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Damaged
U.S.-Arab relations serve Israel, deepen the Palestinians’
suffering
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By
Khaled Mamdouh, IOL Staff
CAIRO,
Aug 17 (IslamOnline) – The Jewish lobby within the U.S. administration
managed to hijack the Sept 11 tragedy, employ it to serve its own agenda
of upholding Israeli interests, not U.S. ones. Thus, the campaign
against moderate Arab regimes, and usually U.S. allies in the region,
can only be explained and understood within that context, a prominent
Saudi writer told IslamOnline Saturday, August 17, 2002.
Saudi
political analyst and the deputy editor in chief of Saudi Arabia’s
English-language Arab News, Jamal Khashoggi also called on the
governments of Egypt and Saudi Arabia to try to react rationally to that
vicious campaign.
“Nervousness
and complete rejection of accusations directed to both Arab countries
will only widen the gap and aggravate the problem. On the other hand, we
should not feel worried. We should understand the real reasons behind
such imposed crises,” Khashoggi said.
Shedding
more light on the vicious role played by the pro-Israel lobby in the
White House, Khashoggi said that the U.S. administration is duty bound
to protect its citizens and to prevent another Sept. 11 from taking
place. However, it cannot hope to succeed in doing that by making
trusted advisers of such dubious “experts on Islamic terror” as
Daniel Pipe, Steven Emerson, and Laurent Murawiec.
“These
people and others like them have their own agendas that begin and
end with upholding Israel’s interests. Such so-called experts
deliberately mix the good with the bad, and combine sound advice with
ill intentions. Truth is thus lost, taking American security along with
it.
“The
Bush administration, by following their advice, will discover that it
has abandoned what it should be doing and will find itself fighting
Hamas and Hizbullah just because they are enemies of Israel,” he
added.
Khashoggi
went on to explain that the “Israelis, as a matter of fact, are
overjoyed to have the most powerful nation on earth fight their own
wars, while they focus on rebuilding their economy, shattered as a
result of occupying other people’s lands. It is consequently illogical
to expect them (advisers like Murawiec) to criticize American behavior,
or to warn the U.S. against involving itself in the morass of occupation
and humiliation that is the daily lot of the Palestinian people”.
Tracking
down the start of the U.S. campaign against the Saudi Kingdom, Khashoggi
said, “Murawiec’s rabid anti-Palestinian racism cannot be separated
from what he said before the Pentagon’s advisory Defense Policy Board
on July, which caused so much consternation between Washington and
Riyadh.
“Murawiec’s
utterances raised a wall of suspicion and ill will between the two
countries that could not be eliminated despite attempts by U.S.
officials to distance themselves from what he said, and despite efforts
by both governments to gloss over their differences.
“It
was enough for the Washington Post to leak news of Murawiec’s briefing
to convince us (Saudis) that such extremist ideas are promoted and
listened to at the highest levels in Washington, rather than
restricted to the rants of Fox News and rabidly anti-Arab and
anti-Muslim internet sites.”
He
also added that “A glance at Muraweic’s background should warn wise
Americans of the dangers of blindly following pro-Israel forces or those
whose ambitions cause them to embrace Israel’s positions by attacking
Arabs and Muslims”.
Commenting
on Syrian state-run media warning Egypt and Saudi Arabia Saturday that
they were not immune from U.S. efforts to impose a "new political
regime" on the Middle East to control its oil wealth, Khashoggi,
however, said that
‘the
Syrians (Syrian regime) should worry about themselves first’.
The
Syrian government daily Tishrin charged Saturday that accusations of
Saudi funding for terrorism and threats to cut off U.S. aid to Egypt
were part of an "American policy of blackmail" which showed
Washington was ready to resort to "intervention" even in the
affairs of its closest Arab allies,.
The
paper also blamed the "Zionist lobby in the White House" for
the "provocations and unjust accusations" leveled against
Cairo and Riyadh.
"The
American administration is deliberating accusing Saudi Arabia (of
indirect responsibility for the September 11 attacks in New York and
Washington) to destabilize the kingdom and shatter its national
unity," Tishrin said.
However,
Khashoggi downplayed the Syrian paper’s evaluation of the situation,
repeating his call for the Saudis and Egyptians to address their
differences with the U.S. seriously, on one hand. On the other, he urged
the Americans to reconsider their policies towards the Middle East in
general.
