Jenin (again) and the real meaning behind the Crown Prince's visit to Texas
At least the English papers care. This morning's edition of the Independent has three pointed pieces about Jenin. The Independent reports that at least half of the 50 bodies found in Jenin so far are of civilians, including a woman in a nurse uniform shot in the heart and a man in a wheel chair. And of course, that number is likely to rise once heavy equipment is brought in to excavate the rubble of demolished buildings.

Once upon a time in Jenin
What really happened when Israeli forces went into Jenin? Just as the world is giving up hope of learning the truth, Justin Huggler and Phil Reeves have unearthed compelling evidence of an atrocity

The thought was as unshakable as the stench wafting from the ruins. Was this really about counterterrorism? Was it revenge? Or was it an episode – the nastiest so far – in a long war by Ariel Sharon, the staunch opponent of the Oslo accords, to establish Israel's presence in the West Bank as permanent, and force the Palestinians into final submission?

A neighbourhood had been reduced to a moonscape, pulverised under the tracks of bulldozers and tanks. A maze of cinder-block houses, home to about 800 Palestinian families, had disappeared. What was left – the piles of broken concrete and scattered belongings – reeked.

The rubble in Jenin reeked, literally, of rotting human corpses, buried underneath. But it also gave off the whiff of wrongdoing, of an army and a government that had lost its bearings. "This is horrifying beyond belief," said the United Nations' Middle East envoy, Terje Roed-Larsen, as he gazed at the scene. He called it a "blot that will forever live on the history of the state of Israel" – a remark for which he was to be vilified by Israelis. Even the painstakingly careful United States envoy, William Burns, was unusually outspoken as he trudged across the ruins. "It's obvious that what happened in Jenin refugee camp has caused enormous suffering for thousands of innocent Palestinian civilians," he said. (MORE)

Then the Independent's lead editorial piece today focuses on the U.N. investigation of Jenin.

Israel must not be allowed to upset the Jenin investigation
25 April 2002

Israel's delays and objections to the UN panel of investigation into Jenin are looking more and more like an attempt to emasculate the entire exercise. If this is so, then it will only add to the impression that the country has something to hide. What happened in Jenin was bad enough, as our report in the Review section suggests, without Jerusalem playing games with the international community.

One should also question the wisdom of Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary General, in bowing to this pressure, delaying the visit of the panel and, worse, considering changing its personnel to accommodate Sharon's demands for more military members.

Establishing the facts of Jenin, in so far as this is possible, is of crucial importance. The Palestinians feel that a massacre was committed by Israeli soldiers in the refugee camp. The Israelis declare that what happened was no more than heavy fighting in which most of the casualties were Palestinian gunmen. Unless there is objective investigation, Jenin will enter the world of corrosive myth, in a region already overburdened with mythology. (MORE)

***

A frontpage story in today's New York Times inadvertently brings up ulterior motives, secret-behind-the-scenes work going on with Crown Prince Abdullah's visit to Texas.

The article states:

On Tuesday President Bush's father had lunch with the Saudi foreign minister, Saud al-Faisal, and the kingdom's longtime ambassador to Washington, Prince Bandar bin Sultan. Their specific message could not be learned, but in the familial setting, where Barbara Bush was also the hostess for Princess Haifa, Prince Bandar's wife, the strong strategic and personal ties of the Persian Gulf war that characterized Saudi-American relations a decade ago was a message in itself.

On Wednesday, Abdullah met with Vice President Dick Cheney in Houston. Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, also flew to Houston to join in last-minute discussions before the summit meeting. A senior official in Washington said Mr. Rumsfeld and General Myers were dispatched to brief the prince personally on the American accomplishments in Afghanistan and in the broader war on terrorism.

"The idea was, if he thought we were strong in Desert Storm, we're 10 times as strong today," one official said. "This was to give him some idea what Afghanistan demonstrated about our capabilities."

Those three paragraphs are buried in a story that otherwise is about how the Prince plans on pressuring Bush about the Israeli-Palestine conflict (more on that in a minute). It's that last paragraph that really draws it out:

"The idea was, if he thought we were strong in Desert Storm, we're 10 times as strong today," one official said. "This was to give him some idea what Afghanistan demonstrated about our capabilities."

Why does the U.S. need to proves its military might in solving the Israeli-Palestine conflict? It doesn't. This is obviously part of a meeting regarding Iraq. It's absolutely frightening how singularly focused the Bush administration is on taking down Saddam.

According the article, the Crown Prince has come to school lil' George Bush about the gravity of the situation he helped create in the Middle East. Aids to Abdullah report that this meeting could be the end of the line, the last chance for Bush to fix this foul-up.

In a bleak assessment on Wednesday, the person close to the crown prince said there was talk within the Saudi royal family and in Arab capitals of using the "oil weapon" against the United States, and demanding that the United States leave strategic military bases in the region.

Such measures, he said, would be a "strategic debacle for the United States..."

"It is a mistake to think that our people will not do what is necessary to survive," the person close to the crown prince said, "and if that means we move to the right of bin Laden, so be it; to the left of Qaddafi, so be it; or fly to Baghdad and embrace Saddam like a brother, so be it. It's damned lonely in our part of the world, and we can no longer defend our relationship to our people."

Whatever the possibility of bluster, it is also clear that Abdullah represents not just Saudi Arabia but also the broader voice of the Arab world, symbolized by the peace plan he submitted and that was endorsed at an Arab summit meeting in March.

Those familiar with the prince's "talking points" said he would deliver a blunt message that Mr. Bush is perceived to have endorsed — despite his protests to the contrary — Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's military incursion into the West Bank.

Abdullah believes Mr. Bush has lost credibility by failing to follow through on his demand two weeks ago that Mr. Sharon withdraw Israeli troops from the West Bank and end the sieges of Yasir Arafat's compound in Ramallah and of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem...

"If Bush freed Arafat and cleared Bethlehem, it would be a big victory, show a stiffening of spine," the person close to Abdullah said. "But incremental steps are no longer valid in these circumstances," meaning that Mr. Bush would have to follow up with a major push to fulfill the longstanding expectation of the Palestinians for statehood...

But the person close to the prince said that if the summit talks went badly, Abdullah might not complete his stay in Texas. Instead, he might return directly to Riyadh and call for a summit meeting of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, to report to its 44 leaders, who represent 1.2 billion Muslims.

"He wants to say, `I looked the president of the U.S. in the eye and have to report that I failed,' " this person said. His message to the Arabs will be, "Take the responsibility in your own hands, my conscience is clear, before history, God, religion, country and friends."

The person close to Abdullah pointed out that Saudi Arabia's recent assurances that it would use its surplus oil-producing capacity to blunt the effects of Saddam Hussein's 30-day suspension of Iraqi oil exports could quickly change.

That Saudi pledge "was based on a certain set of assumptions, but if you change the assumptions, all bets are off," he said. "We would no longer say what Saddam said was an empty threat, because there come desperate times when you give the unthinkable a chance."

Abdullah is reported to be bitter over the White House's assertion that the president is taking a balanced approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and he wants to evaluate in person whether Mr. Bush understands how his actions are being perceived in the Arab world.

This, the last paragraph is the best part. The Saudis call Bush on the carpet:

"This is not a mistake or a policy gaffe," the person close to Abdullah said, referring to Mr. Bush's approach. "He made a strategic, conscious decision to go with Sharon, so your national interest is no longer our national interest; now we don't have joint national interests. What it means is that you go your way and we will go ours, economically, militarily and politically — and the antiterror coalition would collapse in the process."