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Welcome to USAGOLD's "Gilded
Opinion" pages.
We invite you to browse our index
of outstanding gold-based commentary.
(Back to Holger Jensen Index)
While we find Mr. Jensen's columns particularly informative with respect to foreign affairs, his opinions do not necessarily represent those of Centennial Precious Metals, USAGOLD, its management and clientele.
INSIDE FOREIGN AFFAIRS
Sharon's demands made Arab
summit futile effort
by Holger Jensen, International Editor
So the Arab summit in Beirut is less of a summit than was hoped for.
Yasser Arafat is not attending because of tough Israeli conditions that could have barred him from returning to his West Bank headquarters.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon not only demanded that he call a cease-fire -- which Arafat has done before with little effect -- but said Arafat could not go unless the Bush administration backed any Israeli decision to exile the Palestinian leader if violence occurred during his absence.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who advised Arafat not to go, backed out, as did Jordan's King Abdullah. They did not give their reasons, but presumably meant to show their displeasure over Arafat's continued confinement in Ramallah.
Without the moderating influence of the only two Arab leaders whose countries have peace treaties with Israel, the summit is bound to degenerate into another futile exercise in Israel-bashing that helps neither Palestinian nor U.S. regional aspirations, including Arab support for President Bush's war on terrorism.
Other no-shows include the leaders of Libya, Iraq, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, Sudan and the United Arab Emirates.
Libya's erratic leader, Moammar Gadhafi, could always be counted on for comic relief. At last year's summit, he proposed that Israel be allowed to join the Arab League. Before this one, he said Israel should be replaced by a multiethnic democracy called "Isratine" where disarmed Israelis and Palestinians could live together in peace.
However, he didn't go to Beirut to pursue the idea for fear of being lynched by Lebanese Shiites, who blame him for killing their charismatic leader 24 years ago. The Imam Moussa Sadr, founder of the Amal movement, disappeared with two aides during a 1978 visit to Libya at a time when Gadhafi was actively meddling in Lebanon's civil war.
Saudi Arabia's ailing King Fahd, sidelined by a stroke in 1995, no longer attends summits, but his brother, Crown Prince Abdullah, did go to Beirut to seek Arab backing for his vision of Mideast peace.
It promises "normal relations and security for Israel in exchange for full withdrawal from all occupied Arab territories, recognition of an independent Palestinian state with al-Quds al-Shareef (East Jerusalem) as its capital and the return of refugees."
Bush -- enthusiastically in favor of the proposal because it comes from an Arab ruler and offers Israel something the Arabs, collectively, have never offered before -- urged them to "seize the moment" and approve it. Most, with the exception of Gadhafi, have already done so, along with Arafat's Palestinian Authority.
But Sharon has not seized the moment. He argues that Israel cannot give up all the occupied territories without endangering its security. He has made it quite clear that he will never give up the eastern part of Israel's "eternal and undivided capital." And no Israeli leader would ever agree to a return of Palestinian refugees who would outnumber Jews and spell demographic suicide for the Jewish state.
The latest aerial survey by Israel's Peace Now movement found that 34 new Jewish settlements had been built on Palestinian land in the West Bank since Sharon took office 13 months ago. The settlements are a constant goad to Palestinians, who see their future state being swallowed up, and every new one built makes it more difficult for any Israeli government to dismantle them.
Many Israelis agree. Recently, in the daily Ha'aretz, Israel's former attorney general, Michael Ben-Yair, warned that continued occupation means continued war.
"The Six-Day War was forced upon us," he wrote, "but the war's seventh day is the product of our choice. We enthusiastically chose to become a colonial society, ignoring international treaties, expropriating land, transferring settlers from Israel to the occupied territories, engaging in theft and finding justification for all these activities.
"Passionately desiring to keep the territories, we developed two judicial systems, one -- progressively liberal -- in Israel and the other -- cruel, injurious -- in the occupied territories. In effect, we established an apartheid regime, and this oppressive regime exists to this day.
"This is the harsh reality that is causing us to lose the moral base of our existence as a free, just society and to jeopardize Israel's long-term survival."
The Palestinians can only say amen.
March 28, 2002
Send your questions to international editor Holger Jensen, who will answer one each day. E-mail: hjens@aol.com
Copyright © 2002 The E.W. Scripps Co. All Rights Reserved.
Reprinted by USAGOLD with permission of Mr. Jensen. No further reproduction without permission.
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