Economist Says Syrian Issues Are “Molehills” Compared to “Mountains” Facing Palestinians, Israelis

By Lucy Jones

As the new millennium began, one issue preoccupying the European media was the renewal of Middle East peace talks between Syria, Israel and the U.S. in Shepherdstown, West Virginia. At the start, the talks all seemed yawningly familiar: more negotiations, under American sponsorship, hindered as the two sides played to an audience at home. But as time went on hope was expressed, at least in the British and German press, that a lasting solution would be reached.

“The issues are molehills compared with the religious-historical-geographical mountains that the Palestinians and Israelis will eventually have to clamber over,” said The Economist, published in London. “The framework of an Israeli-Syrian deal is straightforward and could, at least in theory, be settled in weeks.”

The magazine’s lead editorial argued Jan. 8 that Israel’s position in Lebanon has become intolerable.Meanwhile, Syria’s ruler, Hafez Al-Assad, is growing old and ill. Basil, his elder son and chosen heir, died in a car crash, meaning his second son, Bashar, needs his path smoothed if the dynasty is to continue. Unfinished business had to be cleared away.

The BBC held an equally optimistic view of the talks. “Israel has come to accept that if it is to be at peace with Syria, and the hostile forces that Syria represents, it will have to hand back all the Golan—except, possibly, for a sliver of the coast of the Sea of Galilee,” said one BBC analyst on Jan. 2.

The London Times, however, was more skeptical on Jan. 3. A true full peace would need to extend beyond exchanging ambassadors, to build cultural, economic and political ties between Israel, Syria and Lebanon. “But such links would involve radical changes for Syria’s secretive and authoritarian regime and for those it is still not clear that Mr. Assad is prepared,” said the paper.

The German press was more upbeat. Negotiations in Shepherdstown, even if they are quite drawn out, give rise to hope, commented the Darmstädter Echo on Jan. 4. Israel and Syria are interested in peace since it would be beneficial for both sides. However, the paper writes, Syria will have to content itself with the return of the Golan Heights, since it is unthinkable for Israel to hand over any more than that. On Jan. 3 Die Welt also saw an agreement as highly possible, as there is much at stake for both sides and because this meeting started off better than others. Without an agreement the Hezbollah guerrilla group will not stay silent, and will go on killing Israeli soldiers in Lebanon, warned the paper. Moreover, Israel wants peace because peace is the only way of turning the frightful enemy into at least a more calculable neighbor.

Hijack Turns World Attention to Kashmir

The hijacking of an Indian Airbus 300 and the tortuous and terrifying events which subsequently led its passengers and crew to the icy runways of Afghanistan’s Kandahar airport dominated the British press at the end of December. The crisis generated much criticism of Pakistan, India and Afghanistan’s policies toward the mainly Muslim territory of Kashmir located in northern India. Also deplored was a half-century of international apathy toward the problem.

“The hijacking has placed in plain view the wretched incompetence of the governments concerned,” wrote The Independent of London on Dec. 30. “It has exposed the dangers inherent in their policies of chauvinism, denigration and mutual suspicion.” While the Indian government was slow to react, the Pakistani government bears equal responsibility, The Independent charged. “By assiduously stirring the Kashmir pot, most recently last summer during the heavy fighting with India around Kargil, Pakistan carries a heavy responsibility for the events of the past few days.”

The Taliban, credited with training members of the Harkat-ul-Mojahedin, who are held responsible for the hijacking, “now find the evidence of their policy of destabilizing deposited on their doorstep,” said the paper. Meanwhile, the international community’s approach to the intractable problem of Jammu and Kashmir is “to ignore it.”

This view was echoed by Faisal Bodi, a Muslim living in the northern British town of Preston, writing in The Guardian (London). “It is this reluctance of the West to intervene that occasionally drives the insurrectionists to such acts of desperation. Their actions are born of faithlessness rather than faith. They have lost patience with God and seek to rectify the wrong by any means, fair or foul,” writes Bodi.

He also points out that Maulana Mohammed Massoud Azhar, the imprisoned cleric set free as part of a deal with the hijackers, is seen by many Muslims in Britain as a charismatic mullah. Shortly before his arrest in 1994, Azhar conducted a tour of British mosques. “He won many admirers—myself included—for his articulate and impassioned advocacy of a jihad to liberate Kashmir, the only remaining majority-Muslim state in India, from Delhi’s writ.”

Tension Surrounds Holiday Celebrations in Bethlehem

New Year and Christmas in Bethlehem—the now Palestinian-controlled hometown of the millennium—were celebrated amid controversy. For the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), the festivities had far more than sentimental and religious meaning, reported The Guardian on Dec. 24. They presented the PNA with a chance to show the world that, four years after taking control of Bethlehem from Israel, it has made good on the hopes of peace.

The events were also about the PNA’s economic survival, as they are supposed to help Palestine’s emerging tourism industry, long stifled by Israeli regulations, to stake its claim in the lucrative tourist market. (More than $150 million of foreign aid has been funneled into the town.)

However, there were hiccups in the celebrations, wrote Julian Manyon on Dec. 25 in The Spectator, published in London. Bethlehem is a mere 20 minutes from Jerusalem, but the short drive there provides ample evidence of the hatred and spite that still mark the Arab-Israeli dispute, he said. Leaving Jerusalem you pass Har Homa, the Israeli settlement judged illegal by the European Union. Protests ignored, the hill has been stripped bare and the Israeli newspapers are advertising the soon-to-be-completed apartments for $140,000 each.

A little further on, there’s the shape of Israel’s millennium present to the Palestinian Authority. It is a new checkpoint to replace the ramshackle barrier which controls the movements of Palestinians in and out of Bethlehem. Under the new system, tourists, VIPs and Israeli settlers will drive on the main road, while Palestinians will have to walk 650 meters to a building where they will be processed by Israeli security. “Palestinian officials are incensed by the plan, comparing it to apartheid,” said Manyon.

Added to this, the Israeli authorities once again refused to allow the importation of a Christmas tree donated by a Norwegian town on the grounds that it might contain parasites or plant disease. The Palestinians hung Christmas lights on an old cedar tree instead.

Europe Criticizes Russian War on Chechnya

The 20th century ended with the grim images of a declining empire trying to bomb its rebellious citizens into submission. On this occasion the empire is that of Russia, and the rebels are the Muslim inhabitants of Chechnya, situated in the Caucuses.

On-the-spot Western reporting of the Chechen war has been limited both by the Russians and the fear of kidnapping. But what coverage there has been has criticized Russia’s Chechen campaign. A Jan. 3 commentary in London’s Financial Times suggested that Russia could do worse than follow the example of Britain’s dignified withdrawal as the sun set over its empire.

In 1990, when Moscow’s grip was clearly starting to weaken, Douglas Hurd, the British foreign secretary at the time, had made a speech in Kiev, the Ukrainian capital. Russia, he dared suggest, could learn from the experience of Britain and France in dismantling their empires over the previous 40 years.

His message was not well received in Moscow. It suggested the Soviet Union was an empire, not a happy agglomeration of freedom-loving people. And it implied the end was nigh. “It is a tragedy that Russia does not seem able to learn this lesson,” wrote the Financial Times columnist. “Bombing Chechnya into a wasteland is not going to keep the Russian empire intact. It is just going to postpone the evil day.”

On Jan. 2 France’s Le Monde placed some of the blame for the Kremlin’s involvement in Chechnya on the West. “Not much good has come of eight years of Western ‘aid’ to Russia and uncritical support for the group of free marketers around Boris Yeltsin.”

El Pais of Spain described on Dec. 21 the success of acting Russian Premier Vladimir Putin’s Unity party in the parliamentary elections in Russia this December as the “Chechen dividend.”

Sheer cynicism and contempt for the suffering of war victims lie in Victor Kasanzev’s words that “nothing terrible is happening in Grozny,” wrote Markische Oder-Zeitung, published in Germany on Dec. 28. Wiesbadener Kurier (Germany) on Dec. 29 compared the situation in Chechnya to the Afghan-Russian war, “where a high price in lives was paid through a guerrilla war that could only be justified with propaganda.”

The Guardian asked whether the Chechens are capable of political dialogue with Moscow. “Their [Russian] aims are unclear where they are not oppressive,” the paper’s lead said on Jan. 3. However, Grozny would eventually fall and remaining militia will leave for the mountains.

Some kind of post-war Chechnya would be born, although it will be a “tall order.” And until peace is achieved, the plight of the pitiful inhabitants of that burned out and besieged city can be compared with that of the Russians of Stalingrad, who defended their city against the Germans in 1942, said the paper.

Uzbeks Develop Fungus to Aid War on Heroin

An Uzbek laboratory has developed a fungus which attacks opium poppies without damaging other plants, reported Italy’s La Stampa on Dec. 18. Poppy plantations across Afghanistan and parts of Southeast Asia could be sprayed from airplanes within a year, said representatives of Tashkent’s Institute of Genetics.

The institute stumbled upon the fungus, which occurs naturally in Southern Europe, Asia and Tasmania, while producing biological weapons for the Kremlin during the Cold War. Several plantations in Uzbekistan have been sprayed and destroyed.

French, Italians in Iraqi Gas Deal

According to France’s Le Figaro on Dec. 17, French and Italian energy representatives are in discussions with the Iraqi government regarding a gas project worth more than $1 billion. If the deal goes ahead, France’s Elf Aquitaine and the Italian group, AGIP, plan to exploit gas in Iraq’s Kirkuk region, transporting the resource via a pipeline to Turkey they plan to build. Elf also wishes to develop the Majnoun oil field. However, all foreign investment in Iraq remains under the U.N. embargo.

Lucy Jones is a free-lance journalist based in New York.