Published on Saturday, January 17, 2009 by CommonDreams.org

Punishing the Palestinians

by Ralph Nader

In the long sixty-year tortured history of the Palestinian expulsion from their lands, Congress has maintained that it is always the Palestinians, the Palestinian Authority, and now Hamas who are to blame for all hostilities and their consequences with the Israeli government.

The latest illustration of this Washington puppet show, backed by the most modern weapons and billions of taxpayer dollars annually sent to Israel, was the grotesquely one-sided Resolutions whisked through the Senate and the House of Representatives.

While a massive bombing and invasion of Gaza was underway, the resolution blaming Hamas for all the civilian casualties and devastation-99% of it inflicted on Palestinians-zoomed through the Senate by voice vote and through the House by a vote of 390 to 5 with 22 legislators voting present.

There is more dissent against this destruction of Gaza among the Israeli people, the Knesset, the Israeli media, and Jewish-Americans than among the dittoheads on Capitol Hill.

The reasons for such near-unanimous support for Israeli actions-no matter how often they are condemned by peace advocates such as Bishop Desmond Tutu, United Nations resolutions, the World Court and leading human rights groups inside and outside of Israel, are numerous. The pro-Israeli government lobby, and the right-wing Christian evangelicals, lubricated by campaign money of many Political Action Committees (PACs) certainly are key.

There is also more than a little bigotry in Congress against Arabs and Muslims, reinforced by the mass media yahoos who set new records for biased reporting each time this conflict erupts.

The bias is clear. It is always the Palestinians' fault. Right-wingers who would never view the U.S. government as perfect see the Israeli government as never doing anything wrong. Liberals who do not hesitate to criticize the U.S. military view all Israeli military attacks, invasions and civilian devastation as heroic manifestations of Israeli defense.

The inversion of history and the scope of amnesia know no limits. What about the fact that the Israeli government drove Palestinians from their lands in 1947-48 with tens of thousands pushed into the Gaza strip. No problem to Congress.

Then the fact that the Israeli government cruelly occupied, in violation of UN resolutions, the West Bank and Gaza in 1967 and only removed its soldiers and colonists from Gaza (1.5 million people in a tiny area twice the size of the District of Columbia) in 2005. To Congress, the Palestinians deserved it.

Then when Hamas was freely elected to run Gaza, the Israeli authorities cut off the tax revenues on imports that belonged to the Gaza government. This threw the Gazans into a fiscal crisis-they were unable to pay their civil servants and police.

In 2006, the Israelis added to their unrelieved control of air, water and land around the open-air prison by establishing a blockade. The natives became restless. Under international law, a blockade is an act of war. Primitive rockets, called by reporters "wildly inaccurate" were fired into Israel. During this same period, Israeli soldiers and artillery and missiles would go into Gaza at will and take far more lives and cause far more injuries than those incurred by those rockets. Civilians-especially children, the infirm and elderly-died or suffered week after week for lack of medicines, medical equipment, food, electricity, fuel and water which were embargoed by the Israelis.

Then the Israeli bombing followed by the invasion during the past three weeks with what prominent Israeli writer Gideon Levy called "a brutal and violent operation...far beyond what was needed for protecting the people in its south." Mr. Levy observed what the president of the United Nations General Assembly, Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann called a war against "a helpless and defenseless imprisoned population."

The horror of being trapped from fleeing the torrent of the most modern weapons of war from the land, air and seas is reflected in this passage from Amira Hass, writing in the leading Israeli newspaper Haaretz:

"The earth shaking under your feet, clouds of choking smoke, explosions like a fireworks display, bombs bursting into all-consuming flames that cannot be extinguished with water, mushroom clouds of pinkish-red smoke, suffocating gas, harsh burns on the skin, extraordinary maimed live and dead bodies."

Ms. Hass is pointing to the use of new anti-civilian weapons used on the Gazan people. So far there have been over 1100 fatalities, many thousands of injuries and the destruction of homes, schools, mosques, hospitals, pharmacies, granaries, farmer's fields and many critical public facilities. The clearly marked UN headquarters and UN school were smashed, along with stored medicines and food supplies.

Why? The Congressional response: "Hamas terrorists" everywhere. Sure, defending their Palestinian families is called terrorism. The truth is there is no Hamas army, airforce and navy up against the fourth most powerful military in the world. As one Israeli gunner on an armored personnel carrier frankly said to The New York Times: "They are villagers with guns. They don't even aim when they shoot."

Injured Gazans are dying in damaged hospital corridors, bleeding to death because rescuers are not permitted to reach them or are endangered themselves. Thousands of units of blood donated by Jordanians are stopped by the Israeli blockade. Israel has kept the international press out of the Gazan killing fields.
What is going on in Gaza is what Bill Moyers called it earlier this month - "state terrorism." Already about 400 children are known to have died. More will be added who are under the rubble.

Since 2002, more than 50 Arab and Muslim nations have had a standing offer, repeated often, that if Israel obeys several UN resolutions and withdraws to the 1967 borders leaving 22 percent of the original Palestine for an independent Palestinian state, they will open full diplomatic relations and there will be peace. Israel has declined to accept this offer.

None of these and many other aspects of this conflict matter to the Congress. Its members do not want to hear even from the Israeli peace movement, composed of retired generals, security chiefs, mayors, former government ministers, and members of the Knesset. In 60 years these savvy peace advocates have not been able to give one hour of testimony before a Congressional Committee.

Maybe members of Congress may wish to weigh the words of the founder of Israel, David Ben-Gurion, years ago when he said:

"There has been anti-Semitism the Nazis Hitler Auschwitz but was that their [the Palestinian's] fault? They only see one thing: We have come here and stolen their country."

Doesn't that observation invite some compassion for the Palestinian people and their right to be free of Israeli occupation, land and water grabs and blockades in the 22 percent left of Palestine?

Inauguation Hunger Strike

Gaza is dying. War crimes are being committed every single day, and the world is watching in silence. We have gathered, demonstrated and tried to make the world aware, but nothing is changing and the blood shed is not stopping. Let us unite on the American Inauguration day on a food strike, for a change that we can believe in.

We will not eat, will not drink, and will not stop until Gaza is healed.Please contact the media and tell them about our world-wide food strike. Invite your friends and make the world aware of the bleeding wound.

Gazans are starving, and I will not eat their flesh or drink their blood.

http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=45049944515#/event.php?eid=62633656140

Killed by Israel, Eaten by Dogs

By Ola Attallah, IOL Correspondent
Wednesday, 14 January 2009
GAZA CITY -

"Oh, God! I have never seen such a terrible scene," cried Kayed Abu Aukal.The emergency doctor could not believe himself seeing the remains of what was days back Shahd, a full-fleshed 4-year-old Palestinian girl.She died when an Israeli shell was fired at the backyard of her home in the Jabalya refugee camp northern Gaza strip, where she was playing.When her parents attempted to rush to the rescue of their kid, who fell to the ground amid a pool of her blood, rains of Israeli bullets kept them a distance.For the next five days Shahd's which was left lying in the open left for dogs to tear out."The dogs did leave one single part of the poor baby's body intact," said a tearful Abu Aukal."We have seen heart-breaking scenes over the past 18 days. We picked up children whose bodies were torn or burnt, but nothing like this."For five days Shahd's brother, Matar, and cousin, Mohamed, tried in vain to reach her body. They were fired at by the Israeli occupation forces every time.Seeing the body of the little angel torn to piece by the assaulting dogs, the two made one final attempt, and it was their last.They were showered by Israeli bullets before they could reach Shahd's body, joining a long list of more than 920 Palestinians killed by Israel since December 27.DeliberateOmran Zayda, a young neighbor, said the Israelis knew very well what they were doing."They chased her family and prevented them from reaching to her body, knowing that the dogs would eat it," he said."They are not just killing our children, they are intentionally doing so in the most heinous and inhuman ways."Zayda said words, and even cameras, can not describe the horrific scene."You can never imagine what the dogs have done to her innocent body," he said, fighting back his tears.Many Palestinians insist Shahd was not the first or only such case.In Jabalya, when Abd Rabu's family was trying to bury three of its dead, the Israeli forces started firing at them, witnesses said.They then released their dogs at the bodies, deserted by mourners who sought shelter from the Israeli gunfire, they added."What happened was awful and unthinkable," Saad Abd Rabu, the deceased uncle, told IOL."Our sons died before our eyes and we were even prevented from burying them," he cried."The Israelis just released their dogs at their bodies, as even they have not done enough."

http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?c=Article_C&cid=1231760488574&pagename=Zone-English-News/NWELayout

Gaza Holocaust - An online Museum

A group was made on facebook as an attempt of voicing the Truth about what is taking place in Gaza. If we cannot go and fight, let us show the world the reality that is being biased by the media and the political spokesmen:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=58342007574
The idea of this group is to post all the photos that we can gather about the crimes that are being committed in Gaza that defy the simplest human rights. Posting a photo is very simple, just add the photo with a short comment describing when the photo was taken and what is shows, and name the source for credibility whenever possible. Please join the group, spread the word, and invite your friends to visit the museum, especially the ones who may not know the truth. Your participation is the key to the success of this attempt.

SUPPORT GAZA

Gaza: the logic of colonial power by Nir Rosen

You can find it at http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/dec/29/gaza-hamas-israel


As so often, the term 'terrorism' has proved a rhetorical smokescreen under cover of which the strong crush the weak.

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Nir Rosen (Nir Rosen is a journalist whose work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, Time, Harper’s Magazine, The New Republic, and Salon. In addition to English, he speaks Arabic, Serbo Croatian, and Hebrew. In April 2003, he moved to Baghdad to cover the American-led intervention in Iraq and spent a year and a half under occupation with the Iraqi people. He has also reported from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, and the Congo. He is a fellow at the New York University Center on Law and Security. He lives with his wife, Tiffany, in Lebanon.) More about him at http://www.nirrosen.com/blog/

guardian.co.uk, Monday 29 December 2008 08.00 GMT

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I have spent most of the Bush administration's tenure reporting from Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Somalia and other conflicts. I have been published by most major publications. I have been interviewed by most major networks and I have even testified before the senate foreign relations committee. The Bush administration began its tenure with Palestinians being massacred and it ends with Israel committing one of its largest massacres yet in a 60-year history of occupying Palestinian land. Bush's final visit to the country he chose to occupy ended with an educated secular Shiite Iraqi throwing his shoes at him, expressing the feelings of the entire Arab world save its dictators who have imprudently attached themselves to a hated American regime.

Once again, the Israelis bomb the starving and imprisoned population of Gaza. The world watches the plight of 1.5 million Gazans live on TV and online; the western media largely justify the Israeli action. Even some Arab outlets try to equate the Palestinian resistance with the might of the Israeli military machine. And none of this is a surprise. The Israelis just concluded a round-the-world public relations campaign to gather support for their assault, even gaining the collaboration of Arab states like Egypt.

The international community is directly guilty for this latest massacre. Will it remain immune from the wrath of a desperate people? So far, there have been large demonstrations in Lebanon, Yemen, Jordan, Egypt, Syria and Iraq. The people of the Arab world will not forget. The Palestinians will not forget. "All that you have done to our people is registered in our notebooks," as the poet Mahmoud Darwish said.

I have often been asked by policy analysts, policy-makers and those stuck with implementing those policies for my advice on what I think America should do to promote peace or win hearts and minds in the Muslim world. It too often feels futile, because such a revolution in American policy would be required that only a true revolution in the American government could bring about the needed changes. An American journal once asked me to contribute an essay to a discussion on whether terrorism or attacks against civilians could ever be justified. My answer was that an American journal should not be asking whether attacks on civilians can ever be justified. This is a question for the weak, for the Native Americans in the past, for the Jews in Nazi Germany, for the Palestinians today, to ask themselves.

Terrorism is a normative term and not a descriptive concept. An empty word that means everything and nothing, it is used to describe what the Other does, not what we do. The powerful – whether Israel, America, Russia or China – will always describe their victims' struggle as terrorism, but the destruction of Chechnya, the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, the slow slaughter of the remaining Palestinians, the American occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan – with the tens of thousands of civilians it has killed … these will never earn the title of terrorism, though civilians were the target and terrorising them was the purpose.

Counterinsurgency, now popular again among in the Pentagon, is another way of saying the suppression of national liberation struggles. Terror and intimidation are as essential to it as is winning hearts and minds.

Normative rules are determined by power relations. Those with power determine what is legal and illegal. They besiege the weak in legal prohibitions to prevent the weak from resisting. For the weak to resist is illegal by definition. Concepts like terrorism are invented and used normatively as if a neutral court had produced them, instead of the oppressors. The danger in this excessive use of legality actually undermines legality, diminishing the credibility of international institutions such as the United Nations. It becomes apparent that the powerful, those who make the rules, insist on legality merely to preserve the power relations that serve them or to maintain their occupation and colonialism.

Attacking civilians is the last, most desperate and basic method of resistance when confronting overwhelming odds and imminent eradication. The Palestinians do not attack Israeli civilians with the expectation that they will destroy Israel. The land of Palestine is being stolen day after day; the Palestinian people is being eradicated day after day. As a result, they respond in whatever way they can to apply pressure on Israel. Colonial powers use civilians strategically, settling them to claim land and dispossess the native population, be they Indians in North America or Palestinians in what is now Israel and the Occupied Territories. When the native population sees that there is an irreversible dynamic that is taking away their land and identity with the support of an overwhelming power, then they are forced to resort to whatever methods of resistance they can.

Not long ago, 19-year-old Qassem al-Mughrabi, a Palestinian man from Jerusalem drove his car into a group of soldiers at an intersection. "The terrorist", as the Israeli newspaper Haaretz called him, was shot and killed. In two separate incidents last July, Palestinians from Jerusalem also used vehicles to attack Israelis. The attackers were not part of an organisation. Although those Palestinian men were also killed, senior Israeli officials called for their homes to be demolished. In a separate incident, Haaretz reported that a Palestinian woman blinded an Israeli soldier in one eye when she threw acid n his face. "The terrorist was arrested by security forces," the paper said. An occupied citizen attacks an occupying soldier, and she is the terrorist?

In September, Bush spoke at the United Nations. No cause could justify the deliberate taking of human life, he said. Yet the US has killed thousands of civilians in airstrikes on populated areas. When you drop bombs on populated areas knowing there will be some "collateral" civilian damage, but accepting it as worth it, then it is deliberate. When you impose sanctions, as the US did on Saddam era Iraq, that kill hundreds of thousands, and then say their deaths were worth it, as secretary of state Albright did, then you are deliberately killing people for a political goal. When you seek to "shock and awe", as president Bush did, when he bombed Iraq, you are engaging in terrorism.

Just as the traditional American cowboy film presented white Americans under siege, with Indians as the aggressors, which was the opposite of reality, so, too, have Palestinians become the aggressors and not the victims. Beginning in 1948, 750,000 Palestinians were deliberately cleansed and expelled from their homes, and hundreds of their villages were destroyed, and their land was settled by colonists, who went on to deny their very existence and wage a 60-year war against the remaining natives and the national liberation movements the Palestinians established around the world. Every day, more of Palestine is stolen, more Palestinians are killed. To call oneself an Israeli Zionist is to engage in the dispossession of entire people. It is not that, qua Palestinians, they have the right to use any means necessary, it is because they are weak. The weak have much less power than the strong, and can do much less damage. The Palestinians would not have ever bombed cafes or used home-made missiles if they had tanks and airplanes. It is only in the current context that their actions are justified, and there are obvious limits.

It is impossible to make a universal ethical claim or establish a Kantian principle justifying any act to resist colonialism or domination by overwhelming power. And there are other questions I have trouble answering. Can an Iraqi be justified in attacking the United States? After all, his country was attacked without provocation, and destroyed, with millions of refugees created, hundreds of thousands of dead. And this, after 12 years of bombings and sanctions, which killed many and destroyed the lives of many others.

I could argue that all Americans are benefiting from their country's exploits without having to pay the price, and that, in today's world, the imperial machine is not merely the military but a military-civilian network. And I could also say that Americans elected the Bush administration twice and elected representatives who did nothing to stop the war, and the American people themselves did nothing. From the perspective of an American, or an Israeli, or other powerful aggressors, if you are strong, everything you do is justifiable, and nothing the weak do is legitimate. It's merely a question of what side you choose: the side of the strong or the side of the weak.

Israel and its allies in the west and in Arab regimes such as Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia have managed to corrupt the PLO leadership, to suborn them with the promise of power at the expense of liberty for their people, creating a first – a liberation movement that collaborated with the occupier. Israeli elections are coming up and, as usual, these elections are accompanied by war to bolster the candidates. You cannot be prime minister of Israel without enough Arab blood on your hands. An Israeli general has threatened to set Gaza back decades, just as they threatened to set Lebanon back decades in 2006. As if strangling Gaza and denying its people fuel, power or food had not set it back decades already.

The democratically elected Hamas government was targeted for destruction from the day it won the elections in 2006. The world told the Palestinians that they cannot have democracy, as if the goal was to radicalise them further and as if that would not have a consequence. Israel claims it is targeting Hamas's military forces. This is not true. It is targeting Palestinian police forces and killing them, including some such as the chief of police, Tawfiq Jaber, who was actually a former Fatah official who stayed on in his post after Hamas took control of Gaza. What will happen to a society with no security forces? What do the Israelis expect to happen when forces more radical than Hamas gain power?

A Zionist Israel is not a viable long-term project and Israeli settlements, land expropriation and separation barriers have long since made a two state solution impossible. There can be only one state in historic Palestine. In coming decades, Israelis will be confronted with two options. Will they peacefully transition towards an equal society, where Palestinians are given the same rights, à la post-apartheid South Africa? Or will they continue to view democracy as a threat? If so, one of the peoples will be forced to leave. Colonialism has only worked when most of the natives have been exterminated. But often, as in occupied Algeria, it is the settlers who flee. Eventually, the Palestinians will not be willing to compromise and seek one state for both people. Does the world want to further radicalise them?

Do not be deceived: the persistence of the Palestine problem is the main motive for every anti-American militant in the Arab world and beyond. But now the Bush administration has added Iraq and Afghanistan as additional grievances. America has lost its influence on the Arab masses, even if it can still apply pressure on Arab regimes. But reformists and elites in the Arab world want nothing to do with America.

A failed American administration departs, the promise of a Palestinian state a lie, as more Palestinians are murdered. A new president comes to power, but the people of the Middle East have too much bitter experience of US administrations to have any hope for change. President-elect Obama, Vice President-elect Biden and incoming secretary of state Hillary Clinton have not demonstrated that their view of the Middle East is at all different from previous administrations. As the world prepares to celebrate a new year, how long before it is once again made to feel the pain of those whose oppression it either ignores or supports?

America that we can trust

Today the United States of America woke up a proud and hopeful America. You can feel relief, hope, and utter happiness in the eyes of the people walking in the streets, smiling for no specific reason, proud of being Americans, for the first time in so long. In many areas of the world, a similar degree of optimism is seen and felt. The very fact that Barack Obama has won the elections inspired hope and dignity in so many people around the world. African Americans cry with happiness, seeing the realization of the Luther Dream coming true. But not only black Americans are the ones rejoicing; students, women, white people, immigrants and minorities, from scholars to simple cab drivers; almost every American is rejoicing today, at least with the end of dark years of fear and poisonous hatred.

Yet, it is disappointing to simply be happy because a ‘black’ man won the elections. While many people might have voted for/against Obama because of the color of his skin, it is whom he is, what he is intending to do, his beliefs and his plans; these are the things that matter: to actually believe in the man, because he is worth it, and not only because he is the first African American to ever be elected as the President of the United States. Many of the reports I have watched yesterday revolved around the dream of the black people of America to finally get their rights back, and be compensated for long years of discrimination, inequality and slavery. While is this all true, yet what must not be forgotten is the fact that Obama is not the President of black Americans, but all Americans. It is as if the reversal of the race issue is taking place, which can still stand as an obstacle for Obama with his color eclipsing his character and potential. I believe he still has to cross this barrier, with his deeds and the history he is to be making.

One of the most defining moments for me in believing the John McCain would be a disaster to the world is when he replied to a woman complaining of Obama taking the lead by saying that she cannot trust him, because he is an Arab. McCain quickly and spontaneously answered, ‘no no, Obama is a decent man’. What kind of a message would such a reply give to minorities in America, and to the rest of the world? What does it say about his foreign policy approach or the way he inherently is viewing the world around him? America and the world are in no need for such mentalities anymore, and I am relieved that Americans were conscious enough to take the right decision, in an act of democracy thriving at its very best.

The hope Obama is bringing is equally enjoyed by citizens of the world. Yet the burden he has chosen to carry is tremendous, with such a heavy legacy of despair failure and mistrust. Obama does not have the magic wand that people are expecting him to wave on his inauguration day. However, a drastic change in American policies both internally and around the world will indeed be seen; a change in rhetoric has already started, with the spark of patriotism sincerity and determination gleaming in the American streets today. For non-Americans like me, the hope has been born; of a less hateful America, a less violent and inhumane foreign policy, and a more responsible and intelligent leadership. It might be too early and too naive to say, that finally injustice in over, fear is over, and hatred is no longer there. Yet, I am hoping that in the coming years, we will be seeing an America that we can finally trust.

Why do they hate us?

Why do they hate us? A question that has been asked on both fronts. Americans and Arabs suddenly found themselves in a clear state of confrontation. While 9/11 was the evident sign that seems to have changed the future of the relationship of the United States with the Arab world, it can be argued that the crack has been there for longer than it seems, but only came to the surface with the September catastrophe and its tragic consequences. If we look at the question itself, we will come to realize that Americans could not draw a dividing line between the terrorists who committed the September crime and the Arab masses that had nothing to do with it and who have been the victims of similar attacks for decades ever since the assassination of Sadat onwards.

This negative and blurred image of the Arab and Muslim world has been intensified by the words of American spokesmen, especially President George W. Bush, highlighting the problem as an irrevocable clash of principles and a fight between goodness and evil, fueling the American fear and anger in preparation for the consequent wars of Afghanistan and Iraq, and putting Arabs on the defensive. The emphasized notion of the distant ‘other’ is the key element in manufacturing an unreal clash of civilizations that is to a great extent politically useful. Quoting Edward Said, “The organization of collective passion has never been more evident than in our time, when the mobilizations of fear, hatred, disgust, and resurgent self-pride and arrogance – much of it having to do with Islam and the Arabs on one side, “we” Westerners on the other – are very large –scale enterprises”[1]

While every hero needs an enemy to fight, every superpower needs a danger to struggle against, and every war needs an ethical reasoning, Islamic terrorism became the modern enemy, and the ‘made in America’ freedom fighters of yesterday became the terrorists of the present. The American presidency continued to stress that War on Terrorism in not against one particular known enemy that can be captured or defeated, but it is a world-wide war where enemies are numerous and unidentified: “Our war against terror is not a war against one terrorist leader or one terrorist group. Terrorism is a movement, an ideology that respects no boundary of nationality or decency…. And the war on terror continues beyond Afghanistan, with the closing of bank accounts and the arrests of known terrorists.”[2] The vague enemy repeatedly mentioned, and the tremendous loss of 9/11, the deep-rooted stereotyping of Arabs as inferior and brutal and Islam as violent and evil, made it very easy for all Arabs and Muslims to fall under the label of terrorism.

Due to the association of the War on Terrorism with negativity against Islam and the rise of Islamophobia, Arabs felt attacked and discriminated. While religion seems to be the cornerstone of the organism of most Arabs, the attack against Islam hit the core, affirming the clash of civilizations from yet another angle. On the other hand, the rapid deterioration of the American image in the Arab world is not mainly due to a cultural conflict or misunderstanding like it is the case on the American side, but due to the Arab’s resentment of the American policies affecting the region, specially The American unquestionable support and favor of Israel and the long enduring dilemma of the Palestinians. According to Shibley Telhami, the results of a survey carried out in Saudi Arabia, 59% believe that the American policies rather than values are the source of their frustration[3]. The Palestinian issue has been neglected and treated with disdain throughout the Bush years in office, allowing the Israeli government to unquestionably cross many lines, creating more fury and frustration in the Arab streets against the Israeli patron forcing the Arab governments to review their stance. Even Pro-American governments like Egypt’s and Saudi Arabia’s demanded more fairness from the American side towards the case. The 2006 Lebanon war and the American declaration of it as a part of the war on terror asserting the Israeli right to defend itself, was met with more anger in the Arab world, turning a disputed figure like Nasrallah into the modern Saladin in the eyes of many Arabs.

When Condoleezza Rice came and talked about the American plans for a “New Middle East”, an Arab uproar reached high degrees, expressing their refusal of the American domination and desire to shape the Arab nations as per the American/Israeli vision and interests. Seeking to establish democracy in the Arab world as one of the American strategic aims and as a reason for the war in Iraq was largely refuted by Arabs and non-Arabs alike. The claim that the United States invaded Iraq with the goal of liberating the Iraqis from tyranny and sharing with them the fruits of freedom and democracy turned out to be a disgraceful lie: “We are bringing aid to the long-suffering people of Iraq, and we are bringing something more: we are bringing hope.”[4] The utter chaos created in Iraq left the whole Arab world with an unshaken belief in the double standards of the American declared motives, and an absolute refusal of any help from the American side in issues like democratization and freedom of speech. Another stark example is the American refusal of the results in the Palestinian elections because they are against the American interests in the region. The American hegemony has become a reason for hatred rather than admiration in the Arab world.

The American invasion and prolonged occupation of Iraq and the disastrous collapse of Iraq since then is the ultimate reason that continues to fuel the Arabian wrath. While oil stays at the heart of the American interests in the region, many scholars and analysts explain the reason behind the Iraqi war to be more associated with the Israeli interests rather than the American: “the war was motivated in good part by a desire to make Israel more secure.”[5] It is justifiably to ask whether it is worth all the losses?

Establishing better relations with the Arab countries and regaining the love and respect of the Arab masses would be politically beneficial for the United States. The Middle East has always been a strategic centre of the American interests, and losing its loyalty to Iran can be very damaging for the American Interests and the world economic stability. Peace in the region would be more fruitful, compared to the rise of the oil prices due to the war in Iraq for example. Putting these factors in mind, changing the bitter circumstances governing the relationship between the States and the Arab world is critical.

The way to reforming the Arab-American relations seems long and unpaved, with distrust and misunderstanding obstructing the way, and with biased American policies totally blocking it. While the American people are the victims of biased media and educational systems, the American government is neither lacking information nor understanding. Serious change in the American official attitude towards the Arab world and its major issues is an indispensable pillar for any improvement to take place. While the disgracing problem of Iraq is complicated, and some of its tragic consequences cannot be corrected, the United States needs to address the problem differently, forsaking the myths and lies of the current administration. The hope of a different leadership thought may bring about some needed change, yet no miraculous solutions are expected.

However, the Arab-Israeli conflict, though more long-winded and deep-rooted, seems to be the most urging and possible area of improvement. The assistance in establishing a Palestinian State is a necessity that United States needs to put into consideration. If the United States chooses to lay a positive role in solving the Arab-Israeli conflict and creating an atmosphere of peace in the region can have a remarkable effect in putting out the Arabs’ anger and outweigh their distrust. Regaining the trust of Arabs will need effort, but it is not impossible. Nevertheless, it is critical in any attempt from the United States to spread out her democratization plans, which in themselves are in great need to modifications.



References:
· http://www.whitehouse.gov/.
· Mearsheimer John J. and Stephen M. Walt (2006). THE ISRAEL LOBBY AND U.S. FOREIGN POLICY. Middle East Policy Council
· Telhami, Shibley (2004) The Stakes.
· Said, Edward Orientalism.


[1] Said, Edward Orientalism. Preface p. XVII.
[2] An excerpt from a speech by George W Bush on (December 7, 2001). Source: http://www.whitehouse.gov/.
[3] Telhami, Shibley (2004) The Stakes. P. 46
[4] George W. Bush: Operation Iraqi Freedom – Radio Address: 05-04-2003.
[5] Mearsheimer John J. and Stephen M. Walt (2006). THE ISRAEL LOBBY AND U.S. FOREIGN POLICY. Middle East Policy Council p. 54.