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