Arab summit, Arab League and Arab world? Not a hope in hell! [Archives:2002/13/Law & Diplomacy]

BY AHMED ZAHRAN
FIRST LIEUTENANT
FOR THE YEMEN TIMES
The upcoming Arab Summit Conference being held in the Lebanese capital of Beruit comes at a time when the Palestinian uprising is still mounting its anger against the Zionists. It comes at a time when the Palestinians, the national authority and its president have all passed through difficult situations.
Israeli president Aril Sharon, who some consider a war criminal, has imposed a blockade on the Palestinians which may prevent its Yassar Arafat from attending the summit. Is the Palestinian president going to attend the summit or not? If not, it will be the first time hes absent from such a summit.
Arafat usually leads way
Usually, Arafat leads the way to such summits. At this critical moment, then, who is going to deliver his country’s speech? Will Arafat’s seat remain vacant? Who will dare to replace this vacant seat and deliver his speech? In my opinion, the person who is going to deliver Arafat’s speech will be a traitor.
We appeal to the European Union and the Scandinavian countries, specifically Belgium and France, to intervene to provide us with international peace forces to protect the isolated Palestinian people from the Israeli aggressors. The coordinated and organized terrorism practiced by the Israeli forces against the defenseless Palestinians is a flagrant violation of international conventions.
The Palestinians don’t possess missiles, tanks or anti-air defenses to protect themselves. Their only weapon is their trust in God and keeping faith when they know their cause is right.
So, who is the real terrorist? Is it the usurper and attackers, or the isolated landowners? We wonder, when will the prejudiced attitude of the Americans come to an end? The US has shown sympathy towards Israeli demands.
Similar attitudes
We might also wonder about the difference between the Labor and Likud parties. Both of these parties have similar attitudes and both have been supporting the Israeli aggression. Consequently, who is the responsible for massacres and killing so many innocent people at the al-Aqsa mosque?
Israeli leaders are, in the opinion of some, real war criminals and they need to held accountable for killing innocent children such as, for example, Mohammed Addorah and Eman Hajo, plus others. They also killed Palestinian leaders such as, Abu Ali Mustafa and Mohammed Abu al-Hunod.
They pretend they are peace-keepers in front of the world. And they may even peacekeepers, because this is a way to continue the procrastination and fraud which is desired by Aril Sharon.
Wanted a handshake
Conversely, consider when Arafat wanted to shake hands with former Israeli president Yitzak Rabeen at the White House. Arafat is not a fraud and has shown good intentions to reach an acceptable reconciliation to this long conflicts. UN Security Council resolutions 242 and 238 resolutions, concerning the withdrawal of the Israeli forces to the pre-1997 borders, have proven to be of no avail.
US president George Bush has stated that he is disappointed with Arafat. As a matter of fact, the US president has never met up with Arafat since he started his term of office. Yet he has met with Sharon several times.
We don’t know what is the hidden reason behind the US attitudes. But it seems to some that the US wants to remove the Palestinian president and wants to find alternative leadership.
Still, the Palestinians have fought tooth and nails for the sake independence and freedom. Palestinians are intractable and that Arafat will be their leader forever, because he has been their symbol for peace for decades. We can safely say that the Palestinians will not accept a new alternative and that Arafat is the leader and the soldier who represents the Palestinian authority.
Palestinians have adhered to cease-fires, but the Israeli government has continued in its aggressions and murdered its leaders. Israel has also accused the national authority of smuggling weapons, but the whole world hasn’t seen the real problem, or that Israel seized that weapons ship far away, 500 km from Gazas beaches.
Palestinians have no weapons
In this case, no one has accused Israel of piracy, even if this ship belongs to the national authority. Israel has launched a war against Palestinians using American weapons. What about Palestinians?! What kind of weapons are they going to use? They have the right to defend themselves against such aggression. If Palestinians wanted to get weapons, will they buy them from Israel itself?
Report have stated that this ship in question belongs to a weapon dealers who wanted to sell the weapons to Somalia or any other African country.
In his speech condemning terrorism and terrorists, US president, George W. Bush has included Jihad, Hizbu Allah and Hamas movements within the terrorist groups in the world. He declared that Iraq and Northern Korea are countries which harbor terrorism. The US has sent its forces to the Philippines to carry out military maneuvers, as if thats part of the real the war against terrorism, that the war in Afghanistan is a mere training for the US military forces.
It seems that the US administration is going to launch war against Abu Sayyaf Group or Moro Group in the Philippines, and then against Iraq. The US has divided the world into the so-called terrorist and non-terrorist countries. Who is the real terrorist? Wasnt it America that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan? The US knew at that time that the majority of people they would kill were innocent civilians.
Overthrow Iraq?
Now US policies, through its support of Kurds in Iraq, are geared to overthrow the Iraqi regime. But if the US really wants to launch war against terrorism, Israel is among the countries which commit sea piracy and genocide, in flagrant disregard for international conventions.
The US stance towards Israel is considered to be the green light for Sharon to do whatever he desires. Sharon bitterly regrets not killing the Palestinian president in 1982, when the Palestinian forces were besieged in Beirut.
Now Arabs as well as their leaders are disappointed and nothing haw been accomplished, except condemning and denouncing people during successive Arab summits. Arabs must be preoccupied with this thorny issue because it is not only an issue of Palestinians, but one for all Arabs.
Arabs have to think of their own interests. They are in dire need of a real leader to lead them to the right track. Unfortunately, what we see is that Arabs are always submissive and docile to the US demands.
Demonstrations suppressed
Demonstrations have been suppressed, and we dont seen any sense of an authentic Arab patriotism. Not only this, the US has demanded some Arab countries to close the religious institutions and schools. It is also reported that donations that have been collected for the Palestinians be frozen in the pretext that the money aids terrorism. Some of the Arab countries have positively responded to these demands and they, of course, declare that they have made friends with the US.
Now the US and Israel are bargaining to allow Arafat to attend the summit. We will wait and see.

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