Current Bulletin Issue - Volume 18, Bulletin 1, March 2005

• PDF version available here  

Morocco Egypt Sudan Iraq

Saudi Arabia Yemen Kazakhstan

INCITEMENT TO VIOLENCE

An editorial in the Saudi newspaper Arab News cited in the Saudi Arabia section below is a good example of how the Arab press distorts facts, incites to violence and provokes terrorism. It starts with “Bush went beyond the role of mediator and broker by ceding basic Palestinian rights and land directly to Israel.” President Bush did nothing of the sort. The conflict is over land that is by definition “in dispute” until the negotiations within the “road map” framework have been successfully concluded. So Bush ceded no Palestinian land to Israel. He expressed an opinion about how the land in dispute should be divided between the parties and even hedged it by adding that it should require the approval of both parties. Moreover, the “road map” stipulates that, before land, borders and Palestinian rights are discussed, the PLO must collect illegal arms and destroy the infrastructure of Palestinian terrorism. Even then, there can be no “Palestinian right” to swamp Israel with Arab refugees and the Palestinians should not assume that all their territorial demands will be met. A compromise is much more likely and a better basis for stability in future.

The Saudi editorial continues with a series of distortions. A glance at the map shows that building 3,500 additional houses in or near Maale Adumim will not “cut the West Bank off from Arab Jerusalem” or necessarily “leave the Palestinians with a smaller state” (e.g. if other land is ceded to them in compensation). Nor will it affect the moving of the PLO capital to Jerusalem, which will be decided by other considerations. The US has called for a freeze on settlement construction but does not regard these settlements as illegal.

The killing of the three Palestinian teenagers on the Philadelphi route (not in Rafah) was organized by PLO security bosses Musa Arafat and Abu Shbak, who paid each of them 1,500 shekels (about $350) to cross this route, knowing they would be shot at. The “Palestinian activists” – far from not calling off the truce – responded by intensifying their mortar bombardment of the Katif Bloc, intending to prove that Israel’s retreat from the Gaza Strip is due to them and not to Sharon’s decision. Finally, the Jews who want to pray on Temple Mount have no plans to “storm” or enter the Al-Aqsa Mosque. The police have not allowed such prayers due to the serious risk the Arabs may shoot or knife them.

This kind of propaganda is endemic to the entire Arab world and is one the main reasons why the Israel-Arab conflict continues.