North by Northwest
One tried and true method for dealing with a headache or a toothache is to give a wall a nice, hard kick, until ones leg screams with pain. This may do nothing to cure the original pain, but it makes one forget it for a while.
No, the Diary has not decided to dish out free healthcare advice. These are the words of Amir Oren in Israeli daily Haaretz. They refer, somewhat obliquely, to Israels dispute with the Arabs and Muslims.
This week, that dispute escalated even more so than usual.
Early on 5 October, Israeli Defense Forces attacked a camp it said trained Palestinian terrorists. Routine stuff, except that the Ein Saheb camp was located eight kilometres northwest of Damascus, in Syria.
The operation followed a suicide bombing in Haifa the day before that tore apart the Maxim restaurant, owned and frequented by both Jews and Arabs, in a town of model coexistence. Twenty civilians were killed. The bomber was female.
But while all eyes were on an ailing Yasser Arafat, Israel got pre-emptive, widened the war on terror, not to mention the Middle East conflict, and, very possibly, triggered a new, if old-fashioned, war with Syria.
A week is a long, long time in geopolitics.
Apparently, the US had no advance warning of Sharons calculated manoeuvre. This doesnt mean it came as a huge surprise. In the words of one Arab diplomat quoted in the London Times, I would not say that the Americans gave Israel a green light to attack Syria, but it was definitely orange and that was enough for Sharon.
Syria, of course, has long been a target for Washingtons hawks emotionally, if not practically. And Israel and Syria have their own history: wars in 1948, 1967 and 1973; repeated Israeli attacks on Syrian forces and positions; repeated Syrian support for deadly Palestinian militias.
Still, for a region more volatile than a Swedish sauna, the Israel-Syria frontier has been notably peaceful since the Yom Kippur war, thirty years ago this week. The countries preferred to do their fighting in Lebanon.
The Ein Saheb camp is said to be run by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). Several Palestinian terrorist organisations (including Islamic Jihad) are said to train there, under Iranian instructors, with support from the Syrian army.
This is rubbish, says Bashir Assad, Syrian premier. Syrias Baathist regime, isolated and trapped by Israeli and US forces lurking over its borders, has done everything it can to dismantle and discourage Palestinian training camps. Syria does not sponsor terror. No need for regime change here.
Whoever you do or dont believe, Israel may have succeeded in pushing Syria back to the forefront of President Bushs mind. Wary of this, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan was quick to condemn the Israeli action. The Arab world was not too happy either. We have one major crisis with Iraq, we have a major crisis with the peace process, we dont need a third one, Marwan Muasher, the Jordanian foreign minister told the New York Times. The Arab League formally condemned what it called state terrorism. Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait and Iran all said their bit. Hamas vowed revenge.
France and Germany each voiced their opposition to the unacceptable raid sovereignty and international law had been violated, they said.
It took a couple of days for Syria to react. Assad told the al-Hayat newspaper that the raid was an attempt by the Israeli government to extract itself from its big crisis by trying to terrorise Syria and drag it and the region into other wars.
US ambassador to the UN, John Negroponte, had a different take on things. Syria is on the wrong side of the war on terrorism, he said.
As for Bush, he kept criticism of Israel to an inaudible minimum. The US Congress is currently considering the Syrian Accountability Act, which does exactly what it says on the tin, and then some. Bush called Sharon, mainly to express his condolences for the Haifa bombing, and to explicitly tell the former general that Israel must not feel constrained in terms of defending the homeland an exact echo of his case for his own countrys freedom to act, militarily and otherwise.
[On the subject of US-Israeli relations, Prospect magazine reports this month on the Democratic battle for Jewish campaign funds. Howard Dean mistakenly suggested its not our [Americas] place to take sides between Israel and Palestine. Joe Lieberman jumped on Deans statement. If this is a well thought-out position, he said, its a mistake, and a major break from a half a century of American foreign policy.]
According to the Washington Post, Bush recently told King Abdullah of Jordan Im still in a war mode and the war is terrorism.
Next stop, Iran?
North by Far East
Meanwhile, the latest from North Korea, another axis of evil member.
After last weeks outburst in which US secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld was branded illiterate, cursed, a dangerous international dictator and a psychopath on his death bed by the silver-tongued KCNA, the Stalinist state has whipped up another storm, demanding that Japan not be invited to take part in future talks on Pyongyangs nuclear programme.
Japan, says North Korea, has lost its qualification to be a trusty dialogue partner and is nothing but an obstacle to the peaceful settlement of the nuclear issue between the DPRK and the US.
How come? Well, Japan is pressing North Korea to account for all the Japanese nationals it kidnapped in the 1970s and 1980s, some of whom died in mysterious circumstances.
Japan was having none of it. We do not accept any notion that a certain country in the six-party talks can be banned by any other party, said a spokesman for the countrys foreign ministry.
But North Korea is determined either to scupper the chance for future dialogue, or to vent its frustration about Japans part in the blockade that is the Proliferation Security Initiative, designed to stop Pyongyang trading weapons and drugs.
Expect more of this from North Korea. Last week it claimed to have reprocessed 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods in other words, the plutonium is ready, they can start manufacturing the nukes whenever their fancy takes them.
Weve been here before. Well be here again.
Little trouble in Big China
But Japan apart from its economy and the possible recurrence of mad cow disease - has worries of its own.
This week, the Japanese government announced plans to investigate an alleged orgy said to involve hundreds of male Japanese tourists at a hotel in southern China.
Yes, really.
The scandal erupted just over a week ago. The BBC says 400 Japanese tourists (employees of a construction firm based in Osaka) and 500 Chinese prostitutes were thought to have ... er, participated.
Both nations are terrifically embarrassed.
But Red China is also angry. The incident coincided with the anniversary of Japans invasion of north-east China in 1931.
How ironic.
The orgy took place in five-star accommodation at the International Concubine sorry, Conference Centre, and is thought to have lasted three whole days.
Both nations have been caught with their pants down. No one is laughing.
The Japanese government has promised a thorough investigation. China has expressed its strong indignation, and detained several hundred suspects.
Reports suggest the Chinese media have stoked up resentment with lurid reports of proceedings (the kind of filth the Diary would never print, not in Chinese anyway) and anti-Japanese editorials. Still, according to the BBC, local journalists say they have been told to restrict their reporting of the orgy for fear of giving the wrong impression of life in the new, freewheeling China.
Are they kidding? How much more freewheeling can you get?
China suggests Japan needs to educate its men, and plans to launch a new round of an ideological campaign to promote spiritual civilisation.
While many comrades blame Japan (or its menfolk) for the incident, China is also taking a long, hard look in the mirror, before which it stands, red-faced.
Says novelist Wei Hui, They [Japanese men] may have a bad reputation abroad as womanisers but, after all, it takes two to tango.
More like 2.25, actually.
Dont miss!
In April, the international media was reporting that over 170,000 artefacts had been stolen or looted from the Iraqi museum in Baghdad.
Click here to read a Pentagon briefing by Colonel Matthew Bogdanos, head of the US governments investigation into the incident, detailing what is and is not missing.
Over 3,500 artefacts have been recovered from four different countries during the last five months. Bogdanos insists that the 170,000 figure is simply wrong.
He explains how with scrupulous local assistance and concern, museum staff secretly moved 39,453 manuscripts and 8,366 of the more priceless artefacts to places of safe keeping before the outbreak of war, where they are guarded 24/7. In the museum, of 451 display cases, only 28 were damaged.
Read how inflated figures give a false picture. 10,000 small pieces of broken pot could fit into one backpack, says Bogdanos.
The Colonel describes his aim as to bring objective truth to the story of the museums looting ... after weeks of trust-building and more tea than I can count.
Indiana Jones would be proud.
Quotes of the week
For people to win, politics as usual must lose.
Governor-elect of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Mozart is no longer the most famous Austrian.
Dieter Hardt-Stremayr of the Graz tourist office.
Our soldiers and police forces have experience in fighting terrorism, and I hope that the allied forces can benefit from that experience.
Nebojsa Covic, Serbian deputy prime minister. The US accepted an offer this week by Serbia and Montenegro to send up to 1,000 troops and police officers to Afghanistan.
In every country any citizen wants three things. Food, security and freedom. We have the freedom, lets say, but we dont have enough security and enough food.
Mahmoud Osman of the Iraq Governing Council.
We must remain patient. Our own history should remind us that the union of democratic principle and practice is always a work in progress.
US national security advisor Condoleezza Rice on Iraq.
The only real shooting I want to do over the next year and a half is shooting Tony Blair.
Iain Duncan Smith, leader of Britains opposition Conservative Party, when asked whether he went shooting.
Contact the Diary Editor: Dominic.Hilton@openDemocracy.net
