Yemen Times, Yemen
Disunity Makes Possible U.S. and Israeli Occupation

By Abdulbari Taher  
July 31 - August 2 Issue
Yemen - Original Article (English)    

What is happening in Palestine and Iraq today are war crimes. The American occupation in Iraq is responsible for a war of annihilation and the destruction of a civilization. In occupied Palestine, there is an Israeli government, and its Zionists - both right-wing and left-wing - are responsible for the same unspeakable crimes.

The barbaric and annihilating war in Iraq matches anything that occured during medieval times, and what is occurring in Palestine renews the catastrophe of the holocaust, and actually rather exceeds it.

What's more, the unsightly colonialist war in Iraq and the racist ethnic cleansing in Palestine are taking place amidst a deafening international silence. Out of this mass destruction, there arise a number of questions. Does one dominant power have the right to impose its will on other nations? Do the criminal events of September 11 justify silence over these crimes? Does the internal split in Palestine [between Hamas and Fatah] and the sectarian divide in Iraq speak to the negligence of the international community and human rights organizations? Does weakness and defeatism to an extent extinguish the need to ask these questions?

What is most tragic is the change in the global community's stance in general, and that of the Arab world in particular. Most nations, especially in Europe, were at least distinguishable from the Americans, and were sympathetic to some extent toward war victims and against occupation and ethnic cleansing. Europe at least appeared to lean toward peace. As for the Arab elite, it has turned its back on what's going on in Iraq and Palestine. Instead, it is preoccupied with internal squabbling and is incapable of doing anything, even of uttering a nominal condemnation.

The Israeli press and statements by senior Israeli officials have begun to cite the favorable Arab silence. They talk of the official Arab stance as though it supports Israel in its war of annihilation against the Palestinians. Moreover, some Arab governments are pressuring the Palestinians as if they were the aggressors, as if they ought to concede.

But none of this should indicate that Arab regimes are blind to sectarian divisions in Iraq and Palestine. The factional differences, which have led to fighting between two antagonistic sides [Hamas and Fatah], creates a climate and pretexts for outside interference In Palestine that weaken international and Western sympathy, which historically favors the Israeli state.

In Iraq, the sectarian divisions have allowed the Americans to play the Sunni-Shiite card, giving it cover to prolong the war and destroy any trace of Iraqi identity, tearing to pieces a historically united people. It would be naive to diminish these sectarian differences which have existed since ancient times, but such differences didn't prevent the crystallization of Iraqi civilization, and didn’t lead to conflict until the colonialist invasions [the Crusades]. In fact, attempts to inflame these differences have historically failed, for example during the Mongol and Tatar invasions and even during the British occupation , which failed to "divide and rule" despite its political cunning and colonialist experience. It was incapable of remaining in the land of Mesopotamia.

The differences between Fatah and Hamas are political, and could be resolved were it not for the Israeli war of annihilation that seeks to destroy the will of the Palestinian people, diminish them as a nation, and strip them of their national and legitimate rights.

The most pressing issues now are to heal the internal wounds in both Iraq and Palestine and to help them reach national accords, which would repel the colonialist occupation of Iraq and the ethnic cleansing in Palestine. There is a direct correlation between the situation in these two nations. What happens in Iraq influences the situation in Palestine and vise versa.

Israel may understand better than the Bush Administration that the American military defeat in Iraq is inevitable. That is why Washington is in a race against time, trying to impose a fait accompli and dismember what remains of the land of Palestine so as to make building a Palestinian state impossible.

Abdulbari Taher is a Yemeni journalist and a former chairman of the Yemeni Journalists Syndicate.

VIDEO FROM YEMEN: THE PRESIDENT OF YEMEN

OFFERS ASSISTANCE TO THE ENEMIES OF ISRAEL

AL-JAZEERA, from Yemen: excerpts from an interview with President of Yemen, Ali Abdallah Saleh, who urges Arab assistance to Hezbullah and Syria's entry into the war, August 1, 00:04:24, MEMRI

"I hope that all the countries bordering with Israel, not just Syria, would enter the war. I meant the countries bordering with Israel. We will not enter the war officially, but we will open the borders to the fighters. We will allow the transfer of money and equipment, to support the Lebanese resistance and the Palestinian resistance in Gaza."

President of Yemen, Ali Abdallah Saleh