sipila
Thu, 24 Jan 2002 20:42:04 -0800
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2002 16:14:48 PST
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [R-G] U.S. silence may signal rare free hand for Israeli military
moves - Haaretz
Haaretz Thursday, January 24, 2002
As war cries ring out, U.S. silence may signal rare free hand for Israeli
military moves
By Bradley Burston, Ha'aretz Correspondent
With talk of all-out war resounding in the Holy Land, the Bush
administration has granted Israel its widest military freedom of action
since - in an ominous precedent - a Republican administration turned a blind
eye to Ariel Sharon's 1982 invasion of Lebanon.
Hardliners on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have issued
repeated calls to turn a runaway spiral of escalation into full-bore
military conflict. Although their war cries have often been been sounded in
the past, Washington's tacit approval of recent IDF military moves, coupled
with its continuing pressure on Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to crack
down on militants in his midst, represents a marked departure from nearly
two decades of nominal American even-handedness toward the battling sides.
Even U.S. diplomats whom Israeli hawks have viewed with suspicion as overly
balanced toward the Palestinians, have weighed in on the side of
non-intervention with IDF operations. Pressed by leftist Jewish and Arab
students to speak out against Israeli military policies in the territories,
U.S. Ambassador Dan Kurtzer declared Wednesday:
"I have to tell you honestly - we are not going to solve the Arab-Israeli
conflict. The United States is not going to do it. If the people, the
Israelis and Palestinians, don't put pressure on their governments to solve
it, it doesn't matter who you get as a third party. The EU is not going to
solve it, the UN is not going to solve it, Russia is not going to solve it,
the United States is not going to solve it. It's going to require a deep,
enduring commitment of the Israeli and Palestinian people to want to solve
it, and then we can come in and help do so.
The Twin Towers and Pentagon terror strikes, as manifest in U.S. domestic
politics, are at the root of the sea-change in U.S. policy toward the
conflict, observes Ha'aretz commentator Akiva Eldar. In American eyes,
"September 11 has dramatically changed the balance of powers" in the
Israeli-Palestinian sphere, Eldar says. In the new perception, Israel is
seen as the equivalent of New York and the Pentagon, an identification only
reinforced by recent news footage of Palestinian gunmen killing civilians
celebrating a bat mitzva in Hadera or returning home from work on a main
Jerusalem thoroughfare.
"Since Bin Laden is not currently in the headlines, Arafat has in a sense
been replacing him" in the popular view. "So Arafat is actually becoming
what Sharon wanted him to be, Israel's version of Bin Laden," Eldar
continues.
Only at the beginning of the 1982 Lebanon war, when then-defense minister
Ariel Sharon convinced Reagan White House officials that only a limited
incursion was contemplated, has Israel enjoyed such a free hand to carry out
military policy, independent of the ally that supplies it with indispensable
military aid and materiel, Eldar says.
A decidedly pro-Israel tone among U.S.elected officials has become more
evident as November Congressional elections near. In an unprecendented
circumstance - and in the face of security threats - there have been no
fewer than nine U.S. Congressional delegations visiting Israel in the last
two weeks. Most, vowing support for Israel, snubbed Arafat altogether.
In the highest-profile visit of an American dignitary, former president Bill
Clinton embraced Sharon, openly telling his Israeli hosts that the
Palestinian leader was to blame for the failure of what Clinton called the
"golden opportunity" for peace that the previous Israeli government had
offered him at the ill-fated July, 2000 Camp David summit.
At present, the only substantial pressure being applied on the Bush
administration from domestic constituencies is coming from pro-Israel
figures, Eldar says. U.S. officials have said privately that the American
Jewish community has taken administration officials to task for maintaining
channels of communication with Arafat and his deputies.
"The Arab lobby, the Egyptians, the Saudis don't seem to care anymore,"
Eldar says, adding that U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell has refrained
from applying brakes on Sharon, while Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and
other senior officials are concentrating their Middle East attentions almost
exclusively on Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan.
Arafat has also undermined his own cause, Eldar notes, having embarassed
Jerusalem-based U.S. diplomats, traditionally his allies and advocates, by
lying to them on such key issues as curbing militants and Palestinian
involvement in the weapons-laden ship intercepted by Israel.
"Arafat hasn't changed. What has changed is Israel's strategy," Eldar says.
"Shimon Peres told the Knesset recently that we'd had five quiet days, but
when Sharon was asked about it, he said there hadn't been quiet for as much
as a minute. The Palestinians are now convinced that Sharon keeps provoking
the violence, and that the Americans refuse to see this."
In the end, the White House may find its current policy counter-productive -
perhaps dangerously so. "At the end of the day, when the fire gets out of
control, it may hit American targets here and elsewhere. Then, the U.S. will
have to do something. But it may be too late, because Arafat may by then
have lost control."
Eldar says that, from the Bush Aministration's standpoint, the red line that
Sharon dare not cross is assassinating Arafat. "They are afraid of the chaos
that might ensue. The embassy and the CIA are telling Washington that no one
knows what will happen after Arafat, and the chances that it will get worse
are greater than the chances of any improvement."
http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=120966&displayTyp
eCd=1&sideCd=1&contrassID=2
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