Dr. Khaled M. Batarfi  --  Arab News

This is what I hear all the time: Why do you keep dragging Israel into every issue with America?

What do Afghanistan, the Gulf and Iraq have to do with Israel? This is a sick obsession, and unless you Arabs wake up and overcome this fixation, you will end up losing the world and also lose to Israel.

This reminds me of a neighbor who used to let his son bully every child in the neighborhood, using his father’s power tools and prestige.

When we dared to complain, the father would accuse us of being obsessed and say: “Stop acting like babies! Talk to my son, not to me. He is just a child like you. But remember, if you touch him, if you dare to upset him, I will kill you. He is a precious boy, you know!”

I also remember the first time that “refugee” Arafat visited New York in 1974 to attend a UN session concerning Palestine. Pro-Israel demonstrators met him with the call: Arafat Go Home. He amusedly answered: “That is exactly what I am here for!”

The point is: Israel IS the problem — by both choice and design!

It has inserted itself, like a virus, into every American Congress, administration, all the media, and election campaign. And it is not only the US.

Go to South America, Africa and Southeast Asia, and you will find Israelis training rebels or government assassins on behalf of the CIA.

Go to India, and they are supporting the Indian Army and intelligence in their standoff with Pakistan.

Back to Washington, and you find Sharon’s cronies in the White House, Pentagon and Congress dictating US policies regarding the Greater Middle East, which includes Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The war in Iraq is the brainchild of this pro-Israel group of ideologists; so was Afghanistan and just about anything and everything else related to the Muslim and Arab world.

We could understand a reasonable motive, even if it was dirty realpolitik, but it is hard for us to understand how the world’s only superpower can be ordered around like an office boy and hired gun by a small country such as Israel?

This reminds me of what one of the Caesars said to his court after his young son had made a mess in public.

“This boy is your real master because he bosses his mother, his mother bosses me and I boss you.”

If Bush had been really candid during his last appearance with Sharon, he would have said to the world: “Don’t talk to me, talk to him. He is America’s real master. He is your boss.”

- (kbatarfi@al-madina.com.sa)