Open Letter
Mr. Dick Cheney
Vice President
U.S.A

London March 11, 2002

Dear Vice President,

On the occasion of your passage in London, to meet with Prime Minister
Blair on the way to several Middle Eastern capitals, I wish to draw your
attention that for Arab officials and public opinions the unfinished business
of international diplomacy is the Arab-Israeli peace process. Ignoring this
fact will mean that you are, Mr. Vice President, heading towards multiple
double monologues that will deepen the misunderstanding and the mistrust.

The Arab world has no ideological dispute with the U.S.A. At the worst
moments of perceived American alignment on the Israeli policies and
preferences, we kept having great expectations.
Our belief is that there are two Americas, two political cultures, two
historical memories. There is the America of the early settlers who, on
discovering the New World, clashed with the indigenous population and almost
totally exterminated them. The America that established slavery and had an
elastic conception of its frontiers expanding shamelessly at the expense of
Mexico. This is the America that Ariel Sharon always seeks an alliance with.
When "the shared values" are invoked, it is in this national experience that
the common traditions are deeply rooted.

But there is another America. The America of the War of Independence against
the colonial power. The America which took the painful decision to undergo
a Civil War to abolish slavery. The America of Woodrew Wilson which came the
Versailles conference upholding the principle of Self Determination. The
America of the Civil Rights Movement and Martin Luther King's dream. It is
this America that we Palestinians appeal to and seek an alliance with.

Mr. Vice President, these two Americas do not coincide with Democratic
America and Republican America. The two historical memories cross this
political divide. George Bush Junior ran for Presidency as a compassionate
conservative. In our unipolar international system, if compassion were to be
the guiding compass for American foreign policy, the world would be a better
place to live in.

During your visit to the area, I sincerely hope you would listen to the
Palestinian cry for freedom out of captivity and bondage. Today the
situation can be described as follows: Israel cannot terminate the Intifada
and the Intifada cannot, by itself, end the occupation. Hence, to bypass the
deadly impasse, the need for a credible and dicisive diplomatic initiative.

The Saudi initiative offers a historical window of opportunity. American
diplomacy should not allow it to stagnate and whither away in talks about
talks, in negotiations of pre-negotiations and in pre-negotiations of
negotiations.

Mr Vice President, if the political willingness were there, a territory that
was occupied in 1967 in less than 6 days, that territory can also be
evacuated in less than 6 days so that the Israelis can rest on the 7th and we
could start our fascinating journey in nation-building and economic
reconstruction. This will not be the end of History but rather "the end of
Pre-History".

Afif Safieh