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U.S. to Offer Palestinian State for Coalition Building
WASHINGTON, Oct 2 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - The administration of U.S. President George W. Bush is considering a series of high-profile steps related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to secure much-needed Arab support for the international coalition against terrorism, the State Department and other senior administration officials said.
Officials said drafts of a speech are currently circulating in the State Department and being reviewed, CNN news online reported Tuesday.
Officials said the speech will "clarify its [U.S.] views on an end result" of the peace process, which would lead to the eventual "creation of a Palestinian state".
"It will go farther than we have ever gone," one official said. "There is an awful lot more that we view as being the end result than what we have said so far."
One point being hotly debated is whether to "call for ending all settlement activity," including so-called natural growth of existing settlements - something previous U.S. administrations have come close to doing, but never done.
The official said such an announcement would be a "powerful palliative" to the Arab world, CNN said.
"It eases the pain," the official said. "It would end the perception we only move against Islam."
"We are getting hammered in the Arab world," this official said. "And it is not a mystery that one of the ways to diffuse this" is to see some movement on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Administration sources acknowledged that Arab support on the international coalition is crucial to winning the U.S.-led war against terrorism to send a signal the war is not against Islam, but against Osama bin Laden and his terrorist network.
The administration also wants Arab states to cut the flow of money from wealthy Islamic supporters in their countries to bin Laden.
Officials are also debating whether the administration should invite Palestinian President Yasser Arafat to Washington to meet with Bush or Secretary of State Colin Powell. Arafat has met Powell outside of Washington, but has yet to meet Bush.
"Arafat needs a visit," one official said, noting that Arafat has publicly condemned terrorism and called for a ceasefire.
Arab political analysts confirmed after the September 11th terrorist attack that the U.S. is trying to paint its operations against Afghanistan with the brush of Islamic legitimacy.
Abdel el Khalek Abdallah, a political science professor at UAE University said that the Gulf countries approval - especially Saudi Arabia - to the U.S. war effort gives the international coalition the U.S. is lobbying Islamic acceptance in the Muslim Arab world.
Abdel Khalek noted that U.S. military bases in Gulf states are the nearest bases to Afghanistan territory, and so Gulf states would play a major role in case the U.S. launched a war against Afghanistan.
"There are the U.S. Fifth Fleet in Bahrain, U.S. forces in Qatar and other military bases in different Gulf countries - all are well equipped with the latest war tactics - which the U.S. has used before in the Gulf war, which means the bases readiness for war is high," Abdel Khalek said.
Another political science professor at UAE University, Ebtisam al- Kataby, said, "I'm afraid [the] September 11th attacks would be an American holocaust to blackmail the Arab and Islamic countries."
Ebtisam warned Gulf governments against reactions from Gulf populations to the war effort, and confirmed that the U.S. war against Afghanistan is completely different from the Gulf war.
Meanwhile, Mohammed el-Motawea, an Emirate political writer said Gulf countries would not contribute to the U.S. war against Afghanistan unless the U.S. gives solid evidence and proof against those involved in the attacks on September 11.
The UAE cut diplomatic ties with the Taliban September 22nd, followed by Saudi Arabia on September 25th, after condemning the U.S. terrorist attacks.
Additional reporting by Reda Hamad
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