Gaza Resist

With a name meaning ‘Two Seas’ it is little wonder that Bahrain, an archipelago of 33 islands in the Gulf, defines itself in relation to the water that surrounds its shallow shores.

Modern developments
Those shallows once harboured a precious trade in pearls; now the same shallows are being reclaimed for ambitious, high profile developments, such as the twin 50-storey towers of Bahrain’s World Trade Centre and the 2,787,000 sq m (30,000,000 sq ft) horseshoe of man-made islands at the southern tip of the country.

Oil wealth
In the middle of Bahrain, not far from where the Formula 1 racetrack now draws the crowds, is the point where in 1932 the Arab world first struck gold – black gold, that is – and oil has been the mainstay of the country ever since. As visitors travel the modest length of Bahrain, visiting the ancient burial mounds, forts, craft markets and potteries, they will run into many reminders of this momentous discovery, not least in the relaxed affluence of Bahrain’s multicultural residents.

Commander of the United States Military’s Central Command (CENTCOM) Gen. David Petraeus, whose widely-reported recent claim that Israeli intransigence was a problem for the US military in the Middle East and was fomenting conflict caused much concern within the Israeli security and political establishment, attempted on Wednesday to set the record straight, claiming that bloggers "spun" his words.

In the written testimony to the senate last week, Petraeus charged that the Arab-Israeli conflict hurts America’s ability to advance its interests in the Middle East, fomenting anti-American sentiment and limiting America’s strategic partnerships with Arab governments. He also called the conflict one of the “root causes of instability” and “obstacles tosecurity ” in the region – which aids al-Qaida – and argued that serious progress in the peace process could weaken Iran’s reach, as it uses the conflict to fuel support for its terror group proxies.

Earlier this month, a posting on the Foreign Policy website claimed that the general “sent a briefing team to the Pentagon with a stark warning: America's relationship with Israel is important, but not as important as the lives of America's soldiers.”

In addition, according to the dispatch, Petraeus requested that the West Bank and Gaza be shifted to his Central Command (from European Command) so that the US military could “be perceived by Arab leaders as engaged in the region's most troublesome conflict,” The American Spectator reported.

Speaking to TAS at a briefing prior to an appearance in Manchester, New Hampshire, Petraeus said he never requested to have the West Bank and Gaza added to his responsibilities as leader of the military’s Central Command.

In addition, he explained that the quote that bloggers attributed to his Senate testimony was actually plucked out of context from a report that Central Command had sent the Armed Services committee, TAS reported.

“There’s a 56-page document that we submitted that has a statement in it that describes various factors that influence the strategic context in which we operate and among those we listed the Mideast peace process,” he said. “We noted in there that there was a perception at times that America sides with Israel and so forth. And I mean, that is a perception. It is there. I don’t think that’s disputable. But I think people inferred from what that said and then repeated it a couple of times and bloggers picked it up and spun it. And I think that has been unhelpful, frankly.”

In an effort to tamp down the controversy, Petraeus told TAS, he spoke to IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, and reassured him that the reports were inaccurate.

When asked about the claim that the perception that the US is too reflexively pro-Israel puts American soldiers at risk, Petraeus said, “There is no mention of lives anywhere in there. I actually reread the statement. It doesn’t say that at all.”

JERUSALEM and the WEST BANK—Atop Mt. Zion sits the Cenacle, considered by historians the likely setting of the Last Supper. High tourist season in Jerusalem arrives a few weeks before Easter, so on a recent weekday the main floor (cena means dinner) was filled to capacity: Roman Catholics from the Philippines prayed and sang together in one corner; Italians listened to a tour guide in another; Russian Orthodox nearby studied the Armenian capitals that top columns in the Crusader-era vault; and a group of evangelicals from Alaska waited their turn outside in midday sun. From the Jewish school at the site came the sounds of male prayer chanting.

A synagogue was here long before the apostles reportedly established it as a place of worship following Jesus' death and resurrection. It was destroyed by Persians in 614, rebuilt, destroyed by Muslims in 1009, regained by Crusaders in 1099, who built the basilica that partially survives today. The Franciscans took it over until another Muslim invasion—when it was transformed into a mosque and closed to Christians until the establishment of the modern state of Israel in 1948. Since the Six Day War in 1967, the Diaspora Yeshiva has run the compound.

ISRAEL’S SENIOR ministers will convene this morning to decide how to respond to the demand from US president Barack Obama for Israeli actions designed at getting the Middle East peace process back on track.

Prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu returned from Washington last night after failing to reach agreement with Mr Obama on a compromise over the American demands.

The White House didn’t reveal what exactly the president was seeking from the Israeli leader, but the demands reportedly included a call to curb construction in east Jerusalem, a commitment to extend the 10-month moratorium on West Bank settlement construction, an agreement on a two-year deadline for talks with the Palestinians, and details on the Israeli position on the core issues.

Members of Mr Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party and right-wing coalition partners rallied around the prime minister yesterday, urging him to stand firm against American pressure. Eli Ishai, leader of the religious Shas party, vowed construction in Israel’s capital city will continue. “I thank God I have been given the opportunity to be the minister who approves the construction of thousands of housing units in Jerusalem,” he told an ultra-orthodox newspaper.

Vice prime minister Silvan Shalom from the Likud said there can be no conditions imposed on construction in Jerusalem. “How did we get to the point that building in Jerusalem has turned into a stumbling block? If we blink now, we will lose everything, and when that happens the government will collapse,” he told Israel radio.

Israeli officials had hailed the invitation from Mr Obama for a White House meeting with Mr Netanyahu as an indication that the recent tension in bilateral ties, prompted by Israel’s announcement of more building in east Jerusalem during the visit of vice-president Joe Biden, was now over.

But just before the Obama-Netanyahu meeting, news broke of another Israeli decision to build in east Jerusalem. Final permission was granted to construct 20 homes in the Palestinian neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah, at the site of the former Shepard hotel.

Israeli analysts described the Obama-Netanyahu meeting as a “well-planned White House ambush” that caught the Israeli leader totally off-guard.

What has been described as the worst crisis in US-Israel relations in decades, characterised by a clear lack of trust between the two leaders, is clearly far from over.

Mr Netanyahu may have been able to make promises to Mr Obama in private , even on contentious issues such as construction. But the American demand for public commitments to coax the Palestinians back to the negotiating table, created an impossible dilemma for Mr Netanyahu.

Today, the ministerial “forum of seven” will be asked to decide between two alternatives: agreeing to the far-reaching concessions demanded by Mr Obama and repairing Israel’s ties with its most important ally; or saying “no” and risking Israel being seen by the international community as the obstacle to Middle East peace.

Arab leaders are currently meeting in Libya in a ritual summit held almost annually since the end of the Second World War.

Although the League of Arab States (also commonly referred to as the Arab League) was established in 1945, it was not until 1964 that member states met for the first time at the Cairo headquarters to discuss the Israeli threat - to water resources.

Arab leaders met in a unified bid to study the danger of Israeli plans to divert the waters of the River Jordan. The summit plan was as effective as the subsequent Arab military plans to deal with the Israeli threat.

The Arab League was founded at the behest of the British, just as the Gulf Co-operation Council was founded at the urging of the US. One should not mistake these external pressures as efforts to push for Arab unity; in fact, quite the opposite is  true.

Western powers have always been hostile toward all efforts of Arab unity, especially when Gamal Abdel Nasser,the late Egyptian president, stood as the symbol of Arab nationalism.But Western powers have favoured regional alliances that promoted Western security and political agendas.

The Arab League was a compromise between Arab popular expectations for a larger Arab political entity, and British concerns about Arab nationalism getting out of hand.

Arab summits have failedto get the Arab public's attention since the defeat of Jordan Syria and Egypt by Israel in June 1967. Prior to that date, Arabs had hoped that their leaders would plan and execute a serious military operation to defeat Israel and liberate Palestine.

Grand promises

 Prior to Israel's occupation of Palestine in 1948,Arab newspapers used to send their top correspondents to cover pan-Arab meetings. Press clippings from that era were full of references to solid plans to defeat Zionism without even allowing for the Jewish state to be created.

Speeches were fiery and promises were grand. Arab leaders even signed a joint military pact.  The key word was "joint". Arab leaders were supposed to coordinate their political, diplomatic, and military moves especially when it came to confronting Zionism and helping the Palestinians.

Of course, the first war in 1948 was a humiliating experience for the Arabs, and a devastating blow to Palestinian aspirations.

The joint military pact did not amount to much: the rag-tag Arab troops that entered Palestine to prevent the Jewish state from occupying Palestine often engaged in "friendly" gun fights amongst themselves.

Ultimately, the regimes that led the Arab armies in 1948 were overthrown (except in Jordan). New Arab governments came to power in Syria, Iraq, Egypt, and later in Sudan and Libya. The new regimes spoke the language of Arab nationalism and promised a quick fix for the occupation of Arab lands.

Amin Hafiz, the Syrian president in 1963, claimed that he had a solid plan that would defeat Israel in three days. Nasser, to his credit, was more cautious and stressed that planning for the liberation of Palestine required years of careful consideration.

But he also was ill-prepared and made fateful decisions (such as being dragged into the war in Yemen, appointing the notoriously incompetent Abdul-Hakim Amir as commander of the Egyptian forces, and allowing himself to be pushed by Jordan and Syria in 1967 into taking uncalculated risks that produced the eventual defeat).

Watershed moment

Arabs in general drew distinctions influenced by Nasser's political rhetoric between "progressive Arab regimes" and "reactionary Arab regimes" - the "tails of colonial powers", as Nasser called them.

That distinction was buried in June 1967 during the Six Day War,a watershed event in Arab history. All the hopes that were pinned on Nasser and the Baathist socialist ideology were dashed. It would be fair to say that Arab summits never mattered after that day—at least as far as the Arab people are concerned.

No more was the distinction made between the two camps in Arab politics relevant to the Arab people. Both had failed in fulfilling their promises.

Arab leaders continued to meet in irregular summits. But no one was paying attention anymore. No one expected Arab leaders to confront Israel when it invaded Lebanon in 1982, or when it attacked Gaza in December 2008,or when it attacked Lebanon in 2006, or when the US attacked Iraq - twice.

Arab leaders now meet for a variety of reasons that have nothing to do with the aspirations of the Arab people or dreams of Arab unity.They meet first and foremost to bestow the honour of hosting the summit on one another.

Every year, an Arab ruler and country play host to the summit. That carries with it a certain degree of formal prestige. The leader of that country receives more visitors and dignitaries than usual and is seen on his state TV receiving heads of state, and representatives of international organisations.

Impression of business

Secondly, Arab leaders often meet in order to follow US dictates.

Hosni Mubarak,the Egyptian president, hastily arranged an Arab League meeting in Cairo in the summer of 1990 in order to prevent an Arab consensus from developing  to resolve the crisis created by the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, because the US was pursuing its own agenda to expel Saddam's army, and to project its power in the region.

The Arab summit in Beirut in 2002 was also an attempt (largely by Saudi Arabia, but also by other Arab governments as well) to fend off the wrath of the Bush administration in the wake of the September 11 attacks.

Arab leaders have another reason to meet. They like to project an impression of business; that they are attending to the problems of the people. But at some level, they are well aware that no one is paying attention.

Long flowery statements are still issued by Arab leaders, but they are not read anymore. This is not the age of Nasser. This is the era of ageing Arab leaders (or their sons) who lack charisma and popularity.

This is the age of US dominance in the Middle East where Arab leaders are given little room to manoeuvre.

Arab summits were capable of at least rhetorical surprises: the "Three No's" of Khartoum (no to peace with Israel, no to recognition, and no to negotiation) in 1967 are the most famous, but now we know that those governments that officially endorsed the formula were already negotiating secretly with the Israelis.

The US government now keeps a very tight lid over the regimes that it controls.  When King Abdullah, the Saudi monarch, referred to the US occupation in Iraq as "illegitimate" during his opening speech at the Riyadh Arab summit in 2007, a diplomatic crisis ensued and the King has never used that expression since.

The Arab people now are accustomed to gatherings that produce long, tedious documents that no one (except translators at foreign embassies) actually read.

Between watching Syrian and Turkish TV serials, and watching proceedings of Arab summits, the Arab people may be worshipping the remote control. Gone are the days when they were subjected to one state-controlled channel that bombarded them with speeches and daily movements of the "dear Arab leader".