Annapolis: Promise or poo

Let's face it: The Palestinian conflict is the most intractable political dilemma of the past 100 years - a quagmire of religious and ethnic narratives without equal. It is also the worst case of mishandled international politics of the past 100 years. Some say the conflict is as old as human history in that part of the world, but things really went off the track with the decision by the UN in 1947 to create the State of Israel - part fall-out of the brutal Second World War and part a casualty of the crumbling British Empire, of which the Mandate of Palestine had been part until 1947.

The history of Palestine is complicated and convoluted and has changed ownership many times over the centuries. Depending on who's narrative one chooses to believe, the history of Palestine can be traced back to the days of Abraham, mentioned in the Christian Bible, certain Jewish scriptures as well as the Islamic Koran. At the time, various tribes lived in what is Palestine and Israel today. Gradually, the Hebrew tribes became dominant in the region in between being pillaged by invading empires.

The early days of the Hebrew tribes were prime examples of genocide and imperialism, well recorded in substantial gore in the Christian Old Testament. The escapades of Joshua was a particularly grim example of conquered tribes being slaughtered without mercy - man, woman and child. Of course, the religious spin of the day and even of today, was that all of that horror was part of God's promise unfolding for His chosen people.

After the Assyrian and Persian conquests, respectively, Palestine came under Greek rule. Not long after, local squabbles over dynasty among Jewish inhabitants led to the Romans taking charge. But glory never lasts forever. The Byzantine Empire seated in Constantinople took over the reigns from an unravelling Roman Empire. Meanwhile, the faith of Islam was established by the man now revered by Muslims as the prophet Mohammed. It was not long before the Byzantine Empire gave way to Arab Caliphate rule. For a period Muslim and Jew lived together on one piece of land. But such peace as there was could not last. Trust religion to throw a spanner into the works. It was time for the Christian Crusades - in ninefold during the 11th to 13th centuries.

Eventually, support for the Crusades dwindled and their rule over Palestine (mostly Jerusalem) came to an end. For a brief period the Mamluk ruled Palestine. It was not long before the Ottoman Empire filled the void and became the next empire to run Palestine until Britain finally gained a mandate over the region in a settlement with the Ottomans at the end of the First World War. By now a firm promise was on the table from the British government for the establishment of a Jewish homeland, without prejudice against natives of other ethnicity in the region.

What followed was a steady influx to Palestine of mostly Europeans, claiming Jewish descent by virtue of their cultural disposition. From the foregoing history, it is clearly a long shot for any 20th century European immigrant to Palestine to claim direct lineage to Hebrews of Biblical days. Natives of Palestine of the time had much stronger claim to the land by virtue of their immediate forefathers in the region.

Yet, after the horrors of the Second World War, in which millions of Europeans died in the Jewish genocide, there were strong emotional and moral arguments for the creation of a Jewish state outside Europe. Palestine seemed the ideal candidate. Britain was in a financial fix after the war and her empire was fast eroding. As soon as ethnic conflict in Palestine erupted between the new European immigrants and natives, the Palestine mandate became a hot potato for the Brits. At the first opportunity Britain dropped it and allowed a half-baked division of Palestine to become a unilateral declaration of independence by the Jewish Europeans. The State of Israel was born as if by caesarian. The world was suddenly perched on the verge of an abyss. What followed has been decades of war, strive, oppression and separation.

This week, the world turns its weary eyes on Annapolis in Maryland, USA. Some see promise of a turning point in the ongoing dilemma that is Palestine. But the odds are stacked against such promise. The opposing narratives have bred fear, anger and unyielding demands. For many the situation is up to the nose in political poo. But has not been the history of Palestine just that since the dawn of time: Plenty of promise ending in a pool of political poo?

Under friendly fire

Oh dear, it seems the US Administration and their intelligence services have an urgent position for a translator. Yet again the story line is changing after months of feeding the public fodder on where the real source of insurgency and mayhem in Iraq actually lies.

Without ever producing concrete evidence, the public was repeatedly to the point of hysteria fed rumours on how Iran was at the root of the deadly insurgency that was reigning terror in that already devastated country. Of course, such gossip and innuendo suited certain interest groups in the US and its allies in the Middle East.

However, now, according to the latest report in the NY Times, 60% of the past year's insurgents came from Saudi Arabia and Libya, with 41% of the total of insurgents from Saudi Arabia alone. And this latest turn of tune comes from the proverbial horse's mouth: US military officials in Iraq who have uncovered documentation to that effect. So far, no Iranian combatants have been captured or otherwise found by the US forces in Iraq.

Besides the footwork over the statistics, the more pressing concern is over the simple detail that Saudi Arabia is supposedly an US ally in all of this. One wonders how Washington's spin machine is going to spin this one to suit their foreign policy and strategic interests in the region. Perhaps the recent change in tone from Riyadh has something to do with these bits of information making their way to the press at this point in time.

All we know is that all of the above take on the form of yet another casualty of friendly fire.

Tin soldier on maneouvers

It appears that Washington's tin soldier is on maneouvers in Islamabad. After two weeks of tumultuous rumblings all across Pakistan, Gen. Musharaf is looking increasingly like a cat on a hot tin roof. Pakistan is under martial law; normal activity, including political action, is under severe restrictions. Droves of political and social opponents of his military regime have been arrested; brutalised by state forces and generally oppressed. And now Washington seems to be preparing for a possible successor to the general. The plot seems to be souring.

Well, does not that scene ring a bell. Was it not Saddam Hussein who once was the useful dictator who served US regional interests in the Persian region until he became a little too big for his boots and started calling the shots? What a terrible slide was in store for Mr Hussein. The maneouvers went horribly wrong and so the US took most of their military over there to sort things out. Not quite - they have since got stuck there; the country is ransacked and things have taken a turn for the worse.

On the other side of the world there was once upon a time a certain Gen. Pinochet, a rather brutal chap as it turned out, who was most useful to US interests over there in containing the spread of communism in South America. But he reached shelf life soon enough and Chile has spent two decades since recovering from his exploits.

One wonders if the latest bad boy turned choir boy, the Colonel of Libya, will become the latest tin soldier in US International Enterprises Incorporated. For one, Col. Gaddafi is a rather enigmatic and mercurial character, more so than the rather straight-forward thug that was Hussein. Libya sits on quite a bit of oil - an increasingly rare commodity. Gaddafi will certainly play his hand carefully as well as play the harp of counter-terrorism, certain to strike the right cord with Washington.

Africa saw them ebb and flow: Gen. Mobuto Sese Seko, Jonas Savimbi, to name but two. All started out with lots of promise and noble goals. And the each time the maneouvers went south and dragged down the local population into pits of despair, war and tragedy. Each time the halls of Washington rang with chants of democracy and freedom to the foreign oppressed. But each time it was US regional interest that spelled the real intent.

In the Congo, it was ostentatiously about opposing Soviet expansion and, more sinister, about controlling the local diamond trade. In Angola, it went superficially over the big bad Soviet wolf, but under the covers, off-shore oil interests as well as the diamond trade - yet again - with both Washington and Pretoria in on the deal.

Oh, how sweet is the sound of freedom talk amidst the glitter of hundreds of carats in the vaults of New York; Amsterdam and Johannesburg, while the dull thuds of land mines abruptly tore off limbs of children in the far away bushes of Angola.