ZGram - 4/13/2002 - "A two-way reality check"

[irimland@zundelsite.org]

ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny

March 27, 2002

Good Morning from the Zundelsite:

A neat little analysis coming your way, with credits to the 
International Herald Tribune,
April 12, 2002, written by William Pfaff, a journalist stationed in Paris:

[START]

LET'S SEE IF BUSH STAYS THE COURSE

We have arrived at a defining point in the Middle East, and in the
foreign policy of the Bush administration. Three issues are about to be
decided. The first is the future relationship of this U.S. administration to
the Sharon government.

The second is Israel's own choice for its future as a nation. Ariel
Sharon has named General Effi Eitam, a rising  political star of the
religious right and the army's highest ranking "religious" officer, to
his security cabinet. General Eitam says he is accepting the post to
prevent foreign pressure from halting the military campaign against the
Palestinians.

The third issue is what America's future foreign policy will become.

Eitam's appointment strengthens Sharon against Labor leaving his
coalition. It otherwise is significant because Sharon's personal
conviction is not only that the Palestinian Authority must be destroyed,
but also that Israel must be extended from the Mediterranean coast to
the Jordan River, with exclusively Jewish citizens in it. Arabs who
remained in his new Israel would have no political rights.

His political ambition, he says, is to fulfill the religious destiny of
the Jewish people. For 18 years, he has      imagined himself Israel's
leader and the people's savior. The political leader of the Israeli
state, he says, "becomes the successor to Ben-Gurion, but also to Moses
and David."

Important figures in the Bush administration, and nearly all of the
neoconservative intellectuals who now dominate the Washington policy
debate, have endorsed Sharon's campaign against Palestinian terrorism,
and the methods he is using. They believe that military force ultimately
decides conflicts like this one. There is no compromise solution, they
say, because concessions by one side feed the ambitions of the other,
which takes them as evidence of weakness.

It is illusion, they say, to think that mutual advantage can be found in
settlement. One side must prevail. Years of American efforts to bring
about a peaceful Middle East
settlement have been a waste of time, or worse, they say. The
Palestinians' terrorism demonstrates that they wish to destroy Israel.
The Palestinians will be defeated only by the killing or imprisoning of
their leaders and activists, with devastating and exemplary collective
punishment for the society that harbors and encourages terrorists.

As for other Islamic governments and the "Arab street," they can be
ignored. The Arabs will submit; they simply have to be convinced that
the United States, as well as Israel, is determined to have its way. If
one or another authoritarian or dictatorial Arab government is
overturned by rioters, it is of no real consequence to Americans or
Israelis. The complaints of Europeans and others display illusions about
power, or cowardice; they are irrelevant.

This is brutal stuff, but I do not believe that I am unfairly
summarizing what the Sharon government and its American sympathizers
really think about the situation.

However, George W. Bush has shocked them by coming out against what
Israel has been doing. He demands immediate halt to the Israeli military
offensive, withdrawal from the Palestinian territories, a stop to
colonization, humane treatment of the Palestinians and negotiated
settlement on the Mitchell terms in order to create an independent Palestine.

Sharon has to refuse, however much he will temporize, with partial
withdrawals and promises. Some other Israeli government might accept
Bush's demands, but Sharon can't. He believes that Israel's destiny is
at stake. That is why Effi Eitam has entered his government. Sharon will
do what he can to appease Bush, but he means to continue what he has begun.

Some in the Bush administration have hinted of compromises. Bush has
not. He clearly was angry on Monday when he spoke out spontaneously in
Knoxville. He wants his demands obeyed. This is new and unexpected. If
Bush thinks himself personally affronted by the Israeli prime minister
(who once before warned the president against a "Munich" that would
abandon Israel), a new and unpredictable factor has been introduced into
the situation.

Several forces converge. The test point is whether Bush sticks to his
new policy. If he does not, he would seem to confirm the humiliating
accusation that he is unable to stand up to Sharon. For Israel to accept
the president's demands would undoubtedly produce a government crisis.
The Labor Party would by no means automatically replace the Sharon
government. Benjamin Netanyahu and General Eitam would both be
candidates for the succession. Whatever happens in Jerusalem, two
hypotheses currently defended in Israel and in Washington seem about to
be given reality tests.

The first is the claim that what happens on the "Arab street" is
unimportant to the United States. The second is that terrorism can be
crushed for good through military repression.

[END]


(Source:  http://www.iht.com/articles/54419.htm )

=====

Thought for the Day: 

"The child's sob in the silence curses deeper than the strong man in 
his wrath."

(Elizabeth Barrett Browning)