Roundup: Palestine-Israel Crisis Overwhelms Chief Goal Of Cheney's Mideast Trip

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Thursday, March 21, 2002

Roundup: Palestine-Israel Crisis Overwhelms Chief Goal Of Cheney's Mideast Trip

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U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney wound up his 10-day and 11-country whirlwind trip to the Middle East on Wednesday, apparently failing to achieve his intended goal of enlisting support from the Arab countries forU.S. 's tough policy against Iraq.

When Cheney started his trip to the region 10 days ago, the top priority of his agenda was to drum up support for a U.S. campaign against Iraq, a country that U.S. President George W. Bush labeled as part of an "axis of evil."

Nevertheless, Cheney's visit came at a time when conflicts between the Palestinians and Israelis had mounted in the 18-month- long clashes, which have claimed over 1,000 lives.

Cheney ran into snags in the Arab countries during his visit as the Arab leaders expressed their strong opposition to the U.S.'s planned military actions against Iraq, though Cheney said repeatedly his country has made no final decision on the military move.

The Americans have regarded Iraq as a "rogue" country that has developed or possessed weapons of mass destruction, and demanded that Iraq allow the return of U.N. weapons inspectors to the country. But Iraq has considered those inspectors as spies working for the United States and refused to let them return.

Some observers believe that the United States is "engineering" a crisis with Iraq by demanding no-limits inspections, knowing quite well that it will be turned down by the Iraqi government, a sting that the United States vows to root out, according to the Christian Science Monitor on Wednesday.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan will reportedly discuss the issue with Iraqi officials in New York next month. If Iraq rejected the demand, the United States would find a pretext to launch military actions against the Gulf country, observers believe.

The Arab leaders pointed out that any military strikes against Iraq would endanger peace, security and stability in the region, where anti-Americanism is at a high point.

On the contrary, they have appealed to the United States to step up its efforts to solve the Palestinian-Israeli crisis. Under the pressure from the Arab countries, Cheney had to shift his strategy and focused his attention on the mediation of the crisis.

In a gesture of U.S. resolve to address the issue, the United States took the move by proposing a motion that calls for the two states - Israel and Palestine - "live side by side" in the region, which was passed by the U.N. Security Council last week.

Meanwhile, the United States also pressed Israel to lift travel restrictions it imposed on Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and allow him to attend the meeting of the Arab League scheduled for next week in Beirut, Lebanon.

But the United States also criticized Arafat for failing to take enough measures to curb the violent actions against Israelis. Cheney refused to meet with Arafat while he was in Israel, a biased attitude criticized by the Palestinians.

Since Bush took office early last year, a high-level meeting with Arafat has virtually been suspended. Bush even refused to shake hands with Arafat when they encountered at the meeting of the United Nations in New York last fall.

At the end of his visit to Israel, Cheney promised that he would return to the Middle East as early as next week to meet Arafat on condition that the Palestinians take concrete steps to bring an end to violence against Israelis.

But the Arab leaders believed that the Israelis should also stop its infringement upon the Palestinians immediately, and that peace and stability could return to the region only when all the resolutions of the U.N. Security Council are implemented fully by the two sides.

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