Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, November 2002, pages 6-7

Special Report

 

Bush and Sharon’s Agendas: War With Iraq, Continued Occupation of Palestine

 

By Rachelle Marshall

With Rumsfeld and Cheney beating the drums, the Bush administration continues to hurtle toward war with Iraq, disregarding the bitter opposition of traditional U.S. allies and despite the skepticism of foreign policy experts and several conservative Republicans. At home critics charge that President George W. Bush has yet to present evidence that Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction, and question whether a country shattered by 11 years of sanctions could pose any conceivable threat to the United States. They also point to the unfinished war in Afghanistan, where U.S. troops are still searching for Taliban forces and violent warlords are holding up aid and reconstruction efforts. Foreign leaders warn that until the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is settled a U.S. attack on an Arab country would be certain to endanger the stability of the entire region. “No Arab leader will be able to contain the emotions of his people,” Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak declared in response to a speech by Cheney on the urgency of ousting Saddam Hussain.

After an Aug. 28 meeting between President Bush and Saudi Ambassador Prince Bandar bin Sultan, Prince Bandar’s foreign policy adviser, Adel al-Jubeir, reaffirmed Saudi opposition to a U.S. attack on Iraq. In an interview on National Public Radio, al-Jubeir argued that pre-emptive war would be a clear violation of international law and could lead to the return of international anarchy. He also questioned the logic of attacking another country simply because “in ten years, or a hundred years” it might acquire nuclear weapons.

In saying to reporters, however, that “There is no country I know of supporting the use of force in Iraq at this time,” al-Jubeir was—perhaps diplomatically—overlooking Israel. When Bush launched his “war on terrorism” following the Sept. 11 attacks, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon gleefully joined up, claiming that both the United States and Israel now faced a common enemy. In return, administration officials, led by National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, obligingly labelled as “terrorists” Hezbollah forces and Palestinian militants fighting Israeli occupation.

Israel would be a more than willing ally in any U.S. action against Iraq, which it regards along with Iran and Syria as bitter enemies. One of Israel’s most powerful support groups in the United States, the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), is waging a “relentless campaign for war” against Iraq, according to a recent Nation article by Jason A. Vest. Vest even quotes a JINSA claim that Yasser Arafat is orchestrating Palestinian violence solely “to protect Saddam.” Vice President Dick Cheney is one of several members of the Bush administration who have served on JINSA’s board of advisers, so it was not surprising that in a speech last February Cheney linked U.S. interests with Israel’s by saying that Iraq was “committed to destroying” the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

Last July Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld included Syria and Iran along with Iraq as sponsors of terrorism against Israel, accusing all three countries of “inspiring and financing a culture of political murder and suicide bombing.” Without presenting any evidence, he claimed that Iran was harboring al-Qaeda fighters.

Finally, at a Pentagon briefing on Aug. 8, Rumsfeld erased all doubts that the Bush administration identified the Sharon government’s policies as its own. In a statement condemning the Palestinian Authority he referred to the West Bank and Gaza as “the so-called occupied territories,” dismissing in a few words longstanding U.S. policy, U.N. Security Council resolutions, international law, and the official position of every major nation in the world—all of which hold Israel’s 35-year occupation to be illegal.

Although the athletic, laid-back Bush and the gross, hard-driving Sharon could hardly seem more different on the surface, their mutual rapport has long been evident. It was clear from their first meeting, shortly after both men took office, that they saw eye to eye on strategic issues. Sharon was one of the few world leaders who endorsed Bush’s plan to back out of the anti-ballistic missile treaty and develop weapons in space. Administration and Pentagon officials regard Israel’s powerful and sophisticated military, which is closely tied to American technology, as a dependable partner in carrying out Bush’s announced policy of extending U.S. power across the globe. Just as crucial is the fact that Bush’s support for Israel assures him of support at home from right-wing Christians and the pro-Israel lobby. In short, the close relationship between Israel and the United States helps each man to carry out his own agenda.

The affinity between Bush and Sharon can also be explained by less tangible factors. Reuven Kaminer, a longtime Israeli peace activist, recently described both leaders as having similar mindsets. In a talk to members of A Jewish Voice for Peace in Palo Alto, he pointed out that they see little value in international cooperation and prefer to go it alone. They brand their adversaries as evil and reject negotiation in favor of force, since their aim is to achieve victory rather than accept any compromise. Sharon declared in an interview in early September that the Oslo agreement and all subsequent agreements with the Palestinians “no longer exist.”

Both men also feel justified in bending the law. Israel’s settlement policy, its destruction of homes, arbitrary arrests, firing on ambulances, use of torture, and indiscriminate killing of civilians are in clear violation of international law, yet arouse no protest from a Bush administration that is itself facing court challenges for its secrecy and denial of constitutional protections to prisoners. It is no coincidence that Israel and the United States are the only two major countries of the world that have refused to ratify the treaty establishing an International Criminal Court.

The most significant result of the Sharon-Bush alliance has been the complete abdication of the United States from effective peacemaking efforts. Immediately after European Union mediators last July secured an agreement by militant Palestinian groups to stop all attacks against Israeli civilians, Sharon undermined the agreement by sending an F-16 jet to demolish a crowded Gaza apartment house. The one-ton bomb killed 15 people, most of them children, and wounded more than a hundred others. The target was a Hamas leader who also died in the raid.There was only minimal protest from the Bush administration, which for nearly two months afterwards ignored the ongoing conflict.

On Aug. 18 Defense Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer and Palestinian security officials reached another agreement, this one calling for Israeli troops to be replaced by Palestinian police in Gaza and Bethlehem, with troop withdrawals from Hebron and other cities to follow. The army withdrew from Bethlehem but continued to surround the city, and immediately after the agreement was signed blew up a building in Gaza, wounding several people. Curfews remained in place in most West Bank cities and soldiers continued to raid Palestinian towns, conduct sweeping arrests, and assassinate suspected militants, despite warnings from Palestinian officials that sooner or later these actions would provoke retaliation.

Finally, strong pressure from Sharon and the right wing forced Ben-Eliezer to announce on Aug. 25 that further troop withdrawals would be postponed indefinitely. Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat accused Israel of “doing its utmost to derail all efforts to restore calmness and resume peace talks.” But Sharon’s minister of public security, Uzi Landau, assailed Ben-Eliezer at a cabinet meeting for agreeing to a withdrawal in the first place. “You should have destroyed the Palestinian Authority to its very foundations,” he said. A few days later, Israel’s chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Moshe Yaalon, referred to the Palestinian Authority as “a cancerous threat,” a comment that Sharon called “true and correct.”

 

Sabotaging Peace Efforts

Landau and Yaalon did no more than state candidly the intention of the Sharon government to continue the conflict until the Palestinian Authority is destroyed and all Palestinian resistance eliminated. To accomplish that end, the Israelis make every effort to assure that truces do not hold. On the night of Aug. 24, during a month-long period of calm and with no provocation, Israeli tanks fired on a Bedouin settlement in Gaza, killing three members of the Hajeen family as they lay sleeping near the family’s fig trees. The mother of two of the men who were killed was herself shot down as she ran to help them, and a 4-year-old son who ran after her was wounded by shrapnel along with several others. Less than a week later two Israeli helicopter gun ships fired on a car carrying two members of the Fatah Movement in what the Israeli military called “a preemptive strike.” The attack missed its targets but burned to death four children and wounded seven others. A day later Israeli soldiers shot to death four unarmed young Palestinians as they rested after their shift at a quarry near Hebron.

The killing of 14 Palestinians over four days took place as senior Palestinian officials were trying to negotiate a cease-fire and were calling for an end to suicide attacks. The helicopter attack on the two Fatah members followed by one day a statement in Yediot Ahronot by Palestinian minister Abdel Razak Yehiyeh denouncing suicide bombings as “murders for no reason.” Meanwhile Deputy Assistant Secretary of State David M. Satterfield was holding talks with Palestinians on the first U.S. mission to the area in several weeks. Satterfield did not criticize Israel’s wanton killing of civilians but devoted his visit entirely to pressing the Palestinians to make political reforms. Following Bush administration policy, he refused to meet with Yasser Arafat.

That policy, which calls for isolating Arafat while giving full support to Israel as it persecutes and starves three million Palestinians, not only prevents any chance of peace but is the cause of increasing tension between the United States and some of its closest allies as the Bush administration moves toward war with Iraq. The tension has become especially acute with Saudi Arabia, which steadfastly insists that the Palestinian-Israeli dispute be settled before there is any discussion of invading Iraq. Much of the recent hostility toward Saudi Arabia emanates from figures within the government. Todd S. Purdom recently wrote in The New York Times that “some of the most vocal advocates of military action against Iraq are also among those pressing hardest in Bush administration circles for a tough new American posture toward the Saudis.”

Since the advocates of military action against Iraq also tend to be strong supporters of Israel, their animosity toward Saudi Arabia is no mystery. The Saudis oppose a military strike against Iraq, but so do almost all U.S. allies. The difference lies in Saudi Arabia’s recent intervention in the Middle East peace process and the alarm it raised among Israel’s U.S. supporters. Last March Saudi Arabia’s acting ruler, Crown Prince Abdullah, proposed a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that called for full recognition of Israel by the Arab states in return for Israel’s withdrawal from the occupied territories. The proposal was welcomed in Europe and formally approved by every Arab state, but was immediately rejected by Israel, which invaded Gaza shortly afterward. Israel’s offensive provoked a series of suicide bombings that buried the Saudi peace offer under a new round of violence.

The effort by pro-Israel hawks to undermine U.S.-Saudi relations highlights the serious risks posed by the administration’s close ties with Israel. Saudi Arabia has for years been America’s most reliable ally in the Middle East, keeping oil prices at a reasonable level and allowing U.S. troops to be stationed on its soil. A rupture in this relationship would come at a high price to both countries. There is no doubt that if Bush rushes ahead with a war against Iraq while continuing to ignore the plight of the Palestinians the United States will lose other friends as well, in Europe as well as the Arab and Muslim world. As a result, America could find itself standing alone, with Israel as its only ally. This would be a dangerous position, even for a superpower, in an increasingly interdependent world.

Rachelle Marshall is a free-lance editor living in Stanford, CA. A member of the International Jewish Peace Union, she writes frequently on the Middle East.

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