According to the daily
Al-Watan, Saudi Arabia has stepped up a diplomatic drive to get Israel to lift its siege of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat and resume Middle East peace talks on the basis of separate proposals made last year by a panel led by former US Sen. George Mitchell and by CIA Director George Tenet to end a wave of Israeli-Palestinian violence that began in 2000. Prince Bandar ibn Sultan, is spearheading contacts with US officials under close supervision from Crown Prince Abdullah, Deputy Prime Minister and commander of the National Guard. The newspaper gave no other details.
Israeli tanks surround Arafat's office in the West Bank town of Ramallah, where Ariel Sharon has confined him since December 2001.
Saudi Arabia's initiative followed extensive contacts between Prince Abdullah and Arab leaders. Crown Prince Abdullah was quoted by the New York Times on Sunday as saying that he had been ready to push for normalizing Arab ties with Israel in return for the Jewish state's withdrawal from all the Palestinian lands it occupied in the 1967 Middle East War, but had changed his mind due to Sharon's oppressive measures to quell the Palestinian uprising.
My biggest disappointment in President George W. Bush has been in how he has allowed himself to be manipulated by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. He has followed the same failed policy that his predecessor did, which can be summed up as "the Israelis are always right, and the Palestinians are always wrong."
This is a convenient policy for politicians who don't want the powerful Israeli lobby on their case. But if the goal is peace, the policy is a failure. If the goal is to protect America's interests, the policy is a failure. If the goal is to bring stability to the Middle East, the policy is a failure. If the goal is to eliminate terrorism, the policy is a failure. When people pursue a policy that has failed to achieve its goals, there are three possible reasons. One, the people are stupid. I think we can eliminate that. Nobody in the White House is stupid. A second reason is that they are afraid to change the policy because of domestic political pressure. A third reason could be that their goals are not the ones they publicly espouse.
I never thought I would feel sympathy for Yasser Arafat, but he's been put into an untenable position. Imagine a football game. Imagine that you take the coach away and lock him up in a room. Imagine that you shoot half his team. And then imagine how silly it sounds when you demand of the coach that he should win the game.
Arafat is under house arrest. He can't walk outside without chipping his teeth on the muzzles of Israeli tanks. For weeks, no matter who did what, the Israelis have bombed and shelled the Palestinian Authority police stations - along with their equipment and files. The Israelis have killed and injured numerous PA policemen. Yet Sharon continues to demand that Arafat stop terrorism, and no matter what Arafat says or what he does, Sharon scoffs at it.
Now, to our international shame, the Bush administration has adopted the same pathetic line. Like a flock of parrots, Bush and his people repeat whatever Sharon says. It's not just people in the Arab countries who see this sorry spectacle. People all over the world are wondering how it is that a little country like Israel can jerk the chain of a powerful nation like the United States.
A few facts: The Palestinians are right. The Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza is illegal. When the occupation ends, peace follows. As long as the occupation continues, so will the resistance.
Sharon has no intention of ending the occupation or of negotiating in good faith. Israel's treatment of the Palestinians is a brutal record of human rights violations, violations of the Geneva Accords and violations of United Nations Security Council resolutions.
It ought to make every American angry that our politicians tell us UN Security Council resolutions are worth the lives of Americans to enforce against Iraq but are to be vetoed and spit upon when directed at Israel. Our policy is an insult to anyone who supports the United Nations, and, frankly, people in Europe are getting sick of it.
Israel has hired two public relations firms, in addition to its American lobby, because it is scared to death that Americans are going to wake up and see the connection between the Israel First policy and the attacks that occurred Sept. 11. It need not worry about the Bush administration or most of the Israel First journalists, but I hope the American people have not all lost their ability to think and to reason. In the meantime, the Bush administration ought to replace the American eagle with a parrot clutching an Israeli flag in one claw and a tin cup in the other.
S.M.Ahmad (Jeddah): Many non-Muslims wonder why they are not allowed to visit Mecca and Medina, though Muslims are allowed to visit their holy cities and shrines. Please comment.
Adil Salahi (Arab News staff): No political or human authority made the restrictions on entry to Mecca and Medina. Thus they cannot be questioned as if the Government or a ruler were responsible for them. The argument of equal treatment cannot be used here. Moreover, Muslims have not asked the authorities of other religious faiths to open their places of worship to them. These authorities decide whether to invite or prevent visitors. Suppose, for argument's sake, that the Vatican authorities decide to ban non-Catholic people from visiting their city. Will anyone have the right to question them? It is their city and they do in it what they like.
The prohibition clearly indicates that God wants to keep Mecca a city secure for worship. Therefore, it is totally unacceptable to turn it into a tourist resort. The same applies to Medina, which the Prophet himself restricted to Muslims alone. When God and His Messenger decree something, we must obey their decree.
