VZCZCXYZ0000
OO RUEHWEB

DE RUEHAM #6400/01 2340927
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
O 220927Z AUG 06
FM AMEMBASSY AMMAN
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 3373
RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHDC IMMEDIATE
RHEHAAA/WHITE HOUSE WASHDC IMMEDIATE
RUCNDT/USMISSION USUN NEW YORK IMMEDIATE 0421
RUEHFR/AMEMBASSY PARIS IMMEDIATE 1350
RUEHXK/ARAB ISRAELI COLLECTIVE IMMEDIATE
RUMICEA/USCINCCENT MACDILL AFB FL//CCPA// IMMEDIATE

UNCLAS AMMAN 006400 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR NEA/ARN, NEA/PA, NEA/AIA, INR/NESA, R/MR, I/GNEA, B/BXN, 
B/BRN, NEA/PPD, NEA/IPA FOR ALTERMAN 
USAID/ANE/MEA 
LONDON FOR TSOU 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
 
TAGS: KMDR JO
 
SUBJECT: MEDIA REACTION ON MIDDLE EAST 
 
Editorial Commentary 
 
-- "Lebanon lessons, the failure of individual peace deals" 
 
Columnist Fahd Khitan writes on the inside page of independent, 
mass-appeal Arabic daily Al-Arab Al-Yawm (08/22):  "The experience 
of the past few years of the peace process in the region proved that 
the individual deals were not only bad for the Arabs, but also for 
Israel.  The Arabs went to Madrid for the sake of peace united and 
under one umbrella, but then chose to follow separate tracks.... 
Israel at the time considered the matter beneficial for it as it 
isolated the Arab countries and imposed its own conditions.  In 
everyone's view, Israel was the biggest winner and the weak and torn 
Arabs were the losers.  12 years after the last individual peace 
deal, Israel found out that it had succeeded in establishing peace 
with the regimes and had failed to establish reconciliation with the 
Arab people.  Strategists in Israel look at this Israel today as 
being tragic.  The Arab regimes on the other hand have come to 
realize now that they had sacrificed their credibility and 
popularity with their people and won nothing in return....  A small 
country like Israel, no matter how much military power and American 
support cannot guarantee an eternal presence in the region without 
reconciliation with 350 million Arabs....  The individual and 
incomprehensive peace agreements have harmed Israel more than they 
did the Arabs for one main reason, and that is that the core issue 
of the conflict in the region continues to exist unsolved, and all 
the attempts to turn it into a simple Israeli Palestinian conflict 
were doomed to failure.  After all, the Egyptian citizen who has 
regained his territory in line with the Camp David agreement, did 
not change his stand vis-`-vis Israel because the core of the 
conflict as far as he is concerned did not change....  In other 
words, the conflict in the region remains the same as it was before 
Camp David, an Arab Israeli conflict.  This fact must be 
acknowledged by the Arab regimes.  Hence, I believe that the Arabs 
and Israel are in need of a new peace process that completely 
ignores the existing agreements and puts the conflict back in its 
objective place so that just and comprehensive peace can really be 
achieved." 
 
-- "The inevitability of war renewing" 
 
Chief Editor Ayman Safadi writes on the back-page of centrist, 
independent Arabic daily Al-Ghad (08/22):  "Israeli officials 
believe in the inevitability of a new war with Hizbullah.  Their 
belief is correct and in its place, but not because of the reasons 
that Israel uses to justify its repeated wars on Lebanon.  The war 
will erupt against because its causes continue to stand and exist 
and because no one in Israel or the U.S. administration wants to 
address these causes.  Israel sees itself as a victim of Arab 
hostility.  Its conflict with the Arab is an existential struggle 
that has no links to its occupation of Arab lands.  The Israel 
society closed its eyes to the real reasons for the conflict.  It 
does not see the injustice of the occupation and does not sympathize 
with the suffering of the Palestinians.  It views the destruction 
that its military machine is inflicting on the Arabs as being self 
defense in the face of a barbaric enemy that has no relation to 
human culture... and now it is canceling from its future 
considerations the major condition for achieving peace, the one that 
will prevent the occurrence of war every time the circumstances are 
opportune.  So now there is no talk about a political solution for 
the Palestinian cause and there is no move to end the cause of 
tension with Lebanon by resolving the issues of Shebaa farms and the 
prisoners.  Moreover, those who listened to the words of U.S. 
President George Bush yesterday will find other reasons for the 
inevitability of the war in Lebanon, and maybe in future, in places 
other than Lebanon.  The American president adopted Israel's illogic 
in an absolute manner.  He dwarfed the Lebanese crisis into its 
simplest form.  All that concerns George Bush now is to establish a 
security zone that protects Israel and disarm Hizbullah.  There is 
no mention of Shebaa farms, no mention of the prisoners, and no 
mention of the Palestinian cause, without a solution to which the 
Middle East will never have peace.  The American president learned 
nothing from the Lebanon war, just as he failed to learn any useful 
lessons from his administration's weak performance in Iraq.  The 
result is that the Arab region will continue to pay the cost of the 
American complete bias in favor of Israeli policies, leading only to 
the demise of all peace opportunities in the region." 
 
-- "Israel at the crossroads: peace or the preventative and 
complementary war" 
Columnist Oraib Rantawi writes on the op-ed page of center-left, 
influential Arabic daily Ad-Dustour (08/22):  "The drums of the 
upcoming war, be that preventative against Syria and Lebanon or 
complementary against Hizbullah, are beating loud in Tel Aviv.  The 
important lesson that the Israeli military and the Hebrew 
intelligence forces learned is that they must not wait on Syria's 
missiles arsenal and on Hizbullah's rebuilding of its own arsenal, 
and they must not gamble on making Lebanon another Gaza.  This is 
the conclusion that all Israelis of all schools of thought agree 
upon....  The internal debate in Israel is going to be influenced by 
the fallout from the Iranian nuclear issue.  The United States is 
still at a loss about how to deal with that issue, and this 
confusion is going to lead to a similar confusion in dealing with 
Tehran's allies and friends in the region.  Until Washington 
resolves its hesitancy and determines how it is going to deal with 
the Iranian issue, peacefully or through war, it is no expected that 
Israel is going to resolve which way it will head: negotiations for 
a serious peace process or preventative and complementary wars." 
 
-- "A pivotal moment" 
 
Centrist, elite English daily Jordan Times editorial (08/22) opines: 
"US President George W. Bush has rightly described the moment as 
"pivotal" in the Middle East. Indeed, every year is pivotal around 
these parts.  Where the American president's analysis somewhat 
stumbles is in his assertion that it is purely up to the people of 
the Middle East to choose between democracy and extremism, and that 
those are indeed the choices available....  Bush assured that the 
United States and its allies "will defeat the terrorists by 
strengthening young democracies across the broader Middle East." 
Does the president, by terrorist activity in Lebanon, mean the 
targeting of innocent Lebanese civilians and civilian 
infrastructure? Does he mean the military occupation of Lebanese 
land...?  What freedom, Mr. President, in a region where 
democratically elected governments are sanctioned by Western powers? 
What open societies, Mr. President, when some regimes stay in power 
simply by allying themselves with Western and US interests over and 
above the interests of their own people? What democracy, Mr. 
President, in a region where occupiers are allowed unquestioned US 
support, and the largest political opposition blocs, the Islamic 
movements, are denounced as "terrorists"?  The only real democracy 
in the region is in something that isn't even a state, the 
Palestinian Authority. And we all know what reward the Palestinians 
received for exercising their democratic rights. Another country in 
the region that approaches a democracy is Lebanon, where America's 
regional bulldog was recently allowed a free hand to murder and 
destroy.  Yes, the people of the Middle East have choices to make 
and they are pivotal. Yes, there is an unhealthy fascination with 
destruction and mayhem and those who revel in it. Unfortunately, the 
West is included in those ranks. Unfortunately, the US in particular 
offers no alternative that is either ethical or acceptable. The US 
offers its way or the highway and that is no choice at all. 
Washington needs to understand that it too stands before a pivotal 
moment. It must, absolutely must, redefine its "war on terror," 
rethink its policies in the region, and reconsider its blind support 
for Israel. These are indeed options open to it that could rewrite 
Middle East history." 
HALE