Newspaper Article

Sudanese crossroads

Glick, Caroline B

2011

Overview

The South Sudanese referendum will not settle the issue of control over all of southern Sudan. Numerous flashpoints remain. Most importantly, the disposition of the town of Abyei remains undetermined. Abyei is where most of Sudan's oil deposits are located. Unlike the rest of the south, its population is a mix of Arabs and Africans and its residents are split over the issue of separation from Khartoum. If there is war after independence, Abyei will likely be its cause. Arab leaders as diverse as Libya's leader Muammar Gaddafi and Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal have decried South Sudan's independence. Gaddafi warned that southern secession would be the beginning of a \"contagious disease.\" As for Israel, in light of its failure to convince the Arabs to be appeased by its concessions and the Arabs' failure to overrun the Jewish state, since 1973 Europe has collaborated with the Arabs in recasting reality to suit the aims of Arab imperialism. Whereas Israel was established and repeatedly defended by the Jewish national liberation movement against the wishes of Arab imperialists, with European assistance, the Arabs have inverted history. The current Arab-European claim is that the Arab imperialist war against Israel is a Jewish imperialist war against Arabs.

• Publisher: The Jerusalem Post Ltd
• Subject: Al-Bashir / Talley, Thomas