An American diplomatic cable leaked by WikiLeaks indicates that the Arab League placed Steven Spielberg's movies on a blacklist because the director donated $1 million (Dh3.67 million) to Israel during Israel's 2006 onslaught on Lebanon. Big deal! I can't imagine that decision left the most famous filmmaker on the planet worth in the region of $3 billion sobbing over his gefilte fish. It seems to me that the Arab League should forget the minnows and concentrate instead on frying the bigger fish.
Let's cut through the swamp for a moment. The biggest obstruction to peace in the Middle East isn't Israel. It's the United States of America. If Washington quit coming up with the big guns, the big bluster and the big bucks, the Jewish state would topple like the Leaning Tower of Pisa in a tornado.
While just about the entire international community — including the US — says it's about time that the Palestinians got their own independent state, successive US administrations have done absolutely nothing towards achieving that goal apart from making empty promises, holding conferences, and organising photo-ops. As for the Israel-Lebanon War, it's worth remembering that it was the Bush administration that refused to vote for a ceasefire in the UN Security Council until 1,400 Lebanese men, women and children were killed by weapons marked 'Made in the USA'.
With the so-called peace process — the most half-hearted ever — in a shambles, ostensibly because the Netanyahu government refuses to halt the expansion of illegal Jewish colonies in the West Bank and Obama is too much of a wimp to wield a stick, there are calls for the Palestinians to unilaterally declare a state before inviting nations to recognise that entity. I say 'ostensibly', because colony expansion, like the apartheid wall that slices through the West Bank is just another symptom of Israel's sickness — a selfish, self-centred lack of will.
Fayyad's appeal
Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad has discounted such a possibility for now while urging his people not to lose faith in an eventual negotiated settlement. I admire his confidence but, in all honesty, that's nothing more than pie in the sky. Israel will not relinquish one inch of occupied land unless it's forced to and as the only country that can push its leaders into a corner is America, that's not going to happen — unless, of course, the Palestinians roll over and accept any crumbs Tel Aviv may decide to throw at them.
As long as Israelis feel militarily secure and are benefiting from a healthy economy, what incentive do they have to alter the status quo? Israel is like a spoilt child who won't share his toys or quit bullying his schoolmates because Mummy dotes on him regardless. If little Shlomo or Shimon grows up to be a gangster, whose fault is that? Israel does what it does because it can.
Conversely, in the eyes of that stone-hearted New York mama with the torch, the Palestinians can do no right, although from a legal perspective right is firmly on their side. For 62 years, they tried just about everything to acquire that right, including armed struggle, peaceful protest, petitioning the UN Security Council, crying to the world for justice, cooperating with US demands and, of course, participating in endless peace talks that I suspect are cooked up for the purpose of dressing up Israel and the US as good guys.
The fact is that the US and Israel are two sides of the same coin. America considers the oil-rich and strategically located Middle East as its sphere of influence. Israel exists as its surrogate. It's in Washington's interests for hostilities to simmer in this region. As long as Arab states are surrounded by powerful enemies, they will buy American weapons and permit US bases on their soil, which is why Saddam's Iraq was demonised and why Iran is being painted in a similar dangerous light.
Imagine that the good fairy were to blanket the entire area with happy dust. No more conflict. No more hatred. No more suspicion; a peaceful, prosperous place where Arabs, Iranians and Israelis all got along. What influence would Uncle Sam have then? Precisely none!
Last Thursday, the US House of Representatives voted against any unilateral declaration of a Palestinian state. Lawmakers call upon their increasingly malleable president, who has done more U-turns than a boomerang, to "deny recognition of any unilaterally declared Palestinian state and veto any resolution by the United Nations Security Council to establish or recognise a Palestinian state outside of an agreement negotiated by the two parties." If that statement were to stand alone and the public was asked to guess which body had made it, most respondents would probably answer "the Israeli Knesset".
Instead of placing movies on blacklists, the Arab League would do well to take a long hard look at the big picture. If Arabs think Washington is their friend, they're sorely mistaken. They only have to study the WikiLeaks revelations to know that. America blames the Arab world for funding terrorism when for the last half-century, Washington has been happily funding a state that uses terror to exist. The question is how long will Arabs be prepared to put up with being manipulated in a vicious game whereby their oil and land constitutes the prize and the Palestinian people sacrificial pawns?
Linda S. Heard is a specialist writer on Middle East affairs. She can be contacted at: [email protected] Some of the comments may be considered for publication.
