U.S. role as honest broker in Mideast challenge
UNITED NATIONS (IPS)—When Yasser Arafat was asked what he plans to do about
the rising violence in the West Bank and Gaza, the Palestinian leader
pointedly blamed the military excesses on the Israelis.
As is obvious to everyone, Mr. Arafat declared, the overwhelming number of
killings were by heavily-armed Israelis firing at unarmed Palestinians.
As the death toll rose to more than 220, almost all of them Palestinians, the
Israeli military is increasingly deploying its U.S.-supplied Cobra
helicopters, rockets and missiles against Palestinian targets, including a
vehicle carrying a Palestinian militia leader who was killed in a rocket
attack recently.
"They are not my helicopters, they are not my tanks, they are not my
missiles," Mr. Arafat told reporters during a recent visit to the White
House. "I have only one aeroplane."
The ongoing battle between machine gun-wielding Israelis and rock-throwing
Palestinians continues to remain totally uneven and one-sided.
"A supposed peace-broker supplies one of the sides with $2 billion worth of
arms per year,’’ says Mark Steel, a columnist for the London-based
Independent. "So if they want to be truly neutral they should either cut that
out or, more controversially, send the Palestinians $2 billion worth of
rubble.’’
Traditionally, the United States has tried to play the role of the "honest
broker’’ in mediating the dispute between Israelis and Palestinians, and
also between Israelis and Arabs.
But the billions of dollars in U.S. economic and military aid doled out to
Israel every year—$1.9 billion in outright military grants and $1.2 billion
in economic aid—clearly signal a far greater U.S. commitment to Israel than
to the Palestinians.
A public opinion poll conducted recently by the Bir Zeit University in Israel
revealed that about 97 percent of the Palestinians feel that the United
States can no longer be accepted as an honest broker in any Middle East peace
negotiations.
The survey, which was conducted in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza,
also revealed that Palestinians are increasingly of the view that future
peace talks should be sponsored either by the United Nations or by some other
international organization, not by the United States.
The growing anti-American sentiments among Palestinians were also reflected
in the strong support for military attacks against U.S. targets in the Middle
East.
The rising anger at the United States is predicated primarily on the
unrelenting U.S. support for the Israelis—irrespective of whether Israel is
right or wrong.
Israel, on the other hand, has continued to prevail in the Middle East
largely because of its prodigious military strength built almost entirely on
U.S. military aid and the uninterrupted supply of state-of-the-art U.S.
weapons systems.
According to the latest "Middle East Military Balance, 1999-2000", published
by Tel Aviv University’s Jafee Center for Strategic Studies, Israel continues
to maintain a military superiority strong enough to face any combination of
Arab forces.
As numbers go, Israel has a total of 624 U.S.-supplied fighter planes
compared with Syria’s 520, Egypt’s 498 and Jordan’s 91. Israel is also armed
with 289 combat helicopters compared with Syria’s larger fleet of 295,
Egypt’s 224 and Jordan’s 68. On land, Israel has 3,895 battle tanks against
Syria’s 3,700, Egypt’s 2,535 and Jordan’s 872.
Last April, Israel announced plans to spend over $3 billion through 2005,
primarily on additional fighter planes and helicopters, in order to
strengthen the rapid mobility capabilities of the military following Israel’s
withdrawal from southern Lebanon after 18 years of occupation. Israel invaded
Lebanon in 1982 and pulled out in May 2000.
Last year Israel came up with a $17 billion dollar shopping list for new
weapons—including additional fighter planes, helicopters, military transports
and reconnaissance satellites—as a part of a U.S. compensation package in
return for Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights.
The costs of withdrawal, along with the construction of new bases, were
expected to total more than 10 billion dollars. Over a 10-year period, the
eventual costs of the Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights were
estimated at a staggering 60 to 80 billion dollars—virtually all of it coming
from the United States.
Although the United States is also the primary arms supplier to Egypt
providing about 1.3 billion dollars in outright military grants annually,
Washington has always ensured that the Israelis have a qualitative military
edge over the Egyptians.
http://www.finalcall.com/international/mideast11-28-2000.htm
