Mideast Folcrum
By Adel Darwish
Tuesday, October 2, 2001; Page A25
Support for President Bush's call to arms against terrorism is falling
short of that his father received 11 years ago at the start of the
Gulf
War. Then, the majority at an Arab summit joined the U.S. coalition
that
defeated Iraq, another member of the Arab League.
But unlike the clear aims of the Gulf War -- to defeat Saddam Hussein
and
liberate Kuwait -- which were achieved seven months later, the aims
of this
President Bush's undertaking are far from clear, and the enemy has
not been
sharply defined.
"Who will America fight in Afghanistan?" screamed a front-page
headline in
a Cairo newspaper last week. Below the headline was a picture of starving
Afghan refugees.
A decade ago, Saddam Hussein's brutality, aggression and violation
of
international law were clear to all. Today America is being asked,
both
openly in Arab and European editorials and in diplomatic talks, to
provide
material and forensic evidence linking Osama bin Laden and the Taliban
to
the terror attacks of Sept. 11. British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw
heard
that request in Cairo, just as American diplomats have heard it from
some
Muslim leaders. Straw was told that military action should be confined
to
"surgical strikes" that would harm no civilians.
With regard to Arab opinion, the Bush administration's hands-off approach
to the deteriorating situation between the Palestinians and Israelis
and
the escalating violence between the two sides hasn't helped. Arab regimes
have nodded approvingly as Arab journalists attacked Israel and the
United
States -- attacks that provide a diversion from their own violations
of
human rights and their undemocratic ways. Anti-American propagandists
have
been given a great opportunity to make their case to the Arab masses
that
Israel and the United States are acting in concert. They neglect, of
course, to remind those who celebrated the appalling attacks on America
that U.S. taxpayers have actually been helping to feed and house them.
Even in moderate Middle Eastern nations ruled by pro-American governments,
such as Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, print and television
journalists refer to suicide bombers -- regardless of their targets
-- as
"martyrs," while speaking highly critically of U.S. policy. The current
American rhetoric and the use of the word "terrorists" instead of
"terrorism" is also criticized by many Arab commentators.
One of them, in a Kuwaiti paper, accused America of a double standard
for
accepting Israel's labeling of Lebanese Hezbollah fighters as "terrorists"
when they "fought against uniformed Israeli soldiers occupying part
of
their country while Israel's helicopter attacks with American-made
missiles
to assassinate a Palestinian activist in a block of flats, which also
killed a schoolboy, were not called terrorism."
The anti-Americanism, which has increased greatly since the "Palestinian
Intifada" began a year ago, has been evident in popular Arab media
for
years. Unfortunately for America, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
long ago
became the fulcrum upon which the political equilibrium of the Middle
East
rests and the lens through which Arab opinion makers view international
politics.
"America had a golden opportunity to improve its image in the Islamic
world," said an editorial last week in the Cairo daily Al-Guomhoria,
which
supports Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, "but unwisely wasted it
by
siding with Israel against the Palestinians and the rest of the Muslim
nations."
The leaders of Saudi Arabia and Egypt have both suffered from the acts
of
Islamic fundamentalist terror groups, including bin Laden's gang, and
would
-- in private -- welcome an alliance with America as an opportunity
to
destroy organizations that assist terrorists. "But they can't openly
take
part in a coalition that includes Israel, as it would be seen in the
region
as furthering Israeli aims," said a top Egyptian diplomat who has recently
been in consultation with Saudi Arabians.
Are the Saudis' fears well grounded? Perhaps they are looking at Egypt,
where the religious establishment seems to be out of the government's
control. Most of its 1,000 imams ignored requests to hold special services
in Egyptian mosques for the victims of the terror attacks, even though
four
Egyptians have been confirmed among the dead in the World Trade Center.
First
printed in the washington Post 2 October 2001
