Arabs give support - on condition

While condemning "all acts of terrorism everywhere", an Arab elder statesman has said regional support for the campaign against terrorism will depend on a solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

In a written message delivered to the envoys of NATO, Russia and China, the President of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan, said: "There should be . . . a strong international alliance to eradicate terrorism, and all those who provide assistance to it or harbour it."

But he added: "The Arabs and the Islamic world cannot accept what is happening in the occupied Palestinian territories - the daily killings, deportations and destruction. All of this is politically and morally unacceptable."

He continued: "We require . . . that your governments should work in a parallel, immediate and effective way to ensure a just and lasting peace in the Middle East . . . based upon the application of international legitimacy and the exercise by the Palestinian people of their right to self-determination, an end to occupation and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital."

Sheikh Zayed concluded: "There will be no permanent peace unless this is done. For, the eradication of one or more individuals will not end the problem permanently while hundreds or thousands may step forward" - to replace those who are eliminated.

To this, the Arabs have added several conditions for co-operating. First, they oppose unilateral US military operations and insist on a concerted international campaign within the ambit of the UN.

The Egyptian Foreign Minister, Mr Ahmad Maher, has called for an international conference which would spell out "mandatory measures to confront terrorism". No Arab government has so far agreed to take part in military action or permit US forces to use its national territory as a staging area.

The second Arab condition is that the campaign against terrorism should focus on the Islamist groups and networks associated with or inspired by Mr Osama bin Laden, the prime suspect in the attacks on America.

A third condition is that resistance groups involved in the struggle against Israel's occupation of Arab territory in Palestine, Syria and Lebanon should not be targeted. The groups the Arabs would exclude are the Lebanese Hizbullah movement and the Palestinian Fatah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

Finally, they reject any attempt by the US to broaden the anti-terrorism campaign into an offensive against long-standing regional antagonists, such as Iran, Iraq, Libya and Sudan.

Gen Ahmad Abdul Halim, an analyst with the officially sponsored Cairo Centre for Middle East studies, said that today's circumstances are very different to those in 1991 when the international community was dealing with Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.

"The Gulf war was about restoring the sovereignty of a country which had been stricken from the map by another. But today, the Arabs cannot join a coalition whose goals are unclear at a time Israel is trying to include Palestinian organisations on a list of terrorist groups. Before there is any anti-terrorist coalition, there must be a clear definition of terrorism which does not confuse terrorist groups and resistance movements."

In the Arab world, there has been a condemnation of terrorism coupled with sharp criticism of the US role in the Arab-Israeli conflict. The US characterisation of the anti-terrorism campaign as a "crusade" has reignited deep residual resentments against the Christian Crusades of the tenth and 11th centuries.