By Alex Lantier
15 May 2008
President George W. Bush arrived in Israel yesterday for the first leg of his five-day tour of the Middle East, which will also take him to Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Bush strove to limit himself to pleasantries in public statements, but even they took on a clumsily ominous character in the face of a region increasingly destabilized by the US occupation of Iraq and Washington’s overall foreign policy.
Bush arrived in Tel Aviv amid the celebrations of the 60th anniversary of the founding of the state of Israel, a date that is known among Palestinians as “the catastrophe.” For the two days of Israeli festivities, the government of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert sealed the borders between Israel and the Palestinian territories, and Israeli forces on Wednesday attacked Palestinian protesters at several border checkpoints with tear gas.
After reiterating US support for Israel, Bush praised “60 years of democracy in Israel” and concluded, “What happened here is possible everywhere.” To millions of people around the world, watching the ongoing repression of the Palestinians and the bloody US-led occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan, Bush’s comment doubtless sounded more like a threat than a promise.
At an evening gala with Israeli President Shimon Peres and Prime Minister Olmert, Bush delivered a longer speech. After predictable invocations of faith and allusions to the “war against terrorism,” he singled out for praise the crucial role of US President Harry Truman in recognizing and backing Israel in 1948.
Bush will deliver a speech to the Israeli Knesset today and then depart for Saudi Arabia. He refused to meet with Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas. According to online reports, Arab Israeli legislators in the Knesset will boycott his speech to protest Bush’s “policy of oppression, the occupation, and Israel’s aggressiveness.”
Bush’s invocations of democracy sound completely hollow in a region populated with numerous US-backed dictatorships, and which has been plunged into widening bloodshed in the aftermath of the Bush administration’s invasion of Iraq. Traveling to the Middle East as a widely despised, lame-duck president, Bush is meeting with a collection of US-aligned politicians and autocrats presiding over increasingly unstable regimes.
Israeli Prime Minister Olmert faces multiple corruption investigations that have seen police raids of several government ministries and Jerusalem City Hall, and is widely viewed as fighting for his political life. When Olmert’s microphone was left on accidentally and broadcast him telling Bush’s National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley “hanging on, hanging on, don’t worry,” the press concluded that he was speaking of his own government.
His promise to guarantee Israel’s security through military repression of the Palestinian people has failed. At the evening gala, Olmert was forced to acknowledge a large-scale rocket attack by Palestinian militants on the town of Ashkelon. (see below)
Bush’s pronouncements about furthering the Israeli-Palestinian “peace process” were deflated when, on May 13, his own Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice described real progress as “improbable.”
In Egypt, Bush will visit a deeply unpopular military dictatorship, which has been profoundly destabilized by a wave of strikes and protests against massive food inflation in the last several months. The Egyptian government responded by using massed police to put down a strike by tens of thousands of textile workers in Mahalla el-Kobra on April 6, and then banning opposition parties in the April 2008 municipal elections.
In Saudi Arabia, Bush will rub shoulders with a fundamentalist royal family notorious for its brutal suppression of the workers’ movement and democratic rights. Bush is expected to ask the Saudi royals to increase crude oil production to reduce oil prices, and to discuss the US quagmire in Iraq and its campaign to politically and militarily pressure Iran. However, these requests are not expected to be crowned with any significant results.
An acid May 14 Wall Street Journal editorial, entitled “Our Friends in Riyadh,” hinted at the intense recriminations building up inside the US ruling elite over US-Saudi relations. Asserting that US-Saudi ties were “visibly fraying,” the Journal noted that “Saudi Arabia no longer is able to exert as much control over oil prices as global demand rises, the dollar falls, regional uncertainties abound, and speculators’ predictions of ever higher prices become self-fulfilling.”
Nor is Saudi Arabia in a position to militarily assist the US. As the Journal noted, in fact “the ruling Saud family needs American political support and American protection,” and the US’ “recent efforts to remove Saddam from Iraq and institute a democracy have proved an agonizing display of America’s political-diplomatic, though not necessarily military, impotence.”
Washington’s increasing isolation and weakened position were highlighted by recent developments. The US-led offensive against the Shiite militia of anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr in Baghdad’s Sadr City was suspended when the Iraqi government, reflecting tensions between it and its US sponsors, solicited the intervention of Iran to halt the carnage in the densely populated and impoverished Shiite slum. The government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki backed the mission to Tehran because it feared the implications of a spreading conflict with the Sadrist forces for its own survival.
The incident exposed the pretensions of the Bush administration and the US military of having vastly improved the grip of occupation forces on Baghdad and the stark contradictions of US policy in Iraq. It demonstrated once again that the Shiite-dominated regime installed by the US retains close ties to Tehran, notwithstanding Washington’s claims that it is the target of a proxy war being waged by Iran.
The tenuous truce in Sadr City was followed by Hezbollah’s show of strength in Lebanon, when the militia of the popular Shiite party responded to provocations by the US-backed government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora by seizing control of large parts of Beirut. The events of the past several days demonstrated that Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran and Syria, is far more powerful than the Lebanese National Army and Sunni militias which the US has been arming and financing.
Two years ago Israel, at the urging of the US, attacked southern Lebanon and launched an air war against large parts of the country in an attempt to crush Hezbollah. The attack failed, ending in a humiliation for both Israel and the US.
The latest demonstration of the political and military strength of Hezbollah has provoked angry recriminations within the US foreign policy establishment against the Bush administration. New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman expressed in particularly hysterical fashion the ire and gloom of these factions in a May 14 column, which complained that US policy has only strengthened the position of Iran.
“Team America is losing on just about every front,” he wrote, adding that the US is “not liked, not feared, and not respected” in the Middle East.
US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack was reduced to asking “those who have influence over Syria and Iran to encourage those countries to use their influence with Hizbollah.” The Financial Times commented that Washington had acted in the crisis as a “distraught spectator.”
Political analyst Rami Khouri told the Christian Science Monitor: “Bush and [Secretary of State Condoleezza] Rice singled out Lebanon as a poster child of their success. That makes the loss even bigger.”
The Bush administration has responded by offering further financial and military assistance to the Lebanese army, in a move that threatens to spark an all-out civil war.
There can be no doubt that powerful forces within the Bush administration and the US political and military establishment will press for an escalation of military violence in reaction to the setbacks for US policy in the region, including an intensification of the bloodletting in Iraq and the use of military force against Iran or Syria.
See Also:
Deep unease as Israel celebrates its 60th anniversary
[8 May 2008]
Israel escalates offensive against Palestinians with Egypt’s assistance
[23 April 2008]
Rescue workers at the scene of a rocket attack in the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon on Wednesday.
(Amir Cohen/Reuters)
By Ethan Bronner and Sheryl Gay Stolberg
Thursday, May 15, 2008
ASHKELON, Israel: A rocket launched from Gaza struck a commercial center in southern Israel on Wednesday, hours before President George W. Bush, on a visit to Israel to mark the 60th anniversary of its founding, was to address a major peace conference here called “Facing Tomorrow.”
The rocket, which the police said was Iranian-made, crashed through the roof of a health clinic in Ashkelon, about 10 miles north of the Gaza Strip. It badly injured a woman and her 2-year-old daughter, both in the head, as well as their doctor at the clinic. A fourth person was also injured.
Major Uriel Bar-Lev, police commander of Israel’s southern district, said bomb experts determined the rocket’s Iranian origin.
“It has Iranian fingerprints on it,” he said in an interview outside the mall, crushed glass underfoot, after visiting the third-floor clinic that took the hit.
In the past week, two rockets have killed Israelis, a man working in his kibbutz garden and a 69-year-old woman visiting her sister-in-law. Ashkelon, a city of 120,000 people, was struck by at least 20 foreign-made, Katyusha-type rockets in late February and early March, and Israel responded with an air and ground campaign left more than 120 Palestinians, including many civilians, and 2 Israeli soldiers dead in Gaza.
In Gaza, several groups claimed responsibility for Wednesday’s terrorist attack and Hamas, which controls the area praised the shooting, was quoted by Reuters as saying it “proved that Israel’s defense doctrine had failed.” Israeli leaders said it seemed a matter of time before a military operation was undertaken.
“We knew how to stop suicide bombs and we will figure out how to stop these rockets,” said Avi Dichter, the internal security minister, a native and resident of Ashkelon, who rushed down to the southern city from the reception for Bush. Standing outside the damaged center, he said he was born a couple hundred yards away.
The White House spokesman, Gordon Johndroe, criticized Hamas for launching the rocket and said in a statement: “Political goals will never be achieved by launching rockets from Gaza onto innocent women and children. Bush is proud to be in Israel and will stand with those who want to see two states, Israel and Palestine living side by side by side in peace.”
The cafeteria of Barzilay Hospital in central Ashkelon was turned into a makeshift clinic for the 60 or so lightly injured people from the attack.
“I was with my daughter in the waiting room of the clinic when a huge explosion hit and there was dust and debris everywhere,” said Clara Harari, 58, as she sat in a wheelchair waiting to be seen.
Political sentiment turned raw and ugly as a crowd gathered outside the damaged commercial center while police moved the injured.
“Olmert Resign!” they shouted, “We don’t want you anymore!”
Yitzhak Cohen, religious affairs minister from the Shas party, said as he entered the center to inspect the damage, “We should have cut off electricity, water and gas a long time ago and told them if they want it, they have to start acting like human beings, not animals.”
It was a sharp contrast to the day’s start, as Bush landed at Tel Aviv to a greeting by a 50-person military orchestra and a large entourage of Israeli dignitaries, including Peres and the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert. Israel is Bush’s first stop on a five-day, three country Middle East tour.
Like Bush, Olmert spoke of the longstanding ties between Israel and the United States.
But the Israeli leader, who is the subject of a corruption investigation that could cost him his job, was also caught on microphone giving apparent reassurance about his future to Bush’s national security adviser, Stephen Hadley.
“Holding on, holding on. Don’t worry,” Olmert was overheard telling Hadley.
After the arrival ceremony, Bush headed to Jerusalem for back-to-back meetings with Peres and Olmert. But he will not see the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, until later in the week, at an economic forum in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.
The trip is Bush’s second to the region in five months, and his second to Israel as president. On Thursday he will deliver a speech to the Knesset, the Israeli Parliament.
He will also meet with Tony Blair, the former British prime minister, who now represents the so-called quartet of Middle East peace-makers: the United Nations, Russia, the European Union and the United States.
At a press conference here on Tuesday to unveil a package of economic and security measures for the West Bank, Blair said it would be a “mistake to think” that diplomatic progress can be achieved without improving conditions for ordinary Palestinians.
For the White House, the timing of the trip long-planned to coincide with Israel’s 60th birthday is difficult. Most analysts say the prospects for significant progress toward peace are slim, and that Bush, who has just eight months left in office, is unlikely to achieve a major breakthrough while he is here.
But in a series of interviews before leaving Washington, Bush said he remained confident that Abbas and Olmert, who committed themselves to peace talks at a White House sponsored-conference in Annapolis, Maryland, last November, would be able to come to terms on the broad contours of a Palestinian state.
“I think there’s a good chance,” he told CBS Radio on Monday, adding, “I think we can get a state defined by the time I leave office.”
In addition to his slew of meetings, Bush will sneak in some quick sightseeing here as well. He is scheduled to tour Masada, the ancient fortress overlooking the Dead Sea, and to visit the Bible Lands museum, established in 1992 by an antiquities dealer whose goal was to promote mutual understanding by displaying artifacts that reveal the common origins of Christianity, Judaism and Islam.
After leaving Israel on Friday, Bush will visit Saudi Arabia, where the price of oil is expected to be a major topic of a planned luncheon with King Abdullah at the king’s ranch.
The trip will conclude at the economic forum in Egypt, where Bush will meet Abbas and other leaders in the region, including Iraqi officials and President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan.
On Tuesday, Bush used his interviews to criticize Hamas, the militant Palestinian faction that controls Gaza and opposes recognition of Israel.
“Their vision is to destroy Israel,” Bush told Israeli television reporters in an interview at the White House on Tuesday. “How about a vision that says we want to coexist with Israel so we can raise our children in peace? Now, I’m sure, people say, Bush, oh man, he sounds hopelessly idealistic. But the truth of the matter is, in order for peace to be secure, it’s that kind of idealism that has got to prevail.”
In an interview with CBS, he said: “What’s going to have to happen is that the Palestinians see a state that has got borders and doesn’t look like Swiss cheese, continuous territory that is as well as, obviously going to have to see economic conditions start to improve and security conditions improve.”
Independent analysts do not share the president’s idealism. Jon Alterman, director of the Middle East program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, told reporters last week he could hardly think of a “less auspicious” time to pursue the peace talks.
Olmert and Abbas, though committed to the talks, are both weakened leaders who may have a difficult time selling any deal to their people. Despite his support from Bush, Abbas is struggling to provide economic support and security to his constituents in the West Bank, even as he contends with competition from his Hamas rivals in Gaza.
Ami Ayalon, a member of the Israeli Parliament who has long advocated negotiating with the Palestinians, said Bush’s trip here is “the last chance to do something to aid the pragmatists” in the region who want peace.
“If the visit passes and the pragmatists in the region feel that nothing has changed,” Ayalon said, “I believe we are headed toward more violence and more terror and more power for Hamas.”
Comments(0) 
This is the war over the wall. It is a daily battle of attrition waged over the large concrete barrier that the Americans have been building across Sadr City in the hope of establishing a safe zone in the southern tier of the Shiite enclave.
satellite-guided bombs to try to silence the militia fire. On some stretches, the urban landscape has been transformed as the Americans have leveled buildings militia fighters have used as perches to mount their attacks.
Supporters of 
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Bush administration on Wednesday was downplaying the role of biofuels production in rising food prices.
rising energy costs and draughts in some crop producing countries were larger factors in rising prices.
Not only would the bill do nothing to ease global hunger, it does much to aggravate the crisis. The bill reported out by the conference committee rejects a needed increase in the McGovern-Dole International Food for Education and Child Nutrition Program; instead, it would cut money from the program. Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass. (no relation to former Sen. George McGovern), predicted that some poor countries would have to cease offering food to children as an incentive to go to school.
Posted: Wednesday, May 14, 2008 5:20 PM by Domenico Montanaro
Click to hear E. L. Doctorow's The Unfeeling President
