IRAQ, PALESTINIANS AND US-

"UN" SECURITY COUNCIL RESOLUTIONS

by: Khader Khader & Musa Qous

As US-British threats to use destructive force against Iraq escalated this week, the old/new issue of the double standard in US foreign policy is floating once again to the surface of the Palestinian and Arab political debate.

Palestinians, on both the official and popular levels, have voiced criticism of US president Bill Clinton's administration, which they believe ought to play an honest and neutral mediating role in the peace process between Israel and its Arab neighbors, namely the Palestinians.

The Palestinian Authority minister of planning and international cooperation Nabil Sha'ath said last week that the Palestinian team of negotiators will participate in Washington peace talks with the primary goal of exposing US double standards before the international community. Sha'ath doesn't believe that the upcoming Washington talks will achieve any real breakthrough on the Palestinian-Israeli track.

Talab al-Sane', of the Israeli Knesset faction the Arab Democratic Party, charged in an interview on Palestinian radio on February 8 that the Washington peace talks are an attempt to mislead the public by giving the impression that the US is still responsible for the Middle East peace process and in order to draw the attention away from what is going on in the Gulf area.

For her part, PA minister of higher education Hanan Ashrawi said last week that the US government has always attempted to accommodate the Israeli view at the expense of the Palestinians' political stance. The impasse of the peace process is continuous and the US administration deals continuously with formalities and Israeli issues, Ashrawi said.

On the factional level, the Fateh Higher Committee condemned US double standards and the determined intentions to launch an attack against Iraq. Concluding an urgent meeting called on February 9 in Ramallah, the Committee called for the Palestinian street to launch a series of marches and demonstration in solidarity with Iraqi people. Rejecting the US attack is similar to rejecting Israeli policies, since there is a joint US-Israeli position to attack our people, its achievements and the general Arab will, said Marwan Barghouthi, head of the Fatah Higher Committee in the West Bank. In its February 9 political commentary, Voice of Palestine radio wondered if peace will prevail after the bombardment of Baghdad and establishment of a Kurdish-US state on Arab lands . The radio added that continuing with the status quo in the region means the continuation of suffering on earth.

Popular Palestinian feelings of anger and frustration were expressed in somewhat stronger terms. Several marches and demonstrations were held in Bethlehem, Ramallah, Jenin and Gaza on February 8-9, expressing solidarity with Iraq and condemning Israel, the US and Britain. Frustrated Palestinians clashed with Israeli soldiers, while other raised photos of presidents Yasser Arafat, Saddam Hussein, and the late Jamal 'Abdul Nasser. Teenagers burned US and Israeli flags. The strongest expression yet was a statement issued on February 9 by the Popular Committees in Solidarity with Iraq, formed in recent days in several Palestinian districts. The statement urged Iraqi President Saddam to burn the waters of the Gulf, which are filled with aircraft carriers and weapons. The statement described Israel and the US as being a common enemy to both Iraq and Palestine, accusing the trilateral octopus (Israel, the US and Britain) of being enemies of the world and humanity.

More protest activities are expected to occur in Palestinian lands, especially sit-ins, since Palestinian police chief Maj.-Gen. Ghazi al-Jabali issued instructions on February 10 banning any marches and demonstrations which might lead to violence and disturbances, such as the burning of flags. Similar instructions banning demonstrations were also issued in Jordan.

Angry Palestinian marches and demonstrations spurred immediate reactions from the Israeli establishment. Israeli defense minister Yitzak Mordechai warned Palestinians against organizing demonstrations in support of Iraq. Israeli cabinet secretary Danny Naveh expressed disappointment at the Palestinian street, and accused Fateh of mobilizing Palestinians to go out into the streets chanting slogans calling for Saddam Hussein to strike Israel.

Marwan Kanafani, Palestinian presidential spokesperson, was quick to respond to the Israeli declarations. Kanafani accused Israel of trying to distort the Palestinian position, which believes in peaceful and diplomatic efforts to resolve conflicts. Kanafani added: President Arafat does not believe that force and military action can resolve conflicts. Kanafani explained that the recent spontaneous marches and demonstrations by Palestinians should be viewed within this perspective and as a reaction to Israeli policies and measures taken daily which reject the implementation of agreements signed with the Palestinians and try to create new facts on the ground.

Concerning the stalled Palestinian-Israeli peace process, Palestinian and Israeli negotiators arrived in Washington on February 10 to resume discussions of the recently proposed US ideas. Sa'eb Erekat and Marwan Kanafani met with the US State Department's peace coordinator, Dennis Ross, who earlier met with Israeli delegation leaders, Danny Naveh and Uzi Arad. A US official said the talks were focused on the US ideas, which Israeli sources said were being prepared for presentation as a comprehensive last-ditch effort to save the negotiations. US secretary of state Madeleine Albright commented on the talks by saying, Palestinians and Israelis need to take decisions in order to save the peace process; the crisis with Iraq should not obstruct the efforts exerted in the Middle East peace process. We should not allow any overlap between the Iraqi crisis and the peace process.

President Arafat's initial comment on the Iraqi crisis, that it will complicate the Middle East peace process seems to have come true, since Israel's defiance of the international community and its refusal to implement UN Security Council resolutions 242 and 338 while the US seems determined to use destructive force against Iraq for not agreeing to implement UN Security Council resolution 687 are causing deep popular resentment to emerge. The Iraqi-US-Palestinian-Israeli formula is not too complicated to comprehend, but the means to achieve justice and peace in the Middle East are almost impossible to find in the light of the current foreign policy of the United State of America, and Palestinian-Arab feelings that some UN Security Council Resolutions are more urgent than others.