CHICAGO, July 12 (UPI) -- Although he was not allowed into Israel and prevented from meeting with Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat, Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan's Middle East peace mission has not been without controversy.
Farrakhan, who publicly renounced racism after surviving a near-death battle with prostate cancer in the 1990s, said he hoped to present himself as an honest broker in negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.
Farrakhan wanted to talk with both Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Arafat, but was denied entry into the Jewish state and the West Bank at the beginning of July.
When he announced his peace mission during April's deadly wave of suicide bombings Farrakhan said he had more credibility in the Muslim world than either President Bush or Secretary of State Colin Powell.
"I'm going to do everything in my power to stop this war," Farrakhan said. "If you don't try to stop it over there, the same will (one day) be at your doorstep."
He repeated the warning when he announced his itinerary -- Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Israel, the West Bank, Qatar, Syria, Libya, Iraq, South Africa, Sudan and Zimbabwe -- June 17 at a National Press Club news conference in Washington heavily attended by his followers. Farrakhan's foray followed futile peace efforts by Powell and precedes a delayed trip by the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who initially wanted nothing to do with the crisis during the Israeli military siege of Arafat's Ramallah compound.
Jackson postponed his mission after a June 11 suicide bombing killed 16 people on an Israeli bus.
Still, it is significant that three African-American men are acting as peacemakers on the world stage, Powell, the administration's good soldier, Jackson, the charismatic former Washington insider, and Farrakhan, the ultimate outsider in the American power structure.
Their approach is similar -- seeking the "middle ground."
"We are not going looking for some dramatic breakthrough," said Jackson. "We are trying to figure out some way to break the cycle of violence." He plans to travel with eight to 10 Muslim, Christian and Jewish religious leaders, including Nazir Khaja, chairman of the board of the Africa Muslim Council.
Farrakhan also sought the middle ground to barter a moratorium on violence, but the state-run Iraqi media may have destroyed his attempt at neutrality.
Farrakhan spent much of Tuesday and Wednesday denying a report carried last weekend by the Iraqi News Agency, which quoted him as saying, "The Muslim American people are praying to the almighty God to grant victory to Iraq" in any war between Saddam Hussein and the United States.
"That absolutely is not true," Farrakhan said in a television interview from Durban, South Africa, where he attended founding ceremonies of the African Union. "The victory for Iraq as well as for the United States of America would be peace so that no U.S. soldier would be put in harms way, or one bomb dropped on the Iraqi people."
This isn't the first time Farrakhan has seen high hopes and hard won legitimacy evaporate in a dance with dictators.
The Chicago Sun-Times in an editorial on Thursday noted: " ... it remains that Farrakhan, in typical fashion, is repeating the mistakes of the past. Just as when he squandered the goodwill and recognition he received for the Million Man March by hurrying to Moammar Gadhafi's side (where we recall, the Libyan news service declared that he and Gadhafi discussed how to destabilize the United States)."
With a trip to Israel ruled out, Farrakhan turned his attention to Africa, where he is regarded as an enigmatic opportunist by some and a legitimate spiritual leader by others. Commenting on the lack of African-Americans and blacks from Caribbean and Latin America at the founding of a new 53-nation organization, which replaced the 40-year-old Organization of African Unity, Farrakhan said, "It is not necessary for us to force our way in, but I believe that we will take a very important role in the development of the African Union."
Nation of Islam spokesman Leonard Muhammad told the Chicago Defender, the nation's leading black newspaper, that the diplomatic efforts of prominent blacks had been rejected by the president and the media. Critics accuse both Farrakhan and Jackson, two Chicagoans, of grandstanding with their international travels.
As for Powell, he's just following orders.
