Stephen Sackur

The Rahman mosque in Aswan is closed to the public. A policeman stands guard on the narrow balcony at the top of the dun-coloured minaret. He sways slowly in the heat. Occasionally he takes a turn around the narrow tower to stretch his legs. Mostly he stays in a thin column of shadow, staring across the rooftops of a town he doesn’t know. A local lawyer tells me that armed guards like this one urinate from the minaret onto the mosque below. ‘They do it to provoke us. They have no respect for the people of Aswan and no respect for God.’

Saddam Hussein might yet win the US Presidential election. Not for himself of course – not even the failings of the American democratic system could give the Iraqi Ba’ath Party transatlantic popular appeal – but for the Democratic challenger, and current frontrunner, Bill Clinton. Had he been hired by the Democratic campaign President Saddam could scarcely have done more to tarnish George Bush’s reputation for foreign policy know-how. Almost every day, it seems, new evidence emerges of Iraq’s continued defiance of Gulf War ceasefire resolutions, whether it is the hampering of humanitarian efforts in the Kurdish north, the hiding of weapons in Baghdad or the killing of benighted Shi’ites in the southern marshes. And as Saddam’s image grows ever more grotesque in the eyes of the world, so does George Bush acquire the shrivelled, haunted demeanour of a beaten man.’

Precious little traffic heads out of Kuwait City on Route 80 – the Basra road. Civilian access to the north, to the demilitarised zone between Kuwait and Iraq is strictly controlled by soldiers manning a checkpoint on the crest of the Mutla Ridge. Several times a week busloads of Palestinians and stateless Arabs are allowed to pass through, but theirs is a one-way journey ending in permanent expulsion. Western visitors who attempt to follow in their wake are politely discouraged. ‘It is dangerous,’ explain the Kuwaiti soldiers.’

Sari Nusseibeh, Professor of Philosophy at Bir Zeit University, a leading Palestinian intellectual and political activist, was arrested by Israeli Border Police at his home in the West Bank village of Abu Dis on 29 January. For three months he was held in ‘Administrative Detention’ under Israel’s Emergency Powers law of 1979, accused of spying for Iraq. According to ‘security sources’ quoted in the Hebrew press, Nusseibeh had been providing Iraqi contacts with vital information about the accuracy of Scud missiles fired on Israeli cities. No evidence to support these claims was ever made public. When the Israeli authorities put their evidence against Nusseibeh before the President of the Jerusalem District Court, the Administrative Detention Order was cut from six months to three. Professor Nusseibeh was released from Ramle prison on 28 April.

Mayor Ron Nachman has some dramatic photographs of the last Scud attack on Tel Aviv. He wants to show them to me; he wants me to understand what they mean. ‘Come and look at this,’ he says and leads me away from his desk into an adjoining conference room. Dominating the far wall of this cheaply furnished office is a photograph some six feet wide and two feet high.