The Arabs...It's No Use

Jihad Khazen

Al-Hayat 26/09/2005

The Palestine cause is generous with all peoples of the world except its own. All a country needs is to "normalize" relations with Israel and U.S. aid pours in and its ruling dictator lionized.
This has always been the case even before the neo-cons hijacked U.S. foreign policy. In the nineties the American team to the newly independent Muslim states of Central Asia was made up of Israeli apologists whose first condition in return for American aid was to recognize Israel and establish economic relations with it. The practice remains very much alive, and now unrepresentative Arab leaders need only to start a process of normalization with Israel and the Washington administration immediately forgets supporting terror, human rights abuses and political prisoners and missing opposition figures.
All this is committed at the expense of the Palestine cause and the Palestinian people. And I was reminded of it by Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom at the U.N. General Assembly the other day.
He was optimistic, almost euphoric, as he said, "The Iron Wall that has defined Israel's relations with most of the Arab and Muslim world for generations is coming down."
The "Iron Wall" is coming down while the security wall is going up to cut Palestinian families from each other and from their livelihood, isolate Jerusalem and usurp its holy places.
I want to be clear to the point of rudeness: Ariel Sharon has killed about 3400 Palestinian civilians in the last five years, including about 660 underage children. Those Arab leaders dealing with him outside peace treaties are partners in his crimes and the blood of Palestinian children is on their hands.
In New York, Shalom said, "Here in New York this week, I have had the honor of meeting with more than ten of my colleagues from the Arab and Muslim world, a number unthinkable even two years ago." He also said, "Unfortunately, many of our ties with the Arab and Muslim world are still in the shadows, away from the public eye. Today, I call on my Arab and Muslim colleagues to bring out our contacts into the light of day..."
Shalom did not only say that he met Arab and Muslim "colleagues" but that they had asked him to keep the meetings secret. Why would an Arab or Muslim minister want to meet Shalom secretly? It is because he knows that he is committing a mistake, sin or national treason.
Those ministers are so miserable that they went to Shalom in his office instead of asking him to come to them. In the General Assembly, I sit with the Lebanese delegation and the Israeli delegation is almost always in front of us because of the alphabetical order of assigning seats. The Israelis in front smile and try to talk to us. We have always refused, including this year, without being ministers or senior officials.
I support full normal relations with Israel but only after peace not before it. Why would an Israeli government, under Sharon or Binyamin Netanyahu, make peace with the Palestinians if it is getting alll the benefits of peace without the cost of withdrawing from all the occupied territories?
Worse than meeting Shalom was some of the justifications. I heard that President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan sought the advice, or asked permission, from Saudi Arabia. But Musharraf has come of age a long time ago and Saudi Arabia is not a custodian of Pakistan. The difference between the two countries is that King Abdullah will not meet Sharon and Foreign Minister Saud Al Feisal will not meet Shalom. Another difference is that the Saudi king did not seize power in a coup.
Two other points in Shalom's speech:
He said, "Responsibility for the affairs of Gaza and its residents is now in Palestinian hands." But responsibility for daily death and destruction remains in Israel's hands in a strip of land that was occupied territory and is now a Nazi-style concentration camp.
He also opposed Hamas' role in Palestinian politics and said, "We will not cooperate with its desire to participate in the forthcoming Palestinian elections." Now this is might undemocratic from the "only democracy in the Middle East" and the reason is an unmitigated brazen categorical lie. If Hamas is a terrorist organization what about the Israeli army. Once again I refer to 3400 Palestinian civilians killed in the last five years against 660 Israeli civilians, a ratio of almost five to one. And the figures are worse for underage children where until the end of last month 657 Palestinian children were killed against 116 Israeli children, a ratio of six to one. If Hamas is terrorist once the Israel army is terrorist five or six times. There is no escaping this; the general definition of a terrorist act is killing non-combatant civilians.
All this Israeli terrorism does not deter the Arab and Muslim officials from meeting Shalom so he now wants the U.N. to observe a holocaust remembrance but not to remember the Palestinian victims of the survivors of the Nazis. He also boasts that in November he will sit with his Arab and Muslim "Colleagues" at the World Summit on the Information Society in Tunisia (to which Sharon has been invited), and says that for the first time Israel would seek a seat at the Security Council.
So after "Zionism is racism" there is talk of one holocaust but not the other, and after an Arab leader hosted the Palestinians in his country on leaving Lebanon during the Israel invasion, we have a leader who host Sharon.
The Arabs...it's no use.