The Logic Of Illogic

Salameh Nematt     Al-Hayat     2003/06/30

The world appears to be suffering from a collective schizophrenia: the U.S. wants democracy in the Middle East, but is working on alienating an elected Palestinian president for the sake of one specific Prime Minister. It seeks democracy the Western way, but refuses to grant a decisive role to the Shiite majority in Iraq. It fought communism with the Islamists, then went to fight the Islamists under the banner of fighting terrorism. Israel wants Hamas to guarantee the security of Israel after it alienated and destroyed the Palestinian Authority, but it doesn't want to end the occupation, which created a security problem with the Authority, Hamas as well as others. Israel destroys the very Palestinian security institutions that it has been asking the Palestinians to use to ensure its own safety. Terrorism is addressed as an isolated phenomenon that has no objective political or economic causes. Arab countries talk about reform and fight reformists. The Davos Conference was held at the Dead Sea.

Hamas and the Islamic Jihad declared truce yesterday. It is not absolutely clear whether the truce is with Israel or with the Palestinian Authority or the U.S. The U.S. is negotiating with the Authority to control the opposition for the sake of Israel and in return, Israel will end its war against the Authority and the opposition and anyone moving on Palestinian territories. Israel, in its turn, is negotiating with the U.S. against the Authority and the opposition and Palestine all together! The U.S. and Israel don't recognize Hamas and the Jihad and want to dismantle them, but they demand their commitment to stop suicide missions as a first step towards their dismantlement. 

The logic of the illogic is on the war against terrorism: the lack of security is being addressed through additional procedures that helped create terrorism in the first place. No one seems to want to deal with the source of the trouble.

The fact is that the logic of power dominates the power of logic. The decisions of the international legislation were shelved aside. Condoleezza Rice threatens to use the "American way" and not the international law to deal with Iran and North Korea. The Arab stand is not much more logical: we don't want American intervention in our regional and internal matters, but we are not capable of treating our regional and internal matters. We want the U.S. to free Palestine but we object to intervention in liberating Iraq from a regime that is worse than the occupation. Isn't Palestine a member of the Arab league? Why don't we ask the U.S. not to interfere in internal Palestinian matters?

Nothing is worse than the double standards of American policy except for the Arab double standards.

The U.S. demands to fight terrorism but refuses to define it for fear that the definition would be applied to itself and Israel. The Arabs don't want an American intervention in the Middle East, unless it is to free Palestine from the Americans' sole strategic ally in the region. As if the unique concern of the Americans were to serve Arab interests. As if the Arab lobby is the one controlling Middle Eastern decision-making in Washington!