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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The reluctant philanthropists

Horsemen of the handout:

Today the halukkah comes from the working public. This public - both Jews and Arabs - pays taxes and bears the burden, and in recent years it has taken the place of the 'new philanthropist.'

Salman Masalha || The reluctant philanthropists

In the middle of the eighth century, the Muslim caliph, Hisham Ibn Abd al-Malik, sent a special emissary to the king of Turkistan. The king asked his translator to clarify what the emissary wanted. The emissary explained the caliph's request to the king, saying that he wished for him and his subjects to adopt the Muslim faith. "And what is this Islam?" the king asked him. The emissary expounded on the commandments and the prayers, and explained what was permitted and what was prohibited by Islam.

Ten days later, the king returned accompanied by ten flag bearers and asked the emissary to join him. "We rode a full night until we reached a hill," the emissary related, "and when the sun came up, the king ordered every flag bearer to wave his flag. Whenever a flag bearer waved his banner, 10,000 armed cavalry would arrive in the valley below and their commander would approach the king and salute him. The ceremony continued in this manner until 100,000 cavalry had gathered in the valley." We shall return later to the king's response to the caliph's emissary. It is not important whether events like that really took place. The story is merely an allegory for what has been bothering the public in Israel these past few years. From time to time, the social tension between the ultra-Orthodox and secular people comes to the fore. For example, when it was proposed to split Beit Shemesh into two separate entities, Interior Minister Eli Yishai immediately began protesting: "The Haredi town will be without income, without taxes and without industry," he declared in an interview with an ultra-Orthodox radio station. "It is not right to do that."

Tzuriel Krispel, mayor of the predominantly Haredi town of Elad, also explained the danger of having a separate entity for the ultra-Orthodox. In a Haredi town, he said, most of the residents get reductions in their property tax, and a town cannot exist in that fashion. Therefore it was preferable that the ultra-Orthodox live with secular people.

Living at the expense of philanthropists is not a new custom in this region. Once upon a time, it was known as halukkah [distribution of charity]. The people of Jerusalem, for example, lived that way - not only now, but from a long way back. This is what was written about them in 1887: "The halukkah is almost a partner to all the people of Jerusalem ... A Jerusalemite views the halukkah as a national fund that must not be revoked from him, as a secure inheritance from his forefathers, and as a right that must not be doubted. It has never occurred to any one of them to do without it ... Most of them see in the halukkah a basic means of existence." That is how Dr. Chaim Hissin described the charity culture, in his diary.

Hissin added: "It distracted the masses from the struggle for existence of every individual, [who would otherwise] have to earn a living with his own capabilities and look for his bread honestly." Moreover, Dr. Hissin summed up what he had observed as the nature of the Jerusalemite: "It is not sufficient that he does not give, but he also receives and his sense of honesty remains completely unperturbed." (from "The Diary of a Bilu Member," 1925." )

Today the halukkah comes from the working public. This public - both Jews and Arabs - pays taxes and bears the burden, and in recent years it has taken the place of the "new philanthropist." A large percentage of a constantly-growing population remains idle and eats at the table of those who work in Israel.

Let's go back to the story of the king of Turkistan and the caliph's emissary. When the tens of thousands of horsemen were lined up in the valley before him, the king turned to the translator and said: "Tell the emissary to explain to his master that among all of these men, there is not even one healer, one shoemaker or one tailor. If they take on the Islamic faith and adhere to the commandments of the religion, where will they get food?"

And in that context, it is worth mentioning to all of those who insist on adhering to the halukkah: "If there is no flour, there is no Torah." And to paraphrase the words of the king of Turkistan - if they "become Muslims," what will they eat?

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Published: Opinions-Haaretz, May 6, 2012

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Welcome, racists

Inaction over Syria reveals anti-Arab racism:

Rather than the fly-in serving as a 'Welcome to Palestine,' as the organizers called the protest campaign, it was aimed at expressing solidarity with Israel and stressing the extent to which Israel belongs to the activists' cultural family.

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Patriot games

Letting Israeli expats vote is a political manipulation:

The Israeli legal system desperately needs an important new law, and this electoral law must include a very 'patriotic' clause - that any Israeli who has a foreign passport will not have the right to vote here.

Salman Masalha || Patriot games

The Knesset elections are drawing near and associated issues are in the air. It is not only primaries, opinion polls and new parties that have sprung up like mushrooms after the summer social protests. Legislation is also being promoted about who has the right to vote.

A controversial old initiative has recently been resurrected. Cabinet Secretary Zvi Hauser is taking steps to promote a law that would extend the right to vote to Israelis living abroad. The number of such citizens is estimated at approximately 700,000. Or, in electoral terms, two more seats for Knesset members of the ilk of Zeev Elkin and Yariv Levin (both Likud MKs).

As was to be expected, the initiative has aroused opposition because it raises suspicions that the initiators wish to garner votes from abroad so as to prevent any possibility of government change.

A group of intellectuals have gotten together and called to end efforts to promote it. They point out that the proposed legislation would help parties get votes from abroad on the basis of the Law of Return, which grants immediate citizenship to Jews. "The [right to vote] from abroad will encourage taking on citizenship in order to vote," they write, adding, "Organized groups of Jews from abroad will decide about the lives of Israelis."

The political manipulation in this proposal is very obvious, and that is why it is being opposed by what is known here as "the left." As a general rule, any talk in Israel about "left" and "right" is a delusion, since there is neither a Jewish, nor an Arab, left-wing here. On the Jewish side, it is difficult to discern any difference between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (Likud ), Shaul Mofaz (Kadima) or Shelly Yachimovich (Labor ) with regard to anything relating to solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. On the Arab side, too, it is difficult to spot any difference between Knesset members Mohammed Barakeh (Hadash), Jamal Zahalka (Balad) and Ahmed Tibi (United Arab List-Ta'al).

It is possible that, among the Zionist parties, there are people who oppose granting citizenship in order to vote, but all of them continue to support citizenship in order to expropriate - especially to expropriate lands belonging to those who are known in the Zionist lexicon as "non-Jews." Any disparity between the many Zionist parties is therefore reduced to the distinction between the handful of people on the right who are somewhat liberal with regard to trifling civic matters, and the vast majority of nationalist and fundamentalist right-wingers. It must be admitted that a true leftist - from the political, social and cultural points of view - exists only in theory. No real left-wing can exist against the backdrop of the prolonged nationalist conflict in this land.

One needs an especially fertile imagination in order to fight against the delusions of the rightists. But if patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel, the scoundrels should be supplied with pure patriotism and their spiritual world undermined.

The Israeli legal system desperately needs an important new law, and this electoral law must include a very 'patriotic' clause - that any Israeli who has a foreign passport will not have the right to vote here. Moreover, anyone with a foreign passport will not be allowed to vote, or be elected, in municipal elections, and will not be allowed to serve in any position in the civil service.

By promoting a law of this kind, it will be possible to kill two birds with one stone. On the one hand, people will be elected whose sole loyalty is to the citizens who live here. And on the other, all those dubious and contemptible "patriots" will be exposed for all to see.
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Published: Opinions-Haaretz, 9 April 2012


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Fata Morgana

Salman Masalha || 

Fata Morgana

Vanishes into mist
Roams like rain that pours
He’s holding in his fist
A book from years of yore
Appears, then is no more
Like dew in the day’s first blush
In stories shared aloud
His soul behind a door
Half his heart is melted cloud
The other half is crushed

Only vanishing exists
O, what kind of news is this!
Here a day, his hair turned gray
Though he’s bent, he still persists
Like a mirage he fades away
Into his fevered mind
For return he longs
In some other songs

In love
In youth
In dust
In stone

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English: Vivian Eden
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Between the devil and Iran

Israel's occupation fills an ancient Mideast need for evil:
Among other things, the Arab-Israeli conflict serves as a tool of manipulation for the Iranians in their drive to restore Persian glory.


Salman Masalha || Between the devil and Iran

First of all, when it comes to Iran, it should be acknowledged that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is right. Since the ayatollahs took power Iranian leaders haven't stopped talking about Israel, referring to it as "the Little Satan" at every opportunity. And when these leaders, whose spiritual world is constrained by such messianic shackles, use such a loaded expression it's clear they must take active steps to deal with such a Satan, even a little one. But in saying that Netanyahu is correct, that's as far as it goes.

As the opium of the ignorant masses, religion has always been used by manipulative politicians to achieve their profane goals. The term "evil" served U.S. President Ronald Reagan in 1982 when he labeled the Soviet Union "the evil empire." The term "crusade" served another American president, as the proper Christian response to the terrorist acts of September 11, 2001.

Every ideology that claims to possess absolute truth and absolute goodness needs an opposing, weighty, ideological enemy to flourish. Islam developed in the Arabian Desert on Jewish-Christian foundations and is totally immersed in theological polemic vis-a-vis the Jews and Christians. In essence, Islam combines Jewish monotheism and Christian missionary ideology. If it were deprived of its relationship with Jews and Christians nothing would be left of it. Contemporary Islamic discourse finds an equivalent in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, like the primordial Muslim confrontation with "Ahl al-Kitab," the People of the Book, which from a Muslim perspective includes both Jews and Muslims.

When it comes to Iran, it is no coincidence that Shi'ite doctrine took hold among the Persian peoples. From the outset, Shi'ism was an internal Islamic arena serving to promote Iranian national goals vis-a-vis the Arabs who conquered Persia and forced its inhabitants to convert. It is therefore no wonder that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and other Iranian leaders make repeated reference to the Iranian nation in their speeches.

Testimony to the deep historical animosity between the Persians and Arabs can be found in Shi'ite literature relating to the end of the world. One traditional tract relating to the appearance of the Mahdi, the Shi'ite messiah, states: "Woe unto the Arab dictators for the punishment that is approaching." And in his reappearance, he will actually start taking care of the Arabs: "When the Mahdi appears, there will be nothing but the sword between him and the Arabs and the Qureish [Mohammed's tribe]," as another traditional account states.

Sunni-Arab Islam fights back and accuses the Shi'ites of basing their doctrine on Jewish collusion. It relies, of course, on Shi'ite literature itself, which also speaks of the Mahdi "imposing the justice of David and Solomon." And, if that's not enough, when he reappears "he will issue the call to prayer by explicitly invoking the name of Allah in Hebrew," as another traditional saying has it.

If that's the case, things in this part of the world are not so simple, to say the least. As the only son in the region of the American "Great Satan," and its beloved ally, Israel is playing in the big league and continues to kick the Palestinians. The prolonged Israeli occupation fulfills the need for the existence of evil, of Satan and the prospect of divine justice. It is the fuel that turns the wheels of manipulation of the seminaries of the monotheistic religions' high priests.

Among other things, the conflict serves as a tool of manipulation for the Iranians in their drive to restore Persian glory. Against the backdrop of ancient Muslim animosity toward the Jews, and through use of the Palestinian pretext, they gain a following among the Arab masses. Christian and Jewish messianists attempt to force the issue and bring on the arrival of their messiahs. Israel is therefore situated at the vortex of the major confrontation connecting the pieces of this monotheistic constellation of forces.
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Published: Opinions-Haaretz, 28 March 2012

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Assad is a symbol of The decay in the Arab world:

With great sadness, it can be said that in the absence of a sane civil alternative, the Arab world will continue along this path.

Salman Masalha || 

The decay in the Arab world

Bashar Assad, who is continuing to massacre Syrian civilians, is not only the president of an important country in that region called "the Arab world," but above all, he is the most prominent symbol of the rot in that Arab world. It should be recalled that the incumbent President Assad received the post of Syrian president on a silver platter drenched in the bloodletting committed by his father, President Hafez Assad.

Assad Senior's junta, which took power in a military coup, drew the blood of thousands of Syrians as well as Lebanese and Palestinians living in Lebanon. And behold that knight in shining armor, this ophthalmologist and young heir, instead of bringing relief and enlightenment to his people, has for many months been sending his army and gangs of shabiha thugs to sow destruction and death. In every direction, he has been drawing more and more of the Syrian people's blood.

This Western-educated president has spurned whatever he witnessed or learned or experienced in the West. He has returned to his tribal roots to perpetuate the bloody legacy of his forefathers. And the Arab world has been looking at this spectacle and hasn't lifted a finger to stop the killing of Arabs. It is waiting for salvation to arrive from the West, which is nothing new. The Arab world has always been like that, inasmuch as the entire Arab world is a stinking corpse.

Just over a week ago on this page, Gideon Levy lamented Israel's apathy in the face of the horrors taking place on the other side of the border ("The monster next door," Feb. 26 ). "The minimum should be a resounding call to our absolute ally, the United States, and to Israel's other friends - do something, right now," Levy implored in his column. "Forget for a moment the Iranian threat and the Israeli occupation. Join in a rescue of which none is more important."

There is something even more serious than Israel's silence, and it's actually those who are not holding their tongues. There are those in our midst, our own Arab flesh and blood, who have long had no conscience. They sit there serenely in the Knesset, both those holding respected government positions and those on the upholstered opposition benches, and decry the injustices of Israeli governance, rightly of course, in every possible forum. Nonetheless they have no shame in holding forth or rushing to appear on Syrian television in service of the interests of the butcher of Damascus.

Those poor souls, irrespective of their political affiliations, have lost any moral right to speak about freedom and human rights as a result of their actions. No one will buy their line anymore, not their hypocrisy and not the bill of goods emanating from their mouths. This Assad, who has become the darling of Arab public figures and Knesset members, is the most prominent testimony there is to the resounding failure of Arab nationalism.

The pretentious Ba'ath Party slogan "one Arab nation with an eternal mission" is crumbling within sight of everyone. In fact with such a deadly mission, there is no need for external foes. The Arab world is worn out, faltering and above all exploited and confused. The regimes that were called "national" never learned how to build a single nation-state worthy of its name, and maybe never intended to.

The greatest treason against the Arab peoples is the treason of the intellectuals, who never summoned the courage to propose another way. They always worked in the service of the repressive and corrupt regimes, and consigned opposition to corrupt and rotten regimes to the Islamists. That is the deep-seated explanation for the recent rise in these countries of what has been dubbed the Arab Spring.

As long as the younger generation of Arabs doesn't manage to establish and propose a different, sane civil alternative, the choice will remain between fraudulent murderous Arab nationalism, such as the Syrian Ba'ath movement headed by Assad, and Islamic forces who take the name of Allah in vain, people with malignant ideologies and beyond cure. With great sadness, it can be said that in the absence of a sane civil alternative, the Arab world will continue along this path.
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Published: Opinions-Haaretz, 6 March 2012

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