HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK ---------------------------
http://rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/home/story/ucru/cm_top_top/*http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=127&ncid=742&e=7&u=/020627/7/1rho8.html DEATH OF A PEACE SALESMAN: Thu Jun 27, 7:01 PM ET By Ted Rall Bush's Palestinian Putsch SAN FRANCISCO-Now it's official. Bush is Ariel Sharon's bitch. When the Israeli prime minister began demanding that the Palestinian Authority jettison Yasser Arafat as its leader a few months back, even his fans knew he'd crossed the line. Israel was in no position to give the Palestinians this much advice. Sure, Bush had refused to even shake Arafat's hand, but the administration hadn't yet endorsed Sharon's ridiculous bid to beat the Palestinians by turning their leader into an Israeli puppet. "(Washington) is not an honest broker or a neutral intermediary; it stands completely behind Israel," Hamas politburo member Mousa Abu Marzouk told Reuters in Damascus on June 10. Then, in a speech seemingly tailor-made to confirm that intifadist statement, George W. Bush dangled the possibility of American support for the creation of a Palestinian state on the West Bank in exchange for Arafat's ouster: "Peace requires a new and different Palestinian leadership so that a Palestinian state can be born," he said on June 24. Presumably that "new leadership" would be friendly to both American and Israeli interests. After decades of abstention, the United States is back in the coup d'état business. And with the exception of an embarrassingly inept attempt to unseat Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez a few months back, Bush's back-to-the-'50s retro imperialism is working out fairly well...for now. The administration rigged Afghanistan's loya jirga to install ex-Unocal executive Hamid Karzai as the head of a nation where few people had ever heard of him. It converted former Taliban cabana boy Gen. Pervez Musharraf into our wholly-owned Pakistani subsidiary. And it owes its own existence to the first successful domestic coup d'état in American history. Why not, regime tinkerers Rumsfeld and Cheney obviously asked themselves, pull off a Palestinian putsch too? The Palestinians could obviously do better than Mohammed Abdel-Raouf Arafat al-Qudwa al-Husseini. A once-brilliant, charismatic tactician whose leadership of the PLO forced the West to consider Palestinian independence, 73 years of hard living and Israeli shelling have reduced Arafat to a quivering wreck tottering on the brink of senility. Though Israel has exaggerated the generosity of the deal he turned down over the Jerusalem issue, Arafat clearly failed to understand that the favorable tide of Western opinion had crested. He should have signed up then and later asked for more-East Jerusalem, a corridor connecting Gaza to the West Bank. Arafat's undemocratic moderation has become both too strident for the West and too soft for his increasingly radicalized people. But he's all they've got. He's the Palestinians' George Washington, a military leader striving to carve out a state which will someday stamp his googly-eyed image on its coins and stamps. At this point his possible successors-Mahmoud Abbas, Ahmed Korei, Jibril Rajoub, Mohammed Dahlan-just aren't popular enough to run this landlocked hellhole. Marwan Barghouthi, a popular Fatah leader currently in jail, wouldn't be acceptable to Israel. An independent Palestine can do without Arafat, but only after he's served one term leading to a free election. But none of that matters. If another nation attempted to topple George W. Bush, I would be the first to fight to defend my country from foreign interference. Illegitimate and harmful though Bush obviously is, it's up to Americans to decide whether he should stay in office. The same goes for the Palestinians. Getting rid of Arafat may be a good decision, but it has to be a Palestinian decision; neither the U.S. or Israel has the right to impose new leadership. Certainly neither country has the moral authority to do so. George W. Bush has made it official: He'll go along with whatever Ariel Sharon wants him to do, no matter how immoral, impractical or insane. Wait a minute. Who's paying who $3 billion a year, anyway? Bad enough we toady up to a country we ought to own, but now the U.S. no longer bothers to give even lip service to the principles of national sovereignty and self-determination-especially in regard to Muslim countries next to or on top of major oil reserves. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're the biggest, baddest bully on the block right now, but look out-the people we're stomping on in Pakistan, Afghanistan and now, Palestine, will be waiting to get even with us down the road. ____________________ (Ted Rall's new book, a graphic travelogue about his recent coverage of the Afghan war titled "To Afghanistan and Back," is out now. Ordering and review-copy information are available at <http://www.nbmpub.com>) ===== Lake Merritt Neighbors Organized for Peace. Weekly peace walks around Lake Merritt in Oakland. For directions & public transportation info go to http://www.webwm.com/LMNOP/where_when.htm Every Sunday at 3 P.M. Info: (510)763-8712, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> or http://www.webwm.com/LMNOP __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? 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