MEDIA REACTION ON ISRAEL-HEZBOLLAH COMBAT AND IRAQ

UNCLAS AMMAN 005697 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 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: KMDR JO SUBJECT: MEDIA REACTION ON ISRAEL-HEZBOLLAH COMBAT AND IRAQ Editorial Commentary on Israel-Hezbollah Combat -- "The reaping of war" Chief Editor Ayman Safadi writes on the back-page of independent, centrist Arabic daily Al-Ghad (07/30),"More than 90% of Israelis support the war on Lebanon. Chief editors of major Israeli newspapers and major writers and columnists justify the bloodshed that the Israeli terror machine has inflicted upon Lebanon. Some even call for exterminating entire Lebanese villages. Almost all of Israel supports the killing of the Lebanese. This is a stand that nullifies Israel's claims that it wants peace. Whoever supports the killing of innocent people is a proponent of war not a proponent of peace. No one then should blame the Arabs for seeing Israel as the enemy throughout history. All that Israel does entrenches the enmity towards it. How can the Arab not hate Israel, and beyond it America, when they sleep and wake up on a daily basis to the images of Lebanese and Palestinian children whose bodies are torn by Israel, to the images of mothers mourning their children, and to the images of men whose dignity was usurped because they were unable to protect their homes? The war on Lebanon will end sooner or later. The refugees will return to their homes, the mothers will overcome their losses and life will go back to Lebanon. Then, Israel will have achieved one thing only: more hatred for it and more rejection of it as a country in the midst of the Arabs. And then, the U.S. administration will have destroyed everything that its predecessors have accomplished in terms of creating a climate that accommodates Israel as part of a peaceful and secure Middle East. America will not succeed in building a new Middle East. The characteristics of this new Middle East that Washington is promising indicates a deformed situation of an Arab world dominated by Israel and formulated by the United States in a way that serves Israel's aspirations, expansion and racism.... Here they are, the Arab-Israeli peace treaties, worthless and meaningless documents. Peace is a status of popular acceptance of agreements that guarantee respect for the parties' rights, and not just documents deposited with the United Nations, which itself has been diminished and turned by Washington into a corridor for passing its decisions. Despite this, the Jordanians and Egyptians cannot cancel the peace treaties. The cost would be too high.... But they can maintain the peace treaties as they are: papers with no meaning. No Israeli tourists in Jordan anymore and no people-to-people relations. The situation must stay like this. The Jordanians and Egyptians must refuse to receive Israeli tourists in the future, and all studies centers and civil society institutions must refuse to talk to them. Let the land of Jordan and Egypt be inaccessible to the Israelis. Let Israel stay besieged by its own fears, a rogue countries rejected in its surroundings and outcast by its neighbors. After all, a people that applauds the killing of an Arab people do not deserve from the Arabs except hatred and animosity." -- "Rice again" Center-left, influential Arabic daily Ad-Dustour (07/30) editorial opines: "U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice returns to the region after the war between Hezbollah and Israel has become more flammable.... By all standards, the U.S. administration's miscalculation of the situation in the region becomes apparent. It has stayed prisoner of the wrong ideas that it recently set off; it has divided parties into allies and enemies; it has given up even the minimum role of mediator or broker of the peace process in the Middle East. Instead, it focused on Israel as the strategic ally that complements its own presence. The United States has never, despite its absolute support of Israel, shown this form of direct animosity towards Arab rights. Its position did not take into consideration humanitarian aspects neither in terms of respect for human rights nor in terms of respect for international treaties. It even supported and encouraged not arriving at a ceasefire despite what it saw and heard about the mass murders and war crimes that are being perpetrated by Israel in Palestine and Lebanon.... Rice now wants to return to the region to manage the conflict in a different way." Editorial Commentary on Iraq -- "Nouri Maliki's speech at the White House" Columnist Kamal Rashid writes on the op-ed page of center-left, influential Arabic daily Ad-Dustour (07/30): "I felt sadness and resentment as I listened to the Iraqi Prime Minister deliver his speech before the elite American politicians, businessmen and economists who constitute the only party capable of rejecting, approving or amending President Bush's decisions. This is the first Iraqi prime minister who stands like that and is given the honor of addressing the American elite. The question is why? The speech did not serve Iraq and the Iraqi cause, but rather the American president and his policy in Iraq. He came to say to the Americans that they are wrong about President Bush and his war in Iraq, and that all of Iraq, represented by its elected prime minister came to thank them, President Bush, the U.S. administration and the American army for what they have done to liberate Iraq.... Maliki spoke about the role of the Americans and their service to liberating Iraq, spreading security and stability, protecting freedom and democracy in Iraq, and fighting terrorism. It is as if he forgot how many Iraqis die every day and the increased security chaos under Maliki's leadership himself. It is under Maliki himself that killing by name and identity was being done. It is under him that scientists and deputies were killed.... Why did you not talk about the shameful acts of the Americans, their crimes in Abu Ghraib prison, the killing, the torture, the sadism, the revenge and the rape of men and women? Why did you not talk about the sectarian rivalry that is being nurtured by the Americans and the British?" HALE