More than 1.3 million Filipinos at risk in the Middle East crisis

Just before United States Secretary of State Colin Powell left Washington, DC on his "Mission Impossible" to get Israel’s Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to withdraw his troops and armor from Ramallah, Bethlehem, Nablus, Qalqilya, Jenin, Tulkarm, and the rest of the occupied West Bank, plus arm-wrestle a "ceasefire" into place, he received a visitor hastily dispatched to him from Amman, Jordan.

This was the Foreign Minister of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, the only Arab country, outside of Egypt, which had ever signed a "peace treaty" with Israel.

Through his envoy, Jordan’s King Abdullah bin Hussein al-Hashimi warned Powell that the Israeli-Palestinian struggle was quickly widening into an Israeli-Arab confrontation. Those are strong words, and it’s something for all of us to ponder but especially so for US President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair (America’s staunchest supporter in the "war against terrorism") who’re meeting today at the Bush Ranch in Crawford, Texas.

An Israel versus Arab conflict, for starters, would pit 6.1 million Israelis against over 200 million Arabs. And, it goes without saying, the United States would inevitably be sucked into the vortex of such a crisis. For, however vigorously Washington, DC repeatedly attempts to deny or disguise it, everybody knows that the USA has been the most consistent supporter of the tiny and beleaguered State of Israel from the word "go".

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But now a few caveats.

To begin with, articulate King Abdullah, who’s Western-oriented and even speaks English with a mid-Atlantic accent, shares an uneasy frontier with the Palestinians, Israelis, and Syrians. It was his late father, plucky King Hussein, whose Arab Legion – despite the fact that Jordan has a population of only 5.9 million – was one of the most formidable military forces in the Middle East. The Arab Legion had invaded and bashed Israel in the old days (and, though thrown back, had given a good account of itself), then, as Palestinian transgression within Jordan itself mounted, with radical PLO "terrorists" hijacking US and European airliners, crushed a Palestinian attempt to take over "power" in Jordan during the "Black September" war of 1970.

During his father’s time, King Hussein’s Arab Legion had been trained by the legendary British officer, General John Bagot Glubb (better remembered as "Glubb Pasha"). Glubb, who was commissioned by the British government to command the Legion in what was then called "Trans-Jordan", whipped it into a superb fighting force, calling it the "heir" of the Arab army originally formed by Amir Faisal and T. E. Lawrence (the famous "Lawrence of Arabia").

Glubb led the Arab Legion from 1930 to 1936, but was sacked by King Hussein when the Hashemite ruler felt Glubb was getting "too big for his britches". And yet, it was Glubb’s beloved Bedouin who proved fiercely loyal to Hussein and had trounced not only the Palestinian troublemakers but even the Syrians when the latter tried to interfere on behalf of the Palestinians in September 1970.

Syrian meddling resulted in one of the most memorable tank battles ever fought. This writer had just managed to sneak from the Golan Heights into the Irbid Peninsula of Jordan when I witnessed the Arab Legion’s British-made World War II-vintage "Centurion" tanks slice through the Soviet-made Syrian armor like a knife through butter. Within half an hour, dozens of Syrian tanks had been destroyed, or set on fire. Even the Israelis, "watching" as bystanders from the Golan, had to raise their helmets in an admiring hurrah.

Jordan’s Arab Legion, of course, is no match for the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). But its former martial prowess is not to be discounted. It’s also timely to remember that the late King Hussein played – even when he was already dying of cancer – a major role in promoting the now-disrupted peace process between Israel and the Palestinians – and had taken the initiative of signing a peace treaty with Jerusalem, ending half a century of enmity.

On the other hand, it must also not be forgotten that, during "Operation Desert Storm" and the Gulf War, King Hussein had declared his support for Iraq’s despot, Saddam Hussein, against the US-led coalition. History is tricky. We all tend to suffer from amnesia.

For that matter, our own Foreign Affairs Secretary Raul S. Manglapus was supportive of Saddam Hussein (having cheerfully visited him in one of his many Palaces near Baghdad), and as a result, when the Saudis and the Americans called on the Philippines to help, the Cory Government had declined to send any of our military (though there were thousands who wanted to "volunteer") to join the anti-Saddam battle.

Sus, let’s not kid ourselves about that, either!

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Now, even President Bush is asking the Israelis to stop their military offensive, and has sponsored a United Nations Security Council resolution (unanimously adopted) to tell the combative Mr. Sharon to pull his IDF out of the West Bank and the "occupied" Palestinian territories.

The Israelis have made appropriate noises about welcoming Colin Powell and "listening" to their "friend" Mr. Bush, but my guess is that they’ll go on rampaging in the West Bank, attacking Palestinian targets, and trying to round up all the "terrorists" on their wanted list, as well as smash the nests in which the "suicide bombers" (who’ve made life miserable within Israel) are spawned.

Anyway, while we’re all opposed to terrorism – whether the Palestinians’ desperate "suicide bombing" and Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, Hamas, Islamic Jihad or Hezbollah terrorist attacks, or the State-sponsored military "terrorism" of the Israeli Defense Forces – how can we honestly cast stones of blame? If somebody was blowing up people, including women and children in your neighborhood, wouldn’t you go after those "responsible" with every weapon you could muster? And keep on going until every terrorist is dead, and the threat extinguished.

It’s problematical whether the threat to Israel will be extinguished, or even dampened – except in the short term – by the sort of military crackdown now being undertaken by the Israelis. But the military blows give the beleaguered Israelis, it must be said, a "feel-good" high.

Even Bush, who’s sternly warned the Israelis not to build any more "settlements" and stop their construction of dwellings on disputed land, as well as halt their "offensive", is still sending mixed signals. It seems that US Secretary of State (General) Colin Powell (a former Chief of the US Joint Staffs during the Gulf War) is not – as of this writing – scheduled to meet with the bottled-up Chairman of the Palestinian Authority, Yasser Arafat. Why?

And, even before Powell was scheduled to leave Washington, DC on his journey, Bush took another swing at Arafat. He scolded him for not having done enough, and reiterated his demand that Arafat and other Arab leaders should "stop inciting violence by glorifying terror in state-owned media or telling suicide bombers they are martyrs." Even in Crawford, nobody’s sure what sticks in his craw. Is it true that when he was Texas governor Arafat had "snubbed" Mr. Bush?

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The trouble with the Israelis, unfortunately, is that they are often their own worst enemies. They have no sense of "public relations", and seem to regard the media as "the enemy".

How else can we explain the bizarre incident which occurred the other day? After stonewalling for days and refusing to allow the US peace envoy, retired Marine General Anthony Zinni, passing through the steel cordon they’ve thrown around the "trapped" Arafat in his shell-blasted compound in Ramallah, Sharon finally relented and permitted Zinni to schedule a visit.

Dozens of foreign journalists rushed over to Ramallah to cover the anticipated meeting. Just before Zinni arrived, according to CNN and BBC, two IDF military jeeps and a black, heavily-tinted Mercedes Benz, pulled up. The Israeli soldiers, without warning, started hurling stun grenades at the – what can we say? – "stunned" foreign correspondents. Then, they followed this up by hurling tear-gas canisters at the frantically scrambling journalists who were attempting to flee to the protection of their own "armored" vans. One of the vans (I think it belonged to CNN) tried to make a U-turn out of the danger area, having been boxed in by one of the IDF army jeeps, and its windshield was peppered with the notorious "rubber bullets" used by the Israeli border guards and military. (Those "rubber bullets" are not supposed to "kill", but several Palestinians who got in their way in the past, died anyway.)

The weird incident, to my surprise, seems to have been hushed up yesterday – but there was no mistaking, from the earlier emotionally-charged CNN and BBC reports, that it had taken place.

Why "fire" on journalists, whose identities had been clearly marked on their helmets or vests, and whose vehicles were also clearly labeled? It’s interesting to note that in the current intifada, newsmen and media persons have to travel around in "armored" vans and bullet-proof vehicles.

Obviously, it’s "war" out there, even in the environs of the Church of the Nativity and Manger Square in Bethlehem. After all, 200 Palestinians, including many gunmen and mujahideen, fled for sanctuary into the Christian church, counting on the fact that even the enraged and aggressive Israelis would hesitate to assault one of the most famous landmarks in Christendom, marking the cave where Jesus was born!

The Prince of Peace, Our Lord was called. But where He lived and died, there certainly is no peace.

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All that’s taking place in Israel, in the Palestinian territories, and, indeed, in the Middle East itself may seem far away from us. And yet, those events can only affect us intimately. This is not only because the tensions and outright fighting have already sent world oil prices soaring (and those ruinous fuel price increases are being reflected at the gas pumps in our corner petrol stations) but because more than 1.3 million Overseas Filipino Workers are employed and live in that danger area.

I’m not just speaking of the 20,000 Filipinos who’re in Israel, or those who work across the border in Jordan, but those employed all over the Arab world.

I met yesterday with Ambassador Saleh Mohammed Al-Ghamdi of Saudi Arabia, an old friend whom I’ve known since our "Pakistan" days, and he reminded me that outside of the 900,000 Filipino OFW’s in Saudi, there are an additional 100,000 TNTs in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia alone.

We, indeed, have much at stake in what’s transpiring there.