Sunday, November 28, 2004

Fool me only once

Israeli deception

IN Israel's words, Iran poses the greatest threat to the existence of the Jewish state even without nuclear weapons, and the perceived danger could not even be described if the Iranians were to acquire atomic bombs; and hence Israel is determined not to allow Iran to have nuclear arms.
The Israeli argument could be summed up in three words: The greatest deception.
There is no logic behind the contention that Iran could attack Israel even if it acquired nuclear weapons.
The reasoning is clear: Israel is known to possess at least 200 nuclear warheads and have long-range missiles to deliver them. It shares a "strategic partnership" with the world's sole superpower, the US. Therefore, attacking Israel would invariably lead to massive retaliation from the Israelis themselves and backed by the US.
Are the Iranians so naive not to realise the gravity of retaliation for an attack on Israel?
Of course, Israel would like the world to believe so.
Is there any logic behind the argument that nuclear-armed Iran could secretly give an atomic weapons to a group hostile to Israel and this group could use it against the Jewish state?
Again, the first logic applies. The Iranians are not naive to believe that their involvement in the "clandestine" supply of atomic weapons to anti-Israeli groups could be kept a secret. But Israel would like the world to believe otherwise.
So, what could be the real reason for Israel vowing to pursue a relentless battle not to allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons?
In an article appearing on antiwar.com, Roger Howards offers a possible answer. "Tel Aviv is deeply concerned that such a development could potentially create deep splits in the US-Israel alliance."
How so?
"Consider, for example, what would happen if Tehran, having developed a warhead and withdrawn from the 1968 Non-Proliferation Treaty, offered to reduce the size of or even eliminate its own nuclear arsenal in return for similar moves – all UN-monitored – by Tel Aviv.
"This would be a typically calculating and manipulative ploy by an Iranian regime playing the Israeli card to bolster its support at home and in the Islamic world as a whole. But any such ploy by Tehran would also seek to divide the more moderate European governments from a US administration that has consistently been far more sceptical of Iranian nuclear assurances."
Such a situation could lead to American pressure on Israel, whose leaders for long "considered their nuclear arsenal as their best deterrent against what they regard as a hostile and numerically vastly superior Arab World."
Howard recalls that Israeli military chiefs had indeed ordered preparations for nuclear strikes against enemy forces during the 1967 and 1972 wars.
He admits that the Israelis are capable of fending off American pressure to downsize or eliminate its nuclear arsenal, as the American/Israeli track record shows.
"More important, perhaps, is the possibility that it would pose awkward questions, or even a far-reaching debate, in Washington and amongst the American public in general about the cost to America of an unquestioning loyalty to Israel," asserts Howard.
That theory finds common ground with the numerous investigations conducted by the American government, Congress and intelligence agencies into the Sept.11, 2001 attacks. All those investigations found that Osama Bin Laden's Al Qaeda carried out the attacks, how many were involved, where they trained and how they organised the assaults. Apart from these findings, which are now known to the world, the investigation reports singularly lacked the answer to the question "why 9/11?"
If indeed the reports contained the answer, then that part of their findings were classified.
Indeed, one could think of many reasons why the classification, but the most plausible one among them is again linked to Israel and that is the answer to the question: Why would a group of Muslims hijack a few airplanes and slam them into American landmarks in suicide operations?
Obviously, the pro-Israeli neoconservatives in the Bush administration did not want the Americans to even make a guess at what prompted the Sept.11 attacks and hence the answer to the question "why 9/11" was never allowed to be included in the findings of the investigations.
The neocon-led administration would like Americans —  and indeed others around the world naive enoughto swallow it — that it was Muslim hatred for the way of American life behind Sept.11. They would not want the Americans in particular not even think, let alone debate, that their country's unflinching, unquestioning support for Israel might have had something to do with 9/11.
No doubt, they want a repeat run in the Iranian context, and, if reports in the mainstream American media are accurate, then the hawks have already begun discussing military action against Iran to neutralise its nuclear weapons threat, including possible strikes on leadership, political and security targets. And what is the evidence that Iran does have such plans? A "walk in source." No doubt an Iranian Ahmed Chalabi.
What is unfolding before us is a scenario that leads nowhere but action against Iran and further destablisation of the Gulf region and that is why we are concerned.
Well, it is apt perhaps at this point to remind the Americans of the old adage: Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

Major bumps ahead

November 28 2001

So far so smooth, but major bumps ahead


IT was indeed a smart move on the part of Mahmoud Abbas to have made a deal under which Marwan Barghouti eased himself out of the race for Palestinian presidency and endorsed Abbas's candidacy. In return, Abbas pledged to pump in young blood to the mainstream Fateh faction by holding elections to its Revolutionary Council for the first time in 16 years and to exert efforts to release Barghouti from Israeli detention.

While the given reason for the deal was that Fateh wanted to avert a split vote, Abbas would have surely realised that he would be in a vulnerable position if Barghouti were to be a candidate for president.

It was a foregone conclusion that Barghouti, even while in prison, would have given Abbas a tough time in the race for Palestinian presidency as Yasser Arafat's successor, for he has built a formidable reputation as a never-say-die freedom fighter in relatively few years. He has immense popularity both in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and could even arrange truces from detention.

It is no exaggeration to assert that Barghouti would have attracted quite a few votes even from hard-line groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad as well as leftist factions because they see his agenda for liberation as closer to theirs than anyone else's.

Barghouti, who can easily claim absolute loyalty from the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades -- an offshoot of Fateh -- was not exactly one of the most prominent Palestinian political activists until the eruption of the second intifada in 2000.

He did make a name for himself as an organiser of the first (1987-1992) intifada -- he was expelled by the Israeli occupation authorities during the uprising -- and while in exile in Lebanon and Jordan until late 1994. He crossed the River Jordan back to the West Bank in the second half of 1994 under the Oslo agreements that the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) signed with Israel.

Although he opposed the Oslo accords, he followed up the course of the process launched by that agreement, and soon realised that it was not going anywhere near the Palestinian aspirations for statehood. He started making the point to Arafat and also held many forums with fellow Palestinians to discuss the situation and weigh various options. And then came the collapse of the Oslo process in 2000 and he and his people were ready to resume armed resistance.

It was then his name repeatedly hit the headlines and his voice was repeatedly heard as one representing the younger Palestinian generation at public gatherings. He exhorted Palestinian youth to wage armed struggle for liberation at funerals of Palestinians killed in the confrontation with the occupation forces.

Soon he was elevated, in popular opinion, as a possible successor to Arafat, much to the surprise of many who had thought that the old guard around Arafat would have made sure that none other than one from among themselves could or would stake a claim as successor to the "Old Man."

Man of convictions

It was also clear that the Israeli feared Barghouti more than any other Palestinian fighter because such was his magnetism for the Palestinian youth. He rejected attacks against Israeli civilians but reserved and indeed exercised the legitimate rights of a people under occupation against the occupying forces.

Barghouti is not a man who simply happened to be at the right place at the right time in the Palestinian liberation struggle, but is a man of firm convictions and beliefs and who is capable of leading his people. That was made absolutely clear when he stood up in an Israeli court, raising his hands in chains and affirming that he did not recognise the jurisdiction of Israel over him or any of his people. He shocked the Israeli judges by declaring that the Israeli occupation forces were guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

By then, it also became known that he was using his time in Israeli detention on charges of murder to learn Hebrew and polish his English-language skills. He has displayed his skills in Hebrew while being on trial. Eventually, he was sentenced to five life terms in jail.

For many Palestinians, Barghouti is their natural leader. They have known him for many years as someone from among them, who has thrown stones at the Israeli army and who has opened fire at Israeli soldiers. That is a far cry from those "exiles" who returned to Palestine under the Oslo agreements.

Today, with Barghouti's endorsement and barring any last-minute surprises, Abbas is almost sure of winning the Jan.9 elections to Palestinian presidency.

While the deal was brokered by Palestinian cabinet minister Qaddoura Fares, who visited an Israeli jail in Beersheba on Friday to convince Barghouti to drop his campaign for presidency, Farouq Qaddoumi, head of the PLO's political department and Arafat successor as Fateh leader, is said to have played a major role in arranging it.

Abbas, who is now PLO chairman, and Qaddoumi is expected to meet in Damascus or Cairo this week to finalise the arrangement. The two were among the founders of Fateh along with Arafat and a few others in the late 50s, but they developed differences, particularly over the Oslo agreements and after Abbas tried to edge Qaddoumi out as Palestinian foreign minister during a four-month term he served as prime minister last year.

However, the two appeared to have buried the hatchet after Arafat's death: Hence Qaddoumi becoming Fateh leader and Abbas assuming PLO chairmanship.

Qaddoumi and Barghouti shared common views on the 1993 Oslo agreement and opposed amending the PLO charter that removed a clause calling for the elimination of the state of Israel. Both believe that recognising Israel as a legal entity in Palestine should have come only after Israel allowed the creation of an independent state for the Palestinians.

Barghouti's return to the West Bank in 1994 was natural since he was only going back home from where he was expelled only a few years earlier.

An important question that comes up is: Given a choice, who would Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon opt for as a "negotiating partner," Abbas or Barghouti?

Judging from Sharon's record, he would like to negotiate with Abbas but with Barghouti free and active on the sidelines. For, only then Sharon could put up a charade of talking peace with Abbas -- but presenting unacceptable terms -- with the dead certainty that Barghouti would step up armed resistance that would lead to a deadlock in the process.

That is one explanation that emerged from reports that followed Arafat's death early this month Israel was offering to release Barghouti in return for the US freeing convicted Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard as well as Egypt freeing Azzam Azzam, an Israeli Druze jailed for spying for Israel in Egypt in 1997.

"The proposal is there in the pipeline," said a report in the Israeli press at that time. "Israel is ready to free Barghouti in return fro Pollard and Azzam. However, the US, Egypt and the Palestinians have to work out the details if they are so anxious for Barghouti's freedom."

While Egypt might agree to free Azzam, there strong opposition in the US against freeing Pollard, who was found to have given Israel important military intelligence data about the defensive and offensive military capabilities of the Soviet Union and Arab countries. He is serving a life term in the US.

Israel has implicitly acknowledged Pollard was its spy. It has given him Israeli nationality and has been lobbying the US administrations since Pollard was jailed 19 years ago for his release, but all successive presidents have refused to free him given the sensitivity of the issue for American voters.

Azzam was employed at an Israeli textile plant in Egypt in 1997 when he was arrested and charged with spying for Israel's Mossad intelligence service, using invisible ink hidden in dyed women's underwear. Israel has consistently denied he was a spy but worked hard for his release.

If Sharon were to release Barghouti under a hypothetical deal involving Pollard and Azzam, then the Palestinian armed struggle would only get revved up to new heights under Barghouti's leadership unless Sharon dropped his defiant refusal to accept international legitimacy as the basis for a solution to the Palestinian problem. Since Sharon does not seem to have any intention to shift his stand, the obviously result would be another deadlock.

Probably, Sharon would want that to happen if only to defend himself that he was ready for "negotiations" but the Palestinians asked for the sky and also continued armed attacks against Israelis and hence the deadlock.
That is a strong conclusion emerging from the scene. Otherwise, Sharon would not have allowed Fares and Arab Israeli legislator Jamal Sahalka to visit to visit Barghouti in the cell where he has been held in solitary confinement for 26 months. Sharon would definitely like to play one Palestinian against another while he consolidates his grip on Palestine and create new realities that could not be easily wiped out. That should be a constant source of concern and reason for vigilance for the Palestinian leadership.

Monday, November 22, 2004

A law unto self

November 21 2004

A law unto itself

pv vivekanand
THE video image of an American soldier shooting dead an unarmed Iraqi in a Fallujah mosque speaks volumes for the arbitrary manner in which the US military is conducting the war in Iraq with absolute insulation against international prosecution on charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes.

The insulation is in the form of protection for every American against being tried by the International Criminal Court (ICC), which is empowered to try cases of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Had the international law enshrined in the ICC's statute been applicable to the US, then it is a safe bet that thousands of American soldiers would have been sent by now for ICC trial for their crimes in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Unlike the International Court of Justice, which could try sovereign states, the ICC has the authority to charge individuals.

From day one more than a decade ago of discussions on creating such a court, Washington sought to exempt Americans from being governed by the proposed court.

It took many years of the world being unable to do anything except to voice condemnation and indignation over crimes against humanity perpetrated by autocratic governments, armies and mercenaries before the international community could agree, in July 1998, to set up the ICC under the so-called Rome Statute.

The court is complementary to national jurisdictions, and will act only when governments are unable or unwilling to genuinely carry out investigations or prosecutions of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The US refused to sign on to the ICC and launched an international effort to make sure that no country would send an American national to the ICC for trial. It has signed bilateral agreements with more than 80 countries to this effect (One of the first things that the US did after installing a provisional governing council in post-Saddam Hussein Iraq last year was to get the council sign the agreement. Obviously, Washington knew that charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity would be levelled against its military personnel in Iraq and that it was possible at some point in the future they would be asked to account for their action at an international forum).

Carrot and stick policy

The US used a carrot and stick policy to entice countries to sign agreements against extraditing Americans for trial by the ICC. On the one hand, it threatened to cut off aid to countries if they did not sign the agreement and on the other it offered assistance or additional aid to those which signed the accord.

War crimes and crimes against humanity include systematic attacks on civilians; most uses of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons; and violations of Geneva Conventions on the conduct of war, such as torturing prisoners.

The ICC can only try cases that involve acts that occurred from July 1, 2002, and those found guilty could be sentenced to up to 30 years in prison to life in jail.

It was always known why the US had adopted and continues to adopt a position against Americans being tried by the ICC and insists on conducting trials involving Americans charged with crimes against humanity and war crimes in American courts: The US maintains military presence over 135 countries and, therefore it does not want to its soldiers to be pulled up and tried under international law regardless of whatever circumstances under which they were accused of committing war crimes.

The underlying motivation is also clear: Exposing Americans to international law on war crimes and crimes against humanity would seriously impede the American quest for global domination through the use of military power.

Over 135 countries have signed the ICC statute, and over 100 governments have already ratified it.

Notable among the countries which have not signed the statute of the ICC and are subject to its provisions are China, India and, sure enough, Israel.

These countries have their own concerns just as the US has its.

Israel, which routinely employs its soldiers in military actions against the Palestinians living under its occupation in the West Bank and Gaza, would be hit hard if it were to sign the ICC convention since its soldiers could be exposed to trials by the court.

The Indian refusal to accept the ICC statute stems from New Delhi's fear that its military personnel could be targeted by the ICC for their activities in Kashmir.

China has concerns that its use of its army and military personnel against dissenters could expose its people for trial at the ICC.

Publicly, the US argues that its demand for immunity against ICC prosecution for its soldiers is a safeguard against politically motivated prosecutions.

"A politicised or a loose cannon prosecutor in a court like that can impose enormous difficulties and disadvantages on people," according to US Defence Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.

Rumsfeld points out the US has forces in countries all over the globe. "We have no intention of pulling back," said Rumsfeld, adding that it is Washington's prerogative to arrange for "immunities that will protect our forces before we go in" even for peacekeeping operations.

However, European countries like Britain and France which have signed the ICC statute affirm that the court has safeguards to prevent politicised prosecutions, but the US rejects the affirmation.

Judge Richard J Goldstone, who served as the chief prosecutor of the United Nations International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda from 1994-96, points out that the Rome Statute "contains built-in checks and balances and the treaty has strong mechanisms to ensure that the ICC is used as the court of last resort."

American law says that American soldiers who commit crimes abroad should be handled by US military courts.

However, by and large, the sentences handed down by the US military justice system is nowhere near what the ICC could impose. An example is the one-year sentence handed down to Sergeant Ivan Fredrick, who faced a charge that carried an eight-year sentence after he was found guilty in the Abu Ghraib torture scandal.

Efforts at the UN

The US and the UK tried in vain this year to secure a UN Security Council exemption for UN peace-keepers from ICC jurisdiction.

The strongest opponent of the move was the London-based human rights group Amnesty International, which appealed to the UN Security Council that the joint American-British "proposals take away the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court to decide these questions and as such violate the integrity of the Rome Statute and undermine the rule of law by in effect granting immunity to nationals of non-states parties to the Rome Statute responsible for the worst possible crimes," it said.

Amnesty International called all members of the Security Council to "reject this proposal or any proposal that would undermine the integrity of international justice."

Subsequently, the US withdrew the proposal when it became apparent that it would not win the nine votes needed for the resolution to pass. Several council members cited the allegations of torture at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and the strong opposition of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan as the reasons behind their position.

It is quite clear that the US administration has been following a path that gives the US an exceptional exemption from international law. Some examples are: Washington's withdrawal from the Anti Ballistic Missile Treaty, the World Conference Against Racism, the Kyoto Protocol on global warming and rejection of the Geneva Convention rules governing the treatment of prisoners of war.

The Fallujah footage broadcast by embedded NBC reporter Kevin Sites could be immediately linked to the US stand on the Geneva Convention, which says that the wounded Iraqi should have been treated as a prisoner of war. The footage leaves no room for any justification whatsoever by the American soldier.

Sites himself said the Iraqi was severely injured, unarmed and did not pose any imminent threat.

Reports say that other Iraqis were found in Fallujah with single-bullet marks in their heads indicating a cold-blooded execution and suggesting that US soldiers are still committing war crimes in Iraq with immunity offered by their own government.

Amnesty International has documents several such incidents. It has expressed "deep concern" that "the rules of war protecting civilians and combatants have been violated in the current fighting between US and Iraqi forces and insurgents" in and around Fallujah.

Pierre Kraehenbuhl, director of the International Committee of the Red Cross, has affirmed that "as hostilities continue in Fallujah and elsewhere, every day seems to bring news of yet another act of utter contempt for the most basic tenet of humanity."

"Like any other armed conflict, this one is subject to limits, and they must be respected at all times," Kraehenbuhl said, adding that respect for international humanitarian law was "an obligation, not an option."

International human rights activists are calling for an in-depth investigation into the US military's behaviour in Iraq with a view to compiling a substantiated and documented record of American violations of international conventions governing the conduct of war and treatment of prisoners of war as well as people under occupation.

As Omar Barghouti, an independent political analyst based in Palestine, observes:

"Despite the fact that the US does not recognise the jurisdiction of the ICC, such an investigation may still present a crucial, indispensable forum that can exert moral and political pressure on the US and its occupation allies to better respect international law and the rules of war stipulated in it.....

"An American insistence on monopolising the use of arbitrary and overwhelming force with no consideration whatsoever to international law or the UN principles will be viewed by people around the globe as the ultimate proof that the US has actually become a pariah state, putting itself above, if not altogether outside, the law. This has the potential of triggering unprecedented lawlessness and terror across the globe with no universally accepted restraints to hold either in check."

Sunday, November 21, 2004

Why US rejects ICC?

by pv vivekanand

THE video image of an American soldier shooting dead an unarmed Iraqi in a Fallujah mosque speaks volumes for the arbitrary manner in which the US military is conducting the war in Iraq with absolute insulation against international prosecution on charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes.
The insulation is in the form of protection for every American against being tried by the International Criminal Court (ICC), which is empowered to try cases of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Had the international law enshrined in the ICC's statute been applicable to the US, then it is a safe bet that thousands of American soldiers would have been sent by now for ICC trial for their crimes in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Unlike the International Court of Justice, which could try sovereign states, the ICC has the authority to charge individuals.
From day one more than a decade ago of discussions on creating such a court, Washington sought to exempt Americans from being governed by the proposed court.
It took many years of the world being unable to do anything except to voice condemnation and indignation over crimes against humanity perpetrated by autocratic governments, armies and mercenaries before the international community could agree, in July 1998, to set up the ICC under the so-called Rome Statute.
The court is complementary to national jurisdictions, and will act only when governments are unable or unwilling to genuinely carry out investigations or prosecutions of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The US refused to sign on to the ICC and launched an international effort to make sure that no country would send an American national to the ICC for trial. It has signed bilateral agreements with more than 80 countries to this effect (One of the first things that the US did after installing a provisional governing council in post-Saddam Hussein Iraq last year was to get the council sign the agreement. Obviously, Washington knew that charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity would be levelled against its military personnel in Iraq and that it was possible at some point in the future they would be asked to account for their action at an international forum).
The US used a carrot and stick policy to entice countries to sign agreements against extraditing Americans for trial by the ICC. On the one hand, it threatened to cut off aid to countries if they did not sign the agreement and on the other it offered assistance or additional aid to those which signed the accord.
War crimes and crimes against humanity include systematic attacks on civilians; most uses of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons; and violations of Geneva Conventions on the conduct of war, such as torturing prisoners.
The ICC can only try cases that involve acts that occurred from July 1, 2002, and those found guilty could be sentenced to up to 30 years in prison to life in jail.
It was always known that why the US had adopted and continues to adopt a position against Americans being tried by the ICC and insists on conducting trials involving Americans charged with crimes against humanity and war crimes in American courts: The US maintains military presence over 135 countries and, therefore, it does not want to its soldiers to be pulled up and tried under international law regardless of whatever circumstances they were accused of committing war crimes.
The underlying motivation is also clear: Exposing Americans to international law on war crimes and crimes against humanity would seriously impede the American quest for global domination through the use of military power.
Over 135 countries have signed the ICC statute, and over 100 governments have already ratified it.
Notable among the countries which have not signed the statute of the ICC and are subject to its provisions are China, India and, sure enough, Israel.
These countries have their own concerns just as the US has its.
Israel, which routinely employs its soldiers in military actions against the Palestinians living under its occupation in the West Bank and Gaza, would be hit hard if it were to sign the ICC convention since its soldiers could be exposed to trials by the court.
The Indian refusal to accept the ICC statute stems from New Delhi's fear that its military personnel could be targeted by the ICC for their activities in Kashmir.
China has concerns that its use of its army and military personnel against dissenters could expose its people for trial at the ICC.
Publicly, the US argues that its demand for immunity against ICC prosecution for its soldiers is a safeguard against politically motivated prosecutions.
"A politicised or a loose cannon prosecutor in a court like that can impose enormous difficulties and disadvantages on people," according to US Defence Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.
Rumsfeld points out the US has forces in countries all over the globe. "We have no intention of pulling back," said Rumsfeld, adding that it is Washington's prerogative to arrange for "immunities that will protect our forces before we go in" even for peacekeeping operations.
However, European countries like Britain and France which have signed the ICC statute affirm that the court has safeguards to prevent politicised prosecutions, but the US rejects the affirmation.
Judge Richard J Goldstone, who served as the chief prosecutor of the United Nations International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda from 1994-96, points out that the Rome Statute "contains built-in checks and balances and the treaty has strong mechanisms to ensure that the ICC is used as the court of last resort."
American law says that American soldiers who commit crimes abroad should be handled by US military courts.
However, by and large, the sentences handed down by the US military justice system is nowhere near what the ICC could impose. An example is the one-year sentence handed down to Sergeant Ivan Fredrick, who faced a charge that carried an eight-year sentence after he was found guilty in the Abu Ghraib torture scandal.

Efforts at the UN

The US and the UK tried in vain this year to secure a UN Security Council exemption for UN peace-keepers from ICC jurisdiction.
The strongest opponent of the move the London-based human rights group Amnesty International, which appealed to the UN Security Council that the joint American-British "proposals take away the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court to decide these questions and as such violate the integrity of the Rome Statute and undermine the rule of law by in effect granting immunity to nationals of non-states parties to the Rome Statute responsible for the worst possible crimes," it said.
Amnesty International called all members of the Security Council to "reject this proposal or any proposal that would undermine the integrity of international justice."
Subsequently, the US withdrew the proposal when it became apparent it would not win the nine votes needed for the resolution to pass.

Saturday, November 20, 2004

Fallujah - writing on the wall

Fallujah: The writing was on the wall


There was no dearth of warnings to the United States that its military assault to "cleanse" Fallujah of insurgents would lead to a humanitarian catastrophe, and, if anything, Iraqi resistance would only emerge stronger elsewhere in the country. But the Washington strategists chose to ignore the warnings. It could not be said they did not foresee the disaster that has hit Fallujah and destroyed the life of tens of thousands of its residents.

The gruesome pictures from Fallujah -- some of them not appearing in the mainstream media outlets -- speak of innocent civilians -- mainly women and children -- caught in the crossfire and hundreds of people maimed for life.

The Washington strategists definitely expected it; that was why they put off the assault on Fallujah until after the US presidential elections on Nov.2. They feared that those images could have a negative impact on George W. Bush's chances in the elections. When he was re-elected for another four years, his strategists found it fit to give the green signal for the invasion of the town.

Today, as reports from Iraq show, thousands are trapped in Fallujah, with the US military besieging the town and denying entry to relief convoys. There is no water, no food, no medical assistance and no power, and hundreds of corpses are rotting in the streets of Fallujah.

The Iraqi government says more than 1,600 people were killed and 1,000 people arrested in Fallujah. However, independent sources put the casualty figure at least double that.

An official of the International Committee of the Red Cross has said at least 800 civilians have been killed during the US military siege. The estimate was based on reports from Red Crescent aid workers stationed around the embattled city, from residents within the city, and from refugees.

The official estimated that at least 50,000 residents remain trapped within the city. They were too poor to leave, lacked friends or family outside the city, and therefore had nowhere to go, or they simply had not had enough time to escape before the siege began.

The Ministry of Health in the interim Iraqi government had stopped supplying hospitals and clinics in Fallujah two months before the current siege.

Contradicting eyewitness accounts, Iraq's interim prime minister, Iyad Allawi, said he did not believe civilians were killed in the battle. That assertion has fuelled anger among the Iraqis.

The fatal shooting of a wounded and apparently unarmed man in a Fallujah mosque by an American soldier is another source of Iraqi fury.

Al Jazeera Television broadcast the footage of the soldier opening fire at a wounded Iraqi fighter on Saturday.

In the US, it hit news on Monday with the airing of the footage taken by pool correspondent Kevin Sites of NBC News. Sites said the man who was killed did not appear to be armed or threatening in any way, with no weapons visible in the mosque.

The US military has launched an investigation "to determine whether the Marine acted in self-defense, violated military law or failed to comply with the Law of Armed Conflict."

But, given the backdrop of American soldiers' ill-treatment of Iraqis held at Abu Ghraib prison, no investigation or finding could undo the damage already done.

Is the situation that the assault left behind in Fallujah what the US calls success? Then, a few more such "successes" are in the making elsewhere in Iraq.

These include Mosul in the north, where armed insurgents are reportedly in control of some sectors of the town. Insurgents are also in control of most parts of Ramadi, Samarra, Haditha, Baquba, Hiyt, Qaim, Latifiyah, Taji, and Khaldiyah.

Insurgents are also fighting the US-led coalition forces in Baiji, Tall Afar near the border with Syria, Hawija as well as parts of Baghdad, such as Al Dora, Al Amiriyah, Abu Ghraib, Al Adhamiya, and Khan Dhari.

American casualties

Since the assault on Fallujah began, the US military has reported 130 to 140 attacks a day, including car bombings, roadside mine blasts and ambushes, along with sabotage and intimidation of Iraqi security forces.

According to a Pentagon count, American deaths in Iraq in November are approaching 100, making it the second-deadliest month since the invasion of he country in March 2003.

In April, 135 deaths were registered, again the bulk of it in Fallujah when US forces fought fierce battles only to be withdrawn from the town.

Until now the second-deadliest month was November 2003 with 82 deaths, and 80 Americans died in May and September this year.

"It is difficult to gauge the effect of the growing death toll on US troop morale," the Associated Press reported. "Commanders say their men and women are holding up well, although they caution that more hard fighting lies ahead."

Pentagon figures cited by the AP shows that most of the deaths this month have been in the Fallujah offensive that began on Nov. 7. Many Marines and soldiers also have been killed in Ramadi and other cities in Anbar province west of Baghdad, as well as in Mosul in the north, Babil province south of Baghdad and in and around the Iraqi capital.

As of Tuesday the Pentagon said 1,210 US service members have died in Iraq since the conflict began 20 months ago. At the beginning of November the Pentagon count stood at 1,119, and it rose rapidly as the Fallujah fighting intensified and insurgents struck back in other cities and towns.

Since the start of the war, 8,956 US service members have been wounded, of which nearly 5,000 were serious enough to prevent them from returning to duty. At the start of the month the total was 8,287.

Indeed, the US military would be able to overpower the guerrillas but the price that the Iraqis would have to pay would be high in terms death and destruction among their midst.

Jordanian Abu Musab Zarqawi, who leads what appears to be a well-organised group, which has vowed allegiance to Osama Bin Laden, has called on Iraqis to fight the coalition forces. If the US military "finishes Fallujah, it will move in your direction," said a voice said to be Zarqawi's warned followers in a tape. "Beware and deny it the chance to carry out this plan."

The man said the US forces were overextended and would be unable to respond everywhere. "Shower them with rockets and mortars and cut all the supply routes," he said.

Political churning

On the political front, the worst fallout from the assault on Fallujah is the deepened schism between Sunnis and Shiites represented in the interim administration.

The arrest of the deputy speaker of interim Iraqi parliament, Nassir Ayef, from his residence in Baghdad on Tuesday is the best example.

Ayef is leader of Sunni Iraqi Islamic Party, which quit the interim government last week in protest against the US-led assault on Fallujah. The party withdrew its sole minister in the Allawi cabinet last week in protest against the interim government's support of the US-led military strike against Fallujah and other Sunni towns, but retained Ayef as deputy speaker of the 100-member Iraqi interim assembly, the de facto parliament.

The party's minister, Minister of Industry Hajim Al Hassani. was told to quit the government but Hassani refused and was the party expelled him.

Allawi fuelled the rightists further by contradicting eyewitness accounts and telling photographs from Fallujah and asserting that no civilian was harmed in the assault on the town. He also endorsed the American military's decision to refuse the entry of food, water and medicine into the town in order to help victims of the US-led attack..

Confirming Ayef's arrest, Islamic party spokesman Ayad Al Sammarai said:

"This action is a kind of punishment to the (Iraqi) Islamic Party because we object to what is happening in Iraq , especially Fallujah and to the security policies adopted by the Americans and the Iraqi government.

"We think that peaceful solutions and negotiations are the best way to solve problems away from violence. Such attitudes will complicate things in Iraq."

Losing the support of the Iraqi Islamic Party is detrimental to Allawi since it is the Iraqi arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, one of the most influential and best organised groups in the Middle East.

Worsening the situation are raids on mosques and the arrests of several Sunni leaders in addition to Ayef.

Sheikh Mahdi Al Sumaidaei, head of the Supreme Association for Guidance and Daawa, a conservative Sunni organisation, has accused the Allawi's government of "launching a war on Sunnis."

Sumaidaei has called for Sunnis to launch a civil disobedience campaign to protest the assault on Fallujah.

Immediately, Iraqi security forces raided his Um Al Tuboul mosque and seized weapons and arrested Sumaidaei and about two dozen supporters.

Backing Allawi in his stand on Fallujah are the Kurds, who are enjoying broad autonomy in the north of the country. They have sent reinforcements to support the assault on Fallujah and to fight the insurgents in Mosul.

According to Nawshirwan Mustafa, an official with the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, Fallujah was a "hub of terrorists" and that the US had taken its own time to launch the assault.

Modher Shawkat, a top official with the Shiite National Congress Party, has warned that national unity would be the first victim of "a wide perception in the Sunni streets that they are targeted and such is a reality even if it is not intended."

However, Allawi rejects suggestions the offensive would create a backlash among the Sunni minority.

"There is no problem of Sunnis or Shiites," he said. "This is all Iraqis against the terrorists. We are going to keep on breaking their backs everywhere in Iraq. We are not going to allow them to win."

However, the Association of Muslim Scholars, considered the most influential Sunni group in Iraq with 3,000 clerics, has called for a nationwide election boycott in January to protest the assault on Fallujah.

Election boycott

Most observers say that the election results would be invalid if Sunnis boycott them.

On the other hand, the Shiite leadership under Grand Ayatollah Ali Al Sistani is hoping to gain power through the elections. With the Shiites accounting for about 60 per cent of Iraq's 25 million people, Sistani believes that Shiites will dominate the elected government.

Sistani and other Shiite leaders have not commented in public over the assault on Fallujah, and this posture has come under criticism from the Sunnis.

"We didn't hear from them at all," said Sumaidaei. "I assume they are either satisfied or they are afraid. However, when there were attacks on Shiite cities, the Sunni clerics in Iraq immediately condemned them. What about the Shiites?"

Zarqawi has accused Sistani of having blessed the Fallujah assault, calling him "the infidel's imam."

A Sistani aide in Karbala, Afdhal Al Mousawi, dismissed such criticism, asking whether the Shiites had been responsible for "the terrorists taking shelter in Fallujah."

Mousawi said the assault on Fallujah was inevitable "to free the city of its kidnappers." He also said the attack on Fallujah paled in comparison to the suffering of the Shiites under Saddam Hussein.

In the meantime, the US military is battling to control other areas of Iraq, and, as the Washington Post reported on Tuesday, the coalition forces have still to take complete control of Fallujah.

Abdullah Janabi, who belongs to a prominent tribe in Fallujah, and who is said to be a leading insurgent, has vowed that the battle in Fallujah was only the beginning of an uprising that would rock the country.

"The Americans have opened the gates of hell," Janabi said on Monday in Fallujah, according to the Post. "The battle of Fallujah is the beginning of other battles."

The appearance of Janabi in the southern part of Fallujah challenged the American claim that he and other insurgent leaders had fled even before US forces entered the town.

Janabi insisted that other insurgent leaders remained in Fallujah with him, said the Post.

According to the paper, the American strategy in Iraq is a three-step process -- clearing out the insurgents, building up the Iraqi security forces, and then develop and instal local governments in preparation for national elections.

But, the Post notes, the second and third steps promise to be more difficult to take than the first, in part because they are largely beyond US control.

Wednesday, November 17, 2004

Mystery of the drones

pv vivekanand

Israeli military intelligence seems to be in uproar not only over the failure of the country's defences to intercept an Iranian-made unmanned drone that flew over northern Israel on Nov.8, but also over the emergence of aerial photographs that were proved to have been not taken by the drone but sometime earlier.
Israel has established that the drone — or unmanned aerial vehicle or UAV —  was an Iranian-made Mirsad-1 aircraft with a payload of 40 kilogrammes, meaning it could carry that much explosives to be dropped by remote control, according to a report carried on the website of an agency close to Israeli intelligence group Mossad.
The incident is dealt with by the Israelis with utmost seriousness, given the widespread belief that Israel might launch attacks against Iranian nuclear facilities since it believes that the Iranians are developing nuclear weapons which could threaten the Jewish state's military dominance of the region.
The website report said the drone could also carry aerial cameras which would transmit back photographs of target areas.
The drone, launched by Lebanon's Hizbollah group from the Lebanese side of the border, stayed undetected over northern Israeli town of Nahariya for nearly 12 minutes before heading back. It crashed on the Lebanese side of the border.
Four days later, Hizbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah displayed on the group's Al Manar Television aerial photographs which he said were taking by the drone before it crashed.
Now, the Israelis are worried on several counts, says the website report:
First that the country's US-made Hawk anti-missile system deployed near the border failed to intercept the drone. The system did not register the entry of the drone. The explanation was that the drone was too small to be detected by the Hawks' radar scanners. Had the Patriot missile defence system was deployed there instead of the Hawks, the Patriot scanner would have spotted the drone and transmitted the information early enough for it to be downed.
Second, the aerial photographs displayed by Nasrallah showed a Patriot anti-missile defence system in place near the border. However, the mobile Patriot system was not present at the site on Nov.8 since it was removed from there for routine maintenance and the Hawk system was deployed there temporarily. Therefore, it was impossible that the drone which entered Israeli airspace on Nov.8 could have taken the photograph of the Patriot system in place.
That meant one of three things, according to the website report.
First: The pictures were taken by the same or a similar drone which entered Israeli skies undetected on a date prior to Nov.8 and this implied that the Patriot radar which was present was as ineffective as the Hawk system.
Second: Hizbollah might have obtained the photographs from another source, possibly a private satellite company, which could also have notified Hizbollah that the Patriot missile defence system was not present near the border on Nov.8.
Third: Hizbollah might have its own agents in northern Israel.
Two days later, on Nov.10, a "foreign" submarine entered Israel's territorial waters off the same town, Nahariya, but fled before
Israeli warships appeared on the scene.
Israeli intelligence does not think that the submarine was one of the three Russian-made 3,000-tonne Kilo-class subs purchased by the Iranians in the mid-90s.
Kilo-class submarines are 72 meters long, have a crew of 52 and are capable of navigating the Mediterranean, according to the website report.
However, it would take at least to weeks before the Iranian sub to reach Israeli waters because it would have to sail around the Cape of Good Hope and through the Straits of Gibraltar. At some point on another, the sub would have to expose itself to Western or Israeli intelligence surveillance, says the report.
According to the report, "it is far more likely that the unidentified sub was Western and came close to the Israeli coast to find out what caused the failure of Israel’s early warning systems to catch the flying invader two days earlier and see if Israel had plugged the hole in its radar.
"The sub would also have been instructed to see if the Patriot battery had been repositioned - or perhaps different kinds of electronic tracking and interception devices. After collecting some answers, the sub headed out."
Israel has three advanced German-made Dolphin-class subs equipped with long-range cruise missiles capable of hitting Iranian, Pakistani and Indian nuclear facilities. One of the three subs is patrolling the Arabian Sea.
Immediately after the Nov.8 incident, Israeli chief of staff Moshe Yaalon said in a report to a parliamentary committee that the drone was capable of carrying a payload of 40 kilos and therefore it could be used to bomb Israel from across the border in Lebanon. It could also carry a camera capable of transmitting images while the plane is in motion. In fact, the crashed drone carried such a camera, he said.
Israeli investigations found that experts rom the Iranian Revolutionary Guards took part in the launch of the drone from Lebanon, said Israeli military affairs expert Ze'ev Schiff, who argued that "the Iranian activity can be regarded as a clear-cut case of aggression against Israel."
According to Schiff, the aircraft is considered technologically very simple, with a pre-programmed route that is installed before launch. During the flight, a camera sends images back to a ground station, which was supposedly manned by Iranians, and the plane is apparently supposed to land by parachute.
"What makes it unusual is that Iranian military experts from the Revolutionary Guards sent their people to a third country to act against Israel," sais Schiff. "Their support for Palestinian .... groups was usually done with money or weapons. In this case, Iranians were involved directly in launching the drone and preparing it for its mission."
He said it is possible the Lebanese did not know about the activity and the preparations and did not know about the Iranian involvement, but since it took place on Lebanese territory, the Lebanese government is "directly responsible for the act of aggression."
The Iranians supplied several such planes to the Hizbollah, just as they supplied rockets, Schiff argued. One of the Iranian conditions for the supply of the drones was that Hizbollah get clearance from Tehran before any launch, according to Schiff.
Sheikh Nasrallah, the Hizbollah leader, said on Nov.12 that the group possessed drones that can carry explosives to strike targets deep inside Israel if the Jewish state attacks Lebanon.
“I confirm what the Israeli chief of staff has said, Mirsad I can carry explosives of about 40 and 50 kilogrammes," he said. “It does not have the capacity of only reaching Nahariya, but deeper and deeper, against electricity and water installations and military targets."
“Israel monitors Lebanon from the air to aggress it, and we can monitor bases, airports, illegal settlements, installations and the infrastructure in northern Palestine (Israel) in order to defend our country," he said.
Nasrallah said Mirsad 1 was built by Hezbollah experts, and not by Iranian expertise as claimed by Israeli military officials.
“We do not need anybody’s help in that sector,” he added.
On Monday, two Katyusha rockets were fired at northern Israel from Lebanon but they caused no casualties.
A little-known group calling itself Martyr Ghaleb Alawi Group, named after a senior Hizbollah security official who was killed in a Beirut bomb attack in July, claimed responsibility for the attack.
Hizbollah, which played a key role in pressuring Israel to withdrawing its military from southern Lebanon after a 17-year occupation in 1999, has pledge to help the Palestinian cause in whatever manner it could. That, despite its brave talk, should be worrisome for Israel.



separate box

Iranian drone project

Iranians developed its own drone as part of their Revolutionary Guard’s “flying objects” programme that was launched in the 90s but was successful only last year after they purchased lightweight engines made in Japan, Germany and even the United States.
It has built three types of drones and most were tested successfully, although the Mirsad-1 was the only one tried in field conditions.
The Mirsad-2, which was built for naval photography, was tested twice, both times taking photographs of US warships in the Gulf. The Americans shot at a slow-flying Iranian drone but missed.
Iran’s third drone, whose name is unknown in the West, is to be used for long-range reconnaissance flights. It is not yet operational.
Iran is under international sanctions, including a weapons embargo, and it has to carry out all of its research and development alone and buy parts and technology on the black market.


Israeli drones

Israel has an unknown number of US-made advanced drones, mainly of the Predator type. It uses them as surveillance aircraft, mainly in Lebanese airspace, but they could also be equipped with weapons, including chemical and biological agents.
The US has successfully used its Predator drone in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the Defence Department claimed a nearly "100 percent record of hits" in several dozen battlefield attacks.
Iraqis shot one of them down before the US launched war on the country in March 2003.
The US used another type of a drone — MQ-IB — in Yemen in November 2002 to kill six suspected Al Qaeda activists, including a key planner in the bloody attack on the American destroyer USS Cole. The drone fired a Hellfire missile at a vehicle carrying Ali Qaed Senyan Al Harethi, a key suspect in the October 2000 attack in Yemen on the Cole, and five others.
Reports said at that time said the drone was flown by a pilot on the ground in French-garrisoned Djibouti and overseen by commanders in in the Gulf.

Saturday, November 13, 2004

Where to bury Arafat

The dispute over where Yasser Arafat should be buried and Israel's refusal to allow him to be laid to rest in Jerusalem is a classic example of the complexities of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It would need a non-political mindset to solve the problem.
However, Israel had more of politics in mind than anything else when it rejected Palestinian appeals for Arafat to be buried in Jerusalem. Obviously, its immediate concern was that Arafat's tomb would become a rallying point for Palestinian nationalism in Jerusalem, something that the Israelis would find hard to accept, given their insistence that "united Jerusalem is the eternal and indivisible capital" of Israel.
The Palestinians have not given up their hope to bury Arafat in the Holy City. That is why they laid him to rest in a stone coffin that could be moved and reburied in Jerusalem when the time is opportune to do so.
The hard reality in the quest for a just and comprehensive peace in the Middle East is that no Palestinian or Israeli leader would be able to make a deal and sign away Jerusalem to the other. The city is holy to all three monotheist religions and it is also the most bitterly contested area in the world today.
For the Palestinian Muslims, Jerusalem houses the third holiest shrine in Islam — the Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock. For the Israeli Jews Jerusalem is the holiest of all shrines since it houses what they consider as the remnants of Solomon's Temple.
For the Christians, Jerusalem houses sites that are intrinsically linked to the life and death of Jesus Christ.
For the Palestinians, Jerusalem also represents their history, culture and traditions and is a symbol of their aspirations for independent statehood. There could never be a state of Palestine without Arab East Jerusalem as its capital.
When Israel and the Palestinians signed the Oslo agreements in 1993, one of the three issues that were left to final status negotiations in five years was the future of Jerusalem, and it proved to be the thorniest when it came to a make-or-break point in the negotiations.
Arafat, who passed away without realising his dream of praying at Al Aqsa as the leader of an independent Palestine, had realised the truth that he could not get Israel to hand over Arab East Jerusalem to the Palestinians as their capital. Hence he was ready for a compromise involving shared control of the Holy City. However, he declined to be specific in public on the extent of an acceptable compromise.
At the same time, any compromise of whatever nature over Jerusalem was not acceptable to Israel at all. Obviously, that position stemmed from the fact that the Holy City remained under the absolute control of Israel and the Israelis did not find any reason to make any bargain over the city, which it has tried Judaise since it occupied the eastern half in the 1967 war.
Whoever inherits Arafat's mantle as leader of the Palestinian people — as chairman of the Palestinian National Authority — faces the same questions. How far could he go in compromising the Palestinian demand for Arab East Jerusalem? Could he settle for the outskirts of Jerusalem — the Abu Dis area for example — and move to other issues? How far would his people accept it? How could he accept the Haram Al Sharif complex — which Israelis call Temple Mount — to be under Jewish sovereignty?
Any Israeli leader also faces similar questions. Why should he let part of Jerusalem be handed to Palestinians when his army has absolute physical possession of the city? How could any Jew make any compromise over the Western Wall of the ancient Solomon's Temple?
What leaders from the two sides need is a new vision, a vision of their two faiths coming together with the Christians to accept that Jerusalem could not be divided among the three religions and all of them should be have their rights protected under enforceable international guarantees. After all Jerusalem is the city of God for all three and they should not allow politics to come into it.
In order to arrive at that level of understanding, the Israelis and Palestinians need to work out a modus vivendi that essentially involves satisfactory political and territorial solutions to the other thorny issues — the fate of Palestinian refugees and Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank and the final borders of the state of Palestine.
Again, it would be a folly to debate the merits of the arguments of the positions of the two sides. Suffice it to say that Israel remains embedded in its position against allowing the "right of return" of the Palestinian refugees from 1948 and dismantling the settlements despite international conventions and UN Security Council resolutions that enshrine the rights and demand the removal of the settlements.
We know that US President George Bush has endorsed the Israeli position and this has strengthened the hand of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in his quest to impose his version of peace down the Palestinian throat.
There could indeed be compromises if there is enough good will and good faith, and both are in short supply in Palestine today.
Without working out an acceptable formula to address the rights of the refugees and the status of the settlements, the issue of Jerusalem could never even be broached by the two sides.
The death of Arafat is seen as opening a new window of opportunity to revive the Middle East peace process. The US is interested, Europe has pledged to work round the clock for peace in Palestine, the Arabs are ready to make peace with Israel on the basis of Israeli respect and recognition of the Arab and Palestinian rights, whether in Palestine, the Golan or the Sheba Farms of Lebanon, and the international community is anxious to see an end to the continuing strife in the Middle East. The components are there and the people are ready and what is missing is the mutual confidence among the parties involved.
That is where the European role is relevant. Europe could act as the guarantor of good faith on all sides. It needs to break away from the US-imposed constraints and assume a high profile political role in the peace process. It has to remain seized with every phase of the peace talks — as and when they are revived — and should interact with all parties as a neutral mediator who is not only interested to see peace prevailing in a region with which it has historical ties but also to ensure that justice is the basis for any solution to the conflict.

Friday, November 12, 2004

Twists and Turns

Twists and turns

pv vivekanand
AN EXPECTED inter-Palestinian struggle for power and money is definitely happening even before Yasser Arafat is officially proclaimed dead (Some media reports suggest that Arafat's death would be announced on Ramadan 27, Leilat Al Qadr, the day the Holy Koran was revealed to the Prophet Mohammed (PUBH). But, if Suha Arafat is to be believed, then Arafat is very much alive in a Paris hospital and his senior aides want to "bury him alive" in order to grab power at the helm of Palestinian affairs.

Well, let the events play out by themselves. At the same time, running parallel to the Palestinian infighting is an Israeli-mounted campaign to discredit Arafat even in what could be his last hours by suggesting that he holds in his name or proxies hundreds of millions of dollars in assets and investments outside the Middle East.

Let us tackle the second issue first -- "Arafat's secret millions" as reports in the Western press describe it.

Most observers in the Middle East say it is highly doubtful that Arafat has any illegal bank account holding massive amounts for himself. Yes, there could be Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) money held in deposits and investments in the Middle East and outside, but that is not Arafat's money and it is a sure bet that he never intended it to be his personal wealth.

Having closely watched Arafat's movements and pattern of behaviour over the last three decades, most Middle East watchers tend to reject out of hand the suggestion that he secretly owns hotels, beach resorts and other commercial enterprises in Europe and elsewhere worth hundreds of millions of dollars and considers them as his personal assets.

Serving the cause

Indeed, Arafat retained sole control of PLO funds throughout the decades since he became chairman of the PLO; but it is almost certain that the money, whatever is left of the Palestinian, Arab and international contributions that he received over the decades, is invested in a manner that would serve the Palestinian cause.

Israel's hand could be seen behind a report in the British press that described Arafat as "one of the world's wealthiest heads of state" (Thank God, the London newspaper, wittingly or unwittingly, acknowledged Arafat as a head of state, a rare fete in the British press, save a couple of mainstream dailies. Surely, Israel would not have expected that description, given that the State of Palestine is not in its agenda).

During the 70s and 80s, Arafat did receive billions of dollars in Arab assistance as well as proceeds from a "liberation tax" collected from Palestinians working in Arab countries, but the generous contribution came to a halt with the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.

The bulk of that money was spent on administrative expenses of the PLO as well as cash assistance to refugees and families of Palestinians killed and maimed in the resistance struggle in the occupied West Bank and Gaza. A part of the money was invested abroad whose proceeds were also spent on administrative costs since the 90s.

Arab aid to the PLO was suspended when Arafat supported Saddam Hussein in the crisis sparked by the invasion of Kuwait in August 1990. Although Arab governments did resume the aid after a hiatus, the actual amount was nowhere near what the PLO used to receive before 1990.

Selective recipients

The secrecy that Arafat maintained on the status of the PLO funds was always a source of concern for the rest of the Palestinian leadership. Two years ago, Arafat came under immense pressure to reveal the details, and he did submit a report to the PLO Executive Committee although it was not seen as comprehensive. Again, the logic was that Arafat did have an accounting system but he preferred to keep the cards of PLO funds close to his chest.

Let us also not forget that a Palestinian official who has claimed that "billions of dollars" in PLO funds have disappeared was discredited years ago after he himself was found to have been engaged in dubious deals that suggested siphoning off funds for personal benefit.

At best, Arafat could be accused of being varyingly selective which of the eight Palestinian factions grouped under the PLO umbrella received funds from him. And, indeed, he was generous with some of his senior aides whose support he needed in order to maintain his position.

Right or wrong, that was his style of management. Let us not forget, Arafat is described as the "greatest political survivor" of the Middle East who has always dumbfounded those who, at times of his crises, made the mistake of writing him off from the political scene.

(Once a late Palestinian leader close to Arafat retorted to someone who accused the Palestinian president of being whimsical: "Yes, he might be whimsical, but show me a non-whimsical man capable of leading the Palestinian struggle.")
International aid

International assistance to the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) that Arafat set up in accordance with the Oslo agreements he signed with Israel in 1993 was mostly project-specific. Often he reported difficulty meeting administrative expenses and the donors had to step in often with cash aid to pay salaries of PNA staff, including the Palestinian police force.

Israel claims it handed over a total of $300 million to the PNA between 1993 and 2000. The money, which represented taxes Israel collected from the Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza under provisions in interim agreements, should be seen in context -- it cost more than $500 million every year in administrative costs alone to run the PNA.

Since 2000, in the wake of the renewed Palestinian intifada, Israel stopped those payments to the PNA.

The long and short of it is simple: Despite all his shortcomings, perceived or otherwise, Arafat could not be accused of amassing personal wealth. Whatever PLO funds and assets are there, they represent Palestinian money for all practical and technical purposes.

But then, that is not the way Israel would like the world and the Palestinian people to know it. It would like Arafat to be totally discredited and accused of amassing and salting away wealth for himself at the expense of his people. By extension, it would also discredit people who were close to him and shared his ideals and approach to the cause of his people. Israel obviously hopes that the path it has paved would eventually lead to someone who it feels would suit its purpose in terms of imposing the Israeli version of a peace agreement on the Palestinian people.

That is what the game is all about, but Israel would only find the goal elusive.

It was known for long that chaos would hit Palestinian politics and leadership as and when Arafat dies. That is only a reflection of the very nature of the Palestinian scene that was for long dominated by Arafat, who had maintained his position as absolute leader by balancing his top aides against each other.

However, no one expected the intriguing way things turned out in the last 10 days.

The struggle for power

There is no designated Arafat successor. Three names have been floated: Prime Minister Ahmed Qorei, former prime minister Mahmoud Abbas, who is secretary-general of the PLO, and the Tunis-based head of the PLO Political Department, Farouq Qaddoumi, who was de facto foreign minister until Arafat named Nabil Shaath to that post last year and who claims he becomes the chairman of the PLO in the absence of Arafat.

Qurei and Abbas have been working together to administer Palestinian affairs in Arafat's absence and to prevent chaos and violence should the Palestinian president die.

Qaddoumi turned up Paris last week and reportedly questioned the authority of Abbas to take over some of the powers of Arafat. He insisted that he was the immediate deputy to Arafat and Abbas should report to him, according to some reports.

However, it is not clear whether Qaddoumi, who refused to move to the Palestinian territories along with Arafat, will drop that posture in a post-Arafat era.

Suha Arafat stepped into that scene on Monday by declaring that Qorei, Abbas and Shaath were going to France in order to usurp the role of her husband as Palestinian leader.

"Let it be known to the honest Palestinian people that a bunch of those who want to inherit are coming to Paris," she told Al Jazeera television over the phone.

"You have to realise the size of the conspiracy. I tell you they are trying to bury Abu Ammar alive," she said. "He is all right and he is going home. God is great."

The trio abruptly cancelled and then rescheduled the trip.

Suha Arafat has tightly controlled information on Arafat's condition sparking Palestinian protests that she has gained too much power.

"It's an absurd situation that Suha is sitting there and deciding when, how and who," according to Palestinian minister of state Sufian Abu Zaida. "This is a woman who hasn't seen her husband for three years. It is bizarre that at the end of his days, his wife decides who enters and who does not."

"Yasser Arafat is not the private property of Suha Arafat," said Abu Zaida.

That argument will find resonance with the Palestinian masses, for whom Arafat is the icon and symbol of their struggle for independence and life in dignity.

However, there has to be something more to Suha Arafat's outburst and it may or may not have anything to do with the "secret millions" but with his actual medical condition.

As of press time on Tuesday, there was no definite word on Arafat's condition. Only the doctors who are attending to him and Suha Arafat knew; and that seems to be the source of the dispute over the Qorei-Abbas-Shaath trip to Paris.

The dispute could take a worse turn if Suha Arafat refuses to allow the three to see her husband.

The Israeli media have indeed been playing havoc with reports of Arafat's status. They first reported that he was dead, then that he was brain dead and then that he had opened his eyes.

Rawhi Fatooh, the speaker of the Palestinian parliament, who was to have accompanied the team of three to Paris, said he expects an apology from Suha Arafat for the outburst.

It seems that Suha Arafat might be arguing for a decisive role in Arafat succession.

A Nablus-born Christian, Suha served as Arafat's secretary when he was in exile in Tunis in the 1980s. She converted to Islam in 1991, and married Arafat when he was a 62 and she was 28.

She followed her husband back to the occupied territories in 1994, but left for Paris in 2000. Many saw it as her disappearance from the scene, and few expected her to assume any influence over her husband's eventual succession.

She has, it would seem, proven them wrong.

Thursday, November 11, 2004

Arafat - moves behind the scene

IT was a forgone conclusion for most people in the Middle East that Yasser Arafat was bidding farewell to Palestine for ever as he was flown out to Paris last month for treatment for a mystery illness that has yet to be fully explained. Now that it has become a uncertainty that he does not have much time left in this world, all eyes are on the Palestinian scene, seeking out signals that might indicate the future of the Palestinian people's struggle for liberation from Israeli occupation in the absence of the leader who represented the cause for nearly five decades, writes PV Vivekanand
THE ruling by the top Palestinian Islamic religious leader on Wednesday against withdrawing life support for Arafat might prolong the Palestinian leader's existence for a few hours or a few days more, but the course of the Palestinian struggle that he launched faces a stiff challenge in his absence.
No doubt Arafat, 75, was in the "final phase of his life" when Taisser Bayoud Tamimi, a cleric who heads the Islamic court in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, made the ruling that it was un-Islamic to pull the plug off the life support system that is keeping the Palestinian president alive.

Leadership moves

Back home in Palestine, the Palestinian leadership based in the West Bank named Parliament Speaker Rawhi Fattuh as caretaker president in the absence of Arafat. A successor will be elected in 60 days.
The Palestinian leadership also decided prime minister Mahmoud Abbas, Abu Mazen, will automatically take over as permanent head of both Arafat's dominant Fatah faction and the PLO upon Arafat's death, while current premier Ahmed Qorei, Abu Alaa, will head up the national security council.
The Palestinian leadership also decided prime minister Mahmoud Abbas, Abu Mazen, will automatically take over as permanent head of both Arafat's dominant Fatah faction and the PLO upon Arafat's death, while current premier Ahmed Qorei, Abu Alaa, will head up the national security council.
The decisions meant divvying up the leadership of the four organisations which had all been headed by Arafat among three different men.
This move might or might not have put an end to the power struggle, since the question remains whether they could work together in the absence of Arafat, who had the ability to hold the leadership together despite all odds.

Possible challenge

The PLO leadership might have to reckon with a possible challenge put up by Farouq Qaddoumi, Abu Lutuf, who is based in Tunis and heads the Political Department of the PLO. In that capacity, he was also the Palestinian foreign minister until Arafat named West Bank-based Nabil Shaath to that post last year.
Qaddoumi, a long-term Arafat associate who opted to stay back in exile while the PLO chairman moved to Gaza in 1994 under the Oslo agreements signed with Israel in 1993, has added a twist to the situation.
Qaddoumi said that since test results did not pinpoint a cause for Arafat's illness, he suspects poisoning, although he did not say by whom or offer any evidence back his charge.
"From the beginning, we have had doubts that the deterioration in President Arafat's health was due to poisoning. We have not changed our opinion," said Qaddoumi, who visited Arafat's hospital last Friday.
Indeed, many Palestinians believe that Israeli agents poisoned Arafat as he remained cooped up at his Ramallah headquarters under virtual house arrest since late 2001. They argue that Israel possesses the technology to effectively use biological and chemical weapons from long distance. Some others say that Israel might have coerced, through threats or money, someone close to Arafat to poison the Palestinian leader.

The Suha equation

Observers are closely watching whether Suha Arafat, 41, the ailing president's wife who lives in Paris, had formed any alliance with Qaddoumi to stake a claim for either a role in the Palestinian political scene or ultimately a share of the Palestinian funds Arafat invested and deposited outside to serve the cause.
Indeed, Suha Arafat should have a fairly clear idea about the PLO finances since she served as her husband's secretary for a long before he married her in the early 90s and remained with him until three years ago.
The question is whether she would opt to insist that the funds belonged to her husband in person instead of the organisation he headed.
Mohammed Rashid, the only man said to possess details of the funds, has reportedly rejected handing them over to Suha Arafat and insisted that he would report only to the Palestinian leadership.

Palestinian funds

Most observers in the Middle East say it is highly doubtful that Arafat has any illegal bank account holding massive amounts for himself. They say there could be PLO money held in deposits and investments in the Middle East and outside, but that is not Arafat's money and it is a sure bet that he never intended it to be his personal wealth.
Having closely watched Arafat's movements and pattern of behaviour over the last three decades, most Middle East watchers tend to reject out of hand the suggestion that he secretly owns hotels, beach resorts and other commercial enterprises in Europe and elsewhere worth hundreds of millions of dollars and considers them as his personal assets.

No 'secret Arafat millions'

Arafat retained sole control of PLO funds throughout the decades since he became chairman of the PLO; but it is almost certain that the money, whatever is left of the Palestinian, Arab and international contributions that he received over the decades, is invested in a manner that would serve the Palestinian cause.
Suha Arafat, whose relations with her husband were strained since late 2001 when she moved out of the Palestinian territories to Paris with their nine-year-old daughter, apparently calmed down after her hysterical outburst against the leadership early on Monday morning, as she probably realised that her remarks that Arafat aides wanted to "bury him alive" sparked enormous Palestinian anger.
However, there is no iron-clad assurance that the dispute, whether political or financial or a combination of both, is settled. It might raise its head again once Arafat dies and is laid to rest.
Despite all his shortcomings, perceived or otherwise, Arafat could not be accused of amassing personal wealth. Whatever PLO funds and assets do exist, they represent Palestinian money for all practical and technical purposes.
But then, that is not the way Israel would like the world and the Palestinian people to know it. It would like Arafat to be totally discredited and accused of amassing and salting away wealth for himself at the expense of his people. By extension, it would also discredit people who were close to him and shared his ideals and approach to the cause of his people. Israel obviously hopes that the path it has paved would eventually lead to someone who it feels would suit its purpose in terms of imposing the Israeli version of a peace agreement on the Palestinian people.
That is what the game is all about, but Israel would only find the goal elusive.

'Power struggle'

It was known for long that short-term chaos would hit Palestinian politics and leadership as and when Arafat dies. That is only a reflection of the very nature of the Palestinian scene that was for long dominated by Arafat, who had maintained his position as absolute leader by balancing his top aides with and against each other.
As of press time early Thursday, Arafat was in a deep coma, on life support, with bleeding in the brain and problems with other vital organs. Death could come any time, reports suggested.
The grand mufti of Jerusalem, Sheikh Ekrima Sabri, said Arafat had to die naturally, "even if it takes days, weeks or months, it doesn't matter."
"It's not a political question," Sabri ruled.
However, the Palestinians were preparing for Arafat's burial in Ramallah, only a few kilometres from Jerusalem where he would have been buried had it not been for the Israeli fear of the man in his death as a rallying point for the Palestinian masses at large.
As of Wednesday, it was agreed that Cairo would host the main funeral in view of the "security" problems for world dignitaries who might want to pay homage to the symbol of one of the longest liberation struggles.
Israel, which refused to allow Arafat to be buried in Jerusalem and suggest Gaza as an alternative, has agreed that he be laid to rest at his sandbagged headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah known as the Muqataa compound.


Israeli deception

As they await Arafat's death, the Palestinian leaders in the West Bank and their supporters have to be alert on several fronts:
Israeli efforts to sow dissent in their ranks and take advantage of inter-Palestinian differences. It has been reported that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his military generals are eyeing Abbas as a potential candidate for pressure to negotiate their version of a deal that they hope would end the Palestinian struggle.
Washington has stepped into the political fray by affirming that it is ready to pursue the "road map" for peace. US Secretary of State Colin Powell said on Monday he was impressed by the Palestinian leaders' handling of Arafat's absence and said he hoped the "relative calm" in the region would continue.
"I hope that sense of quiet and calm can be maintained and (that) it gives us something to work with," Powell said. He reiterated that the United States was "ready to engage as soon as it is appropriate to engage" with the road map peace plan.
However, the plan seemed to be still born, given Sharon's insistence on amending it to suit Israel on 14 counts. He has shown no sign that he is willing to climb down from his position.
US President George Bush followed up Powell, saying he saw a fresh opening for Mideast peace as a new leader emerges to replace Arafat.
"There will be opening for peace when leadership of the Palestinian people steps forward and says, 'Help us build a democratic and free society,'" Bush said on Wednesday,
"And when that happens - and I believe it's going to happen because I believe all people desire to live in freedom — the United States of America will be more than willing to help build the institutions necessary for a free society to emerge so that the Palestinians can have their own state," Bush said.
"The vision is of two states, a Palestinian state and Israel living side by side, and I think we've got a chance to do that, and I look forward to being involved in that process," Bush said.
Indeed, the Middle East and the rest of the world are hoping that a second-term Bush would have a freer hand to deal with the Palestinian problem and could steer the almost defunct peace process in a new direction that is closer to the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people.
However, his reference to a two-state solution might not exactly be music to Sharon's ears, and it is unlikely that the Israeli prime minister would step away from his quest to pressure the post-Arafat leadership into signing on the Israeli-dotted line.
Abbas, who resigned as prime minister because of serious differences with Arafat over presidential and prime ministerial powers, has given no indication that he would accept any compromise. On the contrary, he has firmly and consistently refused to entertain any proposal that falls short of the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people to set up an independent state with Arab East Jerusalem as its capital.

The Islamist angle

Efforts by Islamist groups such as Hamas to advance their quest for liberation of the Palestine of 1948. Although deemed as unrealistic and largely an opening gambit, Hamas is unlikely to come to terms with the moderate position that accepts that the proposed state of Palestine be created in the West Bank and Gaza based on the frontiers that existed during the 1967 war when Israel occupied the territories.
At the same time, Hamas — which is powerful and influential and a strong contender for support among Palestinians in both Gaza and the West Bank —  and like-minded Islamic Jihad are seeking a share of power by calling for a unified Palestinian leadership.
Thrown into the bargain is Sharon's plans to "unilaterally disengage" from the Palestinians starting with withdrawing his army from the Gaza Strip and dismantling Jewish settlements in the troublesome area while consolidating Israel's grip on the West Bank.
Naturally, in the immediate context, such a move would leave a vacuum in the Gaza Strip, with Hamas and the mainstream Palestinian leadership vying for control of the territory.
Indeed, Sharon wanted to create that rift and fuel internal Palestinian strife without exposing Israelis to security threats while Arafat was alive and present in the West Bank. Would he shift his strategy now, hoping to hold on to the Gaza Strip as a bargaining chip now that he might be hoping to find someone who could sign away the rights of the Palestinian people?
No matter how one views it in whatever angle, the future of the Palestinian struggle for independence and statehood remains as bleak as ever, regardless of whether Arafat is alive or absent from Palestine.

Arafat - Obituary

PV Vivekanand

THE DEATH of Yasser Arafat has deprived not only the Palestinian struggle for independence of its symbol but also liberation movements around the world a source of inspiration. For Arafat fought against all odds and never compromised on his commitment to realise the goal of an independent Palestinian state.
Leaders of liberation movements looked up to him and paid tribute to him for his firm determination to pursue the struggle regardless of all odds and for having tirelessly worked to install his cause at the centrestage of international politics.
At the same time, he was realistic enough to accept that it would be a folly to hope to realise the 50s and 60s goal of eliminating the state of Israel through armed means, and it was in this vein that he declared before the UN in 1974 that he was also wielding an olive branch and ready to negotiate peace with Israel on the basis of the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people.
However, no Israeli leader had the courage or the ability to sense that what Arafat was offering was the only realistic way to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Instead, they sought to whittle down the proposal and applied pressure, military, political and financial, on him to make many compromises. Arafat did make compromises but he had always hoped that at the right moment — a make-or-break point — he would be able to muster enough international support led by the US to prevail upon Israel to see reason and accept that nothing short of an indpendent Palestinian state with Arab East Jerusalem as its capital would be the basis for a just and durable solution to the conflict.
His efforts received a great boost when the Palestinian people, realising that one way to pressure Israel was to make the occupied territories ungovernable for the occupation forces, rose up and launched the first intifada in December 1987. That prompted the late king Hussein of Jordan to give up all territorial claims to the West Bank which the kingdom ruled for 17 years before it was occupied by Israel in the 1967 war.
The Jordanian move removed all questions about the PLO as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people and freed Arafat's hands to exercisie his options.
The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in August 1990 was a turning point for the Palestinian struggle. Arafat backed Saddam Hussein and promptly lost Arab support for his cause.
In late 1991, several months after Kuwait was freed from Saddam's occupation, the US made good a pledge it had given to the Arabs at the time of the war over Kuwait and convened an international conference in Madrid with the participation of all key Arab players in the Middle East, Israel and the international community. The international conference launched Arab-Israeli peace talks, but soon it became clear that the then Israeli prime minister, Yitzhak Shamir, was only pretending to engage the Palestinians in peace talks under American pressure. Israel also had the key benefit — a halt to the Palestinian intifada.
Soon Shamir's Likud party lost elections and a Labour-led government came into power and hopes were again rekindled when Israel proposed secret negotiations that eventually produced the 1993 Oslo agreements.
Arafat had understood the shortcomings in the interim agreements but he had no option. His relations with the Arab countries were strained as a result of his support for Saddam in 1990 and the Israelis were constantly reminding him that the PLO was losing support among the Palestinians living in the occupied territories because of its inaction and groups like Hamas was gaining ground.
And so he signed in September 1993 the Oslo accords that called for five years of Palestinian self-rule in the West Bank and Gaza while the "final status" of the territories was being negotiated.; and what followed was a series of Palestinian compromise after compromise.
At one point, Arafat was even ready to accept shared control of Jerusalem with Israel if that would be open the door for Palestinian independence.
Indeed, the only Israeli leader who showed some signs of accepting that Israel's "security" would not come through the barrel of American-supplied guns was Yitzhak Rabin. who signed the Oslo agreements with Arafat under American auspices.
A former army general who has learnt his lessons from the perpetual state of conflict and war in the Middle, Rabin had realised that he had to accept the inevitability of having to recognise and respect the rights of the Palestinian people to set up an independent state.
However, Rabin was shot dead by an extremist Jewish Israeli who represented the hardline groups which had realised that Rabin was ready to make compromises that they blindly believed would totally undermine the very concept of a Jewish state between the "river and the sea." — the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.
From that point when Rabin, leader of the relatively moderate Labour coalition government, fell to the assassin's bullet on Nov.5, 1995, the so-called Middle East peace process fell apart. There was nothing Arafat could do to advance it towards his goal of independent Palestine. All Israeli governments which followed that of Rabin sought to pressure Arafat into making more and more compromises without giving anything in return (an example was Arafat's acceptance in 1996 under American pressure that the town of Hebron be split into two — one for a Jewish settlement where 450 settlers lived and the other for 30,000 Palestinians). He had no choice whatsover.
Arafat's dilemma was complete when the right-wing Likud swung into power in 1996 and reneged on whatever was agreed and implemented under the interim Oslo accords. Likud was ousted in 1999, and Labour regained power, rekindling hopes that an agreement was possible.
Arafat turned to the US, the key sponsor of the "peace process" for help and tried yet another time to work out a deal under American-mediated talks at Camp David with the then Israeli prime minister, Ehud Barak, in 2000, but found that Washington — the administration of Bill Clinton —  had moved away from the centre and rallied itself behind Israel and was not making any pretensions about it either.
That was the biggest body blow to Arafat, who had always hoped that the American involvement in the peace process was the guarantee that Israel would be pressured into accepting the legitimate rights of the Palestinians and international laws and conventions as the basis for a final agreement.
What was offered to Arafat at Camp David was not acceptable since it did not enshrine the basic principle of the territorial and political rights of the Palestinian people, including their claim to Arab East Jerusalem. What made it even worse was the American approach that the offer was most generous and it was Israel's magnanimity that it agreed to accept the reality of the existence of the Palestinian people in the West Bank and Gaza.
What the proposal effectively meant was a truncated Palestinain entity in the West Bank under Israel's thumb. There would have no physical continuity of territory since all key highways and access roads connecting Palestinian population centres were to remain under the control of the Israeli army.
Arafat walked out of the negotiations, and the Clinton administration went into the throes of presidential elections and forgot about the Palestinian problem except to declare that it favoured the shifting of the Israeli embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in explicit acceptance of Israel claim that Jerusalem was its "eternal and indivisible capital."
That signalled the death of the 1993 agreement that had raised Palestinian hopes that their dream of independence was not far being realised.
The Palestinians rose up in fury that translated to revival of the intifada when Ariel Sharon, then a member of the cabinet, paid an arrogant visit to the Haram Al Sharif compound to reaffirm the Israeli stand that it would never give up the Holy City.
Since then, Sharon became prime minister and worked towards realising his objective of denying the Palestinians their rights. He pursued a policy of trying to weaken Palestinian resistance through every means possible and reverse whatever the Palestinians gained through the Oslo process.
He regained Israeli army control of all Palestinian areas given to Palestinian self-rule, destroyed every symbol of the Palestinian National Authority and wiped out the Palestinian police force even as he accused Arafat of not doing enough to keep in check Palestinians organising suicide bombings and armed attacks against Israelis.
He used brutal crackdowns, use of massive military firepower, including the use of fighter/bombers against the Palestinians and systematically engaged in assassinating, maiming and detaining anyone who had the slightest potential of putting up resistance.
In the bargain, he also placed Arafat under virtual detention at the Palestinian headquarters in Ramallah since December 2001 and ruled him out as a negotiatign partner.
He also launched the building of a 700-kilometre "separation wall" that, in his view, would serve to ward off Palestinian infiltration but was never meant to be the "border" between Israel and a Palestinian enity. After all, an independent Palestinian entity in the West Bank is not in Sharon's agenda.
Sharon now plans to withdraw his military from the troublesome Gaza Strip and dismantle Jewish settlements there in a "unilateral disengagement" from the Palestinians. He is trying to market the idea as a magnanimous gesture, but what the world is not being told is that Israel had always wanted to quit the Gaza Strip since the territory was ungovernable and that in return for quitting it Israel would consolidate its stranglehold on the West Bank and expand and build Jewish settlements there.
Again, the Palestinians and Arabs were dealt another blow when US President George W Bush — who Sharon described as the best friend Israel ever had at the White House — cooly endorsed Sharon's plans and also ruled out Israeli acceptance of the right of the Palestinian refugees from the 1948 war to return home.
Since then, the writing on the wall became clear that Israel has no intention of recognising the rights of the Palestinians and is only engaged in a brutal exercise that Sharon hopes would eventually allow him to force down the Palestinian throat his version of a "peace" agreement.
But Arafat never gave up. He kept up his fight until the end, and that is what the world remembers today and will continue to remember just as the Palestinian struggle for freedom and life in dignity would continue to rage on.

Tuesday, November 09, 2004

Assault on Fallujah

pv vivekanand
THE US military has launched its much-awaited assault on Fallujah in what is definitely a no-holds-barred bid to "cleanse" the town west of Baghdad ahead of January elections. No doubt, the military might of the sole superpower will prevail and American soldiers, backed by a few hundreds of Iraqi National Guards, would take control of Fallujah. It is only a question of how many days it might take before the US military claims it has "pacified" the town and cleared the way towards implementing the plan for elections.
Slain and maimed in the bargain will be hundreds, if not thousands, of Fallujah residents, women and children and others who have nothing to do with the insurgency. It is hardly likely that the US military would find many "foreign terrorists" in the town. US commanders have already set the ground to explain it away: Many of the "foreign terrorists" might have fled the town before the US military sealed it off.
As such, the declared American objective of "cleansing" Fallujah might work out in the short term, but it is unlikely that the assault would deliver a body blow to the insurgency against the American military presence in Iraq. Insurgents will regroup and show their presence elsewhere in Iraq, as it has already happened in Samarra and in Baghdad itself.
Mind you, it was only a month earlier that the US launched an all-out offensive in Samarra and claimed control of that town after killing an unknown number of residents.
Today, as reports indicate, the guerrilla resistance to the US military's effort to wrench control of the streets of Fallujah is co-ordinated from Samarra.
Insurgent seem to have the run of Baghdad. A bombing targeting the finance minister came in less than a couple of hours after the interim prime minister, Iyad Allawi, declared a 60-day state of emergency that gives him sweeping powers after giving the green light to the US military for the assault on Fallujah.
On Tuesday, Allawi declared a 10pm-4am curfew in the capital.
It would seem that neither the US military nor the interim government is sure who the enemy is.
What is known is that the insurgents include nationalist Iraqi tribes, religious groups, former Ba'ath Party and Iraqi Republican Guard members as well as foreign guerrillas magnetically drawn to Iraq in order to unleash their frustration and anger over American policies to the Arab and Muslim worlds.
On the political front in Iraq, the assault on Fallujah has already claimed its first casualty: The Iraqi Islamic Party  has opted to quit the interim government and withdraw its sole member in the Allawi cabinet. The minister himself, Hajim Al Hassani who is in charge of industries, has refused to quit, but then he might face expulsion from the party if he persists on his stand.
The party's move is a severe blow to Allawi since the group represents the Sunni community and is deemed to be influential and powerful since is the Iraqi branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, arguably the most organised and disciplined group in the Middle East.
"We are protesting the attack on Fallujah and the injustice that is inflicted on the innocent people of the city," said Mohsen Abdel-Hamid, head of the party.
"We cannot be part of this attack," he said.
Washington would be naive not to take serious note of a open statement issued by 21 prominent Saudi religious scholars addressed to the Iraqi people endorsing their resistance and forbidding any co-operation or dealings with the US-led coalition forces.
The statement highlighted that Iraq should remain undivided and called on Iraqis to abandon personal, regional or tribal interests and come together the US forces.
The statement's authenticity is yet to be established. Its purported signatories include Sheikh Safar Al Hawal, Sheikh Salman Al Awdah, Sheikh Nasir Al Omar, Sheikh Hatim Al Ouni, Sheikh Awad Al Qarni and Sheikh Saud Al Finaisan, all of them known to be moderate religious leaders whose words have an impact on Muslims.
The American strategists have refused to accept the reality that they would not be able to "bring to heel" those who challenge their designs in Iraq. Instead, buoyed by President George W Bush's re-election to another four years at the White House, the neoconservative camp is determined to pursue a military solution to what is essentially a geopolitical problem that warrants an acceptance of the realities on the ground.
As many seasoned journalists covering the events in Iraq as well as commentators and observers have noted, the US approach to Iraq was and is fundamentally flawed, and the situation has crossed the point of no return for Washington to hope to pacify the Iraqis.
The assault on Fallujah and the resulting bloodbath would only further alienate the people of Iraq against the US presence in their country and fuel resentment against the US-supported interim government in Baghdad.
For every Iraqi killed in Fallujah or elsewhere, there would be dozens, starting with the victim's immediate family members, springing up to avenge the death. That is the lesson to be learnt from Iraqi history.
But that is lost on the Bush administration.
If anything, the reported plans of shuffling of key cabinet posts for Bush's second term clearly indicate the hawkish mindset would only take deeper roots in Washington.
It might indeed be a bitter disappointment for those who had hoped for a moderation during the Bush second term to observe that relative "moderates" are bowing their way out and hawks are entrenching closer to the corridors of power.
Condaleezza Rice, a clear hardliner, who is leaving her job as national security adviser, is a moderate when compared with the man who is tipped to succeed her — Paul Wolfowitz.
Secretary of State Colin Powell, again a relative moderate, is also quitting the cabinet, and it is safe bet his successor would be as hawkish and pro-Israeli as Wolfowitz.
As antiwar.com notes: "Bereft of restraint, or common sense, this ideology-driven administration is determined to spread the gospel of 'democracy' with evangelical zeal — at gunpoint, whether the peoples of the Middle East want it or not."
That might indeed be the American goal, but it is unrealistic and is devoid of understanding of the region and the history of its people and the prevailing sense of injustice perpetuated against them and supported by the US.
And ignoring those realities would continue to be America's folly that would only drag the world's sole superpower deeper into the quagmire to a point where the US experience in dealing with the Fallujah insurgents would resemble a child's play when compared with what lies ahead.