Last week, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency was appointed chairperson of a "trilateral commission" to save the Middle East "peace process". While the appointment is apparently acceptable to both Palestine Authority head Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, commentator Robert Fisk pointed out in the October 6 Independent (London) that the US promise of "a just peace" is not to be trusted.
"An organisation that tried to assassinate Fidel Castro, organised the Bay of Pigs fiasco, trained a host of Latin American murderers and armed almost every Islamic extremist in Afghanistan", is as likely to declare the Palestinian masses "terrorists" as to secure their rights, he argues.
Explaining Arafat's support for the move, Fisk states: "Ten years ago Mr Arafat was a scourge of Zionism, freedom-fighter and "super-terrorist", seven years ago he signed the Oslo agreement, five years ago he allowed the CIA to train his intelligence services; and just 24 hours ago — as the United States Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, screamed 'close the gates' — he was imprisoned inside the US ambassador's residence in Paris ... Mr Arafat's descent into American protection has been unstoppable.
"And still he thinks, apparently, that ... the boys in the suits — with their Mossad [Israeli secret service] allies and the Palestinian thugs they have taught — are going to tell us ... whether Palestinians were provoked to violence, whether Mr Arafat could have controlled his police force (not, of course, whether Mr Barak should have controlled his own police force), and whether throwing stones and petrol bombs was worthy of live-fire killings and whether Israeli helicopter pilots firing missiles into apartment blocks might not have been a bit over the top."
Fisk notes that the omens are bad: "We've already had the US ambassador to the United Nations, Richard Holbrooke — the man who cooked up the Bosnian 'peace' — announcing that 'it's not the time to start distributing blame'.
"We've already had the US abstaining from a Security Council condemnation of Ariel Sharon's preposterous visit to the holy places ... and from UN condemnation of Israel's use of 'disproportionate force' against Palestinians ...
"It seems a profound reflection on the state of Middle East peace-making that the intelligence service of Israel's principal ally should be deciding who was to blame this week. What next? An inquiry by former KGB men into Russian 'heavy-handedness' in Chechnya?"