May/June 1996, pgs. 62-68

Diplomatic Doings

Lebanese Ambassador Analyzes Israeli Bombing

Lebanese Ambassador to the United States Riad Tabbarah told the Washington-based Center for Policy Analysis on Palestine that Israel’s recent military attacks on Lebanon made little sense as just assaults on Hezbollah, which fights Israeli occupation of south Lebanon. Rather, they reflect Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres’ attempts to refute charges in Israel for the coming general elections that Peres is “soft on Arabs.” The attacks also foreshadow Israel’s desire to set back Lebanon’s economic development in the eventful competition between Israel and Lebanon for Middle East commercial pre-eminence when peace comes to the area.

Ambassador Tabbarah argued that Israel’s implicit rationale for knocking out electric power stations, waterworks and other infrastructure in Lebanon made no sense. Israelis say that Lebanon has the power to stop Hezbollah and will do so if it is hurt badly enough. At the same time, Israeli leaders have rejected a public undertaking by the president of Lebanon to place 35,000 troops near the Lebanon/Israel border to assure a peaceful area if the Israelis withdraw. This offer was made on the grounds that Lebanon can control Hezbollah.

The ambassador said he believed that Israeli leaders know they have made a mistake in retaining their so-called “security zone” in south Lebanon: “They cannot defeat Hezbollah and already have lost a large number of soldiers trying to do so.” The Israelis would pull out, Ambassador Tabbarah said, except that no Israeli leader wants to be the first to relinquish territory without getting something in return.

The Lebanese ambassador spoke dispassionately, but his quiet tone did not diminish the force of his criticism of the U.S. policy of supporting Israel, no matter what the circumstances.

—Andrew I. Killgore

John Cooley Discusses “Violence In the Name of Islam” at MEI

Journalist John Cooley, who has covered the Middle East continuously for more than 25 years, first for the Christian Science Monitor and later for the ABC News network, spoke April 18 at the Middle East Institute in Washington, DC on “Violence in the Name of Islam.” Cooley, who was in the U.S. to receive a Polk Award for his reporting and who also is the author of a number of books based on his Middle East experience, pointed out the similarities between the beliefs and slogans of Medieval Christians at the time of the Crusades and those of Islamist militants today.

The significant difference between the two, Cooley said, is that in the Middle East Islam remained as an indigenous belief system, and survived, while Christianity became associated with alien political rule, and has disappeared from much of the region. Meanwhile a new alien belief system, that of the militant Jewish settlers, has appeared in the Middle East and the Arab opposition it has aroused has crystalized around militant Islam.

Current militant Islamic movements in the Sunni Muslim world largely derive from the Muslim Brotherhood, to which Yasser Arafat once belonged, and whose deep roots in Egypt were nourished by its strong resistance to Israel, Cooley said. From Egypt Islamist sentiments have spread far afield and militant offshoots now are in power or contending for power in countries as widely scattered as Algeria, Sudan, Afghanistan and Palestine, Cooley said.

He noted that heedless U.S., Saudi and Pakistani encouragement of Islamic militants resisting the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan is responsible for the rise and continued influence of the most radical and militant Islamist faction there, that of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar—who subsequently backed Saddam Hussain in the Gulf war against all three of the countries that made possible his rise to power. Cooley concluded with the hope that henceforth the U.S. and moderate governments in the Middle East “will be more careful about whom to select as allies.”

—Richard H. Curtiss

PLO Representative Testifies Before Congress

The PLO’s Chief Representative in the United States, Hasan Abdul Rahman, appeared for the first time in the history of the Palestine Liberation Organization at a formal hearing of the House International Relations Committee on March 12. Testifying at his own request, he faced eight of the committee’s 39 members, all but one of whom happened to be strong supporters of Israel. The main topics of conversation were the February terrorist bombings in Israel, and the PLO’s role in apprehending the terrorists. Rahman made the Palestinian Authority’s position clear when he declared that “We will spare no effort, we will leave no stone unturned, we will not rest until the terror that has caused pain and suffering to Israelis and Palestinians alike is uprooted, and until we have a comprehensive, just and lasting peace for our peoples.”

Rahman withstood tough questioning from the committee members, who implied that the PLO was somehow responsible for the terrorist attacks. They also questioned him about reports of corruption within the Palestinian Authority. Discussing the presence of illegal arms in Palestinian-administered territory, Rep. Robert E. Andrews (D-NJ) demanded, “Why have you not done a house-to-house search?”

“Did you do that in Oklahoma City?” Rahman countered. “The Palestinians, too,” he said, “have civil liberties that must be respected and upheld.” Andrews abandoned the line of questioning, saying that “America’s situation is different.” 

—Lama Habal