'Volatile'
is the epithet most commonly used to describe the Middle
East. But the year 2002 leaves observers in search of
new adjectives to apply. The period has seen a spectacular
deterioration of political stability along with the security
and well-being of millions of the region's inhabitants.
And worse is likely to come.
These
developments are closely linked with the actions and intentions
of the supreme global military and economic power - the
US. Not for many years has US foreign policy had such
grave implications for the Middle East's future. Two areas
are critical to the region as a whole: Israel/Palestine
and Iraq.
Israel and Palestine
At
the end of 2001 Israel and the Occupied Territories had
had the bloodiest year since the 1967 war. But 2002 surpassed
even this, with more than 1,000 Palestinians and 400 Israelis
losing their lives in the conflict. The year began with
three weeks of relative calm. But when the Palestinian
guerrilla groups broke their period of restraint with
an attack on an Israeli army base, Israel unleashed a
spiral of violence.
The
Israelis continued tactics used since the current intifada
began in September 2000, including assassination of political
activists, attacks on Palestinian Authority personnel,
land seizures, sniper attacks on civilians and arrest
of those thought to be involved in resistance activities.
But in addition, the Israelis dramatically intensified
their policy of incursions into territory assigned to
Palestinian Authority control under the Oslo Accords.
It
started with Gaza. On 10 February Hamas guerrillas attacked
an army base in southern Israel. The Israelis responded
with a full-scale invasion of the Gaza Strip, reoccupying
PA military installations, destroying homes and other
buildings and effectively annulling PA control of the
territory. The process was repeated soon after in Nablus
and Jenin in the West Bank. When that failed to achieve
anything other than encouraging Palestinian resistance,
Israeli forces carried out further large-scale incursions,
effectively reoccupying each of the West Bank's main towns
one by one. The deadliest such operation was at Jenin
in the north of the territory in April, when the refugee
camp was destroyed with heavy loss of life. The head of
the Palestinian Authority, Yasser Arafat, was besieged
on a number of occasions in his headquarters in Ramallah
while the Israelis destroyed his security agencies' installations
and killed many of their personnel.
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| Gaza,
April 2002. Palestinian teenager Samira
finds her neighbour’s eight-member
family dead under their house destroyed
in an Israeli attack. |
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The
Palestinians' response was chiefly military. Irregular
forces, owing allegiance to Arafat's Fatah or a couple
of other secular movements, or to the Islamist groups
Hamas and Islamic Jihad, went after military targets and
settlements. But they also targeted civilians. These attacks
were usually carried out by suicide bombers and caused
heavy Israeli casualties.
Palestinian
military operations have continued in spite of both Israeli
military operations and a massive programme of restriction
and containment of the general population of the Territories.
These are divided up into small cantons, separated by
armed checkpoints restricting virtually all movement.
Curfews have been imposed for long periods of time. The
effect on the Palestinian economy in the Territories has
been devastating. The Israeli economy also has suffered
heavily.
Iraq
The
early part of 2002 saw Iraq make headway in mending political
fences with its Arab neighbours and increase its volume
of trade in several areas. But the UN trade embargo remained
in place. The only apparent way of getting sanctions lifted
- the resumption of arms inspections followed by an all-clear
from inspectors - was repeatedly rejected by the regime
in Baghdad. It insisted that inspectors could only return
with explicit guarantees that sanctions would be lifted
once the country was given a clean bill of health. US
and British warplanes, meanwhile, continued to bomb Iraqi
targets under the pretext of patrolling the 'no-fly zones'
established without UN approval after the Iraqis were
driven out of Kuwait.
As
the debate dragged on it became evident that the US Government
would be glad to see the back of both the issue of arms
inspections and the regime in Baghdad.
Then,
on 12 September, President Bush addressed the UN General
Assembly and stated that the US would not act unilaterally
against Iraq. Two months of tortuous negotiations produced
a Security Council resolution which the US could live
with and the other Permanent Members would back - and
which allowed Iraq to agree to the return of arms inspectors.
The year ended with the inspectors, armed with sweeping
powers, busily surveying every site in the country deemed
likely to contain some aspect of Iraq's weapons programme.
Middle
East and the US
To
the population of the Middle East at large, there was
a clear political link between events in Palestine and
Iraq. The question of 'double standards', whereby the
UN and much of the industrialized world allowed Israel
to get away with repeatedly flouting Security Council
resolutions while insisting that Iraq obey them, has been
a major concern in the region since 1991. The marked increase
in Israeli aggression against the Palestinians coupled
with the rising clamour from the hawks in Washington against
Iraq, sparked off a spate of large public demonstrations
on the streets of many cities in the Middle East for the
first time in decades. The result was a summit of Arab
heads of state in Beirut in March which showed remarkable
unity on both issues. As well as a unanimous rejection
of US military moves against Iraq, the Arab leaders endorsed
a peace plan put forward by Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince
Abdullah, offering peace with Israel if it withdrew from
all occupied territory. Israel responded by immediately
escalating its campaign to subdue the Palestinian uprising.
The US effectively ignored it.
The
events of 11 September 2001 had enabled the hawks in the
Bush administration, spurred on by US oil and arms lobbies,
to gain the ascendancy. Despite not a shred of evidence,
Washington has persuaded the majority of US public opinion
that Iraq is somehow connected with al-Qaeda. It so terrified
its allies in Europe and elsewhere with the prospect of
unilateral military action in the Middle East that they
breathed a sigh of relief when the US agreed to seek support
from the UN Security Council, even though this actually
did little to diminish the likelihood of war.
While
the more pragmatic figures in Washington were anxious
at least to be seen trying to make progress on Israel/Palestine
before dealing with Iraq, the hawks had no such qualms.
The US scotched repeated attempts at the UN to establish
a peacekeeping force on the ground in the Territories.
It backed Israel's refusal to allow entry to a UN fact-finding
mission after the destruction of Jenin refugee camp and
repeatedly blamed the Palestinian Authority for the escalation
of violence. President Bush went so far as to describe
Israeli leader Ariel Sharon as 'a man of peace'. The US
Government gave up even the pretence of even-handedness
as the year progressed.
US
forces continued to operate in Afghanistan, engaged in
'mopping-up' remnants of the Taliban, and arrived in Yemen
in an effort to seek out and kill suspected terrorists.
But the year ended with Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda
network apparently intact, carrying out major attacks
on civilians from Indonesia to Kenya. Despite the expenditure
of vast resources on 'security' measures at home and abroad,
the 'war on terror' appears to have made little progress.
The
new year begins with the focus very much on Iraq. Just
how far the US will go to achieve its professed aim of
'regime change' remains to be seen. The region waits in
fear.
