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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Bin Laden spin

by pv vivekanand

A CAREFUL reading of the latest videotaped message from Osama Bin Laden clearly establishes that he now has the services of highly educated and media-savvy spin doctors. And this should be naturally alarming to those who are clouding the issues in their self-styled fight against terrorism since a few more messages like this and the Americans people should start thinking beyond the how, where and who of Sept.11 and the continuing security threat they face and consider more objectively why people like Bin Laden are hostile to the US. That is a dangerous development for the neoconservatives surrounding President George W Bush since sooner or later the American people would figure out that they are being taken for a ride in the name of the fight against terror to serve Israeli interests more and American interests less. Once they have the right answer, then someone, somewhere would have to explain, and one never knows how things would turn out.
Perhaps that fear, coupled with apprehension that the US has a tiger by the tail in Iraq and would eventually lose the war there — might explain the departure of some of the key figures from the second-term Bush administration. They don't want to caught and cornered into providing answers that would incriminate themselves.
The 15-minute video message from Bin Laden, posted in full at Al Jazeera's website in early November, is dramatically different from all previous communications attributed to the Al Qaeda chief, America's number one enemy.
Equally important was the way Bin Laden appeared in the video image. Contrary to his image that Bush had tried to portray — a la Saddam Hussein —  Bin Laden did not at all resemble the most wanted man on the run, hiding in a cave fearing capture or death. Instead, he was well-dressed and posed himself as a political leader sending out a message to the masses.
Instead of the rambling declarations and jihadist affirmations highlighted by references to religious texts that were so characterestic of all previous messages, Bin Laden is seeking to build a case for himself as a man who is taking on the world's sole superpower. Instead of vague references to names, places and dates that featured in his previous communications, the new message is very specific and makes sense even to an average listener in the West.
A simple example is the use of American-style phrases such as "another Manhattan" — meaning a Sept.11-style attack — and "striking the towers." He recalled that he had warned the Americans in his interviews with with Time Magazine in 1996 and with Peter Arnett on CNN in 1997 and his meeting with John Weiner in 1998. Again, a sign that good spin doctors at work.
The work of professionals is clearly evident throughout the message. It would be a safe bet that the message as written in English and then translated into Arabic. Indeed, Al Jazeera says it received the videotape as well as a transiteration of the Arabic text as well as English translation of the text.
Never before has Bin Laden resorted to such strategies, which evidently sought to make sure that his message was received loud and clear.
What was the message?
For the first time, Bin Laden explicitly claimed responsibility for the Sept.11 attacks.
He said the reason for the attack was retaliation for the decades-old US-support for Israel regardless of the Jewish state's brutal treatment of the Palestinians and Arabs, and that the reason remained very much valid even today. Thus he declared that the US remains an Al Qaeda target.
He said since the US was threatening the security of Muslims through its support of Israel, it was only logical that Muslims would threaten the security of the US.
He also sought to discredit Bush's handling of the Sept.11 crisis in what was then interpreted as implictly favourable to Bush's challenger in the Nov.2 elections, John Kerry.
However, Bin Laden made it clear that he favoured neither.
"Your security does not lie in the hands of Kerry, Bush or Al Qaeda," he said. "Your security is in your own hands. Each and every state that does not tamper with our security will have automatically assured its own security."
He rejected the Bush camp's repeated assertions that Al Qaeda hated the American way of life and freedom and questioned why was it that the group did not strike at Sweden, which has the world's best record for personal freedoms.
The most important part of Bin Laden's message was his statement that Al Qaeda was seeking to bankrupt the US, a reference that most Americans would have no difficulty in grasping.
He referred to an estimate by London's Royal Institute of International Affairs that Al Qaeda spent $500,000 to stage the Sept.11 attacks but it cost the US more than $50 billion in losses.
It meant that "every dollar of Al Qaeda defeated a million dollars by the permission of Allah, besides the loss of a huge number of jobs," said Bin Laden, who estimated that the US "economci deficit" at more than a trillion dollars.
Bin Laden pointedly referred to Bush's move to appropriate "emergency funds" to finance the wars Afghanistan and Iraq, "which is evidence of the success of the bleed-until-bankruptcy plan - with Allah's permission."
The explicit references to estimated amounts of American losses and those which went into financing the Afghanistan and Iraq wars were coupled with another assertion, which should have provoked a lot of thoughts in Washington.
"All that we have mentioned has made it easy for us to provoke and bait this administration," said Bin Laden. "All that we have to do is to send two mujahedeen to the furthest point east to raise a piece of cloth on which is written Al Qaeda, in order to make the generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic, and political losses without their achieving for it anything of note other than some benefits for their private companies."
Indeed, the message provided a lot more than the US needed to start really worrying that it is not the same Bin Laden of 2001 that appeared in the latest videotape and Washington would have to urgently make room for better spin doctoring to counter the new Bin Laden. And it would not be easy, particularly that the re-election of Bush has given Bin Laden the perfect ground to advance his quest to portray himself as the defender of world Muslims against American assault and he is definitely getting expert advice on how to go about doing it.

Prove them wrong

November 7 2004

Proving them wrong

pv vivekanand

THE FIRST thought that occurred to many in the Middle East and outside when they heard and saw Palestinian President Yasser Arafat being flown to France for urgent medical treatment last week was that he would never return alive to Palestine. There were two reasons for that conviction: It was presumed that Arafat was dying; and that even if he did somehow survive the health crisis, then Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon would not allow his return home.

Today, Arafat is reportedly hovering between life and death in a French hospital. Reports conflict over whether he is brain dead or is showing signs of recovery from a coma.

Back home in the West Bank, the top ranks of the Palestinian leadership are putting up a facade of unity at a time of crisis, but it is clear that a power struggle is already being fought behind the scenes. The very nature of the ideologies that went into the Palestinian struggle for independence and statehood and the various phases it went through in the last four decades dictate that the transition of power would not exactly be very smooth.

Fourteen secular and Islamist groups on Friday called for Palestinian unity and insisted on a unified leadership saying the deterioration of Arafat's condition warrants collective action. Islamist groups fear that Israel would exploit the situation and further advance its quest to pre-empt realisation of the Palestinian rights in Palestine. They have vowed not to ease their armed resistance against Israeli occupation of Palestine.

The Palestinian people, for whom Arafat continues to be an icon of their more than half a century of struggle for independence and statehood, seem confused amid suggestions that Sharon's secret agents had something to do with Arafat's ill-health; that the all-resourceful Mossad had used a secret biological weapon against Arafat. Or perhaps someone, somewhere close to Arafat had been corrupted into administering a slow-acting poison to remove him from the Palestinian political scene once and for all. That would help Sharon keep his "pledge" that he would never deal with Arafat as leader and representative of the Palestinian people and also to single out someone from the top Palestinian ranks to negotiate and accept the Israeli version of peace in Palestine.

Israel is fearful of a Palestinian backlash in the event of Arafat's death. It has stepped up its military presence in the occupied territories and is braced to carry out massacres if that is what it takes to quell the Palestinian sentiments.

Bush couldn't care less

US President George W Bush, who has stood solidly behind Sharon's refusal to deal with Arafat, could not care less if the Palestinian leader passes away. One gets a feeling that Bush might not indeed be well informed about the ground realities in Palestine and he could not be bothered to learn them either. As far as he is concerned, Israel would be given what it asks for, regardless of what Arafat, the Palestinians, the Arabs and the world think of the American posture.

The Europeans are indeed more aware of the situation in Palestine than their American counterparts. They know that Europe would be among the first to suffer if the Israeli-Palestinian conflict were to spill over beyond the borders of Palestine. They realise that the Palestinians' frustration over the US-backed Israeli rejection of their legitimate rights would have more serious repercussions for Europe than the US.

That was behind the European Union's pledge on Friday to work "24 hours a day" to ensure Palestinians achieve their own state.

"To show our solidarity at this difficult time they can be sure that Europe will continue to make every effort to ensure that the Palestinian state becomes a reality," said the EU's foreign policy chief Javier Solana. "We are committed to that. We will continue to work 24 hours a day. That is the message of hope that we can give to the people of Palestine at this time of suffering."

The statement is also an explicit affirmation that regardless of what happens to Arafat, the world has a responsibility not to ignore the Palestinian cause that has gone through ups and downs over the decades and the struggle that has run into a wall in the form of Ariel Sharon and his hawkish camp which has no room whatsoever for allowing the creation of a Palestinian state in Palestine.

That European affirmation in itself is the greatest tribute to Arafat, who acquired the name of "the great survivor" against odds that often seemed impossible to bet against.

Arafat led the Palestinian struggle through turmoil and crises and had to make many compromises in order to arrive at the landmark Madrid conference in 1991 where Arab-Israeli peace talks were launched against a backdrop of what the Arabs and international community thought was the good faith of UN resolutions leading to the realisation of the Palestinian aspirations.

In fact, Arafat accepted in 1989 the inevitability of having to recognise that the hard-liners' quest to "eliminate" the state of Israel was only a pipe dream, given the regional and international geopolitical realities.

Committed to pledge

In a document called the Stockholm Declaration, Arafat accepted that the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) was prepared to negotiate with Israel within the framework of a comprehensive peace settlement on the basis of UN Security Council resolutions 242 and 338; he agreed that the to-be created Palestinian state would live in peace with Israel and other neighbours and internationally recognised borders; and that the PLO opposed "individual and state terrorism in all its forms" and would not resort to it.

Since then, Arafat remained committed to these pledges and the then Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, drew from that commitment in September 1993 to press him into signing the Oslo agreements under US auspices. The Oslo agreement called for five years of interim autonomy for the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza during which the two sides would negotiate the "final status" of the territories, including the future of Jerusalem and the Palestinian refugees and the borders of the proposed Palestinian state.

However, changes in the Israeli political scene following the assassination of Rabin in November 1995 shattered the process launched with the Olso agreements signed under US auspices.

Israel went back on every point that it had agreed with Arafat and led to the present state of renewed armed struggle against the Jewish state's occupation of Palestinian lands.

Israel is conveniently ignoring that Arafat had crossed what many Palestinians considered as the red line in their struggle for liberation. Israel is overlooking that it was because he adopted a "moderate" political line that Arafat lost some ground with his own people.

His acceptance of the points mentioned in the Stockholm Declaration and reaffirmed in the Oslo agreements was seen by hard-liners not only as reneging on all previous commitments to secure the liberation of Palestine from Israeli occupation but also as offering legitimacy to Israeli injustice against the Palestinians.

As a result, many say, Arafat was deemed to have lost on both sides. He already made "unacceptable concessions" without gaining anything in return from Israel and this has alienated a segment of the Palestinian people; and Israel is no longer willing to deal with him as leader of the Palestinian people.

Sharon subjected Arafat to the height of humiliation by confining him like a prisoner to his headquarters in Ramallah for nearly three years and portrayed him like a caged lion which had lost its teeth anyway.

However, Arafat might prove Israel wrong. The Palestinian masses still consider him as their father figure and symbol of their hopes and aspirations. Indeed, there are many who hope that Abu Ammar -- Arafat's nom de guerre he adopted from a companion of the Prophet Mohammed [PUBH], Ammar Bin Yasser -- or Al Khityar (Old Man), as he is fondly known among his people, might unite the Palestinians in his death.

That is the message that came out of Gaza on Friday in the call for a collective leadership for the Palestinian struggle.

Ironically, Sharon, who treated Arafat as inconsequential while confined in Ramallah, fears Arafat in death. He opposes an Arafat burial in Jerusalem because he is apprehensive that Abu Ammar's grave could be a rallying point for the entire Palestinian nation to hit back at Israel with a vengeance.

Even before his death...

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 Kadr, 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 unwittngly, 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.

The struggle for power

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.
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, Farouk 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 unlikely to 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 stat 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 renosance 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.

Bin Laden message is clear

Osama Bin Laden has declared that his objective is to force America into bankruptcy because of its anti-Muslim policies and threats to security of Muslims. His argument is that for every one dollar that Al Qaeda spends on anti-US activity, the US spends a million dollars to counter it.
The declaration came in the full transcript of a videotape from Bin Laden put on the website of Al Jazeera television. On Oct.29 Al Jazeera broadcast a one-minute segment from the videotape
The transcript on Al Jazeera website quotes Bin Laden as saying: "We are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy. Allah willing, and nothing is too great for Allah. We, alongside the mujahedeen, bled Russia for 10 years until it went bankrupt and was forced to withdraw in defeat."
Al Jazeera executives said they decided to post the entire speech because rumors were circulating that the network omitted parts that "had direct threats toward specific states, which was totally untrue."
"We chose the most newsworthy parts of the address and aired them. The rest was used in lower thirds in graphics format," said an Al Jazeera official.
In the transcript, Bin Laden says that Al Qaeda has found it "easy for us to provoke and bait this administration."
"All that we have to do is to send two mujahedeen to the furthest point east to raise a piece of cloth on which is written Al Qaeda, in order to make generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic and political losses without their achieving anything of note other than some benefits for their private corporations."
US intelligence officials have confirmed that the transcript was a complete one.
Bin Laden referred to British estimate that it cost al Qaeda about $500,000 to carry out the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 and said:
"Every dollar of al Qaeda defeated a million dollars, by the permission of Allah, besides the loss of a huge number of jobs. As for the economic deficit, it has reached record astronomical numbers estimated to total more than a trillion dollars."
The total US national debt is more than $7 trillion. The US federal deficit was $413 billion in 2004, according to the Treasury Department.
"It is true that this shows that Al Qaeda has gained, but on the other hand it shows that the Bush administration has also gained, something that anyone who looks at the size of the contracts acquired by the shady Bush administration-linked mega-corporations, like Halliburton and its kind, will be convinced.
"And it all shows that the real loser is you," he said. "It is the American people and their economy."
As for President George Bush's Iraq policy, Bin Laden said, "the darkness of black gold blurred his vision and insight, and he gave priority to private interests over the public interests of America.
"So the war went ahead, the death toll rose, the American economy bled, and Bush became embroiled in the swamps of Iraq that threaten his future," Bin Laden said.
Experts have said that the tape appeared to be authentic and recently made. It was the first videotaped message from Bin Laden in nearly three years.


Following is the full English transcript of Osama Bin Ladin's videotape sent to Aljazeera. In the interests of authenticity, the content of the transcript, which appeared as subtitles at the foot of the screen, has been left unedited.


Praise be to Allah who created the creation for His worship and commanded them to be just and permitted the wronged one to retaliate against the oppressor in kind. To proceed:
Peace be upon he who follows the guidance: People of America this talk of mine is for you and concerns the ideal way to prevent another Manhattan, and deals with the war and its causes and results.
Before I begin, I say to you that security is an indispensable pillar of human life and that free men do not forfeit their security, contrary to Bush's claim that we hate freedom.
If so, then let him explain to us why we don't strike for example - Sweden? And we know that freedom-haters don't possess defiant spirits like those of the 19 - may Allah have mercy on them.
No, we fight because we are free men who don't sleep under oppression. We want to restore freedom to our nation, just as you lay waste to our nation. So shall we lay waste to yours.
No one except a dumb thief plays with the security of others and then makes himself believe he will be secure. Whereas thinking people, when disaster strikes, make it their priority to look for its causes, in order to prevent it happening again.
But I am amazed at you. Even though we are in the fourth year after the events of September 11th, Bush is still engaged in distortion, deception and hiding from you the real causes. And thus, the reasons are still there for a repeat of what occurred.
So I shall talk to you about the story behind those events and shall tell you truthfully about the moments in which the decision was taken, for you to consider.
I say to you, Allah knows that it had never occurred to us to strike the towers. But after it became unbearable and we witnessed the oppression and tyranny of the American/Israeli coalition against our people in Palestine and Lebanon, it came to my mind.
The events that affected my soul in a direct way started in 1982 when America permitted the Israelis to invade Lebanon and the American Sixth Fleet helped them in that. This bombardment began and many were killed and injured and others were terrorised and displaced.
I couldn't forget those moving scenes, blood and severed limbs, women and children sprawled everywhere. Houses destroyed along with their occupants and high rises demolished over their residents, rockets raining down on our home without mercy.
The situation was like a crocodile meeting a helpless child, powerless except for his screams. Does the crocodile understand a conversation that doesn't include a weapon? And the whole world saw and heard but it didn't respond.
In those difficult moments many hard-to-describe ideas bubbled in my soul, but in the end they produced an intense feeling of rejection of tyranny, and gave birth to a strong resolve to punish the oppressors.
And as I looked at those demolished towers in Lebanon, it entered my mind that we should punish the oppressor in kind and that we should destroy towers in America in order that they taste some of what we tasted and so that they be deterred from killing our women and children.
And that day, it was confirmed to me that oppression and the intentional killing of innocent women and children is a deliberate American policy. Destruction is freedom and democracy, while resistance is terrorism and intolerance.
This means the oppressing and embargoing to death of millions as Bush Sr did in Iraq in the greatest mass slaughter of children mankind has ever known, and it means the throwing of millions of pounds of bombs and explosives at millions of children - also in Iraq - as Bush Jr did, in order to remove an old agent and replace him with a new puppet to assist in the pilfering of Iraq's oil and other outrages.
So with these images and their like as their background, the events of September 11th came as a reply to those great wrongs, should a man be blamed for defending his sanctuary?
Is defending oneself and punishing the aggressor in kind, objectionable terrorism? If it is such, then it is unavoidable for us.
This is the message which I sought to communicate to you in word and deed, repeatedly, for years before September 11th.
And you can read this, if you wish, in my interview with Scott in Time Magazine in 1996, or with Peter Arnett on CNN in 1997, or my meeting with John Weiner in 1998.
You can observe it practically, if you wish, in Kenya and Tanzania and in Aden. And you can read it in my interview with Abdul Bari Atwan, as well as my interviews with Robert Fisk.
The latter is one of your compatriots and co-religionists and I consider him to be neutral. So are the pretenders of freedom at the White House and the channels controlled by them able to run an interview with him?  So that he may relay to the American people what he has understood from us to be the reasons for our fight against you?
If you were to avoid these reasons, you will have taken the correct path that will lead America to the security that it was in before September 11th. This concerned the causes of the war.
As for it's results, they have been, by the grace of Allah, positive and enormous, and have, by all standards, exceeded all expectations. This is due to many factors, chief among them, that we have found it difficult to deal with the Bush administration in light of the resemblance it bears to the regimes in our countries, half of which are ruled by the military and the other half which are ruled by the sons of kings and presidents.
Our experience with them is lengthy, and both types are replete with those who are characterised by pride, arrogance, greed and misappropriation of wealth. This resemblance began after the visits of Bush Sr to the region.
At a time when some of our compatriots were dazzled by America and hoping that these visits would have an effect on our countries, all of a sudden he was affected by those monarchies and military regimes, and became envious of their remaining decades in their positions, to embezzle the public wealth of the nation without supervision or accounting.
So he took dictatorship and suppression of freedoms to his son and they named it the Patriot Act, under the pretence of fighting terrorism. In addition, Bush sanctioned the installing of sons as state governors, and didn't forget to import expertise in election fraud from the region's presidents to Florida to be made use of in moments of difficulty.
All that we have mentioned has made it easy for us to provoke and bait this administration. All that we have to do is to send two mujahidin to the furthest point east to raise a piece of cloth on which is written al-Qaida, in order to make the generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic, and political losses without their achieving for it anything of note other than some benefits for their private companies.
This is in addition to our having experience in using guerrilla warfare and the war of attrition to fight tyrannical superpowers, as we, alongside the mujahidin, bled Russia for 10 years, until it went bankrupt and was forced to withdraw in defeat.
All Praise is due to Allah.
So we are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy. Allah willing, and nothing is too great for Allah.
That being said, those who say that al-Qaida has won against the administration in the White House or that the administration has lost in this war have not been precise, because when one scrutinises the results, one cannot say that al-Qaida is the sole factor in achieving those spectacular gains.
Rather, the policy of the White House that demands the opening of war fronts to keep busy their various corporations - whether they be working in the field of arms or oil or reconstruction - has helped al-Qaida to achieve these enormous results.
And so it has appeared to some analysts and diplomats that the White House and us are playing as one team towards the economic goals of the United States, even if the intentions differ.
And it was to these sorts of notions and their like that the British diplomat and others were referring in their lectures at the Royal Institute of International Affairs. [When they pointed out that] for example, al-Qaida spent $500,000 on the event, while America, in the incident and its aftermath, lost - according to the lowest estimate - more than $500 billion.
Meaning that every dollar of al-Qaida defeated a million dollars by the permission of Allah, besides the loss of a huge number of jobs.
As for the size of the economic deficit, it has reached record astronomical numbers estimated to total more than a trillion dollars.
And even more dangerous and bitter for America is that the mujahidin recently forced Bush to resort to emergency funds to continue the fight in Afghanistan and Iraq, which is evidence of the success of the bleed-until-bankruptcy plan - with Allah's permission.
It is true that this shows that al-Qaida has gained, but on the other hand, it shows that the Bush administration has also gained, something of which anyone who looks at the size of the contracts acquired by the shady Bush administration-linked mega-corporations, like Halliburton and its kind, will be convinced. And it all shows that the real loser is ... you.
It is the American people and their economy. And for the record, we had agreed with the Commander-General Muhammad Ataa, Allah have mercy on him, that all the operations should be carried out within 20 minutes, before Bush and his administration notice.
It never occurred to us that the commander-in-chief of the American armed forces would abandon 50,000 of his citizens in the twin towers to face those great horrors alone, the time when they most needed him.
But because it seemed to him that occupying himself by talking to the little girl about the goat and its butting was more important than occupying himself with the planes and their butting of the skyscrapers, we were given three times the period required to execute the operations - all praise is due to Allah.
And it's no secret to you that the thinkers and perceptive ones from among the Americans warned Bush before the war and told him: "All that you want for securing America and removing the weapons of mass destruction - assuming they exist - is available to you, and the nations of the world are with you in the inspections, and it is in the interest of America that it not be thrust into an unjustified war with an unknown outcome."
But the darkness of the black gold blurred his vision and insight, and he gave priority to private interests over the public interests of America.
So the war went ahead, the death toll rose, the American economy bled, and Bush became embroiled in the swamps of Iraq that threaten his future. He fits the saying "like the naughty she-goat who used her hoof to dig up a knife from under the earth".
So I say to you, over 15,000 of our people have been killed and tens of thousands injured, while more than a thousand of you have been killed and more than 10,000 injured. And Bush's hands are stained with the blood of all those killed from both sides, all for the sake of oil and keeping their private companies in business.
Be aware that it is the nation who punishes the weak man when he causes the killing of one of its citizens for money, while letting the powerful one get off, when he causes the killing of more than 1000 of its sons, also for money.
And the same goes for your allies in Palestine. They terrorise the women and children, and kill and capture the men as they lie sleeping with their families on the mattresses, that you may recall that for every action, there is a reaction.
Finally, it behoves you to reflect on the last wills and testaments of the thousands who left you on the 11th as they gestured in despair. They are important testaments, which should be studied and researched.
Among the most important of what I read in them was some prose in their gestures before the collapse, where they say: "How mistaken we were to have allowed the White House to implement its aggressive foreign policies against the weak without supervision."
It is as if they were telling you, the people of America: "Hold to account those who have caused us to be killed, and happy is he who learns from others' mistakes."
And among that which I read in their gestures is a verse of poetry. "Injustice chases its people, and how unhealthy the bed of tyranny."
As has been said: "An ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure."
And know that: "It is better to return to the truth than persist in error." And that the wise man doesn't squander his security, wealth and children for the sake of the liar in the White House.
In conclusion, I tell you in truth, that your security is not in the hands of Kerry, nor Bush, nor al-Qaida. No.
Your security is in your own hands. And every state that doesn't play with our security has automatically guaranteed its own security.
And Allah is our Guardian and Helper, while you have no Guardian or Helper. All peace be upon he who follows the Guidance.

US elections — not much of difference

PV Vivekanand

IT would not be an overstatement that the Americans would be deciding the immediate course of the world events when they vote in presidential elections today.
A vote for incumbent George Bush means continuation of the neoconservative agenda for American domination of the globe and Israeli domination of the Middle East. It translates as continued US-engineered tension around the world leading to increasing threats to the security of the American people at home as well as outside from those whose lives are threatened by direct and indirect American actions, policies and strategies.
However, a Bush defeat against John Kerry would not necessarily mean a reversal of the neoconservative campaign
since the neocons are also present among Democrats and it would only be a matter of time before they assume control of a Kerry White House. At the same time, a Kerry administration would take its own time installing itself in power and digging its feet into the ground. This might offer a temporary reprieve in the aggressive American approach to global issues.
(For us in the Middle East, a change at the helm in the US would mean a change in this region only if the administration, old or new, shifts from its lopsided Israel-oriented policy and approach, and that is not likely to happen whether Bush is re-elected or is replaced by Kerry).
The only justification, if any at all, for the American behaviour on the international scene is the unprecedented attacks of Sept.11, 2001 that saw nearly 3,000 innocent people getting killed. The assaults were deemed to have jerked the Bush administration into launching the war against terrorism that led to the invasion of Afghanistan (perhaps justifiable in view of the fact that the group blamed for the attacks was sheltered there). However, there could be no justification for the invasion and occupation of Iraq, notwithstanding the post-war argument that Saddam Hussein was bad for the people of Iraq as well as the entire neighbourhood and the US was doing us all a favour by toppling him. Let us not forget that it remains a very real threat for us in the region that Iraq, which is spinning out of control, could split up and we would be at the receiving end of the spillovers of such a development.
The Americans would be better off to remind themselves of a few points as they vote today with terrorism on the forefront of the debate on who should be the next president and the Sept.11 attacks in hovering over the backdrop:
It has been established that the administration had received enough intelligence tip-offs about an impending terrorist attack in 2001 but did little to ward it off. Today, the administration is deliberately holding back vital information
on the attacks themselves as if it is trying to shield someone.
All official investigations into the attacks were shrouded in secrecy and all the facts were never placed before the American people if only because the administration did not extend the kind of co-operation that was essential to establish the truth.
One would have thought that, given the gravity of the Sept.11 attacks, the administration would have come forth with honesty and tranparency about an incident that shook the entire world and uprooted many American lives.
The bottom line is: The way the Bush administration handled the search for the true facts of the Sept.11 attacks is at best suspicious. Instead of rooting out the threat of terror attacks, it has only worsened it with its actions. Today, America is not any safer than it was before Sept.11. If anything, the threat is greater today, as leading American commentators have pointed out.
On the Iraq front, it has been proved beyond reasonable doubt that the invasion and occupation of Iraq was in the cards from the day Bush took over the White House in January 2001 and Sept.11 provided the fig leaf he was seeking in order to implement the plans.
Almost every word Bush, Vice-President Dick Cheney and others in the administration have uttered in their drive to justify the war on Iraq has been proved untrue. And the Americans should be left wondering what they have gained by spending some $200 billion and sacrificing more than 1,100 American lives (not to mention the several thousand American soldiers who were maimed for life while in action in Iraq). They would be better off also to remind themselves that Israel is undoubtedly the sole beneficiary of the war against Iraq — paid for by their tax dollars — while they are told to make welfare sacrifices.
In a broader context, the Americans should remember that the world is slowly waking up to the reality that the US has turned itself into an international bully under the Bush administration. The world has seen the administration using the United Nations when it suited it to do so and dumping the world body when it deemed it fit to do so. The international community has seen how it deceived not only the American people and their elected representatives but also some countries into supporting a war based on deception, outright lies and cooked up intelligence data devoid of truth.
Beyond anything and everything, the US is unwilling to accept the reality that the threats its people face today are directly linked to its biased policies towards the world, particularly the Middle East.
Come to think of it then, it does not really matter whether Bush or Kerry wins in today's elections. The world would be a better place only if there is a paradigm shift in American thinking and the Americans are given a opportunity to vote for and insist on the restoration of respect for very basic founding principles of their great nation and application of those ideals on the international scene.