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Irony over palestine { July 20 1969 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/opinion/03_02_03_f.htmhttp://www.dailystar.com.lb/opinion/03_02_03_f.htm
Opinion
Irony as Columbia breaks up over America’s Palestine
"Shuttle Columbia breaks up over America’s Palestine at an altitude of 65 kilometers," is how Saudi, pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat headlines its coverage of the disaster that struck the US spaceship as it re-entered Earth’s atmosphere following a 16-day space research mission.
The paper was pointing to the quirk of fate that saw seven astronauts including Israel’s first man in space die as Columbia disintegrated over a city named Palestine in the state of Texas.
Editorially, Jordanian columnist Basem Sakkijha writes in the Amman daily Al-Dustour: "We drove on one occasion through Dallas, Texas, without realizing that a city called Palestine was only 100 kilometers away. When following news of Columbia, I was surprised to hear that the US space shuttle disintegrated over the city carrying the world’s loveliest of names: Palestine.
"The twist of fate does not end there. I then realized that the seventh astronaut on the shuttle was Ilan Ramon, an Israeli Air Force colonel, whose biggest achievement in life was the (June 1981) bombing of Iraq’s Tammouz nuclear reactor (near Baghdad) --
Another irony is that the shuttle’s space mission during its time in orbit related to spy satellites scanning targets for the war on Iraq."
Sakkijha says while such freaky coincidences are not uncommon in life, "what we need to ponder is the American space tragedy proper because while we grieve over the peace-lovers among its victims, we cannot but cast doubt on the malevolent use of science to launch satellites that, instead of serving mankind, the environment and economic well-being, are meant to pave the way for massacres and wars."
Another Jordanian daily, Al-Rai, says the loss of shuttle Columbia and its crew of seven is a "loss to humanity as a whole."
Ever since Neil Armstrong landed on the moon on July 20, 1969, America’s space supremacy has never been in doubt, which puts added moral, political and scientific responsibility on America’s shoulders to work for a better, freer and more democratic world.
Despite the international community’s anxiety over the drumbeats of war being sounded by the neoconservatives in Washington, their militarization of international relations and their espousal of the doctrine of preventive wars that violate international law and the UN Charter, says Al-Rai, the world has sympathized with the US over its new space tragedy. And that, it suggests, should prompt the US administration to rethink its approach to its current standoff with Iraq and to the conduct of its international relations.
The Saudi daily Al-Riyadh, without touching upon the space disaster from far or near, wonders in its lead: "Why doesn’t America engage the Iraqi leadership in a dialogue?"
America, it recalls, "did not shun dialogue with its enemies from the former Soviet Union and its partners; it did not slam the door in the face of many leaders of states that it had opposed for strategic and political reasons, whether in the Arab region or elsewhere in the world. To accept meetings with Iraqi politicians representing Saddam Hussein does not demean America’s prestige. On the contrary, it would give the US the opportunity to listen, to give and take" and to cut short inferences by its adversaries that it is hell-bent on war.
Al-Riyadh recalls that Switzerland has offered to host last-ditch talks between the US and Iraq to avert the war. Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey made the proposition during her half-hour meeting last month with US Secretary of State Colin Powell on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in the Swiss resort of Davos. Geneva hosted a similar, and ultimately unsuccessful, meeting between Iraq’s Tarek Aziz and then US Secretary of State James Baker in Jan. 1991.
"Switzerland put forward the offer in the belief that realistic diplomacy is sure not to embarrass either of the two sides in Baghdad and Washington," the Saudi paper writes. "But America’s doggedness and its refusal to meet with the Iraqis, except those in exile, on grounds that those in Saddam’s circle are killers and outlaws who should not be given such an opportunity, is an irrational political gamble."
America, according to Al-Riyadh, risks repeating Germany’s mistake on the eve of World War II, when it thought it was an invincible power. "The question is not who can defeat the other, but the fallouts of war (on Iraq)," including its cost in human life to the American side, which would ultimately be perceived as the invader.
Another Saudi daily, Al-Watan, lashes out at the double standards underpinning the US argument on the need to divest Iraq of the capability, or the potential capability, to produce nuclear weapons. The newspaper’s lead editorial argues that if weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) are internationally banned, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and its head, Mohammed al-Baradei, who will be going back to Iraq next week as part of the UN effort to disarm the country, should be visiting Israel, which has nuclear weapons that threaten its neighbors.
"Why don’t Mohammed al-Baradei and chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix go to Israel, if only to have a look and not even to search for nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction?" it asks.
Al-Watan calls on the Arab countries to forcefully and persistently demand that Israel be subjected to such inspections in the long run, not only "amid the din of the Iraqi crisis and in its aftermath, but because WMDs are internationally proscribed." Since this is the case, "why are the UN and its Security Council not implementing that ban on countries whose doomsday weapons threaten their neighbors?"
The Saudi paper provides two reasons that have prompted the IAEA to exempt Israel from accountability for its nuclear arms. "We are certain that if Baradei were to merely think of raising questions about Israel’s nuclear program, he would not now be in Vienna as head of the IAEA, but would be unemployed," says the paper, hinting that in its view, the pro-Israel lobby could influence the foreign policies of several major world powers, particularly the US. "The same applies to other international organizations," it says, hinting that Blix and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan are also being manipulated by a powerful and pro-Israel Bush administration.
The second reason is that "the Arab countries themselves have not taken one serious step to rid the region of WMDs, nor have they drummed up international support of the kind that is being mobilized now against Iraq to divest all countries, including Israel, of their WMDs, nor have they ever asked the Security Council to keep the issue on its agenda," laments Al-Watan. "When will that happen?" it asks rhetorically.
Zuhair Qusaibati, in the Saudi-run pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat, focuses on the about turns of Secretary of State Powell, Russia’s flamboyant ultra-nationalist politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky, and "an Arab country which does not border Iraq (presumably Egypt)," which he does not name.
Powell, he remarks, has turned from dove to hawk on the issue of war on Iraq. For instance, he started by telling the National Conference of World Affairs Councils of America in Washington last week: "There are a lot of disagreements around the world on some of our policies a question that our policy with respect to Iraq is not supported by large numbers of Europeans and other nations around the world. But that is anti-American policy. And as policies change, that attitude can change along with policy." But then he went on to declare: "I think we can work our way through this. Success changes attitudes very quickly. And if we are successful with some of our more controversial (Iraq) policies, then I think those attitudes would change."
Zhirinovsky, in turn, a one-time close friend of Saddam, is now visiting Israel to root for war on Iraq, remarks Qusaibati. And the capital of an Arab country, which does not border Iraq, is waging a vehement campaign against Saddam that duplicates rhetoric it launched on the eve of the 1991 Gulf War.
Only South Africa’s former president, Nelson Mandela, refuses to be two-faced, remaining fearful for the Iraqi people’s fate and the UN’s future and warning of a new holocaust.
Writing in the pan-Arab daily Al-Quds al-Arabi, Sudanese commentator Abdelwahab al-Affendi says Saddam "cannot have been transformed into a hero in the eyes of the majority of Arabs and Muslims and a sizeable group of other human beings unless they know that his adversaries are responsible for crimes that dwarf the horrors attributed to him."
Last week’s scathing attack by Mandela on US plans for war on Iraq was direct and harsh, eschewing the usual diplomatic language that would have observed niceties toward Washington by merely asking the US to avoid precipitous action. But he did not mince his words, "describing US President George W. Bush personally as shortsighted, and accusing the US of coveting Iraq’s oil."
The significance of Mandela’s attack does not merely spring from the fact that it was sharp, direct and stronger than anything that has even come out of Baghdad, but from the fact that someone of his international and moral stature should have chosen to speak out in this way. Realizing that it could not possibly accuse Mandela of being a hypocrite or of having vested interests in defending Iraq, "the White House could not but acknowledge that Mandela is a great man, despite his harsh criticism of the White House’s master," says Affendi. He compares that reaction by the US administration to its earlier "campaign" against the leaders of US allies France and Germany, whom it accused of "representing old Europe" and of being marginal merely because they had "timidly criticized Bush."
Mandela’s wrath against the US is typical of the feelings harbored by the majority around the world, and even by some Americans, and has several reasons. "There is a general feeling that the US wants to do to the world what Saddam has done to Iraq," Affendi writes. Power has gone to Washington’s head, and it has adopted an arrogant, bullying stance, and "neither heeds the advice of those who have compassion, nor listens to the complaints of those with grievances."
The "resentment expressed by Mandela represents popular world resentment against the unjust balance of power and the flagrant exploitation of such a balance to consecrate the injustice and repression in the region and the world," he continues. Arabs and Muslims see the regional balance of power that favors Israel over the Arabs as an extension of the international situation, "which represses the (pan-Arab) nation and its aspirations."
In the Iraqi daily Babil, Abderrazzak al-Hashemi comments on what he calls the "Advertisement Leaders" in a reference to the letter that the leaders of Britain, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Hungary, Poland, Denmark and the Czech Republic published last week in several newspapers, including the London Times and Spain’s El Pais, to declare that the relationship between Europe and the US must not become a casualty of Baghdad’s "persistent attempts to threaten world security."
Hashemi says: "One weird aspect of current international diplomacy is for heads of state and government to pay for publishing an advertisement in the media in which they express their support for the US administration in its aggressive and criminal attitude toward Iraq -- Why would heads of state and government resort to such an odd measure to express their view on an issue which is so vital to the world? Does it mean that they are expressing their personal view, which does not express the official viewpoint of their respective countries? Does this mean that the decision-making bodies in their countries namely, the council of ministers and parliament do not share their support of the US administration?"
Hashemi says the answer to all these questions is undoubtedly "yes," because "only private individuals and nongovernmental organizations resort to such means to express their opinion on issues of war and peace."
Recourse to paid advertisements shows the problem that Washington is facing in rallying support for its war schemes, according to Hashemi, who concludes with a sarcastic remark, saying: "We hope we won’t see another advertisement in some of our Arab newspapers, although we are aware that the Arab ruler is in a position to wheedle out such resolutions from legitimate branches of government in his country."
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