Palestinians and Iraqis Share Plight

Whether one likes it or not, Palestinians and Arab nations at large see both the Palestinian cause and the suffering of the Iraqi people as interwoven and inseparable.

This might explain the lukewarm--or even slightly hostile--reception that met U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell during his recent visit to the Arab countries in his Middle East tour. It was clear, even to the ordinary Arab man on the street, that the administration of President George W. Bush might be highly influenced by the policy of his father--former President George Bush--on Iraq. Whether this assumption proves true or not, the Feb. 12 airstrikes near Baghdad enhanced some Palestinians’ worst concerns; they even imagined that there was some sort of American-Israeli coordination to deliberately target Iraq in hopes of diverting international attention from the Palestinian intifada.

But with the goals set for Powell’s visit being contradictory--at least from the view of the Arab world--a real perplexity is emerging over the weird combination of a vague American readiness to revive the “clinically dead” Palestinian-Israeli peace process on the one hand and the saber-rattling over the Iraqi “no-fly” zones on the other. There is some degree of conviction here that the United States has been principally concerned all along with its own interests in addition to so-called “Israeli security.”

This is tantamount to a tightrope policy, simply because American interests in the Arab world can never be safeguarded when the U.S. turns a blind eye to Palestinian suffering and tacitly approves Israeli atrocities committed in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Israel might be the most established democracy in the Middle East, but it has not behaved as such in its treatment of the Palestinians, whose lands have been relentlessly occupied for more than 33 years. Every day, Palestinian lands are expropriated to build Jewish settlements and construct bypass roads, their houses are demolished, and they are deprived of their basic human rights. Yet some foreign powers--dazzled by the Israeli “democratic” propaganda--ignore the Palestinian plight.

On the other side of the equation, nobody can deny the despotic nature of the Iraqi regime. Yet it is for the Iraqi people themselves to decide their destiny and to change the situation should they so opt for a change.

The unsolved riddle is why the United States does not object to the other totalitarian rulers in the region that Washington seeks to befriend or is already allied with. A decade after the Gulf War--in which Powell was an active military participant--he visits a region still affected with the tremors from that war. What makes matters worse is the Israeli connection. To the Arabs, Ariel Sharon and President Bush are coordinating their efforts to contain not only the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction but Palestinian national aspirations as well.

One can easily conclude that a more moderate U.S. policy toward Iraq--one that takes into account the suffering of the Iraqi people, together with rehabilitating their country for reentry into the international community--could have a far-reaching impact on the Arab world’s image of the United States.

The Bush administration’s task is not easy. The Palestinians and Arab masses need to be convinced that the U.S. can be an evenhanded peace-broker. An important element could be Bush’s father’s historic stance against Jewish settlements in 1992; it was not by coincidence that most American Arabs voted for his son. Now they are waiting for a substantial shift in U.S. policy--an anticipation shared by Palestinians here. There is no place for more frustrations; a disastrous situation is deteriorating very quickly.