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CounterPunch
December
17, 2002
A Middle East Peace Process
...Without the Middle East
by ROBERT FISK
The Independent
First, it was Secretary of State Colin Powell
who announced a Middle East peace conference. That was back
in the spring--nothing happened.
There was no peace conference. Now it's
Tony Blair announcing a conference, along with that familiar
rider about Palestinian "reform"--which means getting
rid of Y Arafat Esq. But the Palestinians--now that Mr Bush
has told them to ditch the corrupt Palestinian leader--will
probably elect Arafat as their leader next month. So is Mr Blair
planning to invite the bewhiskered old revolutionary to London?
"Not expected to attend," said a source. Or one of
his henchmen? Or a new squeaky-clean, unelected leader of "Palestine"?
Funny how our Prime Minister is already referring to Palestine
as if it's a country, rather than a bit of an occupied, colonised
land, the 22 per cent of the original British mandate Palestine
that is left up for grabs.
Funny how our Prime Minister can waffle
on about George Bush's "vision" of two states--Israel
and Palestine--as if the President means what he says. Israeli
prime minister Ariel Sharon has no intention of allowing a viable
state to exist to Israel's east. And he, apparently, isn't even
invited to London for the Blair conference. Nor is Arafat.
So what chance Palestine? "Reform" is a good line.
The Americans will agree with it and the Israelis will agree
with it and a lot of Palestinians will agree with it-- because
Arafat is indeed a failure, though not for the reasons  America and Israel believe. We want
"democracy", accountability, human rights in Palestine--all
those things, in fact which Mr. Blair's current guest, President
Bashar Assad, has so far failed to create in Syria. And what
is the last figure by which President Assad was elected?
Or by which his father was elected? Wasn't
it up there in the 90 per cents? My goodness, how Mr Blair would
like an election victory figure like that.
But let's be fair. America puts Syria
on the "sponsor of terrorism" list and Tony Blair
invites Bashar Assad to London. He gets the red carpet treatment.
Then Mr Blair invites the Palestinians; and Arafat--desperate
for continued recognition, however humiliating--says he'll send
a "delegation". The European Union will be represented,
along with the UN and the United States and, of course, that
well-known democrat whose army is currently crushing and raping
its way through Chechnya. In January--just next month--Mr Blair
is going to "fix"' the Middle East.
And the aim will be--so the Foreign Office
tells us--to "focus on how Palestinian reform can be accelerated."
Accelerated? Amid the rubble of the Palestinian Authority offices
and police stations and administration buildings-- all destroyed
courtesy of the Boeing Corporation and other Israeli arms suppliers--"reform"
is going to be "accelerated", is it? There are times,
indeed, when Downing Street seems as far away from Jerusalem
as Washington.
And Mr Blair told us it was important
to "engage" with Syria--presumably because Mr Bush
can't and won't--and pointed out that Syria "is going to
be an important part of building a peaceful and stable future
in the Middle East."
Which is all well and good. But what
about Israel? What about Mr Ariel Sharon, the "man of peace"--
according to Mr. Bush--who goes on building more and more and
more Jewish settlements in the occupied territories?
Well, just like so much of Mr Blair's--and
Mr Bush's-- Middle East "policy", what you really don't
want to see, you can just wish away.
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