They can roll over and ignore the overt challenge of Busharonism. They can accept the role assigned to them by Bush as the wogs of the Middle East. Or they can start to work out strategies to deligitimize America’s unhealthy attitudes towards their people. Reducing American interests in the Middle East is the only hope of. discouraging Bush and company from spilling more Arab blood. A boycott of American goods will not do. The American dollar should also be refused in exchange for oil or any other transaction. An oil embargo will not suffice. It is time for American oil companies to make room for French and Italian and Chinese concerns that will be less likely to meddle in local affairs. The United Nations has obviously failed the Arab world and New York is just getting a little bit too insolent to host any kind of international forum. Freeze membership in that United Nations until it is located on more neutral turf, outside the United States. Prevent CNN and the New York Times from having any offices in the Middle East and have all senior officials refuse to grant them interviews. Ban the Washington Post from the region and boycott the Arabic version of NewsWeek. Papers from Great Britain have far superior coverage. Reintroduce French language instruction in high schools. A strategic move to orient more Arabs to become francophiles will give the region a distinct advantage in dealing with Europe and Africa.
The Arab elite must end their infatuation with everything American. You can have more fun in Greece than in California. You can send your kids to study in France or Australia. You can get better deals all around from Europe and Asia. Visit Istanbul instead of New York. Send your kids to study engineering in Germany and Holland. Invest in the Middle East, instead of getting ripped off by the crooked sharks in New York.
Never forget the reason George Bush embraces a thug like Sharon. It is because he does not value the life of his Palestinian victims. At his core, this Blue Blood Yankee has a real issue with those of non-European origin. In his family, Bush the Elder refers to his half Latin grand kids as the ‘little brown ones’.
What every Arab should know is that it is not your responsibility to provide therapy clinics for every blue blood Yankee bigot who struts onto your turf with Texas boots to walk all over your god given right to live as free men. Treating an intellectual dwarf like Bush with respect will only encourage the bastard to escalate his love affair with a serial mass murderer like Ariel Sharon. So, teach your children well about men like Bush and teach them to avoid doing business with them.
The vast majority of American citizens who reject Bush’s bigotry can also contribute to the effort to never let Bush walk away from his Sharon file. Refuse to work in the Arab oil colonies. Demand an end to our military adventures in the Middle East. Demand an end of aid to Israel. Permanently abandon the Republican and Democratic parties and build alternative political choices. Sue George Bush every chance you get. And if your lawyer has time, file a case against Dick Cheney. Get the law on these crooks.
There is open speculation that Sharon and the Mossad have something big over Bush and family. Something impeachment size big. If this is more than idle speculation, the only way to neutralize Sharon is to find out more about the Bush file. Of course, Noriega had all kinds of dirt on Bush daddy. But Sharon has the advantage of a very advanced delivery system with journalists like Thomas Friedman and William Safire willing to make certain revelations should Bush or Cheney waver in their commitment to Busharonism.
Mr. Ahmed Amr is Editor of NileMedia.com in Seattle and a regular contributor to Media Monitors Network (MMN).