BY ROHAN PEARCE
If it weren't for the horrendous death toll of Palestinians, the destruction of West Bank towns and the fierce repression of dissent of anti-war protesters within Israel, US Secretary of State Colin Powell's tour of the Middle East would seem almost comic.
When Israel's latest bloody incursion into the West Bank began on March 29, US President George Bush backed it fully. However, within a week of the Israeli war machine being unleashed on the Palestinians yet again, the political cost of the offensive for the US government became apparent as the Arab masses took to the streets of Middle Eastern cities in angry protests.
Of particular concern to the Bush administration has been the stability of US-client regimes in the Middle East, and the ability of these regimes to avoid the wrath of their populations in providing support for the planned US-led war on Iraq.
Although concerned for the political survival of its Arab clients, Bush has kept the pressure on for them to back his "war on terror".
In an April 17 speech at the Virginia Military Institute, Bush said: "The Egyptians and Jordanians and Saudis have helped in the wider war on terrorism and they must help confront terrorism in the Middle East." This was not a reference to the Israeli army's massacre of Palestinian civilians in the Occupied Territories, but to the Palestinian resistance to the illegal Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip and to the continued survival of President Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq.
As protests mounted throughout the Middle East — daily demonstrations in Egypt, a million marching in Morocco — the Bush administration was forced to distance itself from Israel's brutality, and sought to be seen to be doing something to end the Israeli assault. The solution: mildly criticise Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, call on him to withdraw his troops — while demanding Palestinian Authority (PA) President Yasser Arafat, held under virtual house arrest by the Israeli army, stop Palestinian suicide bombings — and send Powell on a meandering 10-day trip through the Middle East which bore more resemblance to a sight-seeing tourist jaunt than a high-priority diplomatic mission to end the killing.
Powell's trip included visits to Morocco, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, and finally (!) Israel and the Occupied Territories. The visit produced no concrete results. Israel's pull-out from some West Bank towns is merely an indication that, despite resistance by Palestinians, the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) are performing their "job" efficiently: reducing Palestinian towns to rubble, destroying their infrastructure (the "infrastructure of terror" that Sharon has referred to apparently consists mainly of people's homes, and the water and electricity supplies of West Bank towns) and wipe out any Palestinian resistance.
After Bush's April 4 call for an Israeli withdrawal (which, typically, included references to the "horror" of suicide bombings, but only the "stark picture" of Israeli tanks in the streets of Palestinian towns), Sharon's government took 12 days to begin any real withdrawal of its forces.
Now that Powell has returned to the US, Bush claims the trip was a success. "One trip by the secretary of state laid out the framework and the path to achieve peace", Bush said during an April 18 Oval Office photoshoot, adding : "The United States has an obligation to do just that, and he [sic] did. And I have done that. And we will continue to do that."
Adding further to the air of unreality of the event, Bush also said, "I do believe that Ariel Sharon is a man of peace".
According to Bush, "Israel started withdrawing quickly, after our call, from smaller cities on the West Bank. History will show that they responded. And as the prime minister said, told me, he gave me a timetable and he's met the timetable."
Bush's remarks indicated that media claims of Israeli "defiance" of the US has been greatly exaggerated. Although there has unquestionably been some divergence between Sharon and Bush, their basic interests have remained the same: ensure that the stability of the apartheid regime in Israel remains unthreatened by the Palestinian resistance.
The US ruling class seems to feel that Powell's Middle East sight-seeing holiday and the Israeli military success in quickly destroying some centres of Palestinian resistance within the Occupied Territories, combined with the almost complete inaction of pro-US Arab regimes in the face of the carnage (aside from almost comical measures, such as Egypt's "narrowing" of diplomatic relations with Israel), has given the US greater breathing space to attack the PA. Enough space to allow the US government to apply a new form of pressure on the PA, by threatening to close the PA's Washington offices within six months unless Arafat "ends terrorism".
When announcing the dispatch of Powell to the Middle East on April 4, Bush affirmed support for the peace plan of Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. This plan is little more than a call for the implementation of UN resolutions that call for the withdrawal of Israeli forces to pre-1967 borders.
The main appeal of the plan from the point of view of the Bush administration is that it includes the normalisation of relations between Israel and the Arab states in return for an Israeli withdrawal, which would ease the balancing act the pro-US Arab regimes need to play in relation to Israel and the Palestinian struggle.
Crucially, the plan is ambiguous about the fate of Palestinian refugees, of which there are 3.7 million worldwide (Palestinians make up around 25% of the world's refugees).
According to a report by the US Committee for Refugees released in July 2000, many Palestinian refugees fear that their right to return to their homeland will be traded away by Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.
A February Gallup poll showed that the pro-Israel propaganda onslaught by the Bush government and media has maintained the support of the US public for Israel despite the atrocities committed by the Israeli army in the West Bank, with 73% of those surveyed indicating they have an unfavourable view of Arafat, compared to 31% for Sharon. Only 14% of those surveyed were sympathetic to the Palestinians.
An April Christian Science Monitor poll showed that 42% of Americans agree with their government's support for Israel (support for Israel in the US has never gone below 37%, while support for the Palestinian struggle has never been higher than 16%).
On April 19, a new bill was introduced into the US Senate, sponsored by Republican Senator Mitch McConnell and the Democrats' Dianne Feinstein, which would impose sanctions on Arafat. If passed, the bill would allow Bush to use a range of punitive measures against Arafat and the PA, including denying visas, placing travel restrictions on the senior PA representative at the UN and confiscating PA assets.
According to McConnell, the Israeli government is "reacting in exactly the same way that we did after the terrorist strike on the US in September, sending our military out to try to get the leadership", and the "Senate will not stand idly by while they [the Palestinian Authority] talk peace in English and practice terror in Arabic".
In the US House of Representatives, Republican Tom Delay and Democrat Tom Lantos have called on Bush to give Israel US$400 million in "emergency aid", on top of annual US direct aid to Israel of US$2700 million (66% of it, military aid). In contrast, while in the Middle East, Powell announced US$30 million for Palestinian humanitarian aid, in addition to the piddling US$80 million the US sends annually.
From Green Left Weekly, April 24, 2002.
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