CAIRO,
June 17 (IslamOnline.net) - Contending peace efforts failed so far to
resolve a more than 50-year-old crisis, most of Arab people reject to
draw an internationally-trumpeted comparison between resistance and
terrorism.
“How
dare they consider resistance to a long-standing occupation sort of
terrorism!,” wondered Tarek Ahmed, an Egyptian civil servant, who
argued that his point of view echoes a largely-embraced stance in the
Arab world’s most populous country.
“Standing
up to occupation is an inalienable human right down the road of
history,” said Arab League spokesman Hisham Youssef.
“How
can they slam resistance as terrorism,” he said with an astonished
tone, amid rising international calls for an end to “Palestinian
violence and terrorism”
U.S.
President George W. Bush had slammed Palestinian factions as
“terrorist” and that they should be dismantled to allow peace
process “a window of an opportunity” to be set back on track for
defusing the soaring tension.
‘Only
Card’
As
it is conclusively demonstrated day after day, diplomacy seemingly
proved a failure so far, many people in the region felt that resistance
could be the only quintessential card in hand to secure the coveted goal
of independence.
“A
general scene on the Arab street, Palestinian resistance operations
against Israeli targets mostly seen as legitimate means to secure
independence and other captured rights after all diplomatic initiatives
ended in failure to restore them," said Mohamed Farag, an Egyptian
journalist in an official Media Institutions.
Farag
said that it is hard to remove from the Arab mindset Israeli aggressions
against innocent Palestinians.
For
Mohamed Hamza, a former advisor to Palestinian President Yasser Arafat,
Palestinians do seek peace, but only with reciprocal Israeli measures
which guarantee their own safety.
More
than 4000 people were killed and thousand others injured by Israeli
occupation forces since the beginning of Intifada, he added
Arafat
himself is now besieged by Israeli tanks to his Ramallah presidential
headquarters months ago, with the Jewish state ignoring international
appeals to release him.
Acting
in defiance, Arafat kept meeting with international visiting officials
and refused to leave Palestinian territories even “if this requires
martyrdom”.
Edward
Said, a Columbia University professor, considered such unflagging
defiance among all Palestinians a lead to getting their lost rights.
"Were
it not for the fact of the Palestinian stubborn refusal to accept that
they are "defeated people, as the Israeli chief of staff recently
described them, there would be no peace plan," Edward Said has
written in the Egyptian Al-Ahram Weekly.
The
plan, presented by U.S. President George W. Bush, charts a number of
reciprocal confidence-building measures leading to the establishment of
a Palestinian state alongside Israel.
Israel
accepted it after the U.S. promised to give notice to its 15
reservations upon implementation, as Palestinians gave it unconditional
agreement.
‘Tailored’
 |
|
"So
anyone who believes the roadmap actually offers anything
resembling a settlement of that it tackles basic issues is
wrong," Edward Said
|
Edward
Said, himself a Palestinian immigrant - or refugee, to be accurate -
argued the "roadmap" is tailored partially to meet
"Bush's need for an Arab-Israeli cover for his military adventures
elsewhere."
Unveiled
two months ago, the plan go nowhere down the road to implementation so
far, amid speculations that the plan is only meant to temporarily
assuage Arab fears that Washington precipitously made the case for the
invasion of Iraq against an inveterate complacency to end the more than
50 year long Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories.
The
plan did not close doors on such urgent issues as Palestinian refugees,
numbered 3.6 million according to the U.N. account, and the status of
the holy city of occupied Jerusalem, which the Jewish state vehemently
refused to present any concessions onto.
Said
noted the roadmap focuses on "no violence, no protest, more
democracy, better leaders and institutions, all based on the notion that
the underlying problem has been the ferocity of Palestinian resistance,
rather than the occupation."
Anyone
who believes the roadmap actually offers anything resembling a
settlement of that s is wrong, he added.
'Unfair
Mediator'
Furthermore,
the U.S. is not considered by many people in Arab countries an honest
unbiased mediator in the Middle East process in which Israel - a
close-ally and fully backed by a dominant neo-conservatives in the Bush
administration - is a part of.
"It
is all but natural that the U.S. and Israeli peace intentions are
suspiciously considered by Arab peoples," said Mohamed Sayyed Said,
deputy director for of Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic
Studies.
He
contended that although defending for getting liberation of their
occupied land, the Palestinians now find themselves " standing
alone in the face of Israeli armored vehicles and demands of a country
supporting the Jewish state without limits."
The
Egyptian writer argued that the U.S. "roadmap" plan for peace
in the Middle East is "serious, but only satisfies the minimum of
Palestinian demands"
Khaled
Bahaa threw discredit on Israel's current talks with the Palestinians to
strike a peaceful deal to the conflict.
"It
is a public relation maneuver, no more no less, as I believe the
platform of the Israeli government did not open the door for a
diplomatic solution to the crisis," he added.
Governments
To Be Blamed
Most
people interviewed by IslamOnline.net saved part of the blame for Arab
governments given their clear subordination to the U.S. pressures on the
Middle East crisis.
Lamenting
that Arab leaders acquiesced to denounce “Palestinian violence and
terrorism”, Tarek Ahmed argued this position - which he said came
under U.S. pressures - found no resonance among their own peoples.
“People
no longer hinges hope on their governments to recover occupied land or
even say No to America,” he said with a mixed tone of pessimism and
desperation.
"And
situation further turned up the trajectory of deterioration "With
the invasion of Iraq and rising threats to Syria, Iran and Lebanon or
any other Arab and Islamic country," noted Mohamed Sayyed Said.
Said
opined these developments might force "the Palestinians to take the
road of the U.S. 'roadmap'" as Washington managed to win the world
opinion over to condemn "the Palestinian violence," and
undermine the already-scant Arab support.
"With
the lack of an Arab and international backing and drying up all
financial sources, the current wave of violence is just putting
Palestinians a sacrifice for whole Arabs."
Mohamed
Hamza, a former advisor to Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, said
that the "assistance to beleaguered Palestinians by foreign
countries was far larger by that of Arab and Islamic countries".
Many
Arab countries cut off their aid to Palestinian territories, further
dampening hopes for alleviate searing unemployment rates and tough
living conditions triggered by Israeli closures and daily incursions.
With
more than 2000 people dead and several thousand others injured or maimed
since the beginning of Intifada, the Palestinians have a "long,
bumpy" road to go down to independence, Hamza added.
