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SUBJECT: MEDIA REACTION ON GAZA INCURSION 
 
Editorial Commentary 
 
-- "Israel as we know it" 
 
Chief Editor Taher Odwan writes on the back page of independent, 
mass-appeal Arabic daily Al-Arab Al-Yawm (07/03):  "Today like 
yesterday, there is a single image of Israel in our minds, feelings 
and memory.  This image did not change at Camp David or Sadat's trip 
to Jerusalem.  It did not change with the signing of the Oslo accord 
in the garden of the White House.  It did not change with the 
signing of the Jordanian-Israeli peace treaty in Wadi Araba.... 
Israel as we know it: a bunch of armies and planes that attack, 
destroy, occupy, murder and usurp.  And then the world trembles, 
America intervenes, the Soviet Union threatens, and the U.N. and the 
UNSC meet, and one of two things happen: keeping Israel with its 
armies and occupations over the Arab land while giving the Arabs 
insignificant and meaningless international resolutions, or standing 
by Israel's occupations and blaming its victims....  These are 
strange upside down times ... but even if they make us walk on our 
heads and crawl on our hands and abandon our minds and hearts, the 
image that we have of Israel will not change.  It is Israel: an 
outlaw country that exercises aggression, occupation and terrorism, 
and whose leaders are thieves and highway bandits who deserve to be 
dragged to war crime tribunals en masse.  It is the source of evil 
and the cause of the disease, not just in Palestine, but in all of 
the Middle East." 
 
-- "If I were the Palestinian President" 
 
Columnist Basem Sakijha writes on the op-ed page of center-left, 
influential Arabic daily Al-Dustour (07/03):  "If I were in Abu 
Mazen's place, and my people were being subjected to all this 
injustice and international disregard, and the state [United States] 
that sponsored a decade of negotiations and stood witness to signed 
agreements was taking the side of the occupier, Israel, and 
expressing concern for the life of one soldier captured in battle, 
and stressing the occupying Hebrew state's right to defend itself, 
while the tragedy of people living under siege, bombing was 
completely ignored ... I say, if I were the Palestinian President, I 
would resign immediately and disband the Palestinian Authority and 
let the land heat up under the feet of the occupier, so that it 
would live up to its obligations and wage the battle with all the 
Palestinian people without discrimination." 
 
-- "How does Jordan respond to Israel's insolence?" 
 
Columnist Bater Wardam writes on the inside page of center-left, 
influential Arabic daily Al-Dustour (07/02):  "So much was written 
about the Israeli aggression against Gaza, the mass punishment of 
the Palestinian people, and the heinous crimes committed against 
Palestinian civilians in the past few days....  The problem however 
is that most of these writings and statements about the Israeli 
aggression do not offer a solution.  In fact, one of the worst 
things that the Arabs are going through right now is their inability 
and helplessness to offer and execute alternatives to the current 
policies that would contribute to reining in Israel's aggression 
against the Palestinian people....  The anti-Israel statements and 
demonstrations have called for the same thing ever since 1996, and 
this will probably continue in the future, namely the cancellation 
of the peace treaty with Israel and the expulsion of the Israeli 
ambassador.  Despite its popularity, this option is the best thing 
that Israel can get from Jordan, because it will give it the green 
light to continue its procedures for unilateral disengagement, which 
essentially threatens Jordan's interests.  How did we get to this 
stage?  How did the thought of canceling the treaty in response to 
Israel's aggression become a threat to Jordanian interests?  The 
answer is that the political strategic thinking in Jordan did not 
take into consideration, throughout the past ten years, a plan of 
how to act if Israel decides to throw the treaty with Jordan into 
the garbage and go ahead with policies that completely contradict 
with the interests of the Jordanian state.  The peace treaty has 
turned from a means to entrench Jordan's legitimacy and security 
into a means of neutralizing Jordan and, even more, a huge burden on 
the domestic and foreign policy....  Jordan's diplomacy is in dire 
need for a radical change in the way it deals with Israel.  We are 
not calling for canceling the  treaty, but we in Jordan must 'be 
free from the burden of the treaty' that restrains all efforts to 
isolate and rein in Israel and confront it politically within the 
maximum limits allowed by international relations.  Jordan must 
declare openly and clearly and in all international arenas that the 
current Israeli policy is threatening Jordanian interests....  There 
is nothing in the Jordanian Israeli peace treaty to stop Jordan from 
defending its national and pan-Arab interests and protecting its 
dignity through direct political engagement with Israel that clearly 
shows which party is the aggressor in this conflict." 
 
-- "Blame at the wrong door" 
 
Centrist, elite English daily Jordan Times editorial opines (07/02): 
 "According to John Bolton, the U.S. ambassador to the United 
Nations, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict would not be in the 
situation it is if it was not for Damascus hosting Hamas leaders. 
How very convenient of the United States to blame the Syrian 
leadership.  So the Israeli occupation does not have anything to do 
with it?  Washington's steadfast refusal to support international 
law vis-`-vis the conflict ... is also thus excused from blame, 
isn't it?  It is a ridiculous assertion.  Everyone knows, even in 
Washington, that the Palestinian-Israeli conflict would not be where 
it is if Washington had taken an appropriately stringent line, not 
on the Palestinians, but on the Israelis....  Vis-`-vis Israel, the 
United States is neutered.  It acts cowardly and hence wrongly.  If 
the United States truly cared about the Middle East, it would act 
forcefully with all parties, not just the impoverished party under 
military occupation.  Instead, unable, unwilling and obviously 
scared to criticize Israel, the U.S. administration must say 
something and blame someone, somewhere.  Blame the Syrians.  Blame 
Iran.  Blame Hamas.  Blame Arafat ... wait a minute, he's dead.  Oh 
well, blame him anyway.  This is not policy.  It is pathetic." 
HALE