There is no doubt that Israel plans to withdraw completely and totally from the Gaza Strip. What remains to be answered is when and how. But until the withdrawal actually takes place, many more will die, more hardship, anger and hatred will take place. Israelis and Palestinians will undoubtedly see bad days. Why?

The only way to explain this continued carnage is psychology. No credible military reason exists for continuing the occupation of Gaza. Both parties are interested in perception. How the withdrawal will be seen by the other.

The Israeli army and political brass are concerned that such a withdrawal at a time of Palestinian attacks will be considered by Palestinians a victory. They want to make sure that when they withdraw no one in the Palestinian community will be able to interpret this as an act of weakness. On the other hand, Palestinians want to be sure that the world doesn’t interpret the upcoming Israeli withdrawal as anything but a result of sacrifice and resistance. Israeli expectations that their acts will be deterrence to Palestinians have long lost their powers as Palestinians simply lost their effectiveness as Palestinians have shown that nothing will deter them.

Palestinians and Israelis alike of course are looking more to the West Bank than to Gaza. Since the Israelis have made up their mind about quitting Gaza, the issue of the depth of the withdrawal from the West Bank will be the real hard nut to crack. Israel wants to make sure that the Palestinians are weakened to a degree that will lower their expectations. Palestinians are also worried that the unilateral withdrawal might become the preferred Israeli mode and will apply to the West Bank. With the security wall built deep inside the West Bank territories, the fear is that the Israelis will use that wall as their future borders with Palestine, despite their claims to the contrary.

The problem with perception is that it is much more difficult for the Israelis to give the impression of a withdrawal based on strength. The casualties among Israelis military, civilian and settlers has been high. A crazy one upmanship situation has evolved with Israelis and Palestinians competing who can inflict more pain to the other.

Ariel Sharon who has been at the heart of the current Gaza situation has climbed a high tree that will be hard to climb down. By refusing to negotiate a withdrawal from Gaza with the Palestinian Authority he has plunged the strip into this unprecedented violence that has reaped Palestinian and Israeli lives homes and livelihoods.

The international community must not allow this senseless killings to continue. One important way they can help save Palestinians and Israelis from each other is to move quickly to negotiate and supervise a cease fire. Such a cease fire will need to be binding on both sides and include stopping attacks against individuals and properties both in Gaza, the West Bank and Israel. International powers like the UN or NATO can help the two embattled parties by sending troops to observe the cessation of attacks. At the same time political and diplomatic effort aimed at negotiating a short term one for the proper and orderly Israeli withdrawal from Gaza will help create the kind of atmosphere that will make future final status negotiations regarding the West Bank and other issues much more possible.

After 37 years of a military occupation, the Israeli presence in the Gaza strip looks likely to be ending soon. People of goodwill must help make sure that this end is done without any further bloodshed and pain. To accomplish that, the Israeli occupying forces will need to bite the bullet and try to cut their losses and negotiate an orderly withdrawal that will not leave any more dead bodies and demolished homes.

Is the current Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia in danger of facing a fate similar to that of his predecessor? It might be a pessimistic question, but some of the rumblings coming out of Palestinian National Authority headquarters, Muqataa, these days point to lack of trust, by some in the PNA after the results of the recent meetings Qureia had with Secretary of State Colin Powell and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice.

Anger in the Palestinian camp began with the Powell’s anti-Arafat statements, during his brief stay on the Jordanian shore of the Dead Sea. Powell was quoted as repeating the recent US position that favors changing the Palestinian leadership. This would have been tolerated had it not for the fact that Powell was meeting with Arafat’s prime minister. Before Powell’s statement, it was felt that the US might be slightly changing its calls for change of leadership when it agreed to high-level meetings with Qureia.

What further angered the Palestinian leadership was the absence of tangible results from the Qureia-Rice meetings in Berlin. Despite Qureia’s press statement after the meeting that it was positive, sources at the PNA headquarters insist that nothing of substance was delivered to the Palestinians. The continued house demolitions and large-scale killings in Rafah, despite Powell’s public criticism, shows that the Palestinian leadership was justified in feeling disappointed.

What worries the Palestinians is that the US administration is trying to use the meetings with Qureia to improve its relations with moderate Arab leaders. There is also worry that the Americans are playing the good cop-bad cop routine with the Palestinians. While Powell publicly criticizes the demolition of Palestinian houses in Rafah, the real position of the Bush administration, as expressed during the president’s address to AIPAC, was that Israel has a right to defend itself.

The feeling among some of the senior Palestinian leaders is that, presently, the Bush administration is either unwilling or unable to deliver anything of substance to the Palestinians. The looming US elections and George Bush’s need to woo some of the Jewish voters who normally vote for the Democrats could be behind this position. With key states like Florida (with a large Jewish population) again the focus of the coveted 25 electoral votes, every vote in this state can possibly decide the upcoming elections.

For better or worse, this situation puts Qureia in an unenviable position. If he meets with the top US leaders and gets nothing of substance, he gives the impression of playing into the hands of the Americans. On the other hand, if he refuses such meetings, he is giving up a strategically important opportunity.

What has made the situation more worrisome is the apparent lack of coordination and maybe a slight mistrust between Qureia and his Cabinet, on the one hand, and between President Yasser Arafat and some of his aides, on the other hand.

Arafat, for example, would have liked Qureia to publicly admonish Powell for his anti-Arafat statements during the World Economic Forum meetings at the Dead Sea. He would have also liked Qureia not to give the impression that his meetings with Rice were fruitful. Absent such a position, some in the PNA headquarters may start thinking that Qureia and his staff are cooking something with the Americans behind Arafat’s back. With such suspicion, they could start reading things in some of the public statements that might not have been intended.

There is no doubt that the undemocratic US position, of refusing to deal with an elected Arab leader, is a major cause of mistrust. What is worrisome, however, is that within the Arab and Palestinian circles, leaders are unable to see these dangers and have a higher degree of trust and confidence in themselves and in each other. Palestinian unity and Palestinian-Arab solidarity are the most powerful assets that Palestinians possess. These assets must not be weakened as a result of the hostile, anti-democratic US and Israeli positions.

Politicians and commentators have filled newspapers and airwaves with criticism against the Bush administration’s publicly stated motivation for going to war against Iraq. In most of the attacks blame has been made to the administration’s neo conservative officials as being the ones who were actively behind the war decision. These commentators, however, have failed to present a logical explanation as to what they believe was the real motive for George Bush’s war that has left American occupying 25 million Iraqis.

Some have referred to oil, but the claim that this war was really motivated by oil seems to have evaporated in recent months with the record rise in the price of oil. The latest torture evidence in the Abu Ghraib prison make the argument that the US wants to instill democracy and human rights in the Arab region rather weak.

So why did President Bush and his top aides invade Iraq.

Events in the Middle East are showing every day that the reason that the president’s neocon aides pushed for this war is that they wanted to crush Arab nationalism rather than finding weapons of mass destruction or destroying terrorism. While many true Arab nationalists will have little argument with President Bush in his description of Saddam Hussein’s dictatorial regime, they would argue that the former Iraqi leader betrayed true Baathism which is based on the desire of all patriotic Arabs for unity.

Evidence in this regard has become clear with the recent unveiling of the Iraqi flag. For the first time in modern Arab history, an Arab country has chosen to create a flag a yellow and blue flag that avoids like a plague the red, white, green and black colors of the Arab revolt. The flag which has two blue lines representing the Iraqi rivers with a yellow strip representing Kurds and a crescent representing Muslims seems to emphasize Iraq on the account of its Arab nationality.

There are other clear signs of this US anti Arab nationalism position. Take the recent US moves against Syria which has no real logic. The Syrians have been begging the US to work together with them on the borders with Iraq including the possibility of launching joint patrols but Washington has rejected these offers. Interestingly the Bush administration is apparently not speaking in unison regarding Syria. Syrian President Bashar Assaad told Al Jazzera TV that they are getting mixed signals from Washington.

This can also explain the attacks against the pan Arab television station Al Jazzera. How else can we understand this sudden attack against the Arab world’s most independent television station. The Bush administration which must understand the importance of independent media in democratic reform has not spoken a word against any of the government run TV stations in the 23 Arab countries while it has repeatedly attacked the pan Arab al Jazzera. Ironically while the US is pushing for reform in the Arab world, they have joined forces with most Arab dictators in their attack against Al Jazzera TV. If any organization can be credited for reviving Arab nationalism, the new satellite stations are it. It is interesting to know that the key journalists and producers of Al Jazzera were greatly influenced by the rise of Arab nationalism in the 60s. These journalists many of whom worked for the BBC, found in their new media source an opportunity to reflect secular Arab nationalism which certainly sees the occupation of Palestine and now Iraq as a stumbling block in the way of the independence and unity of the Arab world.

This attempt to crush Arab nationalism is certainly not new. In the1956 Britain, France and Israel conspired against the hero of Arab nationalism Egypt’s Jamal Abdel Nasser in the Sinai offensive. Many see the continued support for Israel within this context. Similarly many believe that America’s objective of sponsoring a separate Israel-Egypt deal was mostly meant to weaken Arab unity.

Opposition to Arab nationalism was not limited to a certain ideological wing in the United States. While it was possible to detect different variations of a split within Europe and the US regarding the war on Iraq, there was absolute unanimity in one country. Both the government, the people and opposition in Israel were squarely behind the war on Iraq and are said to have played an active role in Washington’s decision to go to war. American neoconservatives and the main Israeli political forces oppose Arab nationalism.

At a time that former European enemies are putting aside their differences in favor of a 25 country unified Europe, many in the Arab world feel that the true aspirations of the 23 Arab countries towards unity have been repeatedly foiled by external efforts. If the US is serious about its fight against radical Islamic terror, it needs to make allies with moderate Arabs. The fastest way to the hearts and minds of Arabs today needs to go through legitimate Arab leaders. No credible Arab leader can survive without being genuinely supportive of the yearning for Arab unity. Arab nationalism has had a bad rap for some time, this means that moderate Arab leaders must adopt a more compassionate Arab nationalist ideology, but for improved US-Arab relations the US must show in words and deeds that it is not opposed to Arab nationalism.