Pallie problem - Opiate of the Arab World
Deborah Sharavi
By BARRY RUBIN
5 Shvat 5764, Wednesday, January 28, 2004 0:19 IST
The Arab-Israeli conflict, along with anti-Americanism, continues as
the opiate of the Arab world, drugging entire societies into accepting
intolerable conditions.
Recently, a Lebanese newspaper columnist told how he raised the issue
of the mass murders uncovered in Iraq, only to be criticized for
"whining."
What he should have been focusing on was the foreign threat to the
Arabs. As for the killings, what was the big deal, since they happened
in all-Arab states?
Consider three recent statements from totally different parts of the
political spectrum.
The establishment: Ali Ukla Ursan, the Syrian regime's Stalinist-style
intellectual bureaucrat, insists the answer to Saddam's overthrow is
Arab unity in order to intimidate the US which, along with Israel, is
responsible for all the world's evil.
The Islamists: The new head of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, often
portrayed as a relatively moderate Islamist group, has called for a
jihad against Israel and the US in Iraq to solve the Arab world's
problems.
The Left: Walid Jumblatt, head of the Lebanese Socialist Progressive
Party, has proclaimed Palestinian suicide bombers as the only hope for
fixing the Arabs' terrible mess.
In interview after interview, average Arabs explain that they don't
care how many Iraqis were killed or tortured by Saddam or how much
money he stole.
It's all irrelevant because he supported the Palestinians and opposed
the US.
Two years ago, an Egyptian intellectual, for many years one of the
most genuinely moderate people in the Arab world, told a Western
interviewer that the solution to terrorism was not merely repressing
it, but also providing "measures that give hope."
Sid-Ahmed did not identify those measures as instituting democracy,
providing civil liberties, raising living standards, generating
millions of jobs, moderating the lessons in mosques or schools,
building better housing, opening up stagnantly statist economies,
instituting equality for women, sharing wealth more equitably, ending
corruption, removing the selfish and incompetent elites from power, or
any other of a hundred things needed in Arab countries for people to
live better lives.
Instead, his sole specific proposal was solving the Palestinian
problem. After all, he told the interviewer: "Our president says 50
percent of the terrorism in the world is triggered by the Palestinian
problem."
Did he believe that? The Egyptian was visibly embarrassed – he had
just hinted that Osama bin Laden and the September 11 attacks had had
nothing to do with that issue; and he was also aware that thousands of
Muslims had died from terrorism in Egypt, Algeria and elsewhere.
Well, he said, solving the Palestinian problem would show something
was being done.
IT'S LIKE the man who goes to a psychiatrist and tells him there is a
bird sitting on his head. "I see your problem," the doctor says.
Suddenly the bird pipes up: "How do I get this man off my feet?"
In other words, the reality is the reversal of expectations. If Israel
is the Arab world's obsession, it is because the man won't let the
bird go. He is holding tightly onto its feet to stop it escaping.
This is why what really happened in the year 2000 – Israel's offer to
give up the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Golan Heights, and most of east
Jerusalem – must be wiped from people's minds, or prevented from
entering them.
The issue is too useful to abandon. Regimes need it to justify their
hold on power. The anti-democratic Islamist and leftist oppositions
need it to justify their drive for power. The masses need it to give
them a visible enemy they can denounce freely. The liberals need it to
prove their patriotism.
On the public and verbal level the battle for Palestinian, Arab, and
Muslim "rights" is an obvious duty. Israel is the most horrible
country in the world, Zionism the most evil ideology of modern times.
Okay, say Western observers, we know it's exaggerated. But this must
be the one thing that really upsets the Arab world, the prism through
which everything else is seen.
Not exactly. It is merely the oldest trick in the book of politics.
First, you mesmerize the people by persuading them you are their
protector against a diabolical enemy. Then you pick their pockets and
beat them up as they express their devotion and gratitude. Next you
demand others compensate you for your alleged suffering at the hands
of this supposed evil-doer.
But was "Jewish domination" the real grievance of the fascists in
Germany and Europe, or was this just a good way to mobilize mass
support by stoking murderous rage against someone else? Was the Soviet
system really trying to help proletarians elsewhere, and was its
ferocious repression caused by the "crimes" of Western liberal
capitalism?
Were Latin American oligarchies rolling in wealth alongside
impoverished peasants really motivated mainly by horror at the
supposed evil intentions of any reformers they could portray as
communists... and therefore the best way to get along with these
systems and solve the problems of those societies was to exterminate
the Jews, eliminate capitalism, and kill anyone who favored land
reform or democracy?
Finally, if anyone points out that the emperor has no clothes – or,
rather, is wearing extremely fine ones stolen from the citizenry – the
critic can be dismissed.
After all, it's just the line of the Zionist, reactionary, racist,
Orientalist, conservative, American propagandist.
So shut up, and cheer your dictator.
The Middle East is being impoverished and brutalized by this con-game.
And with one of its chief practitioners, Saddam Hussein, in jail, his
colleagues abroad are redoubling their efforts to keep the system
going.
The writer is director of the Global Research in International Affairs
(GLORIA) Center, editor of the Middle East Review of International
Affairs (MERIA) Journal and editor of Turkish Studies.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1075114460411
Ariel
they belong to the arab community and that "palestine" is just a contrived
fantasy.
The world would be a much better place.
"Deborah Sharavi" <dsha...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:3cf157c1.04012...@posting.google.com...
> Did he believe that? The Egyptian was visibly embarrassed - he had
> just hinted that Osama bin Laden and the September 11 attacks had had
> nothing to do with that issue; and he was also aware that thousands of
> Muslims had died from terrorism in Egypt, Algeria and elsewhere.
>
> Well, he said, solving the Palestinian problem would show something
> was being done.
>
> IT'S LIKE the man who goes to a psychiatrist and tells him there is a
> bird sitting on his head. "I see your problem," the doctor says.
> Suddenly the bird pipes up: "How do I get this man off my feet?"
>
> In other words, the reality is the reversal of expectations. If Israel
> is the Arab world's obsession, it is because the man won't let the
> bird go. He is holding tightly onto its feet to stop it escaping.
>
> This is why what really happened in the year 2000 - Israel's offer to
> give up the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Golan Heights, and most of east
> Jerusalem - must be wiped from people's minds, or prevented from
> Finally, if anyone points out that the emperor has no clothes - or,
> rather, is wearing extremely fine ones stolen from the citizenry - the
TonyaK9
"Ariel" <ari...@37.com> wrote in message
news:bv6ugr$p8pt9$1...@ID-205389.news.uni-berlin.de...
> If they could only accept, once and for all, that they're not a nation
The problem lies far beyond "Palestine." It is modern Islam itself that
presents the problem to the world.
This is from Bernard Lewis' "The Crisis of Islam":
It is in the realm of politics - domestic, regional, and international
alike - that we see the most striking differences between Islam and the rest
of the world. The heads of state or ministers of foreign affairs of the
Scandinavian countries and the United Kingdom do not, from time to time,
forgather in Protestant summit conferences, nor was it ever the practice of
the rulers of Greece, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, and the Soviet Union,
temporarily forgetting their political and ideological differences, to hold
regular meetings on the basis of their current or previous adherence to the
Orthodox Church. Similarly, the Buddhist states of East and Southeast Asia
do not constitute a Buddhist bloc at the United Nations, not for that matter
in any other of their political activities. The very idea of such a
grouping, based on religion, in the modern world may seem anachronistic and
even absurd. It is neither anachronistic nor absurd in relation to Islam.
... In September 1969 an Islamic summit conference held in Rabat, Morocco,
decided to create a body to be known as the Organization of the Islamic
Conference (OIC), with a permanent secretariat in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. This
body was duly set up, and it developed rapidly in the 1970s. The OIC was
particularly concerned with help in non-Muslim countries, and the
international position of Islam and of Muslims - in the words of one
observer, "the Islamic rights of man."
This organization now numbers fifty-seven member states, plus three with
observer status. ...
Turning from international and regional to domestic politics, the difference
between Islam and the rest of the world ... is still substantial. In some of
the countries that practice multiparty democracy, there are political
parties with religious designations - Christian in the West, Hindu in India,
Buddhist in the Orient. But there are relatively few of these parties, and
still fewer that play a major role. Even with these, religious themes are
usually of minor importance in their programs and their appeals to the
electorate. Yet in many, indeed in most Islamic countries, religion remains
a major political factor - far more indeed in domestic than in international
or even in regional affairs. Why this difference?
One answer is obvious; most Muslim countries are still profoundly Muslim, in
a way and in a sense that most Christian countries are no longer Christian.
Admittedly, in many of these countries, Christian beliefs and the clergy who
uphold them are still a powerful force, and though their role is not what it
was in the past centuries, it is by no means insignificant. But in no
Christian country at the present time can religious leaders count on the
degree of belief and participation that remains normal in the Muslim lands.
In few, if any, Christian countries do Christian sanctities enjoy the
immunity from critical comment or discussion that is accepted as normal even
in ostensibly secular and democratic Muslim societies. Indeed, this
privileged immunity has been extended, de facto, to Western countries where
Muslim communities are now established and where Muslim beliefs and
practices are accorded a level of immunity from criticism that the Christian
majorities have lost and the Jewish minorities never had. Most important,
with very few exceptions, the Christian clergy do not exercise or even claim
the kind of public authority that is still normal and accepted in most
Muslim countries. ...
From the lifetime of its Founder, and therefore in its sacred scriptures,
Islam is associated in the minds and memories of Muslims with the exercise
of political and military power. Classical Islam recognized a distinction
between things of this world and things of the next, between pious and
worldly considerations. It did not recognize a separate institution, with a
hierarchy and laws of its own, to regulate religious matters.
Does this mean that Islam is a theocracy? In the sense that God is seen as
the supreme sovereign, the answer would have to be yes indeed. In the sense
of government by a priesthood, most definitely not. The emergence of a
priestly hierarchy and its assumption of ultimate authority in the state is
a modern innovation and is a unique contribution of the late Ayatollah
Khomeini of Iran to Islamic thought and practice.
amigocabal
American nation on this Earth than Israel is!
Tilly
> Why would Jews be concerned about anti-Americanism? There is no more
> anti American nation on this Earth than Israel is!
LOL...........Do you post crasp like as a reflex action?
Tilly
Lisa R.
Other than annihilating Israel, the Arab world seems to have run out
of workable political philosophies. There are no Tom Paines, Thomas
Jeffersons or Benjamin Franklins coming out of this part of the world.
They've sort of hit a dead end. Secular nationalism failed (they're
still heavily tribalistic) so they want to retreat into Islamism.
That's not going to work, though. Islam does not address the problems
of the 21st century.
At bottom, Islamism is rooted in opposition to the integration of the
worldwide economy. I think that Arabs could make a solid case against
free trade, but they're not doing it. Instead, they're speaking in a
religious vocabulary, and blowing themselves up.
They're making a lot of very bad choices.
Lisa
Deborah Sharavi
nation, that
>they belong to the arab community and that "palestine" is just a
contrived
>fantasy.
Pursuant to their unrevised National Charter, they are Arabs:
"Palestine is the homeland of the Arab Palestinian people...the
Palestinian people are an integral part of the Arab nation."
Note how their Charter refers to them:
- Art 3: "The Palestinian Arab people"
- Art 4: "the Palestinian Arab people"
- Art 5: "The Palestinians are those Arab nationals who, until 1947,
normally resided in Palestine"
- Art 8: "the Palestinian Arab people"
- Art 9: "The Palestinian Arab people"
- Art 12: "The Palestinian people believe in Arab unity."
- Art 13: "Arab unity leads to the liberation of Palestine, the
liberation of Palestine leads to Arab unity"
- Art 14: "The destiny of the Arab nation, and indeed Arab existence
itself, depend upon the destiny of the Palestine cause."
- Art 15: "The liberation of Palestine, from an Arab viewpoint, is a
national duty...Absolute responsibility for this falls upon the Arab
nation - peoples and governments - with the Arab people of Palestine
in the vanguard."
- Art 17: "the Palestinian Arab people"
- Art 20 [funny!]: "Claims of historical or religious ties of Jews
with Palestine are incompatible with the facts of history"
- Art 21: "The Arab Palestinian people"
- Art 26: "the Palestinian Arab people"
- Art 28: "The Palestinian Arab people"
- Art 30: "the Palestinian Arab people"
>The world would be a much better place.
There would still be problems in the ME, and without the Pallie
"problem", the Arab states couldn't hide them.
The world would be better off if the UN passed a resolution giving the
Pallies the NE slice of Jordan - with Jordan's consent - for their
state. Naturally, they would reject it. Even though it would
constitute a much larger state than the so-called WB, their new
neighbors would be Syrians, Iraqis, and Jordanians, and the Pallies
know that in such a state, when they got up to their usual antics -
and sooner or later, they would get up to their usual antics - their
new neighbors wouldn't be forced to put up with it, nor would they be
as constrained as Israel is in dealing with it.
What's wrong with the NE wedge of Jordan for a Pallie state? It was
once a part of British Palestine, and most of today's Pallies came
from Transjordan anyway.
Deborah