The New Nation - Internet Edition

Dr.Abdul Ruff

The decades' long struggle of Palestinians for obtaining a home for themselves from the occupying Israelis is likely to yield positive results in near future and there appeared to be a green signal at the end of the tunnel as President George W. Bush called for an end to Israel's 41 years occupation of Palestinian lands and states a commitment to forge a peace agreement before the end of his term in office, which expires in January, 2009. The announcement came when President Bush, the first American president to visit Ramallah, went to the headquarters of the Palestinian authority on January 9. King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia ').bdullah had also placed a comprehensive peace plan in March 2007, which speaks for return or compensation in line with UN General Assembly resolution 194. President Bush is of the opinion that Palestinian refugees should be compensated for the loss of homes when they fled during establislunent of Israel. The continued presence of some 220,000 Jewish settlers in much-coveted West Bank remains a big question. The segregation wall, 425 miles long (longer than Berlin Wall), covering some Palestinian lands, particularly best cultivable lands, is another tactics of the Israeli government to grab Palestinian lands in the name of Israeli security.

President Bush pushed forward the peace process, possibly, to identify US concerns with those of IsraelPalestine nations and their conflict, to showcase the US resolve to fmd solutions for troubled conflicts as in Middle East, on the one hand, and on the other, to would improve the image of the United States in the Middle East and in the world at large. The US president might have realized that fmding a solution of the Israel and Palestine problem as a part of his legacy as he leaves office in 2009 and more importantly, help the Republicans with the improved image of his presidency to win the poll 2008.

Also, keen to bolster Middle East allies against an ascendant Iran, the Bush administration last year proposed supplying Gulf Arab states with some $20 billion in new weapons, including Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) bomb kits for the Saudis. The plan has angered Israel's backers in Washington, who say the JDAMs, which give satellite guidance for bombs, may one day be used against the Jewish state or at least blunt its power to deter potential foes. Israel has had JDAMs since 1990. Saudi Arabia does not recognize Israel but signaled a softening of this stance by attending a U.S.-hosted conference on Palestinian statehood in November.

Israel controls the economy of Palestine, its resources, electricity, gas, outposts and literally every thing in Palestine. Palestinians require permission of Jews to go for the annual pilgrimage to Mecca and the Israeli forces close the borders when the Palestinians return from Mecca. Whenever Israel closes the exit points of Gaza, as it has happened now, the Palestinians would be in ruins in days. After announcing that Palestinians must have a home in 2001, Bush kept a very low profile for too long until recently come out with a peace proposal to secure a Palestine state. Now when on a good-will tour, President Bush significantly changed his rhetoric by saying that Palestine state must be viable and contiguous, whereas, the eight mile long corridor between Gaza strip and the West Bank belongs to Israel. Without connecting Gaza strip with the West Bank a Palestinian state would be unstable and vulnerable. If the corridor is handed over to the Palestinian, Palestine will be contiguous in that case. There is no agreement between Israel and Palestinian authority for sharing water and electricity. Both Gaza strip and West Bank have scarce resources.

But USA continues to fuel the conflict by upgrading the Israeli military equipment. To make the lives of Palestinians still worse and more threatened, the USA has come forward with further supply of advanced weaponry. USA has agreed in principle to provide Israel with better "smart bombs" than those it plans to sell Saudi Arabia under a regional defense package, senior Israeli security sources said. It is awful that the most intelligent country, USA has refused to understand the simple fact that security for Israel does not require any further and that it is Palestine that needs to be secured against Israel. Before the Palestine state is established for them to defend themselves effectively against any rogue misadventures to showcase their military prowess.

Israel expects USA , probably under some understaning, not to sell weaponry to Middle East that could strengthen the position of Palestine. Tel-Aviv objected to US sale proposal of arms to Saudi, but Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's government dropped its objections to the proposed Saudi deal in July after securing U.S. military aid grants worth $30 billion over the next decade. Israeli security sources said the United States further mollified the Olmert government with an "understanding in principle" that future JDAM sales to Israel would include advanced technologies not on offer to Saudi Arabia. "We are checking which of the top-of-the-line JDAMs will become available to us. The agreement is that Israel's qualitative edge will be preserved," one source said. Israel's Defense Ministry declined to give details on any specific defense deals, saying only: "The Americans are certainly taking steps to help us preserve our technological superiority, as is Israel."

President George W. Bush visited Riyadh recently as part of a Middle East tour he hopes will shore up Washington's efforts to isolate Iran over its nuclear projects. In Israel and the Palestinian territories last week, Bush worked to foster bilateral peacemaking but also discussed Iran, which denies seeking nuclear weapons but whose president has stirred war fears by urging that Israel be "wiped off the map."

Israel has used JDAMs extensively in its 2006 offensive against Iranian-backed Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon, requiring urgent U.S. re-supplies. Surprise setbacks in the 34-day war prompted Israel's top brass to order an overhaul of the armed forces. Believed to have the Middle East's only atomic arsenal, Israel has vowed to deny Iran nuclear weapons and hinted at the possibility of a pre-emptive strike like its air force's 1981 bombing ofIraq's nuclear reactor. Recent enhancements to the kits include laser navigators and glide wings that allow jets to drop the munitions from a distance of more than 40 miles from the target.

Israel has entered space ties with anti-Muslim countries like India and sells arms and ammunitions to them regularly, thereby threatening the weak peaceful atmosphere prevailing in that region too. USA sells more sophisticated weapons to Israel, obviously for to sell third parties too. Since Bush has taken the entire world into believing that he is sincerely trying to create the Palestine state for those struggling and getting killed in a sustained manner by Israel, he must stop further arming Israel and, instead, provide security for the Palestinians and blow whistle to the Israelis not to air-attack, blockade or create inhuman conditions like closing their outlets to external world that are detrimental to the hapless Palestinians. Democracy also depends on decency. He must stop calling the Hamas, the elected representative of the Palestinians, as terrorists of any category because e that weakens them and further encourages the Israel to pursue antiPalestine policies cruelly.

In the absence of any sincere diplomatic efforts on the part of the UN, UNSC, EU and the Western powers to restrain Israel from its jolly air-strikes on the defenseless Palestinians killing many and destroying property worth billions of US dollars, Israel has taken it as its prerogative to do what ever it feels with the Palestinians. In the absence of any concrete defense facility from the Arab nations on united basis, not only the creation of US promised Palestine stat seems to be in jeopardize, even their own existence has been badly threatened by the Israeli closing all outlets from Gaza where the elected Palestinian government operates denied of its rule by the US-Israeli inspired Fatah president Abbas.

US strategists cannot pretend any more that in further equipping a roguish Israel in Middle East, extensively threatening the Palestinians, a stable peace environment would be established there and that does not complicate the murky peace process in the region. Already by closing the borders of Palestine Israel has forced the Palestinians to run out to Egypt by breaking the boundary wall. No lasting peace could be ensured in Middle East by killing Lebanese and Palestinians and by re-arming Israel endlessly. US must, therefore, consider arming the Palestinians also so that they could also defend themselves against the Israeli air-strikes.