The Third Lebanon War

The decision-maker is trying to kill two birds with one war. The first is neutralizing the threat from the north and the second – returning Iran to its proper place in the East, vulnerable to pressure.

Salman Masalha || The Third Lebanon War

Once again the gears of war are turning and the pressure is ratcheting up, as everyone knows that every seven to 10 years, as though in obedience to some law of nature, a new-old war breaks out in this battered region. And the land is in ferment.

This is the impression created by the flood of reports and news items about the progress of the Iranian nuclear project, about the “immunity space” and about the national fortitude needed in these fateful times. It appears that a war is at the gates. It is hard not to smell the fumes of jet fuel in the air.

However, since no one has real information about what is truly happening behind the scenes, all the commentaries that are being published are just speculations or commentaries on someone’s behalf.

So allow me, too, to present a speculative commentary, one that is somewhat different.

Israel is not a major power. Israel is not the United States, which can declare so publicly its intention to use military might against a distant country. Certainly Israel cannot name dates when such an attack will take place. When the Iraqi reactor was destroyed, that became known after the fact. This was also the case with the Syrian reactor. This being so, only incorrigible, messianic and megalomaniac true believers – and total idiots – can make belligerent statements of the sort we have been witnessing of late.

Therefore, it is more reasonable to assume that all the talk about Iran is aimed achieving two goals. The one is to increase the pressure on Tehran and the other is to serve as a distraction maneuver, from the school of “the decision maker,” aimed at lulling another, closer arena to sleep. That is, the aim hiding behind such talks is to arrive at a different “war of compromise.”

The next war of compromise is not the First Iran War but rather the Third Lebanon War. On the one hand, the belligerent discourse on the Iranian issue is aimed at obtaining firm guarantees from the United States that it will deal with the Iranian atom. On the other hand, it is aimed at causing the United States to give Israel a green light to deal with Hezbollah.

Thus, it is not to the east that we should be looking, but rather to the north. Only a fool – with respect to strategy – would rush into a war move of such magnitude against targets that are located far to the east. This would require around-the-clock deployment of the Israeli air force, leaving the civilian home front vulnerable to that distant countr’s minions who have an arsenal of tens of thousands of missiles and rockets.

The conditions for dealing with Hezbollah are riper than ever. The collapse of the Syrian regime is bringing the moment closer. The pretext for such an attack in Lebanon is ready and waiting; in recent months there has been much talk of Syrian chemical weapons trickling into the hands of various elements as a red line that must not be crossed.

When the final moment of collapse comes for the Syrian regime, which is supported by Hezbollah and Nasrallah as faithful emissaries of the ayatollahs, every blow Israel inflicts on the Shi’ite organization in Lebanon will be greeted with rejoicing by many Sunnis, in Syria and elsewhere. It is possible many Syrians will dance on whatever remains of the rooftops of Homs and Deraa and maybe they will even hand out sweets to celebrate the misfortune of those who collaborated with the murderous Ba’ath regime and destroyed their cities, slaughtered their old people, raped their women and mercilessly killed their children.

The decision-maker is trying to kill two birds with one war. The first is neutralizing the threat from the north and the second – returning Iran to its proper place in the East, vulnerable to pressure.
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Published in Hebrew: Opinions-Haaretz, August 20, 2012

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The Crimes Of The Regime And Of The Opposition

What is happening now in the Syrian arena, and has been happening for months, is the best proof of the ruin and desolation [that afflict] this land – except that this desolation, which is essentially a moral desolation, is not new.

Salman Masalha 

The Crimes Of The Regime
And Of The Opposition

Recently, many websites, especially YouTube, have posted a series of films documenting the murder and mutilation of bodies [perpetrated against] the followers of the fascist Ba'thist regime, who were themselves part of the mechanism that brutally oppressed the Syrians who rebelled against this same criminal regime. These films are similar to the films which documented the crimes of the [Syrian] regime's shabiha and army against the Syrian citizens. In other words, we are [only] now witnessing the reality which this oriental country [Syria] has been experiencing for a year and a half. The ultimate goals of Assad's 'Alawite regime, which used the fascist pan-Arab [Ba'th] party as a no more than a rhetorical tool, was to consolidate [Assad's] tribal, sectarian rule. Now this regime is facing the ugly outcome of the sectarian, tribal seeds it sowed. We are now facing a reality that is best described by the old proverb 'you reap what you sow.' The Assad regime is the source of all this sectarian, ethnic destruction.

What is happening now in the Syrian arena, and has been happening for months, is the best proof of the ruin and desolation [that afflict] this land – except that this desolation, which is essentially a moral desolation, is not new. It is part of the character of this region, which has never been characterized by the virtues of modern civilization. The great scholar Ibn Khaldun, may he rest in peace, recognized this character a long time ago – [a character] that has always been incapable of embracing civilization. [He wrote:] 'Whenever the Arab nomads conquer a place, destruction soon follows, because they are a barbaric people. The habits of barbaric existence have taken hold of them and have become [part of] their nature, and they like it that way… This nature is the very antithesis of civilization… For example, if they need stones to place beneath their cooking pots, they will destroy a building to use its bricks… Therefore, their very presence is incompatible with construction, which is the basis of civilization' [Muqaddimat ibn Khaldun, p. 146].

In this discussion of Arab nomads, Ibn Khaldun speaks of the material [aspects of] civilization. However, we should extend his approach to a new domain, and speak of other [aspects], namely of the non-material [aspects of] civilization. While Ibn Khaldun speaks of stones, I wish to extend his reasoning to human beings. Whether the crimes that the world is witnessing on the modern media are perpetrated by the brutal henchmen of the fascist [Syrian] regime or by those who oppose it, any member of the homo sapiens race is shocked by the enormity this human brutality. While Ibn Khaldun speaks of the stones that the Arab nomads placed under their cooking pots, I [wish to] speak about human beings that the Arabs used as support for their pots. Because today's crimes, which the Arabs and the whole world are witnessing, can be traced back to the cultural legacy upon which generations of Arabs were raised.

For example, let's read what previous generations have recorded for us about [renowned military commander] Khalid ibn Al-Walid, known as Allah's Sword, and how he ordered to cut off the head of [tribal chief] Malik bin Nuwayra in order to place it under a cooking pot used by his army. [The source says:] 'Malik was the hairiest of men, so when the soldiers placed their pots on the heads of the slain enemies, all the heads burned as soon as the fire touched them, except for his. His head did not burn even when the food was already cooked, because his hair protected the skin from the heat of the fire.' And that isn't all. Cultural heritage teaches us that Khalid ibn Al-Walid did this because he desired Malik's wife, of whom it was said, 'no legs were more beautiful than hers.' And indeed, [according to the source,] 'it is said that Khalid ibn Al-Walid married the wife of Malik and consummated the marriage, and this fact is agreed upon by all historians.' This historical report is found in [a number of] sources, such as Tabari's Tarikh Al-Rusul Wa'l-Mulouk, Ibn Kathir's Al-Bidaya Wa'l-Nihaya, Ibn A'tham's Kitab Al-Futouh, Ibn Hajar's Isaba, and many others.

As another example, let us read about the head of [the Prophet's grandson] Al-Hussain ibn 'Ali. It has been recorded by ancient writers that [Umayyad provincial governor] 'Ubayd Allah bin Ziyad placed Hussein's head upon a tray and started to play with it, using his cane. This report, [too,] can be found in a number of sources… And there are many more bloody [stories] of this kind in the heritage upon which generations of Arabs were raised.

What is clear in all the Arab countries that emerged out of the ruins of the Ottoman [empire] and later out of the colonial rule, is their absolute failure to cultivate the non-material aspects of civilization, that is to say, cultivate an integrated humane civilization. These countries grew out of one kind of autocracy and replaced it with another kind of autocracy, which purported to be nationalist when in fact it was tribal and sectarian. In other words, these countries exchanged foreign colonialism for a tribal colonialism under those called 'family.'

The ancient Arab poet put his finger on an essential human truth when he described injustice coming from one's family as the hardest to bear. Yes, discovering the falseness of family is hardest to bear, and leads one to despair and depression. When one is surrounded by injustice, it leads one to distrust all of mankind, [and] this distrust of mankind is the source of [all] ruin. It is the source of the moral desolation, which, in turn, leads to spiritual disintegration. Yes, this is the very opposite of humane civilization. This, essentially, is the great failure of all the regimes that are [now] gradually perishing in the so-called Arab countries. For none of these various regimes succeeded in building an integrated people. Every one of them is based on tribal and religious tyranny. And since religious and tribal tyranny is the opposite of freedom and of human spirit, it cannot last. It is a temporary state, which soon collapses when faced with the outburst of a call for human freedom. Ultimately, freedom is the [true] human nature.

The way out of this bloody Arab whirlpool is obvious, and there is no need to reinvent the wheel. The Arab needs only to look at the world around him in order to clearly see the way. The Arabs urgently need to base their societies upon foundations that transcend the boundaries of religious, ethnic and tribal affiliations. Such a development can only be realized in civil states, which transcend all such affiliations. This does not mean non-affiliation; it only [means] building the social structure upon stronger foundations: those that underlie modern civilization.

For this reason, there is also an urgent need to reevaluate [the entire annals of] Arab life and civilization since its appearance on the stage of history. Everything published about the crimes committed in Arab countries, whether they are committed by the regime or the opposition, shows that there is a thin but powerful line connecting all these crimes that have been documented by Arabs since ancient times, examples of which we have given above. Anyone who truly wishes for a way out of these bloody Arab whirlpools must sever this line and sever the connection with those crimes. Indeed, there is an urgent need for an Arab self-examination. And for this self examination to have an effect on the Arab fate in future generations, it must be held publicly. It must be absolutely frank, and everything must be subjected to public questioning and discussion, without hiding any dirt under the carpet. Because only through frankness one can make peace with oneself and with the other. Without such an examination, [the Arabs] will have no way [forward], except the way towards ruin and moral desolation.

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English translation by MEMRI

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Social injustice by popular demand

Time has come to say these things loud and clear: I do not have the slightest shred of sympathy for the bearers of slogans like “social justice,” “equality in the burden” and other such utterances from the Zionist workshop and its ilk.
Salman Masalha ||
Social injustice by popular demand

It has been decreed, we are told, that we must pay the salaries of the cabinet ministers, the deputy ministers, the Knesset members, the council heads and the last of the parasites who run our lives, as well as the price of the luxury cars they drive. And that is not all. It has been decreed, by all the above-mentioned functionaries, that we must also pay for the tax breaks granted to corporations, tycoons and all kinds of people with very large bank accounts and very sharp elbows in the corridors of government.

“There are no free lunches.” The prime minister tossed this slogan into the air as a teaser for the new economic decrees. The hand of the self-satisfied Israeli refusal front government is still outstretched to decree the fates of citizens in the near future. There are no free lunches, asserted the man who certainly knows what he is talking about, yet it is very strange that this slogan is issuing from the mouth of a man about whose payment morality for all kinds of free lunches at restaurants much has been said.

It’s not political, the pullers of the social protest strings have declared repeatedly. “The new Israelis” is what some have called the people who took to the streets. But this protest has given rise neither to Israelis not to anything new, but rather to old-time Jews and new Zionists with seasoned shticks. They fled from “the political” so they could all gather together, the settler from Hebron with the harasser from Migron, the slacker from Rishon Lezion with the “homeless” from north Tel Aviv and along with them the lands robber looking out over the natives in the Upper and Lower Galilee. This is the face of the so-called “Israeli” social protest.

These professional protest activists are demanding nothing just and nothing social. Indeed, if it is justice they are seeking, then why does this justice stop inside what is called the Green Line and also the Blue Line, the Jewish line? And if it is something social they want to awaken, then would they please be so kind to explain to an ignoramus like myself for exactly what Israeli society, if indeed any such animal exists, they are seeking justice.

Social justice cannot go hand in hand with the continuation of the Israeli occupation. Justice cannot go hand in hand with the Israelis’ continued harassment of an entire people. Anyone who divorces the demand for social justice from the need for an immediate end to the occupation is an active collaborator with the occupation.

And there is more. Social justice does not go along with the inbuilt discrimination against Israel’s Arab citizens and against the Arab locales in the land of the Green Line. Therefore it must be clearly and unambiguously said that as long as there is not an explicit demand for ending the occupation on the one hand and on the other for total social and civil equality in Israel, equality that consists of equal rights and obligations for all citizens regardless of ethnicity, religion, race and sex – nothing good will come of one sort of protest or another, now or ever.

Therefore, the time has come to say these things loud and clear: I do not have the slightest shred of sympathy for the bearers of slogans like “social justice,” “equality in the burden” and other such utterances from the Zionist workshop and its ilk. As far as I am concerned the entire Israeli middle class can shatter into fragments and go to hell. I may add that this would not be any great comfort from the perspective of the lower classes in the cities, the villages, the outlying locales, the moshavs and the development towns who are crawling on all fours or sifting though garbage bins.

You are invited to eat your fill of this porridge called the legislature and the government, which you elect and cook up for yourselves time after time on Election Day, until the taxes and the decrees are coming out of all your pores. I have no sympathy for people who are not prepared to listen, not prepared to learn and not prepared to change their bad electoral habits.

You call yourselves a chosen people. You deserve this choice of yours.
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Published: Haaretz-Opinions, August 5, 2012

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The pit and the pendulum

Archieve (2001):
In those days, we did not drink four goblets of wine, because everything that gladdens the human heart is not a part of our custom.

Salman Masalha ||
The pit and the pendulum

Memory isn’t made of metal and therefore it does not rust. To put it mildly, this might sound strange. However, for us, the second generation of the Nakba, the Festival of Freedom, Passover, is the symbol of the liberation from that round lump of dough baked with a pit or pocket in the middle. No one ever bothered to explain the meaning of that pit and with time I simply accepted that it would remain a gap in my education.

In those days, when there was nothing to spread in the pit, parents would hoodwink their children with a common Arab trick, They would spread some oil in the pit and sprinkle sugar on it to sweeten our daily bread, which would come to be known in our language that has no “p” in it as “bita.”

When matza appeared in the village, we gave thanks that it saved us from the pit in the pita. Matza came to us as a savior, first of all for the simple reason that it is fragile and refuses to be folded and secondly, but just as importantly, it does not have a pocket in it. On the contrary, it is made up of tiny holes, rows and rows of pinpricks. The traditional trick was no longer available to our ancestors and thus we became aware of the existence of various spreads that had made the pilgrimage to our dreams from the cold lands of the north.

In those days, we did not drink four goblets of wine, because everything that gladdens the human heart is not a part of our custom. Moreover, we did not have goblets, never mind gladness. However, we knew very well how to bless freedom, indeed we did: For I have expelled, I have exiled, I have robbed, I have exploited, I have redeemed, I have taken, I have murdered and I have inherited. Not just words, but a dictionary of freedoms was engraved in our minds rather than the four goblets; the wars and any trouble that could land on our heads.

Nevertheless, how is this night different from all other nights? Now – as Ariel Sharon stands at the top of the pyramid and Shimon Peres is continuing to upholster our region with dreams of the world to come and I for some time have been a free man – there is reason to talk about another pit.

It has been nearly three decades since I tried to persuade Ariel Sharon of the existence of the Palestinian people in its homeland. In the 1970s, Sharon stood in a Hebrew University auditorium and claimed, as a disciple of Golda & Co., that they don’t exist – neither a Palestinian people nor a Palestinian entity. I, as a disciple of freedom and liberty, challenged him then: The Palestinian people c’est moi and now would he please be so kind as to prove to the audience in the auditorium that I do not exist.

I did not get an answer from him then, of course. The answer came that same night when “Jerusalem’s finest” knocked on my door with a search warrant signed by a judge, as proper in a land of law and order. The report listed the “dangerous items” found in my apartment: four pamphlets issued by Matzpen, “The Socialist Organization in Israel.” The Palestinian people in it entirety – c’est moi – spent the night in the police lockup in the Russian Compound. The pit that gaped in the relations between me and matza spread rather than healed.

Memory is not made of metal, and therefore it does not rust. Nights went by and the days were the days of Yitzhak Rabin’s first government, and Shimon Peres as minister of defense, and the days were the days of Land Day, and the days were the days of the month of Nissan when Passover falls and the days were the days of hurt and bruising and shemura matza, watched over by eagle-eyed yeshiva scholars from the moment of milling the wheat to the moment of baking lest the slightest trace of leavening action contaminate it.

Behind bars, my opinion of matza had undergone a pendulum swing. Suddenly, the pit in the “bita” looked to me like the axis around which my national experience revolved. Though it was just a pit, it became clear to me that it was my pit and only mine. Sitting in a different pit, where the dough closing in on me felt like it was made of concrete, I penned a letter to Shimon the defense minister at that time and at this time the foreign minister.

No, I wasn’t thinking then about the pit in the pita or the hole in the ozone layer but rather about freedom and the right to oppose the occupation. To date I have not received an answer from Peres either but I have reason to believe that the letter did reach high places. Several years later a friend who had been summoned for questioning told me that my letter had been read out to him and he was questioned about the relationship between us. To reassure me, my friend told me he had denied any connection between us, on the grounds that it was a superficial acquaintance since we happen to be “from the same village.”

About three decades have passed since then and we have not yet lost hope, as the Israeli national anthem declares. Maybe when the foreign minister retires (if such a thing is even conceivable to him), he will yet find time to answer my letter. If he finds the afikomen, the matza hidden to keep children awake and interested at the Passover table, he is promised a prize: At long last I will send him an emotional letter declaring my support for his idea of the new Middle East. And if he does not, I will write a poem denouncing him as practicing coitus interruptus in his capacity of sanitation worker in the garbage dump of Sharon’s policies.
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Published: ”Yidiot Ahronot“, April 6, 2001

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The lie about rights and duties

The injustice that is being done to the Druze is an in-built Zionist matter.

Salman Masalha || The lie about rights and duties

We are not going to discuss how to get the desert to bloom here but rather how the public discourse in Israel is made devoid of content. Many people with bad intentions take part in the attempt to cover our eyes and block our ears. Because after all, there is no greater lie than that sold by populist politicians, the cynical and "engaged" media, and those who tell all kinds of stories. Anyone who draws a link between granting civil rights and fulfilling duties will no doubt be surprised to read what will follow here.

We are not talking about the ultra-Orthodox who evade the draft but rather about citizens who fulfill their duties of loyalty to the state. These are citizens who serve in the army, pay with the blood of their sons, and who have been doing so for many decades, but it does not seem that any kind of social justice is knocking on their doors.

All the claims of rights that will be given to citizens in return for duties will be refuted when we examine what has happened to the Druze citizens. Because the injustice that is being done to the Druze is an in-built Zionist matter. The lack of social justice is obvious to all - you just have to stretch out your hand to touch it.

It is the central government that is responsible for this, through its arbitrary allocation of municipal areas of jurisdiction. Its aim is to exclude the Arab citizens and separate them from the areas and the lands that belong to them. By giving widescale areas of jurisdiction to the Jewish regional councils, they prevent any possibility of future development in the Arab communities, and this of course includes the Druze villages. But there is more to this. As we all know, a considerable percentage of the local councils' income is derived from the "arnona," or local property tax, that is paid by industrial areas, factories, government offices and institutions, army bases, prisons, and so forth. But lo and behold - when a large industrial area like the Tefen industrial zone, for example, is established in the vicinity of Druze villages, (Jatt, Kisra, and Kfar Sami'a ) the Jewish brain finds an ingenious way to ensure that the "arnona" will not be paid to them. This is how the industrial regional council was born.

And here is yet another example. This time it is the Merom Hagalil regional council. This local council has control of very large areas, starting at the border with Lebanon in the north and extending to Tiberias in the south, and stretching from Safed in the east to Carmiel in the west. Some 11,000 citizens live there, the vast majority of whom are Jewish. However what is most upsetting to see is that the areas of jurisdiction of this council cover some 200,000 dunams. By contrast, in the Druze town of Maghar in Lower Galilee, there are 20,000 residents. The town is located in the third cluster of the socio-economic scale which means that it is at the bottom of the scale. And even though the number of residents in Maghar is double the number of the residents living in the Merom Hagalil regional council, its area of jurisdiction is a mere 20,000 dunams in total. That is to say, it is only ten percent of the area of the Merom Hagalil council. And as if that were not enough, part of the lands belonging to the residents of Maghar have been added so to speak, to the area under the jurisdiction of the Merom Hagalil council. But there is still more to the story. A military base was set up on the lands of Maghar, and in recent years, the large complex of the Hermon and Tzalmon prisons was also built there. These institutions almost touch the homes in the town but for some strange reason, the "arnona" payments of these institutions do not go into the coffers of Maghar.

Indeed, these facts in the field cry out for all to hear. All the governments in Israel, from the very start, have taken pains to try and restrict the development of the Arab local councils and the injustice that has been done to the Druze community whose sons pay for their civic duties with their blood, is a conspicuous example of that. So don't let them tell you stories about rights that depend on fulfilling duties.

Published: Opinions-Haaretz, 18 July 2012

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A pinprick in the “equal burden” balloon

Sometimes the use of the oriental imagination is needed like air to breathe. I have often argued that attributing oriental imagination to the Arabs is tantamount to slander...

Salman Masalha

A pinprick in the “equal burden” balloon

One fine day Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu awoke from a bad coalition dream and discovered the incredible. He scratched his brain until he saw the light at the end of the government tunnel. Suddenly he remembered that there are Ishmaelite parliamentarians serving in the Israeli Knesset, sent there by a large Arab public to swear loyalty to the state of Israel. For nearly seven decades now they have been sent there time after time and time after time they swear their loyalty.

Netanyahu, who has also been roaming the Knesset corridors for many years, is certainly aware that there are elected legislators in the Knesset who are not among the voters for the Zionist parties. However, for some reason he has never taken these Knesset members into his calculations. The truth is that not only he but also all his predecessors, both from the left and from the right, never counted the Arab voters of the sort who vote in their clan ballot boxes of their Zionist parties.

And now, all of a sudden, when the Zionist quandary – religion or state? – has once again become visible to everyone the scheming prime minister has recalled the same tricks that have always served him well. Everyone has to share in the burden, including the ultra-Orthodox and the Arabs, he declared, and he also picked up the phone and spoke personally with some of them, as has been reported.

But to paraphrase a comment made by Netanyahu in another context – is it possible that the prime minister has forgotten what it means to be a Zionist? No, he has not forgotten. As his late father testified about him in an interview to Channel 2: “Benjamin does not support a Palestinian state, except on conditions the Arabs will never accept. I heard this from him.”Now too, in the context of “equal sharing of the burden,” it is clear that all the talk about conscripting Arabs, in one way or another, is empty talk no one intends to implement. After all, this issue didn’t just crop up today for the first time. It has been accompanying the state since its first steps.

Things happened in the past and they are engraved in the chronicles of the Knesset. As is well known, the Israeli Communist Party welcomed the founding of the state of Israel and even saw it as “a victory for all the forces of freedom and democracy in the Middle East,” in the words of Knesset Member Tawfik Toubi in a speech in the Knesset in 1949. And not only that. Back in 1950, MK Meir Wilner of the Israeli Communist Party, in a speech in the Knesset complained of the delay in the conscription of Arabs under the Defense Forces Law.

His Arab party comrade Toubi also expressed his anger at that time and attacked the non-implementation of the law, calling the non-conscription of Arabs a manifestation of discrimination: “Why is the government excluding the Arab citizens of conscription age from military service, even though many of them have evinced willingness to fulfill their obligation as citizens demanding to benefit from all rights? There is no doubt this is one of the most blatant phenomena of the racial discrimination in the government’s policy, which is inimical to every effort to gain the friendship of the Arab masses.”

Sometimes the use of the oriental imagination is needed like air to breathe. I have often argued that attributing oriental imagination to the Arabs is tantamount to slander, for if the elected representatives of Israel’s Arab citizens were blessed with even only a tiny bit of oriental imagination, they would be able with the stroke of a single declaration to take the populist wind out of the Zionist sails. They would declare that they are adopting MK Tawfik Toubi’s 1950 speech in the Knesset.

It would take only one declaration, one small pinprick, to expose the Zionist lie that inflates from time to time. When that happens, we shall see what the champions of “equal sharing of the burden” have to say when the fraudulent Zionist balloon busts in their faces.

Published: Opinions-Haaretz, July 8, 2012

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Under his vine and under his anthem

Before we arrive at the fulfillment of Isaiah’s utopian vision, even in a small way, it is necessary first of all for the wolf and the lamb to live each of them under his own respective vine and respective national anthem.

Salman Masalha || Under his vine and under his anthem

Some people think the situation in the territories is irreversible and is leading to the vision/nightmare of a bi-national state. Indeed, no one disputes that the continuation of the occupation and above all the continued building in the settlements are exacerbating the situation more and more. However, the bi-national state slogan is an empty slogan. Why? The answer is simple. For the idea of a bi-national state to be justified there must exist some prior conditions from which it will derive its strength. So here’s a scoop: There is still a long way to go for a state where “the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid … and the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together and the lion shall eat straw like the ox,” as in the Prophet Isaiah’s vision.

Looking closely at the state of affairs among all the various and variegated kinds of communities dwelling throughout the land, one can reaches the obvious conclusion: There aren’t two sides here but rather very many sides. In this land there is a huge admixture of tribes that are quarrelling among themselves. In other words, in Israel-Palestine the two nations have not yet sufficiently crystallized to reach a bi-national state.

The religious, cultural and tribal tensions exist within both the “imagined communities” as well as between them. It can also be said that the tensions between the two communities constitute the major, not to say the only, adhesive holding together the fragments of the human mosaic within each of them.

The occupation in the wake of the Six Day War complicated the matter considerably. Despite the transfer plans from the schools of various and sundry Zionist leaders, the Arab demography did not stop. Moreover, the occupation gave impetus and a great deal of help to the formation of the Palestinian identity vis-à-vis the occupying community. On the other side, as the occupation grew deeper a change came about in the identities of the communities called Israeli.

Ironically, this occupation ultimately brought about a halt in the development of the Israeli national identity. Thus, in face of the galloping demography the slogan of “a Jewish and democratic state” came into being, with the emphasis on Jewish. Thus, in place of the national definition the communal-religious definition rose to the surface and in full force.

Since the two communities are intertwined with each other for better or for worse, everything that happens in one of the communities immediately has implications for the other. And when Jewishness superseded Israeliness as a major definer of the Israeli communities, on the other side Islamism arose as a major definer of the Palestinian communities.

Both of the “national” identities – Israeli and Palestinian – are still embryonic and developing and are in need of nurturing. Therefore, in order to attain the utopian bi-national vision it is necessary first to bring the two “nations” back to history for the national embryo to develop in a natural way.

In this history it has to be remembered that Israeli nationalism is an integral part of the definition of Palestinian nationalism and Palestinian nationalism is a very important element in the definition of Israeliness. The one nationalism defines the existence of the other, and in the absence of the existence of one of them, the existence of the other as a crystallized national identity is cancelled.

Before we arrive at the fulfillment of Isaiah’s utopian vision, even in a small way, it is necessary first of all for the wolf and the lamb to live each of them under his own respective vine and respective national anthem. If not, the handwriting is on the wall: Either a South African future or a Balkan future awaits both of them and their descendents.
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Published in Hebrew: Opinions-Haaretz, June 27, 2012

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No Grass in the Arab world

The murderous Ba’ath regime, which pretended to be the standard bearer of Arab nationalism, is the bloody testimony to the failure of that nationalism.

Salman Masalha || 
No Grass in the Arab world

When Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini came into power in Iran, the well-known Syrian poet Adonis hastened to publish a paean of praise of the Islamic Revolution. Here is what he wrote: “How shall tell Iran of my love /When my words are inadequate to express my sighs?/ How shall I sing to the city of Qom so it will become a firestorm over the Gulf? / The Iranian people is writing to the West / Here is your collapsing face, O West, / O West, here is your dying face.”

For more than a year now Syrian President Bashar Assad has been sending out his army and sowing destruction and reaping death in the cities of Syria. Every day we read about yet another massacre here and more slaughter there. Assad keeps asserting that these things never happened and blames terrorist gangs for the crimes. Apparently he knows whereof he speaks. The crimes are indeed being committed by terrorist gangs – the Shabbiha, the tribal Ba’ath regime’s murderous “combat support” gangs of thugs.

The murderous Ba’ath regime, which pretended to be the standard bearer of Arab nationalism, is the bloody testimony to the failure of that nationalism. This fraud is evident for all to see in the horrors being perpetrated daily throughout Syria. The world, including the part of it called “the Arab word,” continues to sit and do nothing. And the Arab world is waiting for foreign, non-Arab, countries to come and help “our Arab brothers” who are being slaughtered by Arabs.

Ironically, the Syrian poet who wished for the death of the West found nowhere but Paris, in that very same West, to live as a free person. Not too long ago a media storm raged over a poem concerning Iran published by German writer Gunter Grass. The poem, of course, awakened many sleeping dogs. However, as weighed against the Syrian poet it would seem that the balance in fact tips in favor of Grass.

Years ago, before the “Arab spring,” a delegation of writers traveled to Yemen to participate in a conference called “An Arab-German Cultural Dialogue,” with the participation of Grass, the late Mahmoud Darwish, Adonis and others.

The Yemeni president invited the participants to his palace. After greeting the writers in “poor Arabic,” as one of those present at the meeting subsequently related, he announced he was going to award the Yemeni medal of honor to Grass. Grass, however, surprised the president by standing up and declaring he would not be able to accept the award as long as the president did not release a young Yemeni writer who had been arrested for expressing his opinion.

The “Arab” president was in fact very embarrassed, as he was not accustomed to statements like that at such events. However, the consternation should in fact have been the lot of all the Arab writers because by this act the German writer revealed the group of intellectuals in all its worthlessness. Once again it was “the foreigners” who had the courage to come out in defense of their Arab “brothers’” freedom of speech.

Adonis, of course, continues to enjoy the pleasures of Western freedom in the City of Lights. However, his freedom is fraudulent, since he has never internalized the values of freedom. On the contrary, Adonis remains imprisoned in the tribal world from which he comes. We learn this from his thunderous silence about what is happening in the land of his birth, Syria. Again and again he squirms and does not gather the courage to come out against the murderous regime in his country. In an interview he granted recently Adonis went so far as to try to defend the butcher of Damascus. He asserted that France is betraying the values of the French Revolution by supporting the reactionary forces in the Arab world – as though the butcher in Damascus were the paragon of liberty, equality and fraternity.

However, we need only remember that Adonis belongs to Assad’s Alawite tribe in order to understand the root of the evil in the Arab world. The poet’s squirms and evasions in light of the horrors in Syria exemplify his betrayal of the values he pretends to represent. Compared to Grass, Adonis and his ilk are part of the Arabs’ problem and not part of its solution.
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Published in Hebrew: Haaretz, June 13, 2012
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Nakba not yet lost

The Nakba is alive for both Jews and Arabs:

Salman Masalha || 

 

Nakba not yet lost

Let's set aside for a moment the discourse about human rights and the debate about natural rights, because no salvation will come from them. Moreover, they will never lead to a solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. On the contrary, they pour oil on the flames and encourage people to continue wallowing in the mud. In the never-ending fire, the growing occupation with the issue of the Nakba ("catastrophe," the Palestinians' term for what happened to them when Israel was founded in 1948 ) proves more than anything that it is a living event, among both the Arabs and the Jews. This country's emotion-laden past is a dangerous swamp. Those who choose to go back to the past to remain there find themselves up to the neck in the mud of bygone years.

It must be stated openly: All the disasters connected with this country are shared by the Jews and the Arabs. They are shared because they make all of us lose sleep over them and have an influence on the way of life of all the people, regardless of religion, race or sex.

It is worthwhile to understand the root of the Israeli-Palestinian tragedy. Because the disaster of this land, or, to be more exact, of those who inhabit it, Jews as well as Arabs, stems from the wide abyss between the two opposing concepts of the charged term "homeland."

The Jewish Zionist conceives of the entire land as his homeland in which he can move from place to place, settle down and live. On the other hand, the Palestinian thinks of the specific village, the specific tree and well that no longer exist. In other words, the Jewish Zionist is not attached to a certain private plot of land while the Arab is too attached to a certain restricted piece of land.

To illustrate the difference between these two conceptions of homeland, let's look at Hebrew and Arabic poetry. The poet Aharon Shabtai, for example, expresses his familiarity with the homeland in every grain of sand from Dan to until Eilat: "In every grain, from Dan until Eilat, the homeland stretches/ and I cannot be found in any place except in the homeland/ If someone asks me: 'Where are you?' I shall reply: 'In the homeland'/ and let's assume he takes a sledgehammer and hits me on the head/ and some Tom, Dick or Harry comes and asks:/ 'Where is that stupid man you killed?'/ the response will necessarily be: 'Even now he is in his homeland'/ because Aharon, because Aharon, because Aharon is only in the homeland." (From "Artzenu [Our Land] - Poems, 1987-2002." ) Contrary to this broad concept, there exists the Palestinians' limited concept. The most outstanding expression of it is given by Mahmoud Darwish, the Palestinian national poet: "I am from there and I have memories/ I have a mother/ And a house with lots of windows/ I learned all the words and I pulled them apart to put together one word/ it is homeland." However Darwish's "homeland" is not a political homeland, it is not Gaza or Ramallah - as he said once, "Neither Dan nor Eilat," but a very small and limited place: "I love to go/ to a village that did not hang my last night on its cypresses." Darwish's homeland is merely a small village in Galilee: "I shall throw a great number of roses before I arrive at one rose in Galilee." This is how the national poet reveals the substance of the homeland in Palestinian consciousness.

When he returned to Ramallah in the wake of the Oslo Accords, Darwish declared in a May 1996 interview with The New York Times that he wants to ask for Israeli citizenship. And he added: "I shall accept any document that will give me the right to be there." That is how the Palestinian "national" poet sums up his yearning and the substance of the homeland. The two opposing concepts of the term "homeland" are the root of the tragedy. On the one hand, the Jewish Zionist concept, which is a broad approach that spreads over the face of the land, an explosion which is growing and is expansive. On the other hand, the Arab Palestinian way of thinking, which is restricted and introverted, and which collapses backward into a black hole.
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Published:Opinions-Haaretz, May 31, 2012

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For Jews only

Israel's new cabinet is driven by Jewish messianic fervor...

Salman Masalha || For Jews only

Our lawmakers had a sleepless night last week, although it was much ado about nothing. There is nothing new under the Israeli political sun. Ehud Barak may have feared losing his commanding position. Maybe Shas' chief feared the lion breathing down his neck, and Kadima's leader might have worried about Yair Lapid nipping at his heels. The prime minister may have been worried, too, about any change in the status quo.

I must admit, I don't understand what the pundits are complaining about. We simply went to sleep with elections in the air and woke up with a severe national-unity hangover. The night's "stinking maneuver," which supposedly surprised everyone, was no more than one small chord in a basic melody on which the pundits base their musical world. The people who for years ensured that the public was blasted by the mendacious melody called the Jewish democratic state shouldn't be surprised to wake up one morning with a Jewish undemocratic government.

From the moment the pundits followed in the footsteps of the politicians, both large and small, they carried this noxious melody everywhere. They were part of legitimizing the illegitimate in Israeli politics. Well, the new national unity government is the bitter result of that slogan that is rooted so deeply in Israeli society.

Let's remember that Shaul Mofaz was elected to head Kadima in part due to crates of votes from Arab clans; that has been the custom in these parts from time immemorial. But he didn't remember the favor his Arab voters did for him. When all the votes from the primary were counted, he discounted them. He did this because he never forgot "what it is to be Jewish," to borrow a phrase from another Jewish man Mofaz has joined in the coalition.

The sense of disgust from the conduct of politicians and small-time wheeler-dealers, regardless of religion, race or gender, isn't easy to bear. Whoever staged this behind-the-scenes maneuver and stopped the election from happening poses the real danger to Israeli democracy.

Some called this maneuver political sleight of hand from the school of the magician Benjamin Netanyahu. But Netanyahu's flip-flop isn't a reflection of strength. He had neither Iran nor the Tal Law in the front of his mind. The last straw came from an unexpected place: the High Court of Justice's ruling requiring the evacuation of the Ulpana neighborhood in the Beit El settlement. If Netanyahu hadn't called off the elections, that ruling would have put him on a collision course with the rule of law and a vociferous opposition.

The Jewish messianic understanding of the "Land of Israel" is what dictated the move. Now Netanyahu will surely find a way around the High Court with general Jewish support.

This isn't a national unity government. It's a mono-national government applying the slogan "Jewish democratic." This is the bitter truth, if we recall Labor Party chief Shelly Yacimovich's statement that she doesn't rule out joining the Netanyahu government after the next elections. Arab MKs have their own task - that of the fig leaf that covers the Jewish democratic nakedness.

So when Netanyahu marches securely in this Lilliputian country, when almost all the Jewish MKs bow to him while the pundits ride along on their commentaries, who needs elections and opinion polls? The game is fixed. Fixed for Jews only.
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Published: Opinions_Haaretz, May 17, 2012

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