MEDIA REACTION ON IRAQ AND MIDDLE EAST

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 AMMAN 001914

SIPDIS

STATE FOR NEA/ARN, NEA/PA, NEA/AIA, INR/NESA, R/MR,
I/GNEA, B/BXN, B/BRN, NEA/PPD, NEA/IPA FOR ALTERMAN
USAID/ANE/MEA
LONDON FOR TSOU
SIPDIC

E.O. 12958: N/A

TAGS: KMDR JO
SUBJECT: MEDIA REACTION ON IRAQ AND MIDDLE EAST

Summary

-- Lead story in all papers today, March 15, focuses
on Israel's raid of the Jericho prison to capture PFLP
leader Ahmad Sa'adat. Reports include remarks made by
Jordan's official spokesperson warning of the
repercussions of the Jericho raid and asking Israel to
immediately halt its operations.

Editorial Commentary on Jericho Prison Raid

-- "Diplomacy of tanks"

Center-left, influential Arabic daily Al-Dustour
(03/15) editorializes: "Exposing the barbaric
mentality of the Israeli occupation forces, Israeli
tanks and bulldozers stormed the Jericho prison in the
West Bank to arrest Ahmad Sa'adat of the PFLP. The
operation came after American and British observers
withdrew from the prison . suggesting collusion on the
part of these observers! Israel is exercising the
diplomacy of tanks as part of the elections campaign
for the Ehud Olmert's party, Kadima. It is an
innovative method of Israeli election campaigning,
more than once depending on the blood and abuse of the
Palestinians to gain popularity and votes. Israel is
a 'state' but it is really more of a gang. It does
not belong to the civilized world or to humanity. How
else do we understand getting to an imprisoned and
unarmed person, like Ahmad Sa'adat, by destroying
buildings and wall with tanks and bulldozers? Is
there not one single genuine person in this
'civilized' world who would protest the infliction of
ruin and harm to an entire people's dignity, pride and
humanity, a people living in a huge prison, just like
Ahmad Sa'adat? Once again, Israel proves it does not
bother with the international community or human
values. It is a rogue terrorist state that reproduces
and reinvests the age of barbarism. Nothing works
with it except the language of force. So from now on,
no one can blame the victim if he chooses to defense
his right to live!"

-- "Is it not time for this international hypocrisy to
end?"

Daily Columnist Oraib Rantawi writes on the op-ed page
of center-left, influential Arabic daily Al-Dustour
(03/15): "With its rude and provocative attack on
Jericho prison . Olmert's government crosses whatever
lines are left in its mad war against the Palestinian
people, a war that has escalated significantly since
the Palestinian elections and before the very eyes of
the world and with the unfortunate collusion of the
international community that is intent on pressuring
Hamas to stop the violence.. The world is focused on
demanding that Hamas recognize the agreements, as if
Israel's attack on the Jericho prison is the best
expression of abiding by agreements.. They ask Hamas
to acknowledge Israel's right to exist, but they keep
silent about Olmert's plan to demark the borders of
his occupying entity unilaterally and without any
concern for international accords and agreements..
Who should decry violence and respect agreements and
acknowledge the other's right to exist? Is it the
Palestinians who are killed, rendered homeless and
suffer from attacks and sieges, or are the Israelis
who, with their barbaric practices, embody the concept
of organized state terrorism in its dirtiest form?"

Editorial Commentary on Iraq

-- "From democracy to civil war!"

Columnist Jawad Bashiti writes on the op-ed page of
independent, mass-appeal Arabic daily Al-Arab Al-Yawm
(03/15): "The United States will not stay militarily
one day more after completing its mission in Iraq.
This is the Bush Administration's permanent answer for
the question 'when are you leaving?'. The problem
here lies in the mystery of the 'mission', since no
one can even claim to know its nature or details..
Arriving in Iraq was for a reason the world did not
believe, although the Bush Administration demonstrated
unshakable faith. The Saddam Hussein regime owns an
arsenal of biological and chemical weapons of mass
destruction, and thus toppling that regime by invading
and occupying Iraq was a must, because this was the
only way to capture those weapons. Expectations then
were that the United States would not stay one day
more after completing its mission, namely the
destruction of the weapons. But the mission was never
completed, because the search for the arsenal was in
effect like searching for the phoenix. The
justification of the U.S. arrival in Iraq collapsed,
and so staying there required a convincing reason.
Enabling the Iraqis to build a democratic ruling
regime to be the model of democracy on the Arab and
regional levels became the new reason or the new
mission, after which the U.S. military presence in
Iraq will not stay one day more! This reason soon
collapsed, as the new Iraqi ruling regime and its
fallout became the disaster that Arab people had to
try to avoid.. Once the higher model of democracy,
along with the climate of a 'nuclear conflict' between
the United States and Iran, transformed into a civil
war-inducing power between the Shiites and the Sunnis,
another reason was devised to stay in Iraq.
Preventing the civil war, and not spreading democracy,
became the objective of the U.S. military presence in
Iraq. However, if the Iraqis insist on aborting the
Bush administration's endeavor to stop the civil war
as they had stopped its endeavor to bring them
democracy, then it would keep its forces in Iraq but
make it neutral, meaning that it would not be party to
the imminent civil war! Its army will walk out of the
playing field and stand watching until the Iraqis
exhaust themselves in a civil war, which the United
States would use to fuel its battle with Iran and its
battle to give Israel more reasons to be strategically
superior. Therefore, the Iraqi civil war is, as of
now, the Bush administration's first choice for Iraq
and the region."
HALE