Friendship and money do not mix

American perceive this saying word for word. Pentagon experts exposed the report, in which it was said that Israel’s military campaign on the territory of the West Bank could turn the Jewish state into USA’s strategic debtor. As it was mentioned in the report from the Washington center for strategic and international research, Bush’s administration came to the following conclusion: Israeli special operations with the goal to root out the infrastructure of the Palestinian terrorism, turned out to be inefficient.

In other words, Americans, who are very well known for their successful investment abilities, finally realized that the billions that they were annually spending on Israel, were all spent for nothing. Look: the intifada is growing, the blood is shedding, the Arab world is full of hatred against the States and so on and so forth. And there is also Sharon with his regular treaty of peace, the point of which is all about the one and only thing: give me more money for setting up the buffer zone between Israel and Palestine. For your information: Israel wants to create some kind of the Chinese wall to separate itself from militant Arabs.

There’s no need to go to a fortuneteller to find out if this plan is expensive or not. Of course, it is. It would be easier and a lot cheaper to re-settle Palestinians in some remote place, in Negeva desert, for example. By the way, a lot of people support this idea in Israel.

Let’s get back to the Pentagon report, though. As MIGNews news agency wrote, the Israeli military campaign neither destroyed, nor reduced the threat, which was coming from Palestinian terrorist groups. American experts concluded that Israel could become a strategic debtor for the USA, which would not be able to prove that any other military actions in the future could really strengthen the security of the Jewish state.

The publishing of the report coincided with the beginning of Ariel Sharon’s visit to the USA. We won’t have the heart to say that it is a coincidence really. Most likely, we are dealing with a performance, which was very well prepared by Bush’s administration. Sharon brought some compromising material against Arafat and the so-called peace treaty. The Israeli premier will show pressure on the States, and the States will show pressure on the Israeli premier. The compromising material costs a lot, but the price of the States’ support for the Jewish state is not low either. So the latter will most likely tip the scales.

The States decided to add some sugar to this bitter pill in order not to sadden Sharon completely. The material factor as a variant for solving the Mideast problem worked fine for Egypt. As it is known, this country, as well as Israel, also receives a good sum of money from the USA every year. It’s about time this money should be worked out. Interfax news agency reported that the Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak called upon Yasser Arafat to make a choice “between the peace and the intifada” (anti-Israeli rebellion of Palestine) in order to stop the Israeli occupation. This was informed by the Arab newspaper Ash-Shark al-Avsat, with reference to high-ranking Egyptian resources. It was said, that such a request was handed over to the Palestinian leader on Sunday by Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher, who visited Arafat in Ramallah. “Egypt declared to Arafat that he must choose his position explicitly, and determine the following steps: if he is going to come to peace, or continue the intifada,” – the newspaper wrote. The Egyptian minister also stressed that the head of the Palestinian autonomy ought to exert pressure on Palestinian radical groups, to make them stop their violent actions against Israel.

Dmitry Litvinovich PRAVDA.Ru

Translated by Dmitry Sudakov