 |
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell meets Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon at his Jerusalem residence, April 16, 2002 |
At least one concrete result was reached by U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell in his trip to the Middle East: in his meeting with Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud, of Saudi Arabia, the prince assured him that he would “stabilize oil prices during the current turmoil.” This was probably the most important item on Powell's agenda in his trip to the Middle East. This could also explain why he chose to make Casablanca the first stop on his tour, where the meeting with Crown Prince Abdullah had been scheduled to take place before Powell's departure from Washington. Having obtained that promise by the largest oil producer in the world, other issues became less significant. Initially, there was unease at what seemed to be a relaxed attitude towards a serious humanitarian crisis on the part of the U.S. emissary, but once the confusion surrounding the priorities of the United States in the Middle East was settled, the world resigned itself to work within the U.S. agenda.
A ceasefire in the ongoing war against the Palestinians is certainly not one of George W. Bush's priorities. The sudden small increase in oil prices was more significant to his administration than the dozens of Palestinians who are gunned down everyday by Israel's terror machine. The British Prime Minister interrupted the Cabinet meeting to declare: “Nothing was more important to the country's World Cup preparations than the state of Beckham's foot.” He was referring to the England captain's broken foot, sustained during Manchester United's European Cup quarterfinal clash with Spain's Deportivo La Cortuna on April 10. On his part, Colin Powell tried every delaying tactic to avoid the rush into the war zone in order to give the Israelis more time to wipe out the Palestinian resistance. World leaders were so outraged that they requested a meeting with him in Madrid. Kofi Annan attended the meeting along with Russia and the European Union. The outcome was a call for a ceasefire, a mild call to Israel to pull out the troops from Palestinian towns and a tougher call for the Palestinians to stop the self-bombing attacks. General Powell felt he was under no international obligation to rush to Israel, force a ceasefire on Ariel Sharon or even take a neutral stand in the conflict. The United Nations, under the influence of the United States, did not feel the need to issue a new Security Council resolution against the Israeli atrocities, and decided to issue a mild statement instead, calling on both sides (the killer and the killed) to exercise self-restraint.
The first encounter between the U.S. Secretary of State and Ariel Sharon, who is accused of crimes against humanity for his role in the Sabra and Shatila massacres twenty years ago, produced no results. Prior to the meeting, both Sharon and Shimon Peres, had rebuked the earlier calls by Washington for withdrawal by insisting that they would need two to three weeks before they could withdraw their forces from the areas supposedly under Palestinian control. Knowing well the nature of their stronger ally, the Europeans were worried that General Powell would not take strong stands against Israel's atrocities and could acquiesce in the Israeli belligerency. The U.S. administration felt no urgency to end Israeli aggression against the Palestinians, especially that Ariel Sharon had used a similar rhetoric to that used by President Bush during the war in Afghanistan. He was allegedly waging war against “terrorism” and he needed more time to uproot it from Palestine. General Powell offered a shy reply: “However long the Israeli incursion continues, the problems will still be there… No matter how effective the Israeli Defense Forces believe they are being right now in rooting out terrorism and going after the other targets they have set for themselves, when it's over there will still be people who are willing to resort to violence and terror.” That cautionary note did not offer ammunition for him to take a stand during negotiations with Ariel Sharon. He is likely to put more pressure on Yasser Arafat and other Gulf rulers than on the terrorist suspect. The daily demonstrations in Arab and Muslim countries are no more than an irritant for the United States, as long as the local leaders continue their repressive policies against anti-Israeli and anti-American demonstrations. Several demonstrators have been killed as local police fired at them. In Jordan, Egypt and Bahrain innocent lives were lost as local police acted on orders from higher authorities and fired against enraged demonstrators.
General Powell has achieved the main goal of his trip: oil will continue to flow at low prices. The Iranian leader, Ayatullah Khamanei, had called for suspension of oil supplies for a month, but the only response came from Baghdad. It announced that it would stop oil exports for 30 days. It will be difficult to monitor the implementation of this stoppage but it is necessary to take effective steps that reflect some degree of seriousness.
The Saudi acquiescence in the American request for higher production to offset Iraq's stoppage is a wrong signal from Riyadh at a time when more courageous steps are needed. The oil weapon and the boycott of American goods could become the most effective means to protest Israel's state terrorism. In the words of the Foreign Editor's Briefing of The Times newspaper (12 April 2002) “All those ‘wasted' trips by Powell and Vice-President Dick Cheney were not wasted, it seems. OPEC is being at least halfway obliging to the U.S.” Several of OPEC's members have openly said they were not joining Iraq's month-long embargo. If the most effective weapons in the Arab and Muslim hands are blunted, what else can be done to support the Palestinians and supplement the rhetorical oratory? People have expressed their anger in street demonstrations that often resulted in fatalities, but their ability to take any more action is limited. The fear is that the cycle of violence could erupt in many places as a result of the repression on hand, and the inability of the governments to take notice of public displeasure and frustration. The crisis in Palestine could then be expected to take wider dimensions. That is not in everybody's interest. Effective action now, including the use of oil as a weapon, reducing high-level contact with the U.S., boycotting American and of course Israeli goods and allowing peaceful demonstrations, could make a difference. For once, let us try them with some degree of sincerity.
|
what is this?
This widget will help you to store, organize, search, and manage your favorite online content through a range of social bookmarking services. These services permit users to save links to websites that they want to remember and/or share. These bookmarks are usually public, but can be saved privately, shared only with specified people or groups, or shared only inside certain networks. Authorized people can usually view these bookmarks chronologically, by category or tags, or through a search engine. Most social bookmarking services also permit their users to vote and rank public bookmarks to determine which are the best ones according to the number of votes they get.
|
