Times are a-changing

Remember the early days of the year 2000 when the respected Nobel Peace Prize recipient and veteran leader of the Palestinian people President Yasser Arafat was one of the most frequent visitors to the White House?

Those were the days when a lasting peace agreement seemed to be on the table, and a flurry of diplomatic activity centered around the Palestinian National Authority negotiating team, Israeli Premier Ehud Barak and American President Bill Clinton's joint vision of an independent Palestinian state? How things have changed.

From the inception of his presidency, George W. Bush altered the rules of the game. Overnight, President Arafat changed from being Washington's welcome guest to the fall guy of the demise of the peace process, while Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon became America's "blue-eyed boy", a "man of peace".

Arafat, confined to his Ramallah headquarters while his PNA security infrastructure was destroyed, is handed the blame for all the suicide bombings. Why the U-turn?

Aside from the politics, and Bush's close personal friendship with Sharon, forged during a private visit to Israel long before his presidency, one reason could well be the American president's right-wing Christian-world view.

A self-professed Born-Again-Christian, Bush – in keeping with many other Evangelical Christians – could well believe in the unconditional support of Israel due to theological reasons.

Bush describes his administration's loyalty to Israel in terms of "shared values" and "democratic principles" but no-one has yet asked the important question: Is Bush a Messianic Christian Zionist, and if so, what are the implications for the Middle East and the entire world?

That question is unlikely to be asked or answered. What we do know is that many right-wing or conservative Christians in America's corridors of power are committed to the Zionist philosophy and, in some cases, even a Greater Israel.

House Majority Leader Dick Armey openly stated his support for the transfer of Palestinians across the River Jordan during an interview on MSNBC earlier this year.

Tom DeLay, the House Majority Whip made his views clear in April 2002 when he said during a speech to AIPAC: "I have toured Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) and stood on the Golan Heights. I didn't see Occupied Territories. I saw Israel."

Democrats are shedding their earlier stances of neutrality too, such as America's former Vice-President Al Gore.

Gore said, as part of a speech delivered to AIPAC members: "I will never, ever, let people forget that the relationship between the U.S. and Israel rests on granite – on the rock of our common values, our common heritage and our common dedication to freedom."

And to cap it all, The Toronto Star quoted ex-President Bill Clinton saying on July 29, 2002, while addressing a Jewish charity organisation in Toronto, that if Iraqis were to cross Israel's borders, he would "personally get in a ditch, grab a rifle and fight until the death."

Yes, the same Clinton whom we saw strolling affably with Barak and Arafat in the grounds of Camp David during his days as an "impartial" peace-maker.

Even if Bush himself does not subscribe to Christian Zionist fundamentals – which include the building of the third Jewish Temple as a prerequisite to what they believe will be the second coming of the Messiah – his administration is peppered with both Evangelical Christian supporters of Israel and Jewish Zionists.

These include the Vice-President Dick Cheney and Attorney General John Ashcroft. In the Pentagon, pro-Israel advocates are Deputy Secretary of Defence, Paul Wolfowitz and Chairman of the Defence Policy Board Richard Pearl.

Such vehemently pro-Israel views were signed, sealed and stamped by a Congressional vote which came out in favour of solidarity with Israel by 94-2, and mirrored by the Anti-Defamation League's statement in the New York Times: "We people of faith stand firmly with Israel".

At the other end of the ideological spectrum is the Hassidic Jewish movement, known by their Aramaic title Naturei Karta, Aramaic for "Guardians of the City".

Members of the Naturei Karta welcomed Arafat on his return from long exile to Palestine and have been seen at Palestinian rallies in the U.S. and Britain in solidarity with the Palestinian cause.

The Naturei Karta have interpreted the Torah to mean that the Jews are not entitled to rule the Holy Land at this moment in history and believe that Jews should be allowed to reside in Israel under the jurisdiction of a Palestinian government.

Then there are the humanitarian Israeli groups, which support a strong, secure Israeli state but not at the cost of occupying and repressing the Palestinians. One such is Gush Shalom, whose 78–year-old founder Uri Avnery, a former member of the Irgun and an ex-Israeli parliamentarian, today follows his conscience.

Another, is the Peace Now movement, founded in 1978 by 348 Israeli Defence Force reserve officers, who believed that only a negotiated settlement to the conflict can bring true security to the region. Today, hundreds of Israeli reservists are refusing to serve in the West Bank.

Israeli opposition to current Likud policies are also gaining momentum thanks to the "not-in-my-name" Israeli intellectuals, which include the writers Israel Shahak, as well as outspoken critics of Sharon in the Israeli press – journalists Gideon Levy and Amira Hass.

The well-known Israeli singer of patriotic songs Yafa Yarkoni, likened the Israeli Defence Forces to the Nazis in an interview on April 14 and has since suffered a drop in popularity.

Dalia Rabin-Pelossof, daughter of the slain Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, made her own powerful statement when she quit her post as Israel's Deputy Defence Secretary after the recent missile attack on Gaza, when 14 Palestinians were killed and 140 wounded.

While Sharon called the attack one of Israel's "greatest success", Rabin-Pelossof said that she could not remain in a government that had abandoned her father's pursuit of peace.

Competing belief systems and intellectual/humanitarian platforms have done little to benefit either the Israelis or the Palestinians, who have suffered an unacceptable loss of life since Sharon was voted-in, while both economies are at a virtual standstill.

The Palestinians are suffering never-before-seen unemployment levels, due to Israeli closures. And many are currently subsisting on less than one dollar a day, while Israelis can only look forward to a bleak future of higher taxation, increasing unemployment, and a shrinking tourism industry – which has suffered a drop of 42 per cent as compared to the first half of 2001.

Yet, in spite of hundreds of millions of dollars which go into Israel's public relations campaigns each year (as opposed to the Palestinian National Authority's annual $20 million), world public opinion is gradually turning against the Zionist state.

The Boycott Israel Goods campaign, or BIG, is having an effect, as evidenced by the recent report of the Israeli Export Institute's annou-ncement of a 20 per cent drop in Israeli manufactured goods to the European Union. <