As he addressed the influential pro-Israeli American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) recently, US President George W. Bush repeatedly invoked the desire for security as a common denominator between the United States and Israel. Yet not once did he recognize the Palestinians' right to self-defense.
Bush's wholehearted support for Israel took place while an indiscriminate Israeli onslaught on Palestinians continued in the Rafah area of Gaza, with tanks, bulldozers and helicopters. Yet somehow, Bush couldn't muster the courage to condemn Israel's killing of innocent Palestinians, the demolition of Palestinian homes and the displacement of more than 2,000 people. At best the president said: "The unfolding violence in the Gaza Strip is troubling and underscores the need for all parties to seize every opportunity for peace."
The reluctance to unequivocally condemn or rebuke Israel mirrored Bush's earlier reluctance to immediately issue an apology to Iraqis and Arabs for the systematic abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib. Events in Iraq are consuming Bush. They are blurring the realities on the ground and complicating US foreign policy when it comes to dealing with Israel. They are also contributing to a disturbing phenomenon underscoring American and Israeli policies: The "war on terrorism" has sanctioned inhumane practices against those deemed to be "the enemy."
It is Washington's unconditional endorsement of Israel that cultivates and nurtures anti-American sentiment in the Arab world and increases militancy in the region. The US, which many around the world look to as a beacon of higher moral authority, is today, among most Arabs and Muslims, regarded as hypocritical.
Despite the international outcry against Israel's actions in Rafah, Bush stood before his prospective electoral constituency and ludicrously called Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's unilateral disengagement plan in Gaza, "a bold, courageous step, that can bring us closer to the goal of two states, Israel and Palestine, living side-by-side in peace and security." Such a message, irrespective of what administration officials say about the evenhandedness of America's Middle East policy, provides Israel with a blank check to do as it pleases, secure in the knowledge that it will, at most, be reprimanded by the UN Security Council.
To the Arab world, Bush's AIPAC speech typified the evangelical zeal of the president, but also his inability to grasp the fundamentals lying at the heart of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Bush said a secure Israel was in the national interest of the US. But isn't a secure Palestine also in its interest? The lives of Israelis are sacred. But are the lives of Palestinians so cheap? The words of Israeli soldiers and government officials are credible. Are those of Palestinians merely allegations, fabrications and exaggerations? These are the questions Arabs bring up when asked what they think about US foreign policy in the Middle East.
That the Palestinians are treated as inferior to Israelis by the US, that a majority of Arabs must yield to America's vision of how the region should behave (lest they be labeled enemies of freedom and democracy, or terrorist collaborators), both speak to Bush's failures. Instead of leading by example, by consensus or by evenhandedness, the president leads by intimidation and all-or-nothing policies.
This is, at least, how he is viewed in the Arab world, and no light is visible at the end of that tunnel. American sponsored initiatives like Radio Sawa or the Al-Hurra satellite television channel do little to reduce anti-American sentiment. If anything, the outlets are viewed with cynicism and provoke a belief that the US prefers such gimmickry to engaging Arab leaders and peoples, or to putting pressure on Israel to honor its commitments to the Palestinians.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell told Congress that the US invasion of Iraq would play a salient role in shifting the balance of power in the Middle East, so that eventually peace and democracy would emerge from the fog of war. What Powell, Bush and other US officials fail to consider is that Osama bin Laden, Hamas and every other terrorist or militant group that comes out of the region will thrive for as long as there is no just solution to the Palestinian problem.
It would have been more appropriate for Bush to tell his AIPAC audience that Israel's operation in Gaza would most certainly add fuel to the fire, that it would merely increase Palestinian bitterness and hatred and would definitely provide ammunition to zealots on both sides of the Palestinian-Israeli divide to carry on with their destructive agendas.
If Bush had pursued Middle East peace with the same fortitude that he displayed in waging war, he might well have succeeded in bringing about a Palestinian-Israeli settlement. Yet when the US presidential election takes place next November, Bush will primarily be remembered for his legacy of war.
Massoud A. Derhally is a freelance journalist, political commentator and former correspondent of Agence France Presse. He wrote this commentary for THE DAILY STAR
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=5&article_id=4635