Mr. Bush Just Doesn’t Get It

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Mr Bush Just Doesn’t Get It
By Khaled Almaeena, Special to Gulf News
07/27/2006 09:25 PM

The savage Israeli aggression against Lebanon continues. Emboldened by world silence and powerless apathy in the region, the Israeli war machine is wreaking havoc and raining death and destruction on helpless Lebanese civilians.

The news that deadly bombs and laser-guided missiles have been given to the Israeli Air Force does not bode well for Lebanon.

On the diplomatic front, Tel Aviv has also been given full support by both Washington and London, which is little more than the United States’s subservient and obsequious ally.

The two nations so-called lovers of justice have blocked all calls for a ceasefire.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has been shuttling all over the world; her calls for a new Middle East spell doom, not only for the Lebanese and Palestinians but for all Arabs.

In addition President George W. Bush keeps on repeating his mantra which describes Hezbollah and Hamas as terrorist organisations. As one political analyst told me: "The poor man just doesn’t get it."

The neocons and the Zionist lobby in the United States are having a field day. Whatever Israel says is right. Whatever the Israeli Army announces or states is obviously fact. Any Lebanese statement, however, invariably begins with the phrase "It is claimed by ..."

The American press has now completely succumbed to the intimidations of the Israel lobby. On the other hand, in Europe there are still some brave journalists.

In Paris last week, I met some Jewish publishers and intellectuals. They are not happy with what is happening. Nor, by the same token, is a large segment of British Jewry.

The problem, one pointed out to me, comes from across the Atlantic.

"The bigotry and racist mentality in the US is embarrassing and goes against our moral code and moral fibre," he said.

"What code makes it all right for a state, freely supplied with weapons of death and destruction, to kill innocent women and children? What code allows soldiers to clap their hands joyfully at the sight of a house collapsing on the children inside?" he asked.

Israel is now fighting a proxy war for Bush and Blair. Even the British papers have said so. We know that Blair is helpless. But the British people are not.

We know that the neocon-Zionist alliance now frames American policy and directs it.

But many of the Americans I have spoken to say that it is mind-boggling that this minority lobby is making the world hate America.

Warned Of A Catastrophe

Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz has warned of a catastrophe if Israel’s attacks continue.

"Patience cannot last forever and if the brutal Israeli military forces continue their killings and destruction, no one can foresee what may happen and no sorrow will be of any use when the forbidden happens," said the King.

"If the peace option is dropped because of Israeli arrogance, there will remain nothing but the option of war and Allah alone knows what the region will experience in a war that will spare nobody," he said.

When he was crown prince, King Abdullah presented a peace initiative. It was very clear. King Abdullah is a man of few words. He says what he means and means what he says.

The gist of his message was for Israel to return to its pre-June 1967 borders and implement all UN resolutions, safeguarding the rights of all, in exchange for diplomatic recognition by Arab states.

What did Israel then do? The very next day, an Israeli Army regiment was sent into Jenin, an occupied West Bank town, and many civilians were murdered.

False pretexts have now become the norm for them. They talk about suicide bombers.

I mentioned that to a Palestinian professor who retorted: "Give us F16s, Apache gunship helicopters and M-16 assault rifles and I promise you there will be no more suicide bombings."

But who will listen? Bush keeps on repeating the same word "terrorists". No one in the Arab world and few outside it believe that Hamas and Hezbollah are terrorist organisations.

Personally I am an advocate of peace for all. But I have reached the conclusion that the Israeli military junta cannot survive.

They have to wage wars in order to receive additional supplies of free weapons.

They are mistaken in their assessments also. There is no way for them to win.

They may defeat Hezbollah but there will be others who will come after them to ensure that the right of self-determination is for all people of the Middle East and not only for Israelis.

Quagmire

Tel Aviv should take a lesson from the quagmire of its ally America in Iraq and Afghanistan.

How many bombs and rockets can you rain down upon people? How many people have been convinced of anything beyond American savagery and barbarity by those bombs and rockets?

What is happening is another Holocaust, but this time, it is a Palestinian Holocaust.

The genocide of a whole nation, an entire people, is taking place. The Israelis have learned the lessons well.

Eleven thousand Palestinians are in concentration camps, many hidden from public view.

The cream of Palestinian youth is deprived of education and basic rights. Ancestral homes destroyed, farms and orchards demolished the list of atrocities goes on.

Israel has not realised that the Arab world has changed. It has a new breed of young people: Better educated, more responsible, energetic and fast learners.

They will not put up with the same old status quo. They have new demands and new ideas.

The political scene in the Arab world is changing too. In a few years there will be those who will resist even more and will not sit submissively while their lands and homes are bombed.

The choice for the Israelis is to listen to the wise and logical words of King Abdullah, analyse them and act upon them.

Nobody has asked the Israelis to capitulate. All that they need to do is to abide by international laws and enter into guaranteed treaties that will allow them a normal presence in the Middle East.

The Israelis must also learn from history and not be blinded by arrogance. Hong Kong was ceded to China after 150 years of colonial rule.

The day came when apartheid was cast out of South Africa. The Berlin Wall came down.

The Israelis, on the other hand, have created their own apartheid; they have built a wall and made conditions for many people as bad or worse as any that existed under colonialism anywhere in the world.

Have normal Israeli citizens benefited from any of this? I am sure that many of them want peace; they don’t want to be dependent upon stress tablets and Imodium.

They don’t want a life in which the sound of a car backfiring can cause panic and distress. The choice is theirs. They must make it.

Khaled Almaeena is editor-in-chief of the Jeddah-based Arab News.