Qaddafi Doesn't Represent All Arabs

By Mohamed Hakki

Although moderate Arabs hate Moammar Qaddafi, they are even more alarmed by the anti-Arab, anti-Islamic thrust of current U.S. Mideast policy.

When White House press spokesman Larry Speakes first announced the U.S. raids on Libya, he conveyed the impression that moderate Arabs—meaning America's friends—were in favor. The reality is much more complex, involving how Arabs feel about terrorism, what they think about Qaddafi, and what they believe this whole episode will lead to in the Middle East.

Most Arabs, like Americans, see terrorism as a negation of humanity, a barbarism of the first degree. Those who commit it are definitely outlaws. No decent society can or should give them refuge or sanctuary.

From Anwar Sadat to the ruler of Kuwait, to several newspaper editors and countless others blown out of existence almost every week, more Arabs have been affected by terrorism than all the American and European Victims put together.

As to Qaddafi, few Arabs had much respect left him, seeing him as erratic. Many have been victimized by acts of terrorism at his hands. As such, he stands condemned and his acts abhorred. He is an embarrassment to his fellow Arabs and an insult to Libyans.

I say this because the raids have now made Qaddafi either a hero or a martyr. But the Arab disagreement with the United States today is far more fundamental. It involves what Arabs perceive as the U.S. hypocrisy toward terrorism, the anti-Arab and anti-Islamic drift in the pronouncements and acts of U.S. leaders, and Washington's total disregard for international law.

Arabs fear that a pattern has come into being for which Israel's bombing raid against Tunisia helped set a precedent. From the U.S. naval attack on Lebanese mountain Villages with 16-inch guns to the hijacking of the Egyptian civilian plane after the Achile Lauro affair and now the lack of any remorse over killing innocent civilians in Tripoli, the sense is that Arabs have become totally dispensable.

Only two years ago, an Egyptian friend assigned to cover a conference on international terrorism in Washington was stunned by the heat of the anti-Arab campaign. Speaker after speaker at the conference, held under Israeli auspices at the Johnathan Institute, identified terrorism with Arabs. When they referred to "we," it was impossible to know whether they meant we in America, we in Israel or we in both.

Today, people like former U.N. ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick and Secretary of State George P. Shultz are using the same language.

When Arabs hear this language it not only alienates them even more from the United States but makes them think that U.S. actions like the Libyan raid are the self-fulfilling prophecy of Israeli tutelage. They ask what about terrorism Arabs experience, what about the injustice and hopelessness of Palestinian refugees, what about Americ's tantalizing call to colonized lands, from the Founding Fathers down to President Woodrow Wilson, for self-determination?

And Arabs ask what are the air raids to accomplish? It air raids were the answer, why didn't Israel's raids on Beirut succeed? Why did Israel have to follow them up with the invasion of Lebanon? Even the total disruption of that nation did not solve the problem.

The aim of the raids, it is now obvious, was to get rid of Qaddafi. Yet he is now more popular in Libya than ever. Ironically, Qaddafi himself came to power as Western pressure intensified against Egypt's Gamal Abdul Nasser.

As to America's current bete noir, Soviet expansionism, Qaddafi's number two, Colonel Jalloud, had the answer. If Libya had any hesitation before, the Soviets are now more welcome. And while the U.S. may be intent never to learn from history, the Soviets do. This time, they will make sure to dig in.

Meanwhile, the United States—with barely a voice of dissent or a gasp of disbelief—has once again set itself up in opposition to the forces of a rejuvenated Islam. After referring to Qaddafi as "mad dog," a new step down in diplomatic language, President Reagan went on to say that Qaddafi was dangerous because he is trying to export his Islamic fundamentalist revolution to the world.

What should the Arabs and the whole Muslim world think of such a condemnation?

Finally, there is the disregard for international law—until now the only vehicle moderate Arabs, especially Egyptians, could use to persuade other Arabs to trust the U.S. and pursue a peaceful settlement together to the Mideast conflict. With the Libya raid, we risk saying goodbye to this argument, goodbye to America's moderate friends, and hello to the unknown.

Contrary to what is being said daily, moderate Arabs do not respect the language of force. Brute force has never coerced any people. Only justice can lead to peace among Muslims, Christians and Jews.

Mohamed Hakki, former foreign editor of Al Ahram, Egypt's largest daily newspaper and chairman of the Egyptian state information service, now works as a consultant in Washington.

Distributed through Pacific News Service Reprinted with permission