Excerpts: Saudi worries.Arab world in disarray.Palestinian bad days ahead 14
April 2003

+++AL-AHRAM WEEKLY 10-16 April'03:"And now for Mr.Hyde"

HEADING:" David Hirst, in Riyadh, finds Saudis intensely worried that their
erstwhile mighty protector, the US, is looking more and more as a grave
threat"

QUOTES FROM TEXT:
"You won't find the newly published Hatred's Kingdom in any Saudi
bookshop, but it is so much
in demand among high officials that the government has brought out a
reprint of its own."

"The book has further fueled that Saudi obsession and widespread Arab
guessing game
known as 'Who is next?' "

" '9/11 gave them the golden opportunity ... to portray us as the kernel
of evil, and fount of
terror.' "

"while no US aircraft take off from Saudi territory on combat missions,
the command and control
centre at Prince Sultan airbase near Riyadh effectively directs the air
war."

"the war is already longer and nastier than anticipated."

"the Saudi public already sees Iraq as 'another Palestine'."

"The appeal of Bin Ladenism may have declines since 9/11, but the Iraq
was has given it a new
lease on life."

"the regimes central dilemma is that the jihadist militancy which now
threatens it is doctrinally
justified by the self-same Wahhabism which, as interpreted by the
official clegy, simultaneously
promotes the notion of the people's absolute loyalty to the Islamically
approved ruler."

"few people in the kingdom want to see the end of the House of Saud, a
regime which, for all its
flaws, they compare favorably with most others"

"Crown Prince Abdullah has clear reformist inclinations, and is popular
for it. But he stands
alone, blocked by the rival clan, centred round the mentally
incapacitated King Fahd"
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---------------------------------------EXCERPTS:
You won't find the newly published Hatred's Kingdom in any Saudi bookshop,
but it is so much in demand among high officials that the government has
brought out a reprint of its own. Its author is Dore Gold, a hard- line
Israeli spokesman; according to him, the "hatred" in question is rooted in
that austere brand of Islamic orthodoxy, Wahhabism, to which Saudi Arabia
officially subscribes, and it found its most horrific, world- shaking
expression in the atrocity of 9/11.

The book has further fuelled that Saudi obsession and widespread Arab
guessing game known as "who is next?" Next candidate ... for the "reform" or
"regime change", to which the new-conservative hawks of the Bush
administration, in their drive to "reshape" the Middle East, will turn after
they dispose of Saddam Hussein. Syria and Iran are perhaps the more probable
ones. But the Saudis see very good reasons why they might be targeted too.
Oil -- and the US's inexorable thrust towards military and political
ascendancy in the Gulf region that is by far the world's most prolific
producer of it -- is one. Religiosity -- those Christian fundamentalist
tendencies within the administration for which Saudi Arabia ranks as their
most obvious Islamic antithesis -- is another.

But most important, they think, is the Israeli factor -- and their
conviction that, for the likes of Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas
Feith, a right-wing Israel agenda is part and parcel of the American one.
"As America's most important ally in the region," said Prince Abdullah bin
Faisal bin Turki, "we were the Israelis' only serious Arab competitor, on
Palestine's behalf, for the ear of American administrations. 9/11 gave them
the golden opportunity ... to portray us as the kernel of evil, and fount of
terror."

Virtually everyone ... in this now viscerally anti-American country fear
what America has in store for it; the war on Iraq has only brought the fear
to a new pitch of intensity. But the rulers' response to the war is
profoundly, dangerously, different from what most of the ruled would have
liked. The government has sought as far as it dare to placate the superpower
of whose protection it is no longer confident, yet cannot risk forfeiting.
So it is that while no US aircraft take off from Saudi territory on combat
missions, the command and control centre at Prince Sultan airbase near
Riyadh effectively directs the air war. It is the culmination of the
deference which, since 9/11, Saudi Arabia has exhibited towards the US,
submitting to pressures for "cultural" reform in such sensitive areas as
"hate-breeding" religious text books, urging a more tolerant discourse on a
ferociously orthodox clergy or promoting the most accommodating Middle East
peace initiative ever.

The House of Saud did not like granting military facilities for a war it
officially deplores, but it bought US assurances that the war would be a
quick one, and calculated that the Saudi public would be more satisfied by
the removal of a despot it fears than aggrieved by the means it was done.
But the war is already longer and nastier than anticipated. And even if the
end comes quickly, worse might follow it; for what the war has already
revealed about the Iraqis' attitude to their "liberators" suggests that they
could soon be seeking to "liberate" themselves from their liberators in a
classic anti- colonial insurgency. "I see a far graver, Arab Afghanistan
ahead," said commentator Abdul-Aziz Dakheel, "and we would be next to it."

Like other Arabs, the Saudi public already sees Iraq as "another Palestine".
They admire and applaud Iraqi resistance to the Western "aggressors", even
though they suspect that, so far, this is conducted more by Saddam loyalists
bent on saving their own skins than by patriots who loath him. So a Saudi
Arabia which continued to side with an American occupier at war with an Iraq
without Saddam would be very unpopular indeed.

In contrast with other Arab countries, there has been no public agitation,
no street demonstrations, but the government fears that popular solidarity
with Iraq, if and when it comes, will take an extreme, violent, religious
form. The appeal of Bin Ladenism may have declined since 9/11; but the Iraq
war has given it a new lease of life. "From the militant Islamists'
standpoint", explained Abdul-Aziz Qasim, a lawyer close to them, "it is time
for jihad against the infidel aggressor. They are awaiting the guidance of
an authority under which to wage it." That authority, of course, should be
the self-same Saudi regime which, on impeccable Wahhabite grounds, once
joined forces with America to recruit Saudi and Arab "mujahidin" to drive
the Russians out of Afghanistan. But now that the "infidel aggressors" are
American and British, it has enlisted the official religious hierarchy, and
even some formerly anti-government sheikhs, to preach against the
appropriateness of jihad.

It has also arrested hundreds of Al-Qa'eda suspects. But some are said to be
among the Arab volunteers converging on Baghdad -- amid forecasts, from
people like Qasim, that, given the country's long borders with Iraq, the
clan and tribal connections that span them, there will be many more such
volunteers in the future, and the government will find it very difficult to
stop them. But the immediate fear is a wave of anti-Western terrorism inside
the Kingdom itself, with all the political and economic consequences that
would bring in its wake. "All depends on the course of the war and what
comes after," said Muhsin Awaji, an Islamist and former political prisoner,
"but the militants are already a volcano ready to erupt, and I fear that
they will target any westerners, not just American and British." That fear
has clearly communicated itself to the vast expatriate community. In
downtown Riyadh, around the old mud-walled palace with whose capture the
Saudi Kingdom was born, the souqs, normally teeming with foreign shoppers,
are almost empty.

Any such "jihad" will in effect be aimed at the Saudi government, and seen
as such by the population at large. For it is not just religious fanaticism
and anti- American feeling that gives sustenance to Al-Qa'eda- style
militants, and wins them sympathy in a wider public that would otherwise
oppose their violence. It is a generalised discontent with the government.
"As well as being a continuous source of anger at the West," said a Western
diplomat, "Palestine was always a symptom of the Arabs' frustration with
their own systems -- and now you have Iraq added to that." In Saudi Arabia
that frustration is steadily growing, fuelled by such specifically Saudi
conditions as an enormously wealthy country now running a huge budget
deficit, turning out hundreds of thousands of graduates who cannot find jobs
in an economy overwhelming dependent on foreigners, a spreading poverty that
rubs shoulders with the enormous profligacy of princes -- and a lack of
modern, representative institutions through which to voice these
discontents.

... it is clear that few people in the kingdom want to see the end of the
House of Saud, a regime which, for all its flaws, they compare favourably
with most others, monarchies or republics, in the region. But, said Tawfiq
Zughayir, a moderate Islamist, "it simply must reform -- and build its
legitimacy on a new foundation: Democracy."

That, he and others say, would contribute to several things; it would rob
the neo-conservatives of a key pretext for the externally imposed "reform"
what they see as "failed" societies, help emancipate the relatively
progressive, temporal branch -- the actual rulers -- of the Saudi theocracy
from the constraints of its backward and obscurantist spiritual branch, wean
away the large majority of moderate Islamists from the minority of extreme,
Bin Ladenist ones, and enable Saudi Arabia -- like Turkey -- to defy America
where necessary on the ground that, being a democracy, it cannot go against
the popular will.

Crown Prince Abdullah has clear reformist inclinations, and is popular for
it. But he stands alone, blocked by the rival clan, centred round the
mentally incapacitated King Fahd, whose leading members seem to fear that
any serious change, whether demanded by the people or the Americans, will
lead, deliberately or inadvertently, to the demise of the whole regime.
"This," said columnist Daoud Shyrian, "is a very dangerous attitude, and,
after Iraq, at least a start to reforms has become an urgent necessity."
Otherwise, many fear, the country risks an internal destabilisation that
would arouse the neo- conservatives' interventionist instincts. Seize the
oilfields and partition the Kingdom, as some of them have suggested? "For
the Saudis," said a Western diplomat, "invasion is not a serious prospect
yet -- though it is certainly among the specters and poltergeists that haunt
them."

+++JORDAN TIMES 13 April '03:
"Iraqis are paying for the US-UK failure to do their homework" Musa
Keilan
QUOTES FROM TEXT:
"Enough and more has been said about the Saddam regime
and it would not serve any purpose to say more either way."

"It was loathsome to see American soldiers having the run of an
Arab capital, passing judgements about an Arab regime."

"How dare any American pass judgement on Iraq, a land that is
so rich in heritage, culture and civilisation that no one from the
outside world would have the right to make comparisons?"

"The chaos and anarchy into which Iraq has been plunged
could not but be forseen."

"the people of Iraq have been put through the worst terror and
suffering that any people was exposed to in modern history."

"Iraq has a precious power to offer the US total control of the
international oil market. In order to be able to use that power,
Washington has to take better care of the Iraqis than it does of
the Afghans. ... failure to move quickly would result in nothing
less than genocide in Iraq."
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EXCERPTS:
JORDAN IS squeezed between ...: Iraq to the east and Palestine to the
west....

Last Wednesday, here in Amman, a group of liberal human rights activists and
NGO directors gathered to discuss the fallout of the war on their political
platform, ... The consensus of the ten participants ... was that an era has
ended ...and the region will never be the same. For such is the impact of
the fall of the Saddam regime ... .

Enough and more has been said about the Saddam regime and it would not serve
any purpose to say more either way.

[IMRA: The Arab world hasn't said much against Saddam.]

Each and every one of us knows how it has affected the Arab psyche and
words fail to describe our pain, caused by what happened in the last few
weeks ... . What confronts us today is the impact of the "regime change" in
Baghdad and the way the regime collapsed.

It was heart-breaking to see the US forces entering Baghdad, the famous and
indeed revered Abbasid capital, almost unchallenged. Surely, there was some
treachery somewhere. ...

But that is no consolation to the feeling of being left to watch helplessly
as an Arab capital is being subjugated.

It was loathsome to see American soldiers having the run of an Arab capital,
passing judgements about an Arab regime. It is no longer about Saddam or his
"demonised" portrait that has become the West's favourite bed-time story...
. It is about Arab pride and nationalism as much as it is about the
suffering of the people of Iraq, caused by the whims and fancy of a foreign
leader who... appeared to be feverishly demon-driven to shatter Iraq.

. . .

How dare any American pass judgement on Iraq, a land that is so rich in
heritage, culture and civilisation that no one from the outside world would
have the right to make comparisons?... no American is qualified even to set
foot on the sacred soil of Imam Ali's shrine mosque in Najaf-Iraq, which is
so dear and near to all of us in the Arab world, or to incite trouble that
led to the brutal murder of Abdel Majid Al Khoei, one of the most respected
scholars among Muslims....

... The chaos and anarchy into which Iraq has been plunged could not but be
foreseen. That is what wars are all about. But it is all the more painful to
watch the suffering of its people. Surely, those who resorted to looting and
plundering do not represent the Iraqi society; they are an aberration.

There are millions of Iraqis out there left unable to do anything about
themselves...without water, food and houses. Indeed, the people of Iraq,
like the Palestinians ..., are among those destined to suffer. But for how
long?

Does the "regime change" answer their problems? Would it bring better food,
cleaner water and liveable quarters?

. . .

The US and UK have succeeded in achieving their objective to change the
regime. But in the bargain, the people of Iraq have been put through the
worst terror and suffering that any people was exposed to in modern history.
Now, it is the American and British responsibility to address the problems
they created in Iraq. Nice words are not enough. They will not bring any
relief to the starving Iraqis and no medicine to the wounded. If the US and
UK assumed for themselves the role of an international policeman when they
set out for regime change in Baghdad in the name of weapons of mass
destruction, human rights, liberty and democracy, then they should be
equally prepared to deal with the consequences of their actions ... .

... the Anglo-American alliance failed to do its homework, and the people
of Iraq are paying for that failure. Indeed, the alliance has its
responsibilities and obligations to the people of occupied Iraq. It could
not shirk from its inevitable obligations under international conventions.

Can it be trusted to follow through?

We have seen what happened in Afghanistan. But we are sure that the same
will not be repeated in Iraq. Unlike impoverished Afghanistan, with little
natural resources, Iraq has a precious power to offer the US: total control
of the international oil market. In order to be able to use that power,
Washington has to take better care of the Iraqis than it does of the
Afghans. ... failure to move quickly would result in nothing less than
genocide in Iraq.

+++AL-AHRAM WEEKLY 10-16 April '03:Roadmaps to devastation"

HEADING:"The only discernible roadmap is that linking the aggression in Iraq
with that in
Palestine, writes Azmi Bishara ( Arab Member Knesset,
Israel)

QUOTES FROM TEXT:
"Blair wants to deliver something that may restore him to the European
fold and
hopes the roadmap will do the trick."

"The US administration ... is reluctant to give the Arabs even the most
evasive of sugar
coated-promises."

"I just hope they stop talking about the roadmap."

"The political consequences of Iraqi resistance outweigh the roadmap."

"Other similarities exist starting with the charge that Palestinians, or
Iraqis, are
placing 'terrorists' in the midst of civilians."

"Well done, butchers of Palestinian children. Well done, butchers of the
Iraqi children.
Well done friends and abettors of the butchers of Iraqi children."

"The strike against Iraq is a strike against Iraq and Syria."

"The Palestinian regime will have to give up the right of return for
refugees and accept
the Jewishness of Israel, not just the existence, of Israel. The
recognition of the
Jewishness of Israel is the condition for joining the Knesset, a price
one has to pay,
willy-nilly for the privilege of being a Knesset member."
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EXCERPTS:

UK Prime Minister Tony Blair hopes that the US administration would publish
its roadmap for resolving the Palestinian issue before the end of the war on
Iraq. Perhaps, he reckons, the roadmap would alleviate some of the horror
bound to take place during the siege of Baghdad. ... Blair wants to deliver
something that may restore him to the European fold and hopes the roadmap
would do the trick.

Some Arabs agree. They are mostly Anglophiles, people who are accustomed to
the British colonial ways, people who can express admiration for Prince
Charles -- who can be just as silly as they are -- and for Tony Blair ... .
These people speak endlessly of the roadmap. They have turned it into a
mantra, just as "implementing Resolution 242" used to be, and just as after
the 1967 war, when everyone spoke about "removing the effects of the
aggression". ...

The US administration ... is reluctant to give the Arabs even the most
evasive of sugar-coated promises. Denied their daily palliatives, the Arabs
are now beholden to those moments in which the roadmap is mentioned, even in
passing, even senselessly. The Arab media monitors George W Bush's
statements in search of a sign. ... Will he just threaten Iraq and commend
the troops for their valiant advance on Baghdad ... ? Or will he add the
magic word -- the roadmap? And if the magic word is uttered, God help us.
Torrents of analyses, cascades of questions would follow. What does Bush
mean by this particular phrasing? ... Will the US publish the roadmap? Or
will it succumb to Israeli pressure and keep it under its hat a bit longer?
And, if Bush were to publish the roadmap, what would Israel do?

Then ... - the answers begin to trickle, guilt-ridden and ambiguous,
stammered and truncated, from those who support the aggression in the depth
of their hearts but wish the war to be quick. The answers we get would start
tentatively with "I think ...," and "actually, I think" before completely
losing the train of thought.

The war against Iraq cannot end fast -- too late for that. It only
shortened, or at least shattered, many lives. The death toll and the horror
of physical and psychological wounds of this "liberation" will last for
years.

I couldn't care less how the leaders of this invasion feel about it, how
their conscience functions or fails to do so. I just hope they stop talking
about the roadmap. Nobody finds any consolation in this roadmap. And nobody
seeks consolation to start with. Right now, we are just beginning to grasp
the political meaning of the stiff resistance put up by the Iraqis,
including regular and irregular forces, in the war. This resistance has
successfully dashed the expectations of Israeli experts and commentators.
Nations -- and dictatorial regimes -- are not flies waiting for the
Americans to squash them. The political consequences of Iraqi resistance
outweigh the roadmap.

For the moment, the only discernible roadmap is that linking the aggression
in Iraq with that in Palestine. The resemblance is striking. Soldiers
kicking down doors in Basra suburbs, citizens made to kneel down, hands tied
with plastic cords. These are scenes long known to the Palestinians, scenes
the Palestinians still refuse to accept or get used to. Other similarities
exist, starting with the charge that Palestinians, or Iraqis, are placing
"terrorists" in the midst of civilians. Iraq is being maligned for keeping
troops inside Baghdad to defend the city. What was it supposed to do? Get
the troops out of the city, or get the population out, so as to make things
easy for the invaders? The United States and Israel give themselves the
right to conduct aggression and maintain occupation, and the rest of us are
supposed to acquiesce?

.... Before long US spokesmen may declare that the Americans would never
forgive the Arabs for forcing them to kill their children. Israeli officials
and writers and poets made such claims in the past. They blamed the
Palestinians for disturbing their sense of integrity, for forcing them to
commit morally abhorrent deeds. It is all the Palestinians' fault, they
said.

How disturbing, and yet how predictable? Roadblocks manned by soldiers
fearful for their own safety, by men apprehensive of martyrdom operations,
who would fire at innocent civilians if they suspect foul play. Fire first
and apologise later. Innocent lives are bound to be lost. Women and children
are bound to die. So, please, save us the apology, save us the rhetoric
about terror and guilt. ... .

... The charge of terrorism, when levelled on a regular army trying to
defend its sovereign homeland, only enhances the similarities between Iraq
and Palestine.

The only roadmap on the mind of US administration is that leading from
Baghdad to Jerusalem, through Damascus and Beirut, through every city and
town that opposes US dictates. Well done, butchers of Palestinian children.
Well done, butchers of the Iraqi children. Well done, friends and abettors
of the butchers of Iraqi children. Well done, conquerors of Tulkarm. Am I
being too emotional? Perhaps. But how can one be otherwise? Are we supposed
to rejoice in the destruction of Iraq and the slaughter of its people, or
hope that the mission will be conducted as quickly as possible?

... I see no Palestinian or Arab profiting from the mere publication of the
roadmap. I expect every item on the roadmap to be hotly debated by the
Israelis ... . The Palestinian state -- or Bush's version thereof -- will be
anything but a state. Israel will not withdraw to pre-1967 borders or remove
the settlements. ...

Why have the US neo-conservatives waged the war against Iraq?... These neo-
conservatives ... did not even approve of the Oslo accords or of the
principles underlying these accords. Their position, and that of Israel's
right-wing, is that the Oslo -- or any -- accords are doomed to fail so long
as the Arabs have not recognised not only Israel but the premises of
Zionism. For this to happen, the Arabs must acknowledge the depth of their
own defeat, must not forget the taste of brute force or lose sight of the
military and technological superiority of their adversaries. The strike
against Iraq is a strike against Iraq and Syria -- the hints are not all too
subtle. The victory against Iraq would be a victory for US policies, in oil
as well as peace. Getting rid of Saddam is an allegory for getting rid of
Arafat. None of this is a victory for democracy but for US and Israeli
hegemony.

The new regime in Baghdad will be mirrored in a new regime in the West Bank
and Gaza, one that would accept US and Israeli dictates and "respect its
commitments". Once the new regime in Palestine accepts Israel's reservations
about the roadmap, it would be allowed to have a state on part of the
territories. ... the Palestinian regime will have to give up the right of
return for refugees and accept the Jewishness, not just the existence, of
Israel. (The recognition of the Jewishness of Israel is the condition for
joining the Knesset, a price one has to pay, willy-nilly, for the privilege
of being a Knesset member. In a sense, the Arabs making peace with Israel
would be forced to accept the same conditions as those running for the
Israeli Knesset.) In addition, the Palestinian regime will also have to
fight terror.

These are the tasks of the Palestinian state, according to Bush and Sharon.
This is the whole point of the roadmap, published or unpublished. Are we
not, then, right to side with the children of Iraq and Palestine and curse
their butchers? The loss of life in Palestine and Iraq is not predestined
and the murderers have no higher cause. Their motives, however, are clear.
They want our land and are grabbing it in broad daylight.

Dr. Joseph Lerner, Co-Director IMRA