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Region in Crisis:
Arab News Editorial
Heed the Warnings

Editor's Note

The Saudi Arabia-based English language daily "Arab News" published an editorial today that summarizes the broad resentment in the Muslim world over US policy in the Middle East. It includes the warning, " The message is clear: If the US continues its policy of slavish support for Israel it will reap a harvest of hatred that will last for generations. It is not simply because of Lebanon but Lebanon may be the straw that breaks the camel�s back." Here is the editorial in its entirety.

Arab News Editorial:
Heed the Warnings
4 August 2006

The US and the West have good friends in the Middle East � but for how much longer? Two weeks ago Turkey�s Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul warned that even moderate Turks, angry at US support for Israel�s actions in Lebanon, were becoming anti-American.

Yesterday, at the emergency Organization of Islamic Conference meeting in Malaysia on the Lebanese crisis, the warnings were far more urgent. Muslim anger over international �double standard� on the Israeli offensive, OIC Secretary-General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu said, is being transformed into permanent hatred against the aggressors and their �implicit and explicit protectors� (for which read the US).

Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi sees growing contempt for the UN, which he condemned as cowardly over its failure to condemn Israel for the attack on Qana. Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz warned that the failure to halt the violence was adding to popular anger and could have �incalculable consequences� for peace in the Middle East. Lebanon may be the anvil on which a friendship, already perilously fragile because of Iraq, may be smashed beyond repair.

These are seasoned politicians talking � men who have spent their lives believing in the importance of good relations between their countries and the West. Theirs is an 11th hour plea to Washington to see what is happening not only in their own countries but throughout the Muslim world � a surging tide of bitterness and alienation against US Middle East policies brought to full flood by Washington�s refusal to rein in the Israelis in Lebanon. Turkey, Malaysia, Pakistan � these have been loyal friends to the US and the West. Washington cannot afford to lose them. But it is in danger of doing just that. The message is clear: If the US continues its policy of slavish support for Israel it will reap a harvest of hatred that will last for generations. It is not simply because of Lebanon but Lebanon may be the straw that breaks the camel�s back.

But is Washington listening? Is it totally blind to the mountain of Muslim frustration and alienation at its policies � a frustration which two days ago even brought criticism from Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal? His condemnation of its refusal to put a stop to Israel�s brutal assault in Lebanon should have set alarm bells ringing in Washington: Saudi Arabian friendship cannot be strained forever. Or is the US so totally obsessed with its Frankenstein fantasy of recreating the Middle East in its own image that it has closed its ears to all other views.

The Middle East is not Washington�s plaything, to be remade as it decides. As Prince Saud said, it is not an uninhabited area; �it has people, governments and our destiny is determined, after God�s will, by its people.� This US arrogance only further undermines friendship. It is difficult to remain friends with someone who does not listen to what you have to say, who is patronizing and arrogant, who wants to change you, who thinks he has the unquestioned right to do so and who resents you for having a mind of your own.

Unless Washington stops being so patronizing of the Middle East and so obsessively supportive of Israeli brutality, it will lose every last shred of credibility and respect among Muslims and Arabs the world over. Muslim leaders have made that clear. The warnings have gone out. Washington ignores them at its peril.

Source: Arab News

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