{"id":1431,"date":"2003-04-01T13:32:00","date_gmt":"2003-04-01T17:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.meehawl.com\/Blogfiles-wp\/?p=1431"},"modified":"2003-04-01T13:32:00","modified_gmt":"2003-04-01T17:32:00","slug":"the-palestinization-of-iraq","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.meehawl.com\/Blogfiles\/2003\/04\/01\/13\/32\/the-palestinization-of-iraq\/","title":{"rendered":"The ‘Palestinization’ of Iraq"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Al-Jazeera and Abu Dhabi TV will be on hand to record the ultimate image that Saddam knows is capable of igniting the Arab world into an ocean of fire: an American tank in the streets of Baghdad juxtaposed with an American tank in the streets of Gaza.
\nTo date, an estimated 5,200 Iraqis have crossed the Jordanian-Iraqi border, going back “to defend their homeland” as they invariably put it. In already one week of a war that was marketed by the Pentagon as “clean” and “quick” and which is revealing itself to be bloody and protracted, not a single Iraqi refugee has crossed the al-Karama border point into eastern Jordan.
\n…
\nThe street knows that all Arab regimes – from reactionary Saudi Arabia to relatively progressive Jordan – have failed. They have been incapable of achieving Arab unity and independence. They have been incapable of providing social, economic and technological development. They have been impotent in their promises to try to help liberate Gaza and the West Bank.
\n…
\nOne of the most extraordinary developments of the war so far is how the resistance of the Iraqi population against a foreign invasion has galvanized this sentiment of anger in the Arab world. “We are all Palestinians now,” as a Bedouin taxi driver puts it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Everyone here believes this is a war for oil. In nearby Jordan and across the Arab world the view is the same. Some suggest a second motive – Washington’s desire to strengthen Israel. Under one theory US hawks want to break Iraq into several statelets and then do the same with Saudi Arabia … Oil is the war aim on which all Arabs agree. While the Palestinian intifada is resistance to old-fashioned colonialism with its seizure and settlement of other people’s land, they see the Iraqi intifada as popular defence against a more modern phenomenon. Washington does not need to settle Iraqi land, but it does want military bases and control of oil.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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When Ali Hammadi al-Namani killed himself and four American soldiers in a suicide attack near Najaf on Saturday, he put the final nail in the coffin of the “liberation” scenario of the Washington-London alliance. The invading Anglo-American forces will now have to keep all Iraqi civilians at bay, treating everyone as a potential suicide bomber – just the way Israel’s occupation army treats Palestinians.
\nEarlier, any prospects of an uprising in the predominantly Shi’ite city of Basra disappeared on Tuesday when Grand Ayatollah Mirza Ali Sistani issued a fatwa, calling on “Muslims all over the world” to help Iraqis in “a fierce battle against infidel followers who have invaded our homeland”.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Al-Jazeera and Abu Dhabi TV will be on hand to record the ultimate image that Saddam knows is capable of igniting the Arab world into an ocean of fire: an American tank in the...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t