Thursday, February 23, 2006 2:21:25 AM
In the Middle East, a serving of boiled Rice
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
Ynetnews.com
By: Edward M. Gomez | February 22 2006 at 12:03 AM
"U.S. Hypocrisy Hangs Over Rice's Middle East Trip." With headlines like that in Lebanon's Daily Star [ http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=17&article_id=22328 ], it appears that no matter how many millions of U.S.-taxpayer dollars the Bush administration throws at its public-relations effort to alter Arab attitudes about the United States, it's Washington's decades-old, inconsistent policies that will have to change before "they" ever stop "hating us." This theme has come inescapably to the surface now that U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has touched down in the Middle East. Among her goals: to convince regional leaders to get on board with Team Bush's approach to the new government of the Israeli-occupied, Palestinian territories. (AlJazeera.net) [ http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/72278B69-2907-4F29-AF0E-5DCCA9F3B939.htm ]
Yesterday, Rice turned up in Cairo. There, at a press conference with Egypt's foreign minister, she urged the Palestinian militant group Hamas to recognize Israel's sovereignty and renounce the use of violence. (Hamas won the Palestinian parliamentary elections in January. It is now forming the Palestinian Authority's new government.) Speaking of Hamas, Rice declaimed: "You cannot have one foot in the camp of terror and another foot in the camp of politics." (Xinhua) [ http://english.people.com.cn/200602/22/eng20060222_244830.html ]
Egypt urged Rice to give the organization "some time" to come around to officially recognizing Israel and renouncing violence. (L'Orient-Le Jour [ http://www.lorient-lejour.com.lb/page.aspx?page=article&id=306525 ], Lebanon) More pointedly, in Egypt's Al-Messa [ http://www.almessa.net.eg/ ], commentator Tareq Aglan noted: "Condi has come here to ask for support in the war to starve the Palestinians and cut off their aid because they dared choose Hamas. She erroneously believes that Egyptians will agree to international sanctions against their brothers." (Cited by Al-Gomhuria/Egyptian Gazette [ http://www.algomhuria.net.eg/gazette/3/ ])
Hamas leader Khalid Mashal, in Tehran
Reuters/Raheb Homavandi
Speaking at Tehran University, Hamas leader Khalid Mashal again insisted: "Our resistance will continue as long as the occupation and aggression continue...There [will be] no recognition of Israel, no matter what the cost...." (Reuters) [ http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2006-02-21T165652Z_01_L21162... ]
On the occasion of Rice's arrival in the region, an editorial in Lebanon's Daily Star [ http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=17&article_id=22328 ] asked: "How can the U.S. promote human rights and at the same time allow the torture of Arab prisoners, many of whom have been held in Abu Ghraib [prison in Baghdad] and Guantánamo Bay for years without charge or trial? How can Washington support democracy while encouraging Arab states to sanction the democratically elected government of the Palestinian people? Contradictory policies such as these only play into the hands of extremists."
The London-based, pan-Arab Al-Quds al-Arabi noted that, at the same time Rice was heading to the Middle East with the aim of "incit[ing]...Arab governments to stop their financial support to the Palestinian government formed by [democratically elected] Hamas," Washington had been busy funneling money to opposition groups in Syria and Iran "on the pretext of democratic reforms." "This scandalous contradiction in American foreign policy," the newspaper noted, "is what makes the Bush administration hated so much in the Arab and Muslim world and makes many not believe...repeated American claims [about support for] democratic reforms and fighting corruption." (Cited by UPI [ http://news.monstersandcritics.com/middleeast/article_1131555.php/Review_of_the_Arab_press ])
Meanwhile, evidence is emerging that not all U.S. allies may be willing to sing Rice's same tune about how to deal with such outfits as Hamas or the Muslim Brotherhood. (The Muslim Brotherhood, based in Egypt, is Hamas's parent organization.) For example, a newly leaked document from Britain's Foreign Office recommends that the U.K. should actually "increase the frequency of working-level contacts" with "independent" members of Egypt's parliament from the Muslim Brotherhood. The document "says Britain should lobby the [European Union] and the U.S. to follow suit," for it "is no longer possible for us to maintain a policy of minimal contact" with such political players, however unsavory they may be perceived to be. (Financial Times [ http://news.ft.com/cms/s/eb46bd94-a306-11da-ba72-0000779e2340,dwp_uuid=99eafd16-a001-11d8-81c6-000e2... ])
Footnote: On the other side of the globe, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, on his weekly television show, responded to Rice's recent charge that he represents a "challenge to democracy." Deliberately mispronouncing her name as "Condolences," the feisty Venezuelan leader warned Washington's top diplomat: "Don't mess with me, girl." (News24 [ http://www.news24.com/News24/World/News/0,,2-10-1462_1884516,00.html ], South Africa)
Edward M. Gomez, a former U.S. diplomat and staff reporter at TIME, has lived and worked in the U.S. and overseas, and speaks several languages. He has written for The New York Times, the Japan Times and the International Herald Tribune.
©2006 San Francisco Chronicle (emphasis in original)
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfgate/detail?blogid=15archive/&entry_id=3117
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
Ynetnews.com
By: Edward M. Gomez | February 22 2006 at 12:03 AM
"U.S. Hypocrisy Hangs Over Rice's Middle East Trip." With headlines like that in Lebanon's Daily Star [ http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=17&article_id=22328 ], it appears that no matter how many millions of U.S.-taxpayer dollars the Bush administration throws at its public-relations effort to alter Arab attitudes about the United States, it's Washington's decades-old, inconsistent policies that will have to change before "they" ever stop "hating us." This theme has come inescapably to the surface now that U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has touched down in the Middle East. Among her goals: to convince regional leaders to get on board with Team Bush's approach to the new government of the Israeli-occupied, Palestinian territories. (AlJazeera.net) [ http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/72278B69-2907-4F29-AF0E-5DCCA9F3B939.htm ]
Yesterday, Rice turned up in Cairo. There, at a press conference with Egypt's foreign minister, she urged the Palestinian militant group Hamas to recognize Israel's sovereignty and renounce the use of violence. (Hamas won the Palestinian parliamentary elections in January. It is now forming the Palestinian Authority's new government.) Speaking of Hamas, Rice declaimed: "You cannot have one foot in the camp of terror and another foot in the camp of politics." (Xinhua) [ http://english.people.com.cn/200602/22/eng20060222_244830.html ]
Egypt urged Rice to give the organization "some time" to come around to officially recognizing Israel and renouncing violence. (L'Orient-Le Jour [ http://www.lorient-lejour.com.lb/page.aspx?page=article&id=306525 ], Lebanon) More pointedly, in Egypt's Al-Messa [ http://www.almessa.net.eg/ ], commentator Tareq Aglan noted: "Condi has come here to ask for support in the war to starve the Palestinians and cut off their aid because they dared choose Hamas. She erroneously believes that Egyptians will agree to international sanctions against their brothers." (Cited by Al-Gomhuria/Egyptian Gazette [ http://www.algomhuria.net.eg/gazette/3/ ])
Hamas leader Khalid Mashal, in Tehran
Reuters/Raheb Homavandi
Speaking at Tehran University, Hamas leader Khalid Mashal again insisted: "Our resistance will continue as long as the occupation and aggression continue...There [will be] no recognition of Israel, no matter what the cost...." (Reuters) [ http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2006-02-21T165652Z_01_L21162... ]
On the occasion of Rice's arrival in the region, an editorial in Lebanon's Daily Star [ http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=17&article_id=22328 ] asked: "How can the U.S. promote human rights and at the same time allow the torture of Arab prisoners, many of whom have been held in Abu Ghraib [prison in Baghdad] and Guantánamo Bay for years without charge or trial? How can Washington support democracy while encouraging Arab states to sanction the democratically elected government of the Palestinian people? Contradictory policies such as these only play into the hands of extremists."
The London-based, pan-Arab Al-Quds al-Arabi noted that, at the same time Rice was heading to the Middle East with the aim of "incit[ing]...Arab governments to stop their financial support to the Palestinian government formed by [democratically elected] Hamas," Washington had been busy funneling money to opposition groups in Syria and Iran "on the pretext of democratic reforms." "This scandalous contradiction in American foreign policy," the newspaper noted, "is what makes the Bush administration hated so much in the Arab and Muslim world and makes many not believe...repeated American claims [about support for] democratic reforms and fighting corruption." (Cited by UPI [ http://news.monstersandcritics.com/middleeast/article_1131555.php/Review_of_the_Arab_press ])
Meanwhile, evidence is emerging that not all U.S. allies may be willing to sing Rice's same tune about how to deal with such outfits as Hamas or the Muslim Brotherhood. (The Muslim Brotherhood, based in Egypt, is Hamas's parent organization.) For example, a newly leaked document from Britain's Foreign Office recommends that the U.K. should actually "increase the frequency of working-level contacts" with "independent" members of Egypt's parliament from the Muslim Brotherhood. The document "says Britain should lobby the [European Union] and the U.S. to follow suit," for it "is no longer possible for us to maintain a policy of minimal contact" with such political players, however unsavory they may be perceived to be. (Financial Times [ http://news.ft.com/cms/s/eb46bd94-a306-11da-ba72-0000779e2340,dwp_uuid=99eafd16-a001-11d8-81c6-000e2... ])
Footnote: On the other side of the globe, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, on his weekly television show, responded to Rice's recent charge that he represents a "challenge to democracy." Deliberately mispronouncing her name as "Condolences," the feisty Venezuelan leader warned Washington's top diplomat: "Don't mess with me, girl." (News24 [ http://www.news24.com/News24/World/News/0,,2-10-1462_1884516,00.html ], South Africa)
Edward M. Gomez, a former U.S. diplomat and staff reporter at TIME, has lived and worked in the U.S. and overseas, and speaks several languages. He has written for The New York Times, the Japan Times and the International Herald Tribune.
©2006 San Francisco Chronicle (emphasis in original)
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfgate/detail?blogid=15archive/&entry_id=3117
Greensburg, KS - 5/4/07
"Eternal vigilance is the price of Liberty."
from John Philpot Curran, Speech
upon the Right of Election, 1790
F6
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