Israel, Palestinians must let go of justice and join reality

The reality that will develop will not be a prophetic binational vision: The opposite is true. It will be a patently inhuman reality over which a black flag will fly, on which will be written in blood, 'This is the Balkans.'

Salman Masalha ||

Two backward peoples

The poet Taha Muhammad Ali, who recently passed away, revealed to us in one of his poems that it took him 60 years to realize that "water is the best of drinks / And bread is the tastiest of foods." Someone who takes so much time to understand reality can be tolerated. He's allowed to be backward and learn slowly; he'll write poems about that. But it's different when we're talking about the backwardness of a nation, and how much more so, its elected leadership.

It seems that the people who populate this land from both sides of the "national" barricade belong to "peoples" that are slow to grasp reality, at least for the past three decades. And this slowness is most evident among the leaders.

The milestones of this slowness stand out for all to see. One of these was when the Zionist movement, during its beginnings, adopted the claim that was originally Christian: "a land without a people for a people without a land." Thus, it accepted anti-Semitic claims and made them its own. But it completely ignored the reality in the country and its inhabitants. Only years later did the Zionist leaders, led by David Ben-Gurion, suddenly discover that "the land is not empty."

When the immigration waves increased, the situation in the land changed. The tensions surfaced with all their gravity. The conflict between the Zionist movement, which was orderly and organized, and the land's inhabitants who were still in a pre-national stage began to grow.

With the cynical encouragement of the colonialist powers, the situation became more complicated. The world order that crystallized after World War II put the partition plan on the agenda. The Zionist leaders knew to jump at the chance. But that wasn't the case with the Arab leaders.

After two decades of slowness on the part of the Arabs to grasp reality, the 1967 war broke out and completed the occupation of the land beyond the 1948 hudna (armistice ) lines. The war was a turning point in the conflict. It brought Zionism into close contact with the emotionally charged heritage sites on which the dream of "a Jewish homeland" was based. But it led to a situation in which Israel "swallowed" the land's residents who were beginning to consolidate themselves into a separate national movement.

History doesn't remain stagnant, nor does demography. Two decades of settlement, wars, intifadas and rapid demographic change went by until the leaders of both peoples realized there was no choice but to divide the land. With that, we all returned to square one.

Slowness in grasping the national, social and political situation has led to disasters in the past and will bring more disasters in the future. This slowness is a crime of historic proportions, committed by the leaders. The price will be paid by people, with a great deal of blood.

That's why we must put aside claims of justice - because all people who demand total justice in this conflict are cut off from reality and are merely grasping at delusions. They help themselves and those around them fall into useless dreams that make both peoples act as if they were outside history. This leads to a dark tunnel from which there is no escape; to perpetuating hatred on a primeval path.

The reality that will develop as a result will be concrete and historic. It will not be a prophetic binational vision: The wolf shall not dwell with the lamb, and swords shall not be beaten into plowshares. The opposite is true. It will be a patently inhuman reality over which a black flag will fly, on which will be written in blood, "This is the Balkans."
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Published: Opinions-Haaretz, 13 January 2012

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Proselytes are hard for Ishmael

Associating part of the muezzin's call with Arabs is a Zionist invention intended to demonize all Arabs.

Salman Masalha | Proselytes are hard for Ishmael

The people who gathered among the "pictures of medal-bedecked Russian heroes" at the community center in Lod were waiting for MK Anastassia Michaeli (Yisrael Beiteinu ), who has presented a bill to silence the muezzins. One of those present termed the muezzin's call a "tool of terror," and said that muezzins use the words itbakh al-Yahud ["kill the Jews"] (as reported by Roy Arad in the Hebrew edition of Haaretz on December 20 ). We will return below to the source of the call to "kill the Jews."

Zionism, as its early leaders attested, was not interested in all Jews everywhere. It sought to create a new Jew here, and therefore sought Jews of a different type. David Ben-Gurion expressed this attitude very clearly: "Zionism is not a philanthropic venture," he said in the 1930s to the British high commissioner, and added: "We need here a superior type of Jew who will develop the Jewish homeland."

When there is a dearth of "superior types" of authentic Jews, they bring converts to Judaism. As the Hebrew newspaper Hashkafa reported in 1903, "in a region of Astrakhan are many proselytes...they also leave the Russian language and call themselves exiles in Egypt and they call Russia Assyria and long for the coming of the redeemer who will restore the Jews." (The quote is from Prof. Yuval Dror's "Russian Converts in the Galilee at the Beginning of the 20th Century," Cathedra, 1979. ) The Zionist Movement pounced on this find, because it wanted to increase the number of "Jews" in Palestine and also to bring people to this country who were skilled farmers.

Meir Dizengoff and Dr. Hillel Yaffe, who were members of the early Zionist group Hovevei Zion, helped bring these "converts" to the country, and they were sent to Hadera and colonies in the Galilee. Ben-Gurion himself got to know the converts, Russian farmers who were Subbotniks (Judaizing Christians ), during his time in Sejera. Despite tensions between the Jews and the converts, the Russian farmers proved a great help to Jewish settlement. There was another reason to bring them to the country. It involved improving Jewish blood. "It will not at all hurt Jewish blood, which has become weakened through generations of marriage (among Jews ) to mix somewhat with Christian blood," Yaffe said (also quoted in Cathedra ).

Many of those that "we needed" for the "development of the Jewish homeland" and the betterment of Jewish blood came to Israel with the fall of the Soviet Union. Many of them vote for Michaeli's party, Yisrael Beiteinu. That party took the name "Israel" and appropriated it as a "home" for itself; that is, if party followers claim "Russia is Assyria." But they might also claim they are "exiles in Egypt" and may even pray to the one "who brought us out of Egypt" or "who wrought miracles for our forefathers."

One of the converts, one Yaakov Nitchev, lived in Sejera. He allegedly took to drink after a family tragedy. It is also said that one day a year, on Simhat Torah, he permitted himself to get "as drunk as a goy." When he was drunk, he would revert to being a Russian farmer of the old days, and as with every drunken Russian farmer, the vodka would shout from his throat, bei zhidov ("kill the Jews" ).

That, it seems, is how the call was born here, at the beginning of the 20th century, in Palestinian Hebrew - itbakh al-Yahud. The Russian bei zhidov, which comes from the Russian pogroms, underwent a transformation here due to circumstances. It was translated literally-nationalistically by converts and lovers of Zion and was attached to the Arabs. Associating the call with Arabs is a Zionist invention intended to demonize all Arabs. Therefore, let the ancient sages be comforted: As it turns out, proselytes are not hard on Israel, they are actually hard for Ishmael.
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Published: Opinions-Haaretz, Dec. 28, 2011

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That's how the Zionists are

A short history of Arab feelings toward Zionism:
A new Arabic monthly, Lughat al-Arab ('the Arabic language'), that began publication in Baghdad 100 years ago, published an investigative report by the editor called 'The Founder of Zionism' in its September 1911 issue.

Salman Masalha | That's how the Zionists are

The Arab attempt since the start of the 20th century to understand the Zionist movement has long produced mixed feelings. A new Arabic monthly, Lughat al-Arab ("the Arabic language"), began publication in Baghdad 100 years ago. The third issue, from September 1911, contains an investigative report by the editor called "The Founder of Zionism."

"Many talk about Zionism nowadays, but most of the people don't know what it's about," he wrote. To enlighten his readers the editor quoted an article published three months earlier in a French newspaper, by a writer from Istanbul: "Before the group came to be known as 'Zionists' the Turks called them Donmeh [Turkish crypto-Jews] ... "
Arab Spring

The article in the Baghdad journal connected Zionism to the Sabbateans and divulged for its readers details from the life of their leader, Shabbetai Zvi, who claimed he was the Messiah and that all twelve tribes of Israel would soon return to Palestine. In Cairo, the author relates, Shabbetai Zvi met a beautiful Jewess who acted oddly and purported to be the "Queen designated for the Messiah."

They married and traveled throughout the Orient; Shabbetai Zvi continued to spread his message until his imprisonment and conversion to Islam. His followers, emulating him, also converted. Shabbetai Zvi was exiled to Albania, where he died in 1676, because he continued to engage in mysticism. After the death of the "scoundrel," the article said, his followers continued in his path and their descendants now "live in Salonika and Edirne."

"Those are the Zionists and their roots. Heads of state and officials fear them as men fear lions. That is because the Zionists are serious, industrious people, cunning and alert, and they exert considerable influence on their surroundings," the article explained. It isn't hard to guess what was considered the source of the influence. The writer elaborated: "Because of the gold they hold in their hands ... Thus, in meetings with delegates, some fawn over them, while fearing machinations. For these reasons, honest state officials talk about the 'Zionist danger.'"

In fact, officials from far-flung areas in the region warned of this danger. They reported an increased Jewish presence in Iraq and in parts of Greater Syria. They alluded to the proliferation of agricultural and industrial machines and facilities, and even talked about the "routines and organization on their colonies." The official in Jerusalem wrote, "80,000 Jews live in the city, while the number of Muslims does not exceed 9,000." A Syrian official confirmed this estimate, adding, "The activities undertaken by these people are those of a nation; during holidays they wave a blue flag that has 'Zion' written on it."

On one hand, the writer tried to reassure his readers: "Whatever happens with this Zionist issue, there's no reason to worry that the Zionists will ever turn into a nation." On the other hand, he did not attempt to conceal his concerns: "You have to bear in mind that these foreigners compete with natives of the land, and so struggles and disputes about the land erupt." The Baghdad journal found reason to underscore the tight bonds that unite Jews, and referred to the "ethos of solidarity among them, which has reached the highest level."

This report projected anxieties about the unknown, alongside admiration. In conclusion, the author suggested there was something to be learned from the Zionists: "They should serve as exemplary models to others," he wrote. One hundred years have passed. It seems that nothing has changed since then, and life in the East continues as always.
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Published: Opinions-Haaretz, 20 December 2011

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The vicissitudes that have, for some reason, been collectively dubbed the 'Arab Spring' are neither Arab nor Spring. One can say that they are actually living proof of the identity crisis and reverberating bankruptcy of Arab nationalism.

Salman Masalha ||

Neither Arab nor Spring

The vicissitudes that have, for some reason, been collectively dubbed the "Arab Spring" are neither Arab nor Spring. One can say that they are actually living proof of the identity crisis and reverberating bankruptcy of Arab nationalism. We must remember that the intifadas that brought the masses to the streets took place in countries that have been ruled by governments considered to be nationalist. They passed over the monarchies, and there is a simple reason for that.

From the first days of Islam, through to the disintegration of the Ottoman empire, the Arab world has been ruled by monarchies in the form of various caliphs. The first caliphs were Arabs who conquered land and established empires. In Arab lands, the legitimacy conferred on rulers was fundamentally tribal, and resembled monarchy. Over time, Arab rule weakened. The caliphates remained Islamic, but the caliphs were no longer of Arab descent.

Nationalism was a new idea. The founding of Arab nationalism had two phases: First there was traditional Bedouin nationalism, while urban nationalism developed later. Traditional nationalism was encouraged by Britain, the colonial power that sought to secure hold of the important areas by taking them over from the Ottomans. Lord Horatio Kitchener, who served as the British secretary of state for war during World War I, actively pursued this goal, working to restore the Arab caliphates.

We know about this from a letter sent in August 1915 from Sir Henry McMahon, the British high commissioner in Egypt, to Hussein bin Ali, the sharif of Mecca: "We rejoice, moreover, that your Highness and your people are of one opinion - that Arab interests are English interests and English Arab. To this intent we confirm to you the terms of Lord Kitchener's message, which reached you by the hand of Ali Effendi, and in which was stated clearly our desire for the independence of Arabia and its inhabitants, together with our approval of the Arab Khalifate when it should be proclaimed. We declare once more that His Majesty's Government would welcome the resumption of the Khalifate by an Arab of true race."

The region was ultimately left without either an Ottoman caliphate or an Arab one. It was divided between Britain and France, and the Arabs got the condolence prize: the Arab League.

The second phase of Arab nationalism developed in the context of the colonial powers' withdrawal from the region and the Cold War. The Arab world, which was divided into "autonomous" entities, continued to be ruled by puppets controlled from afar. Then a new player - the Soviet Union - entered the fray, and the new nationalism fell into the net of the Soviet bloc. This nationalism was created in an unnatural process. Junior officers had brutally raped their people and their lands, and a new kind of regime was born of this assault: a political bastard in the Arab world, neither a monarchy nor a republic.

These governments promised the world, and national pride, but their existence was essentially dependent on empty slogans. All their energy went into maintaining their hold on the reins of power, at any price. And that's how the Arab world got where it is today. One can say that Arab nationalism, in both its empty forms, flunked the reality test.

There is an Arabic phrase that tells us the drowning man hangs by ropes made of air. These days, the ropes of air are being held out to the Arab world by the modern-day successors of Kitchener and McMahon. This time, it is being done through assistance to Sunni Arab Islam and with prominent Turkish-Ottoman support, in the hope that the new regimes will counter the increasingly strong Shi'ite Islam at Iran's helm. But this is just another golem that is liable to turn on its maker.
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Published: Opinion-Haaretz, 5 Dec. 2011

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Only a society that can engage in introspection and self-examination can emerge from its dark past and march confidently to a different future. Otherwise, it will continue to sink into the same marshy swamp.

Salman Masalha ||

The Arab world's quagmire

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The right's herds of goats

Netanyahu wants to herd the Palestinians out

It seems that the prime minister, who was educated at the knees of land-stealing Zionist farmers, has grown up and become a certified goat herder.

Salman Masalha

The right's herds of goats

We often hear the claim among politicians in Israel that in order for peace to last, it has to be made between nations rather than between rulers. The use of the term, "rulers," comes up when Israel finds itself in a corner and is required by those "rulers" to pay the price of peace. As long as those "rulers" sit quietly and behave in accordance with Israeli expectations, they are not called "rulers," of course; they are "responsible leaders."

If they were to be voiced by the man in the street who really and truly aspires to live in peace with himself and his surroundings, these words could be accepted with full understanding, and even quite a bit of empathy. But when this claim is raised by the leaders of the Israeli right, who see only the continuation of the occupation and the theft of Palestinian lands before their eyes, they sound like the most ridiculous of claims.

Throughout human history, peace agreements have never been signed between nations. Nations don't stand opposite one another in a row, shake hands and pat each other on the back. Agreements of any type, all the more so when they are peace agreements between countries, are always made and signed between the representatives of nations.

There are some nations that live under one type of regime and other nations that live under another; and this will apparently be the situation in the foreseeable future. The Arab world will continue, for now, to live under regimes that are undemocratic, to say the least. Therefore, those who raise the claim about the need for peace between nations - a claim that is popular with the Israeli right - are, in the final analysis, concealing their true intentions.

Even if truly democratic elections are held in the Palestinian Authority, and even if all the Palestinians sign a declaration that they want an end to the 1967 occupation and the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel within those borders, and even if they all declare that that will bring an end to the conflict, the same Israeli right, in all its variations, will find new excuses not to believe the Arabs.

The Zionists after all are experts at pushing herds of goats into the Palestinian home, and even putting up pens for them inside the home itself - and all in order to later remove a goat here and a checkpoint there, thereby giving the Palestinian some sense of relief, so that he can walk through the living room and reach the window in his own home. The Arab proverb says: Anyone who grows up on something in the home of his mother and father is destined to grow old with it.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu knows a thing or two about gathering herds of goats and moving them out. All the Bar-Ilan speeches cannot change his ideological stripes. These stripes are etched deep in his worldview. He has neither the desire nor the courage to erase this past and to embark on a new path.

I tend to believe things that a son says to his father in private. To this end, we should go back to 2009, to the words revealed by the father, Benzion Netanyahu, regarding the conduct of his son, Benjamin. With the consent of his son, the prime minister, the father gave an interview to Amit Segal on Channel 2 News, and this is what he said about the Bar-Ilan speech advocating the establishment of a Palestinian state: "He [the prime minister] doesn't support it. He supports it under conditions that they [the Arabs] will never accept. That's what I heard from him, not from myself. He proposed the conditions. They will never accept those conditions, not one of them," said Netanyahu Sr.

It seems that the prime minister, who was educated at the knees of land-stealing Zionist farmers, has grown up and become a certified goat herder.
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Published: Op-Ed, Haaretz, 19 Sep. 2011

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Right of return revisited

The debate on the term return to 'an ancient homeland,' whether on the Zionist definition of the land or on the Palestinian definition, exposes an abyss between the two national movements fighting over the country.

Salman Masalha

Right of return revisited

A political tsunami is expected in September, the politicians keep warning us. Obviously the recognition of Palestinian statehood, if adopted, is expected to yank the rug from under the feet of the refugees who were raised on the dream of returning to the fig tree, the spring and the village that no longer exist.

Don't forget, the Palestinians who broke through the fence in the Golan and those who demonstrated near the Lebanese border on Nakba Day were not demonstrating only against Israel. They were demonstrating first and foremost against the Palestinian Authority. That's because all the PA's recent efforts have been focused on a United Nations debate on the request to recognize a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders.

The change in the Palestinian leadership's approach to the "right of return" is reflected in Mahmoud Abbas' statement at an education and culture forum that gathered in Ramallah in May. Abbas announced "the Palestinian leadership will never give up the right of return. The return to the homeland is our final destination to end the life of dispersal as refugees."

To avoid any vagueness he said "the return is in practice, not a slogan."

"Palestine is ours, and whoever comes from the north, the center or the south and lives anywhere in it is in fact living in the homeland."

Abbas gave an example from his own life. "When I return to Ramallah or Nablus I have my foot in the homeland," he said.

His words were not mentioned for some reason in the Hebrew-language media. Apart from a brief report, the Arab media didn't mention them either.

Only Dr. Faiz Abu Shamala of Gaza commented that Abbas' statement was "a political Palestinian eclipse." Shamala said he was astonished "such dangerous declarations are evoking no reaction from the Palestinian factions" and wondered "is the right of return, on Nakba Day, diminished to the return to Gaza and the West Bank?"

He mocked Abbas, saying "if the return to Palestine meant return to Gaza and the West Bank, UNRWA's work should have been stopped, as millions of refugees in camps in Gaza and the West Bank are thus implementing their dream of return."

Shamala took the trouble to explain to Abbas the real meaning of return. "The right of return, as every Palestinian Arab understands it, is Abbas' return to Safed and Yasser Abed Rabbo's return to Jaffa. That is the right that must continue nestling in the soul, even if the current political circumstances require an agreement on a Palestinian state in the 1948 cease-fire borders."

In this case, the debate on the term return to "an ancient homeland," whether on the Zionist definition of the land or on the Palestinian definition, exposes an abyss between the two national movements fighting over the bleeding country. The collision is between two completely different national approaches and two completely different worlds.

So even if a Palestinian state is established in the West Bank and Gaza, there is no chance the refugees will implement the "right of return" in it. Because unlike the Zionist "homeland" perception, the Palestinian refugees will not see the Palestinian state as a "homeland" but as another stop on the voyage of the refugees.

It is fortunate for the Palestinians that the Israeli government is rightist and recalcitrant. Because if Israel had an "analytical" government it would certainly have prepared a surprise for the world and voted in favor of Palestinian statehood in the UN in September. This would have turned the entire dispute on its head.
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Published: Op-Ed, Haaretz, 25 August 2011

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Gideon Spiro | They call that a Left?

"There is no need to prefer benighted regimes in order to express opposition to the Israeli Occupation. As a citizen who has been asked to vote for Hadash, I feel insulted by this style. I expect leaders of the party, Jews and Arabs alike, to dissociate themselves from those words..."...

Gideon Spiro | They call that a Left?

Dr. Salman Masalha is a poet and translator who has a column in the newspaper Haaretz. Salman has gifts that are rare in Israel. He is totally immersed in Jewish and Arab culture. He has native-speaker mastery of both languages.

In his latest column (26 July 2011), under the headline above (“There is no Arab left-wing in Israel”, in the English version), he reports to his readers about words written by Muhammad Nafaa, the Secretary of the Communist Party, on the party’s website in Arabic. The Communist Party, the dominant component of the Hadash parliamentary list, takes pride in being both Jewish and Arab. I very much admire that fact. And this is what he wrote: “The Syrian dictatorship, the North Korean and the Iranian, are dozens of times preferable to the American, Israeli and NATO occupiers and all their Arab collaborators, especially in the Gulf states.”

This is a style that takes us decades back, to the Stalinist era, when the slogan was, “better to be wrong with the Soviet Union than to be right without it.”

No one can accuse me of being soft on the Israeli Occupation or the American ones (in Iraq, in Vietnam); but to prefer the North Korean dictatorship that is starving its people, the Iranian one where homosexuality is a crime and opponents are hanged in public squares, or the Syrian one that is slaughtering its citizens, over the Israeli or American occupations, is a very non-Left position. There is no need to prefer benighted regimes in order to express opposition to the Israeli Occupation. As a citizen who has been asked to vote for Hadash, I feel insulted by this style. I expect leaders of the party, Jews and Arabs alike, to dissociate themselves from those words.
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28 July 2011

Translated from Hebrew for Occupation Magazine by George Malent

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The Nakba no one's talking about

When many Arabs flee an Arab country because they fear an Arab regime with pretensions to waving the flag of Arab nationalism, then this so-called nationalism becomes dubious and ought to raise questions.
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Salman Masalha

Syria exodus is the Nakba
no one's talking about

For some reason, recent days have reminded of the events of Black September that took place in Jordan in 1970. At that time, the Jordanian military was exerting so much pressure on Palestinian militants that some of them actually chose to turn themselves in to Israel Defense Forces troops in the Jordan Valley.

This is coming to mind now because of what is happening in Syria, where another Arab Nakba is taking place before our eyes. This Nakba is the lot of the Syrian people. But this time, those behind the Nakba are not Zionists. They aren't Jews or French or godless British or Americans. Neither the Little Zionist Satan nor the Great American Satan is behind this Nakba. This time, the Satan is Arab, flesh of our flesh.

When thousands of Arab citizens - men, women and children - are massacred, when many others flee an Arab country because they fear an Arab regime with pretensions to waving the flag of Arab nationalism, then this so-called nationalism becomes dubious and ought to raise questions.

This is all the more the case when non-Arab Turkey is the country to which people are fleeing. Yes, the same Turkey that is regularly mentioned in Arab national discourse as the height of defilement and the source of all Arab ills. And all because of the Ottoman Empire, which ruled over the Arabs for hundreds of years and to which Arab nationalists have long attributed all the falterings of the Arab world.

Several years ago, when I asked a Turkish friend about this Arab complaint, he burst out laughing. I asked him to explain why he was laughing and he told me that the Turks had a similar complaint, in reverse: There are some who argue that Turkey was left to falter because it had ruled over the Arabs.

Let's set aside the nationalists on either side for a moment, since salvation is not going to come from them. On the contrary, nationalism is a sick evil, and nationalists love to either join together or chafe against one another. They feed off each other and create new nationalist mutations that are more dangerous than their predecessors and more resistant to remedies.

And so the tribal, ethnic, Syrian Ba'ath regime, which is massacring Syrian Arab citizens just because they are seeking freedom, makes a joke out of all the Arab nationalist ideological slogans that Syrian and similar governments have been promoting for many years.

These governments have never been nationalist and have never attempted to build a nation-state worthy of its name. The nationalist slogans served as opiates for the uneducated masses, the foolish advocates of nationalism. Military, tribal and ethnic Mafias lurked beneath the sugar coating of these slogans.

Recently, Lebanese novelist and playwright Elias Khoury, one of those foolish advocates of Arab nationalism, got angry at Moroccan author Tahar Ben Jelloun, who said at a conference at a Beirut university that there was no such thing as the Arab world.

Ben Jelloun should be cautious about those kinds of statements, wrote Khoury, adding that the things you say in a cafe should be different to the things you say from a university podium. In other words, Khoury wants Ben Jelloun to be a hypocrite, to feel one thing in his heart - as expressed in private or in cafes - but say something else before the public at large.

This "deviant" Moroccan author is thus intended to serve some kind of fictitious nationalist concept that is supposed to rule Arab discourse. He is being called on to be a populist trumpet for this concept, irrespective of whether it has any foundation in reality.

And so it seems that our Nakba is also a cultural Nakba. As long as the Arab discourse seeks to cautiously stay away from the sensitive nerves of the Arab experience, as one stays away from fire, no remedy is in sight for the sickly situation. Indeed, it will remain uncorrected.
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Published: Op-Ed, Haaretz, June 20, 2011

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Obama as an Arab reformer

As the American President has said, the mass demonstrations all over the Arab world do in fact indicate more than anything else "a longing of freedom" that has been building up for years.
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Salman Masalha

Obama as an Arab reformer

If we ignore the reference to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, U.S. President Barack Obama's most recent speech to the Arab world was the speech of an Arab reformer. The words should have been said by an Arab leader who is worthy of the title "leader."

"The nations of the Middle East and North Africa won their independence long ago, but in too many places their people did not," Obama said. In other words, all these declarations of independence after the retreat of colonialism were nothing more than a deception. Because, as the president said, "In too many countries, power has been concentrated in the hands of the few."
Tahrir Square

Many years of Arab "independence" did not bring prosperity. They brought neither work nor social welfare, neither freedom nor creativity. Corrupt and oppressive rulers lined their pockets and handed over these corrupt and oppressive governments to their successors, whether through palace coups or by bequeathing control of the country to sons or cronies.

The mass demonstrations all over the Arab world do in fact indicate more than anything else "a longing of freedom" that has been building up for years, as Obama said. This yearning for freedom is an essential part of human nature everywhere. Thanks to globalization and to the technological developments that have made it possible for information to reach every corner of the planet, the gates of the modern world have opened. Young Arabs in Tunis, Cairo, Damascus or anywhere else in the Arab world compared their lives with those of young people in other parts of the world, and they too began to yearn for freedom and for lives as free people, like the young people of London, Paris, Tokyo and New York.

On the other hand, there has been a steady unplanned increase in the population of the Arab world over the years, and education has stagnated and sunk into the world of yesterday, longing for an imaginary past. The rulers and their cronies continued to oppress the people and become rich at their expense. Failing universities sent millions of degree holders out to the labor market, without any possibility that they would get productive jobs. As international reports have noted for years, there is not a single Arab university to be found among the 500 best universities in the world.

So it is no surprise that even though the Arab world has a population of hundreds of millions, its exports are equal to those of a small country like Switzerland. The rulers of the Arab world rested on their laurels - or rather, on their countries' deposits of oil and natural gas. And the momentum of economic development in these countries is deceptive, since those who stand behind it - oil companies, scientists, engineers and even the construction workers who build the skyscrapers and the artificial islands, are generally not Arab.

Populism has reigned in Arab discourse. It was not only the rulers who betrayed their people. The intelligentsia cooperated with the rulers, in return for crumbs. There is a well-known Arabic saying about such people: If you see a cleric knocking often at the ruler's door, be aware that he is a thief. And in fact, it was clerics as well as political leaders who attributed the ills of the Arab world to colonialism and the West, and even to Israel, to the point where "antagonism toward Israel became the only acceptable outlet for political expression," as Obama put it.

It should also be noted that one of the main reasons for the chronic ills of the Arab world is the attitude toward women. The tribal, patriarchal Arab society has blocked the path for women, and by doing so has silenced half of society. "History shows that countries are more prosperous and peaceful when women are empowered," Obama said, correctly.

Had any Arab leader delivered the speech in Arabic and addressed an Arab audience, Arabs would probably be saying: Behold, an Arab king has arisen. But for the time being, although there are kings, presidents, sultans and princes in abundance, there has yet to be a king like Martin Luther.
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Published: Op-Ed, Haaretz, 25 May 2011

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Vivian Eden | EGYPT ON TELEVISION

Vivian Eden

EGYPT ON TELEVISION

We watch Egypt on television
just one country away.
Off the screen, down the side streets
behind closed windows and doors
many people wait.


The television tells them truth and lies.
They watch the footage shot on high:
Tops of men’s heads all look the same,
like lentils for sorting on a plate.
Where is my husband, my father, my son?
Girls and women wait.


Amina opens her math book, but dreams.
She will write a novel about these days.
There will be a tall, blond newsman,
British, French, perhaps a Dane.
The heroine, Amina, will save his life.
She will, of course, become his wife.
Young girls dream and wait.


Ali is five. His father says: No,
You can’t go to the square with me.
Ali pouts: But I am big. I’ll take a stick.
Dad insists: Big boys stay home.
They must take care of Mom and Sis.
Ali thinks: When I am six

I’ll make the revolution too.
Big boys hate to wait.


In a kitchen Bushra makes the tea.
A son – whose is he? –
climbs a tank, smiles his thanks
to someone’s brother,
the soldier who lends him a hand.
Under whose command?
Where does he stand?
People keep pouring down the streets.
We watch and wait.
*

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A Feeble Middle East

The rise of Shi’ite Islam under Iran’s leadership necessitated encouragement to Sunni Islam, to step into the breach versus Iran. The conclusion was simple: From the Arab world – which is mostly Sunni – no salvation will come either for the Arab world or for the Western world.

Salman Masalha

A Feeble Middle East

The king of terror is dead. He has many heirs in this region. They will crop up on the backdrop of the Arab world’s continuing failure to cope with modernity. This is a world that has been raised on the recitation of tales from a glorious past, but when it looks around it is astonished to find it is now somewhere near the lowest rung of the ladder. The point of contact between the imagined past and the degenerate present is the bottomless source of terror.

When the dust of battle has settled, everything will get rolling in the region again. Something interesting is happening here. On the one hand, NATO aircraft are killing Gadhafi’s son and some of his grandchildren. They have come to the aid of the Libyan people – that is what they all say. On the other side of the Mediterranean the “enlightened” world is not lifting a finger in light of the slaughter Bashar Assad is perpetrating among his people.

What does Gadhafi have that Assad doesn’t have? Why is he getting pressured personal treatment and the deployment of crushing force? Is this because Libya is Europe’s backyard and has lots of oil, whereas Syria has hardly any black gold? Is this the way of the hypocritical “enlightened” world?

Gadhafi is not a worse dictator than Assad. The difference between the two is like the difference between bubonic plague and cholera. Compared to those two Arab tyrants, Hosni Mubarak, the deposed Egyptian president, will be considered a pussycat and a pacifist.

And maybe there is something else here. In the Western world they’ve learned a thing or two during the past decade about the ways of life in the Arab world. This world, with all its types of regimes, has utterly failed the test of creating a nation state worthy of the name. The failure is seen on every screen. The revolts do not testify to a new Middle East at the gates but rather to a feeble Middle East. It is becoming increasingly obvious that there are only three strong nation states in the Middle East: Iran, Turkey an Israel. The common denominator shared by the three is that they are not Arab.

The West learned on its own flesh that this region conducts itself by other codes. Iran has continued to entrench its standing by means of its religious ideology. The toppling of Saddam Hussein shattered the illusion of the existence of a unifying “Iraqi identity” and gave an encouraging shot in the arm to Iran, which is forging ahead.

Thus in the West they realized it was necessary to rethink the region and act accordingly. The rise of Shi’ite Islam under Iran’s leadership necessitated encouragement to Sunni Islam, to step into the breach versus Iran. The conclusion was simple: From the Arab world – which is mostly Sunni – no salvation will come either for the Arab world or for the Western world.

Thus the way was paved for the rise of Turkish Sunni Islam. This was accomplished by weakening the power of the Turkish army, the guardian of Ataturk’s secular constitution and by Europe turning its back and posing obstacles to Turkey’s entry into the European Union.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his party were glad of the role that became incumbent on them to fill. This is because the Turkish Islamists dream of the restoration of Ottoman glory. The slogan of concern for the Palestinians has always served as opium for the oppressed Arab masses. The Turks learned this method. The Turkish flotilla that set out for Gaza and the one that is planned are means for improving Turkey’s stature in the eyes of the Sunni Arab masses. And all this is in order to position Turkey as a counterweight to Iranian influence.

In this way it is possible to understand why United States President Barack Obama decided to address the Arab world through Turkey in his first speech. These days he is making a point of contacting Erdogan and expressing his concern about what is happening in Syria.

At the end of March a secret meeting took place in Ankara between the head of the Central Intelligence Agency and his Turkish counterpart. The two discussed the future of the Syrian regime, the situation in Libya, the relations between Israel and Turkey, the situation in Iraq, Afghanistan and other matters of mutual interest. The head of the Turkish intelligence agency met with Syrian President Bashar Assad. Erdogan, too, went on a visit to Iraq and discussed the status of the Sunnis there. He met with the Shi’ite leader ‘Ali Sistani and discussed the uprising in Bahrain.

It appears the world has come to the conclusion that there is nothing new in the Arab world. This is a weak and irremediable world. Only an Arab reckoning of conscience will distance the region from the danger.

published: Haaretz, May 6, 2011

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If I were an Assad

From the hard disk:
An article in Haaretz Magazine, April 19, 1996

How I conducted Syrian policy and gave ideas to Huntington?

Salman Masalha

If I were an Assad

Possibly some kind of imposed solution will put an end to the election fray now making headlines in Lebanon. However, when the warriors of the Apache tribe return to their bases, after the grapes* are harvested, they will be leaving a lot of wrath behind. This wrath can be suppressed for a while but it and the rest of the cards in the game remain in Syria’s hands – that is to say, in my hands.

Will I hurry to sign a peace agreement with Israel? I know that at this time the power is in the hands of the Western world – the United States and Europe. I know that in the global conflict in this region there is no chance the Western world will be on the side of the Arab-Muslim world against Israel. This is because in Western eyes Israel is the site of Christianity’s cultural roots. Ultimately the war is a culture war.

I ask myself: Assad, should getting the Golan back divert me from the path of achieving the goals of the Arab nations, the way I and the Ba’ath Party believe in them? No. The Golan Heights are important but the goals of the Arab world – which I and the Ba’ath Party carry on our shoulders – are even more important.

Since ancient times the Arab world has been split into a number of blocs that have always competed with one another for hegemony: the Arabian Peninsula, Iraq, Egypt and North Africa. The Arabian Peninsula and North Africa are on the margins of the Arab national myths, and there they will remain. Iraq has been paralyzed since the Gulf War. All the Egyptians like to do is talk. We are all that remains. Syria is destined to take over the reins in the conflict between Arab nationalism and the West, of which Israel is the spearhead.

In this conflict I have already chalked up a considerable number of successes. Lebanon is under my protection and this has been given a seal of approval. The West, including Israel, is accepting this as a fact. I do not go to visit “the president of Lebanon” in Beirut. He comes to Damascus to consult with me on every matter concerning Lebanon. There is no Syrian embassy in Beirut because Syria and Lebanon are one and the same.

Palestine, too, is a province of Greater Syria. I, Assad, leader of the Ba’ath Party, the standard-bearer of Arab nationalism, cannot send an ambassador to Tel Aviv. The Lebanese and the rest of the Arabs would say: Now Syria is appointing an ambassador to the Zionist entity but he is not appointing an ambassador to Lebanon, which is a member of the Arab League.

Israel and Yasser Arafat are amusing themselves with agreements they have signed. But I know they don’t stand a chance. The agreement Arafat has made with Israel is an unfunny joke. Arafat has become the head of the Palestinian council of mayors, a flying mukhtar. For every step he and the members of his ridiculous council take, permission from Israel is needed. And therefore, an even fiercer intifada will happen in the future.

And when that happens, will the regime in Jordan, when the majority of the inhabitants are Palestinian, still stand? I doubt it. And when there is an earthquake in Jordan, whom will they ask to restore order in that province of Syria? A rhetorical question. Jordan will follow in Lebanon’s footsteps, with Arab agreement and Western silence. This is because the West, including Israel, will have to choose between two alternatives: Either Jordan will be controlled by the fundamentalists or it will be controlled by a secularist like myself who knows how to deal properly with Islamic fanatics.

Then, at that stage, I will be willing to accept the Golan Heights, without giving up a single centimeter, and in exchange of for that you will get peace, i.e. a quiet border and nothing more. Where is it written that peace means open borders and an exchange of ambassadors? Peace is a sulha, a dispute resolution between tribes, and it doesn’t mean you need to marry a girl from the rival tribe.

If the West does not accept my conditions and does not take into account the interests of the great Arab nation (and of Islam, if I so decide), I can make a lot of trouble for it. Many options are open to me. I can join up with Iran, I can also join up with Iraq, I can make Jordan implode. Above all: I can go back to making Israel’s life a misery in Lebanon. I am holding a lot of cards and I am not rushing anywhere. I have all the time in the world.

*The Grapes of Wrath was a military operation carried out by the Israel Defense Forces in southern Lebanon from April 11 to April 27, 1996, after Hezbollah Katyusha fire on Israel.
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Israel's favorite Arab dictator of all is Assad

Israel's favorite Arab dictator of all is Assad

Both Assad senior and Assad junior advocated resistance against Israel. This slogan was hollow, serving the regime merely as an insurance policy against any demand for freedom and democracy.
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Salman Masalha

President Assad

is the favorite

As strange as it sounds, everyone in Israel loves Arab dictators. When I say everyone I mean both Jews and Arabs. The favorite dictator of all is president Assad. As Assad junior inherited the oppressive regime in Syria, so did both Jews and Arabs transfer their affection for the dictator from Damascus from Assad senior to his son.

Following the intifada in the Arab states, Bashar al-Assad maintained in an interview to the Wall Street Journal that the situation in Syria is different, adding that Syria is not like Egypt. He also emphasized that Syria was not susceptible to sliding into a similar situation, because it was in the "resistance" front and belongs to the anti-American, anti-Israeli axis.

Well, Assad is right. The situation in Syria is indeed different. The Syrian regime is more like Saddam's defunct regime. The Ba'ath Party that ruled Iraq and the one still ruling Syria both held aloft flags of pan-Arab national ideology. But slogans are one thing and reality is another. All the ideological sweet talk was only talk. For the Ba'ath Party, both in Iraq and in Syria, constituted a political platform to perpetuate tribal, ethnic oppression.

Indeed, the situation in Egypt is completely different. If we put aside the Coptic minority, then Egyptian society is homogenous religiously and not tribal at all. The demoted Egyptian president, Mubarak, never had a tribal-ethnic crutch to lean on. The Egyptian army is also different and not at all like the Syrian or Iraqi armies.

For example, when the United States invaded Iraq, the Iraqi army splintered into its tribal and ethnic fragments. The soldiers took off their uniforms and each joined his tribe and ethnic community. Saddam too adhered to those tribal codes. He did not flee Iraq but went to hide in the well-protected areas of his tribesmen. This is what happens in these societies. In the land of the cedars, as soon as the civil war broke out, the Lebanese army dissolved into its ethnic components and disappeared.

True, Syria is not Egypt. Syria is also different in terms of the price in blood inflicted by the tyrannical Syrian regime. The Syrian tribal government is based on the force exercised by the security branches ruled by the tribesmen and their interested allies.

Inherently, a tribal regime of this kind will always be seen as a foreign reign. This kind of reign can be called tribal imperialism, which rules by operating brutal terror and oppression. This is underscored when a minority tribe rules, like in Syria. Thus every undermining of the government is seen as a challenge to the tribal hegemony and a danger to the ruling tribe's survival. Such a regime by its very nature is totally immersed in a bloodbath.

Both Assad senior and Assad junior advocated resistance against Israel. This slogan was hollow, serving the regime merely as an insurance policy against any demand for freedom and democracy. The Syrian "resistance" government has not uttered a peep on the Golan front since 1973. Instead, the "resistance" regime was and still is ready to fight Israel to the last Lebanese, and if that doesn't do the trick - then to the last Palestinian.

As voices in Israel have recently spoken out in favor of Hamas' continued rule in Gaza, so many Israelis are worried these days over the Syrian regime's welfare. Astonishingly, not only Jews are praying secretly for the Damascus regime's survival, but many in the Arab parties as well. These parties' leaders have been dumbstruck, their voices have been muted and no outcry has been raised against the Syrian regime's massacre of civilians.

All the hypocrites, Jews and Arabs alike, have united. It seems Assad has wall-to-wall support here, as though he were king of Israel.
*
Published: Op-Ed, Haaretz, 29 March 2011

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*
On the same topic: Elaph, 26 March 2011
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Politicians as mercenaries

Arab MKs must beg forgiveness for Libya visit
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Salman Masalha

Politicians as mercenaries

The whole world is watching the misdeeds of the Libyan tyrant. Muammar Gadhafi spares no instrument of repression: He dispatches planes to sow death indiscriminately and sends African mercenaries to slaughter his own people. Gadhafi knows, deep within, just how small he seems in the eyes of the world, but cannot shed his role as megalomaniacal tribal despot.

The entire world saw him stand before the camera, in his robe and turban, with his Green Book. He lectured loudly, as befits the leader of Libya - the country he sees as "leader of the world." He spoke approvingly of the modes of response used by other world powers on the level of Libya, such as Russia, the United States, China and Israel.

I will not dwell on the hypocrisy of the West with regard to the events in Libya, which are obvious to even the naked eye.

I shall instead speak of Arab hypocrisy here, closer to home. The hypocrisy of the Arab Knesset members and public figures who a few months ago went to grovel before the Libyan despot.

They returned to Israel to boast and publish, in Arabic, their stories and pictures from the thrilling meeting with the "king of kings" and other such hyperbole a la MK Ahmed Tibi (United Arab List-Ta'al ).

All the Arab parties, organizations and ethnic-religious communities were represented in the delegation there. MK Mohammad Barakeh of Hadash, Hanin Zuabi and Jamal Zahalka of Balad, Talab al-Sana of United Arab List-Ta'al and a motley crew of people of lofty status and groveling spirit. They all came before him, bowed and shook his hand. He inspected them from behind dark glasses before seating them at the edge of his tent and lecturing them on demographics.

Former MK Azmi Bishara, who after fleeing Israel became a commentator on the television station of another little tyrant, also sought shelter in Gadhafi's tent. But because he too is a small megalomaniac he would not agree to join a delegation of Israeli Arabs.

He wanted a separate audience, he longed to talk to Gadhafi as one megalomaniac to another. Bishara is no different than most hypocritical Arab intellectuals, merely the loyal servant of despots as long as their regime is strong.

Then all of a sudden, when Gadhafi's regime was began to fail, Bishara remembered the Libyan people. Typically, he never said a word about the injustices of Syria's despotic regime, which for decades has been repressing freedom-loving citizens. Here's what Syrians think of Bishara's hypocrisy: "Doesn't the Syrian people deserve the freedom and rights that he enjoyed in Palestine, thanks to his Zionist enemies?" questioned Subhi Hadidi, a Syrian intellectual living in exile in Paris.

The truth is that Arab intellectuals of Bishara's ilk are like carrion-eaters. Like a pack of hyenas they wait on the sidelines, seeing which way the wind in the Arab political jungle is blowing; they watch the fall of a tyrant and then swoop in to grab a portion of "glory" from the body's remains.

All the Arab public figures who went to Libya were as political mercenaries in the service of Gadhafi the tyrant. They should now publicly express remorse and beg forgiveness, first from the Libyan people and next from the Arab citizens they purport to represent.

A public accounting is not only necessary but would also show that they have learned their lesson and intend to mend their ways. If not, Israel's Arab citizens should turn their backs on them and toss them in the garbage, just as Arab nations are rising up against their corrupt leaders. And the sooner, the better.
*
Published: OP-Ed, Haaretz, February 27, 2011

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Read also: Libyan Junk(et), April 2010

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Islam, like other imperialist ideologies, still needs enemies to flourish. Enemies have served Islam in the past as fuel for its wagons. Without enemies Islam declines and stagnates...

Salman Masalha ||

Welcome Back to History

For centuries the Arab world has been living in chronic sickness. One basic reason for this sickness is the mixture between Islam and male tribalism. The male Arab tribal codes that are deeply rooted in the Arab societies and still affect the Arabs these days prevail equally in monarchies or dynastic regimes and so-called republican regimes. This is why you see presidents bequeath their regimes in particular to their sons, not their daughters, as in the case of Syria and as was planned to occur lately in Egypt before the Egyptian people took to the streets. It’s worth noting that the only Muslim countries in which women have been elected and have served as heads of states are non-Arab countries, such as Turkey, Pakistan, Indonesia and Bangladesh.

Islam and male Arab tribalism constitute a toxic mixture. Especially when there is a lack of a fundamental principle, the principle of self-reckoning. The absence of such a principle leaves no way to acknowledge and correct mistakes and sins made by an individual, a leader or a society as a whole.

The combination of Arab tribalism, Islam and the absence of self-reckoning makes all Arab regimes oppressive ones. This has been the case throughout Arab history since the beginning of Islam. In fact, Islam is an ideology of Arab imperialism. For this reason Islam has needed enemies since its advent. In order to solve inner tribal disputes among the Arab tribes, Islam sent tribal warriors to fight other nations outside the Arabian deserts promising them food, goods and Garden of Eden etc. This ideology was behind making the Arab Islamic empire.

The dispute within the Arab Islamic empire since the rise of Islam has been a tribal one mixed with the issue of so-called religious kinship legitimacy - the close kinship relationship to the Prophet’s tribal branch.

With the rise of the non-Arab political and military powers within the Abbasid Caliphate in the 9th century and until the fall of Baghdad into the hands of Hulago in the year 1258, the Arab World went into a state of stagnation that has lasted until the present. Almost 1,000 years of stagnation. This period includes nearly four centuries of the Ottoman Empire.

After the First World War and the decline of the Ottoman Empire, in the Sykes-Picot Agreement the Arab World was divided between European colonial powers, mainly France and Britain. A few decades later, and in the wake of the Second World War and the retreat of the colonial powers, Israel was founded in Mandatory Palestine, recognized and supported by both the Soviet Union and the Western powers.

During the Cold War the oil-rich Middle East became a major arena for wrestling between the West and the Communist bloc. The Cold War split the Arab World into two orientations.: the pro-Western regimes on the one hand and on the other the so-called national “socialist” regimes, influenced by the Soviet Union and headed mostly by military officers who took power in some parts of the Arab World, such as Egypt, Syria and Iraq. Both the Arab monarchies and the republican regimes have been oppressive and have never brought any kind of well being to the Arab nations.

The policy of the United States has always been hypocritical and never really meant all the slogans about freedom, democracy, human rights and the like. On the contrary it has supported dictators and corrupt tribal leaders in the Arab World. America’s thoughts have focused on oil. The stagnation of all parts of the Arab and Islamic World continues. This was in the background of the Shi’ite Islamic revolution in Iran against the oppressive regime of the Shah, who was supported by the West.

The rise of the ideology and the power of the Islamic mujahidin in Afghanistan fighting the Soviet Union’s hegemony and the communist influence was a proxy war launched, supported and funded by the USA and its allies, mainly Saudi Arabia. The defeat of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan brought the decline of the Soviet Union and communism in Europe and most of the rest of the world.

After the end of the Cold War and the fall of Berlin Wall, a naïve discourse emerged in the West led by Francis Fukuyama’s approach proclaiming the end of history and the triumph of Western liberalism. This naïve approach has faced an immediate and opposite response.

Empires need enemies, as I noted above. Once the Soviet enemy disappeared, there were thoughts in the West about finding a new enemy. This new enemy is Islam and Islamic imperialist ideology. And this is the real meaning of Huntington’s “clash of civilizations”, in response to Fukuyama’s “end of history”.

Along with the Shi’ite Islam that took power in Iran, the Sunni Islam that the West used in deploying the mujahidin against the Soviet Union is now a Golem turning against its founder in the West. This brought the Islamic terror that led to the September 11 attacks.

It should be taken into account that since its beginning and by its deep theological nature Islam, which was founded in the Arabian Peninsula on a Judeo-Christian background, has been focused on Judeo-Christian theology. This is why you can hardly find Islamic writing concerning other faiths beyond the Judeo-Christian cultures.

Bearing in mind the rise of an Islamic party in Turkey after the Turkish people despaired of becoming part of the European Union, what we see now facing the sick Arab World is the rise of two non-Arab national powers: Persian nationalism anchored in Shi’ite Islamic doctrine in Iran and Turkish nationalism anchored in Sunni Islamic doctrine in Turkey. The two non-Arab powers are vying with each other for hegemony in the Arab World, and both of them are struggling against the Western powers’ hegemony in the region.

Islam, like other imperialist ideologies, still needs enemies to flourish. Enemies have served Islam in the past as fuel for its wagons. Without enemies Islam declines and stagnates. For this purpose, in addition to what was stated above, there is the continuation of the Israeli Jewish Zionist occupation in Palestine supported by Western Christian Powers.

This confrontation reminds Muslims of their struggle with Jews and Christian in Arabia during the first years of Islam. And in fact there are a lot of modern Islamic writings which try to shed religious light on the Israeli Arab conflict and try to find and emphasize the similarities between our times and those early Islamic times. This new-old theo-political confrontation will keep this oil-rich part of the world a tense place. Foreign powers are able to set fires in parts of this region, driving the Middle East to be the biggest consumer of Western, mainly American, military equipment, as well as a market for all other products. It’s worth bearing in mind that this part of the world does not produce or export any thing of value except what it pumps out of the ground.

It's Middle Eastern history in the making.

February 2011

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The American golem

The U.S. isn't interested in Mideast peace
Washington wants the region engulfed in flames; it just wants to control their height.

Salman Masalha

The American golem

It should be said explicitly: The United States is not interested in attaining peace in the Middle East. Peace in the region is not its top priority, and it has never corresponded with its interests.

These things might sound strange to anyone who is not sensitive to the mood in the region. Whoever believes the Arabic television station Al Jazeera is a mouthpiece of radical Islam, which endangers American interests, is invited to refresh his memory and update his imagination, because this radical Islam has actually been fostered by various American administrations.

A simple question should be answered: How did the populist channel find a home in the small emirate of Qatar, of all places? It is well known that the largest U.S. air base in the Middle East is located in Qatar. The WikiLeaks documents revealed that Qatar was a base from which American bombers took off for missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, and that it is now offering itself to the United States as a base for an attack on Iran - and even expressed its wish to take part in a war against Iran and bear most of the costs of maintaining the base.

What's more, the ruler of Qatar, in a meeting with U.S. Senator John Kerry in early 2010, even expressed understanding for the Israeli position and the feelings of the Israelis - saying the people of Israel cannot be blamed for not trusting the Arabs, as their country has lived under threat for a long time. This is the same Qatar that gave a royal welcome to President Shimon Peres, opposition leader Tzipi Livni and other Israeli officials.

These stories, along with the emir's ties with Israel, are not reported by Al Jazeera. But at the same time, this populist channel continues to smear other Arab regimes for their ties with Israel. Sound fantastic? Not necessarily.

All the Bin Laden videos somehow find their way to Al Jazeera. This is because this station has another designated role: undermining the Arab regimes and creating a state of chaos. The chaos is what corresponds with American policy, because Washington wants the region engulfed in flames; it just wants to control their height.

The flames in the Middle East serve the American economy. In this context, it is enough to mention the $60 billion arms deal signed with Saudi Arabia last year - the largest in U.S. history. The deal will provide tens of thousands of jobs within American industries.

Given this background, it is easy to understand Washington's interest in continued tension in the Middle East. The tension pushes countries to sign large arms deals, which produce tens of thousands of jobs in the United States. As such, the American interest lies in its continued policy of inflaming passions - through Al Jazeera as well - to perpetuate concern within the Arab regimes, whose existence depends on American support. Thus the United States can continue claiming that promoting arms deals with the wealthy countries of the Mideast stems from concern for the region.

That is why the White House is not making any effort to press Israel or promote Israeli-Palestinian peace, because this could advance peace throughout the region. Such a peace, from the perspective of the arms dealers, could leave industries idle and cause the layoffs of tens of thousands of American workers. This is how Al Jazeera actually serves as a tool in the service of the American pyromaniacs.

That is the entire U.S. doctrine in a nutshell. The problem with the doctrine is that the American golem may again turn on its maker. There is already evidence of this on the ground.
*
Published: OP-Ed, Haaretz, Feb. 10, 2011

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Salman Masalha ||

No light at the end of the tunnel

Relax. What happened in Tunisia is not about to repeat itself in other Arab states. The toppling of a dictator by a popular uprising indeed brings a breath of fresh air and perhaps even a ray of hope to many in the region, but there is still a long way to go before we can celebrate democracy there.

First of all, we have to wait and see if democratic elections are indeed held in Tunisia in two months, with more than one candidate for president and more than one party. If not, then everything has remained the same.

Secondly, Tunisia is not like the other Arab states to its east, because 99 percent of its population is Sunni Muslim. So anyone imagining anything like the Tunisian scenario in other Arab countries is dreaming: He does not understand the forces at work on the ground and has not considered these states' ethnic, religious and governmental structures.

Since the colonial powers retreated, the Arab world has not succeeded in building even one nation-state worthy of the name. The state of Iraq, for example, has not created an Iraqi people, nor has the state of Syria created a Syrian people. In both countries, dictatorship was the only glue that held all the pieces of the religious, ethnic and tribal puzzle together. When the dictatorship fell in Iraq, the whole Iraqi entity collapsed.

A Tunisian scenario is impossible in states composed of collections of tribes and religious communities and ruled by tribal regimes that behave according to ancient traditions of repression. A popular uprising in such a place poses an existential threat to the tribal and sectarian regime, so the regime will perpetrate a bloodbath against the rebels before giving way to yet another repressive regime.

The failure of Arab nationalism to create a civilian nation-state worthy of the name is what brought about the rise of Islam. But this is a mirage, harking back to a distant past. The nostalgia for the "glorious" past is the most prominent expression of these societies' impotence in the present. The backwardness of the Arab world is evident everywhere: in education, health, rising unemployment and pervasive government corruption.

In this world, there is no creativity in any sphere. This is a world of strident consumerism with no hope on the horizon. This is a world in which rulers in their final days bequeath the regime and its corruption to their sons, who will most likely continue their fathers' repression and corruption until the next bloody regime change, and the next.

The Arab world has a ready explanation for all its troubles: a Jewish, Zionist and imperialist conspiracy. Expressions of this conspiracy include distributing chewing gum that causes sexual arousal in women, an intent to corrupt Arab culture and society, and dispatching guided sharks to attack tourists on the Sinai coast in order to destroy Egypt's tourism industry. Spreading infantile tales such as these is a type of opium for the ignorant masses, who seize upon the "Zionist conspiracy" and fall into a stupor. In the Arab world, the "Zionist conspiracy" opiate provides an easy and safe way to avoid genuinely confronting the problems at home.

Disasters and failures are unable to spark genuine debate. The reasons for this are structural, rooted in the Arab-Islamic culture, because unlike other cultures, Islamic culture has not created mechanisms for self-criticism. There is not a single tradition attributed to the Prophet Mohammed that requires the Muslim believer to engage in self-criticism.

The absence of such a principle is the root of this society's problems, because self-criticism in a culture is a mechanism that makes correction possible. Without such a mechanism there will be no correction. And that is why it is difficult to see any light at the end of the tunnel.
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Published: Op-Ed, Haaretz, January 19, 2011

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Arabic article on the same topic, press here
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The War of Gog and Demagogue

Salman Masalha

The War of Gog and Demagogue

Here is a scenario: A devout Evangelical Christian is elected president of the United States. Fundamental to his ideology is the return of the Messiah and therefore he devotes all his efforts to bringing about the End Time and hastening the coming of that Messiah. Does this sound fantastical to you? Not entirely. Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush were not far from this outlook.

There is no need to cross the Atlantic to see how such processes are taking place before our very eyes. A president like this, though on a somewhat smaller scale, has already been chosen by the ayatollahs and the scenario is already playing out in our region. The president of Iran is an “Evangelical,” only this time a Shi’ite Muslim.

A single sentence from President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s speech in southern Lebanon has not been given sufficient attention. He has repeated this sentence on a variety of occasions and it encapsulates his religious and political worldview. Ahmadinejad made a point of saying at Bint Jbeil that the Mahdi – the Hidden Imam, the Shi’ite equivalent of the Messiah – will come in the near future, in our own times, and bring justice. He also said that when the Mahdi comes, he will be accompanied by the Messiah as his supporter and disciple. As in some branches of Judaism and Christianity, the coming of the Mahdi is a cornerstone of the branch of the Shi’a dominant in Iran.

However, an examination of the Shi’ite literature concerning the coming of the Mahdi reveals something very interesting and surprising. It emerges from this literature that when the Mahdi reappears and sets out on his way from Iraq, he will be joined by 27 persons from the people of Moses (in Arabic qawm Musa) – that is to say, Jews. Among those joining the Mahdi’s retinue are figures like Joshua Ben Nun and King Solomon. Moreover, the Mahdi will pray and utter the ineffable name of God, in the Hebrew language: “When the Imam issues the call to prayer, he will offer a prayer to Allah under his Hebrew name,” we learn from a tradition cited by Al-Nu’mani, a 10th century Shi’ite scholar.

Often, the Hidden Imam’s high status in the Shi’ite literature is compared to the stature of Joshua and the reign and law he will institute will be “like the reign and law of David and Solomon,” according to another 10th-century scholar, Al-Kulayni. Apparently the representatives of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish sect Naturei Karta who visited Iran and met with Ahmadinejad are aware of some of these traditions.

Of course these and other traditions serve the Sunni Muslims to goad the Shi’ites. Often the Sunnis taunt the Shi’ites that their Mahdi is none other than “the Jewish Messiah,” who prays and utters Allah’s name in Hebrew. Shi’ite scholars see this as a point in his favor, as someone who “knows languages.”

In any case, the tension in our world today between the Arabs and Iran is very ancient tension. Echoes of this tension are heard in the Shi’ite traditions. When the day of the Mahdi’s coming arrives, according to the Shi’ite tradition, the fate of the Arabs will not be glorious, to put it mildly: “When the Mahdi comes, only the sword shall speak to the Arabs and to Quraysh (Muhammad’s tribe),” as we are are told by the scholar Al-Nu’mani. Another tradition says the Mahdi “will slaughter them the way the butcher slaughters a sheep.”

It is always possible to find such things, some of them entertaining and some of them less so, in every religion, in every place and at every time. However, in a part of the world where religious myths are the daily bread of ignorant masses and an elected government, messianic beliefs of this sort are liable to be extremely dangerous. This is because there will always be some reckless disciples, in every ethnic group and religion, who will want to hasten the end time by every means at their disposal. And this is especially so if these people, be they here or there, are leaders who have access to all kinds of dangerous buttons.
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Published: Op-Ed, Haaretz, October 22, 2010

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When Ovadia, or Abdullah, reigneth

Salman Masalha

When Ovadia, or Abdullah, reigneth

The Days of Awe lie ahead of us. Awful days in Hebrew and in Arabic. Every man will not sit under his vine nor will every senior citizen recline under his fig tree, but rather night and day they will study "Torat Hamelech: Laws of Life and Death between Israel and the Nations," the laws of hatred that are spreading through Israel.

We have already seen the rabbis mustering support for Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira, the author of the book, which deals with the laws of life and death between Israel and everyone else and discusses the laws with regard to killing gentiles in times of peace or war.

And again, yes again, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the "spiritual" leader of Shas, delivers a sermon and smites us once again: "May our enemies and those who hate us die, Abu Mazen and all these evil people should perish from this world. God should smite them with a plague, the Ishmaelites, those Palestinians - evil, bitter enemies of Israel," as he is quoted as having said this week.

As the author of the Book of Proverbs might have written, there be many things which are too wonderful for me, yea, many that I know not. The way of the politicians from here and from there. The way of a politician, who like a fish fills his mouth with water upon hearing words of denunciation. The way of the man of religion, who creeps like a serpent upon a rock and ambushes easy prey with a sermon before the Days of Awe. The way of a racist politician who shuts his ears upon hearing these things here whilst hastening to quote from every stage similar things from the other side. The way of the man of religion who behaves like an adulterous woman, swallows the imprecations, wipes his mouth and says: I have heard no evil, or in other words: The rabbi's words have been taken out of context. About this sort of thing the author of the Book of Proverbs has already written of the land when the earth trembles: "A servant when he reigneth."

I hear these things and I read the reactions to them that haven't been tardy in coming, from here and from there. I don't know whether to laugh or to cry. As fate would have it, the words of the abusive rabbi sound very familiar to me in translation from the Arabic. As if the rabbi's name were not Ovadia but rather Abdullah, and as if it the sermon was not in Hebrew, but rather in Arabic.

From here the calls in Hebrew are repeated: "May those who hate us die and God should smite them with a plague, those Ishmaelites ..." And from there are heard, as though in a mirror, the same words of abuse in Arabic: "God, smite and destroy the Jews, descendents of monkeys and pigs, make their wives widows, make their children orphans..." - and other such pearls of pure Semitic.

"If heaven-forbid a Muslim cleric were to express himself against the Jews in those same words he would be arrested immediately," Balad MK Jamal Zahalka hastened to write to the attorney general, calling upon him to indict the rabbi. Apparently the energetic parliamentarian doesn't know anything at all about the heritage of Arabic imprecations.

If they were to arrest all the preachers of hatred in Hebrew and in Arabic, the Israeli, Palestinian and pan-Arab prison services would have their hands full. People, from here and from there, often wonder where all those rabid words come from. However, as is their habit, they always refuse to lay their finger on the root of the evil. They all prefer to bury their heads in the sand. And the sand in this Semitic expanse is quicksand, very much so.

Therefore, the time has come to tell it like it is. There is no need to go into contortions of strange and varied explanations. All the evil words, both in Hebrew and in Arabic, are nourished by the hatred from that same sewer, that same teat called monotheism. And when in this udder God and a tribal code mingle, only a toxic mix can emerge.

There is an antidote to this poison. Only courage is needed to use it. It is called separation of religion and state. Or in other words, if you will: taking the Holy One, blessed be He, away from the law.
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Published: Opinion - Haaretz, September 1, 2010
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