MEDIA REACTION ON MIDDLE EAST

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SUBJECT: MEDIA REACTION ON MIDDLE EAST

Summary

-- Lead story in all papers today, August 10,
highlights Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's
speech before a Legislative Council session held in
Gaza, during which he announced that elections for the
Palestinian Legislative Council will take place next
January and urged Palestinians to facilitate Israel's
withdrawal from Gaza.

Editorial Commentary

-- "Iran takes advantage of the appropriate moment in
history"

Daily columnist Bater Wardam writes on the op-ed page
of center-left, influential Arabic daily Al-Dustour
(09/10): "Iran's decision to go back to working on
its nuclear program for military purposes is a well
calculated and wise decision on all levels, and it
comes at the best time possible for the Iranian
leadership. If there is ever a lesson to be learned
from the American invasion of Iraq, it is that this
invasion did not take place because Iraq had nuclear
weapons, as the U.S. leadership lied about to the
world, but because, very simply, Iraq did not have
these weapons. Had the nuclear weapons been active,
effective, and usable, the Americans would not have
dared to invade Iraq. The same truth applies to North
Korea. America's demands of the Koreans to abandon
their nuclear program are soft-spoken and do not
include military threats. This is because no one in
the United States wants to bear the consequences of a
military attack against a nuclear-equipped country
that has no reservations about using those weapons in
self-defense. Iran's development of nuclear weapons,
no matter how simple they would be, is the major
guarantee and protection against expected American and
Israelis strikes. Iran seems to be better placed
politically now to enable it to impose its conditions
and options even on the United States. There is
economic prosperity in Iran due to the rise of the
world oil prices and the Americans and the Europeans
know that the revenue from this prosperity is going to
go Iran's military machine.. The most important
element, however, of Iran's political and economic
influence lies in Iraq. The equation in post-
occupation Iraq indicates very clearly to the neo-
conservatives' stupid policy, political
shortsightedness and ideological blindness that have
contributed to placing the decision-making process in
Iraq under the Iranian influence.. The Americans also
know that the Shiites' peacefulness in Iraq remains
subject to Iran's signals. And since the American
forces are incapable of imposing sovereignty over the
Sunni Triangle, they would have a hellish time should
Iran, for any reason - one of which could be attempts
to abort the Iranian nuclear program - open the doors
wide to Jihad against the American forces in Iraq.
Iran holds in its hand all the important cards at this
stage.. Thus, the Iranian leadership's venture to
complete its nuclear program seems to be well
calculated since the United States has gotten itself
stuck in the Iraqi quagmire and has no helping hand
except that of the Iran's influence."

-- "An extremist and spiteful racist"

Daily columnist Jamil Nimri writes in independent
Arabic daily Al-Ghad (08/10): "Here we have a
terrorist crime that reflects insane racist and
religious hatred, which allows us to talk about the
culture and environment that nurtures hatred and that
produce such people [Referring to the weekend incident
of the Israeli soldier that shot at a bus full of
Arabs in Shafa Amr, killing four]. It is also an
occasion to reflect on our situation: how can we
explain a similar act by one of us against Jews? How
can we differentiate between these actions that are
perpetrated by crazy racist maniacs and the killing of
any number of Jewish civilians in a bus or restaurant,
operations claimed officially and with pride by
Palestinian factions? The situation is different:
they are occupiers and we are under occupation! Is
that sufficient to justify the similarity of the
methods used? Israel, since its creation, has been
responsible for the killing, destruction, and
expulsion of the Palestinian people. But Israelis
calculate their positions well, and every illegal act
is subject to legal questioning, actual or cosmetic.
Public standards of legality and legitimacy are ever-
present in their calculus, in assessing every act and
deciding whether to adopt it, evade it, or even
condemn it. We, by contrast, only orate to ourselves.
Moreover, leaving Israel aside, what about bombings of
civilian crowds in other parts of the world? How can
their perpetrators be culturally and morally different
from that spiteful racist Zionist? Perhaps one of the
greatest tragedies of a cause that is most just, is
that resistance is marred by a type of operations that
is identical to the wave of terror that the world has
lived for some time now." HALE