Soapbox: Pointless apology By Mahmoud Murad The US and Israel act as if they were exempt from international law. The US executed Saddam Hussein after a show trial and allowed his executioners to insult him in the death chamber. Such behaviour is as illegal as it is despicable and disgraceful. But later on US officials said they had nothing to do with the incident and considered it regretable. For some reason I find this hard to believe, not least because Saddam was executed by a government that takes orders from the Americans. Recently, George Bush changed some of his top aides and promised to launch a new policy in Iraq. Implicitly at least, the US president has admitted that his previous policies were mistaken. Despite this admission no one is going to hold Bush to account. No one is going to ask him why so many innocent people had to die in Iraq. A week ago Ehud Olmert said he was sorry. The Israeli prime minister apologised for Israel's incursion into Ramallah, which took place hours before his meeting with President Hosni Mubarak in Sharm El-Sheikh. Can anyone take this apology seriously? Israeli leaders are in the habit of saying one thing and doing another. I recall that Menachem Begin came to Ismailia 26 years ago to discuss peace with President Anwar El-Sadat. The next day he went back to Israel and ordered an attack on Iraq's nuclear reactor. More recently, when Arab leaders launched a peace initiative in Beirut, Israel's answer was to send its troops, guns blazing, into Ramallah and Jenin. Olmert started his news conference statement by saluting Ariel Sharon, who fell sick exactly a year ago. I found the remark provocative. Sharon is not exactly someone the Arabs like to remember. Frankly speaking, Israel doesn't sound like a country that wants peace, or even its captured soldier back. Israel revels in hatred and provocation. I suspect Israel is pleased with the hardline remarks of Khaled Meshaal and other Hamas leaders. It is exactly the kind of rhetoric Israel likes. This week's Soapbox speaker is deputy editor-in-chief of Al-Ahram.