The importance of Iran's involvement in Syria is rooted in Iran's vision of the Shi'ite apocalypse

Messianic meeting - Tehran

Salman Masalha ||

Iran’s Messianic War

Iran's involvement in Syria's civil war did not grow simply out of its strategic interests in the region. The importance of events in Syria transcends mere worldly matters and is rooted in Iran’s messianic vision of the Shi’ite apocalypse. Iranian religious leaders believe the Islamic revolution that founded their state paves the way for the appearance of the Mahdi – the Shi’ite messiah – who will bring final justice to the world.

The Islamic revolution, which brought the ayatollahs to power in Iran, awakened messianic demons from their sleep. The rulers dreamed of a greater Iran and acted to export the revolution beyond their borders. For this purpose they made Palestine and Al-Quds their first priority. They turned the name Palestine into a club with which to bash the incompetent Arab leaders.

The ayatollahs wanted to use the Palestinian cause to gain the support of the Arab masses, which are sympathetic to the Palestinians’ aspirations. They learned to use the Palestinian issue from other Arab rulers. Since Sunni Islam’s rise to power in Turkey, Iran’s leaders have been embroiled in a lively competition over this issue with Sultan Erdogan.

But Syria is important to Iran for messianic reasons because according to Shi’ite traditions, the Mahdi’s reincarnation is associated with a bloody civil war that will take place in Syria and cause hundreds of thousands of deaths. It begins on a small scale then escalates. Every time it seems to be calming down in one area, it bursts out in another, until the Mahdi appears.

Shi’ite traditions based on statements of Shi’a founder Ali ibn Abi Talib also refer to the yellow-flag carriers, who come from the west and take part in the war in Syria. Some even link this tradition to the color of Hezbollah’s flags, as did Iranian parliament member Roh Allah Hosseinian, whose statements were cited by the Iranian news agency.

The message was clear: When the yellow-flag carriers fighting against the Shi’ites’ enemies in Damascus are joined by the Iranian forces, it’s a sign of the Mahdi’s imminent appearance.

Messianic meeting - Jerusalem

The Islamic Shi’ites couldn’t care less, from the religious point of view, about Palestine and Jerusalem. Jerusalem and the Al-Aqsa Mosque carry no religious significance to the Shi’ites. The Shi’ite interpretation of the Koran proverb mentioning Al-Aqsa says it means “a mosque of above” located in the sky rather than in Jerusalem. For the Shi’ite faith, the Great Mosque of Kufa, in Iraq, is holier than the one in Jerusalem.

The Shi’ite end of days plot also has a twist – the Arabs won’t get any joy from the Mahdi’s coming, because when he appears, “only the sword will talk between him and the Arabs.” Can these religious traditions explain the atrocities committed by the Alawi regime, supported by Iran and Hezbollah, against the Syrian “Arabs,” who belong to the Sunni faction?

Wonder of wonders, when the Shi’ite Mahdi appears, he will bear God’s explicit name in Hebrew. He will also hold Moses’ staff, wear Solomon’s seal and carry the Israelites’ Ark of the Covenant, in which the Divine Presence (shekhina) dwells. With the ark with the Divine Presence he will conquer cities and countries and impose law and justice in the world.

If this is the state of affairs in the end of days, it seems all the commotion between the Tehran regime and the Jerusalem regime is over nothing. All that remains is to call for an Israeli-Iranian messianic convention to sort out the dispute between the Shi’ite messiah and the Jewish one.

It appears the disagreements are not significant and the gaps can easily be bridged. Surely the Jewish messiah’s followers can explain to the Shi’ite messiah’s followers that they came to the wrong address.

And with such wacky rulers in the region, go build a modern state!

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Haaretz, Jan 5, 2018

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The Palestinian president, who comes from Safed in present-day Israel, will forever be seen as a foreigner in Ramallah and the West Bank cities

Salman Masalha ||

Make way for Barghouti

Mahmoud Abbas has often threatened to resign, dismantle the Palestinian Authority and hand the keys over to Israel. The threats, as always, blow over and he stays there at the Muqata in Ramallah, playing the president of Palestine.

Arab leaders don’t quit and clear a path for new leaders. They will never utter a phrase like “I cannot go on any longer.” Moreover, a man like Abbas is someone who never leaves the Muqata for anything but meetings with leaders abroad.

He hasn’t toured Qalqilyah and Tul Karm. He hasn’t visited Jenin or walked around Hebron. He hasn’t gone to Bil’in to be with the protesters against the separation barrier, as did Salam Fayyad, who briefly served as prime minister until he was removed. Fayyad did so because he’s a son of the place. Not so Mahmoud Abbas, who comes from Safed.

This is about the perception of the homeland in the Arab and Palestinian experience. Unlike the broader Zionist view, the Palestinians see the term “homeland” in a narrow sense. The Palestinian approach limits the homeland to the community’s boundaries, to the tribe’s borders, no further.
To understand this issue we should consider the words of Mahmoud Darwish, often considered the Palestinian national poet: “I come from there and I have memories / Born as mortals are, I have a mother / And a house with many windows, / I have brothers, friends, / And a prison cell with a cold window. / ... I learned all the words and broke them up / To make a single word: Homeland ....”

And what is Darwish’s homeland? It’s not the entire Palestinian space. Darwish’s homeland is very restricted. Darwish was born under the British Mandate in what is now Israel. In an interview with The New York Times in 2001, he admitted: ‘’I had never been in the West Bank before. It’s not my private homeland. Without memories you have no real relationship to a place.’’

In other words, the Palestinian national poet’s homeland is different from the homeland in the Zionist sense. The Palestinian homeland is personal and limited to the village, the clan and the tribe. This perception may be the biggest obstacle to settling the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

As long as Abbas bears the title “president of Palestine,” he will keep sitting there praising Palestine. But he will be bearing this name in vain. Abbas, who comes from Safed, will forever be seen as a foreigner in Ramallah and the West Bank cities.

So Abbas won’t quit. To him, to quit means leaving Palestine. He won’t go to Jericho or the Jordan Valley to make the Palestine wilderness bloom. Abbas knows that if he quits, he has nothing to look for in Ramallah and he will leave Palestine to one of the Gulf states, or perhaps to Jordan, to be with his family, with his personal homeland that isn’t there.

If the Palestinians had a developed Arab imagination they’d act differently. In the present situation they have two options – one is to throw the keys onto the Israeli government’s table, let it handle the occupation, and fight for one state with equal rights for all citizens. The second option is to organize broad protests against the “corrupt” Palestinians who signed the Oslo Accords – who were brought in from afar as leaders subordinate to Israel’s whims. They should make way for authentic leaders deeply rooted in the place.

Such leaders exist and they’re doing time in an Israeli prison. The Palestinians must elect Marwan Barghouti as Palestine’s president while he’s sitting in an Israeli prison cell. They must appoint Salam Fayyad, an honest, reputable man, the prime minister of occupied Palestine.

Only Palestinian leaders deeply rooted in their personal homeland can make decisions on an agreement between Palestine and Israel, about peace between two nation-states.
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Haaretz, December 17, 2017

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