From Beirut to the Beltway

Has the time come for Arab leaders to cut the BS and drop their pretend conflict with Israel?
Fifty-seven years of what many of us believed to be a genuine struggle against Zionism have been reduced into this:

Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom urged Arab and Muslim leaders to bring their growing contacts with Israel "out into the light of day." "Here in New York this week, I have had the honor of meeting with more than 10 of my colleagues from the Arab and Muslim world, a number unthinkable, even two years ago," he told the General Assembly.

"Unfortunately, many of our ties with the Arab and Muslim world are still deep in the shadows, away from the public eye," he added. "Today, I call on my Arab and Muslim colleagues to bring our contacts out into the light of day, so that our peoples may understand our shared desire to work with each other, to bring peace and prosperity to our region," the foreign minister said.

Yes, why don’t Israel’s “Arab and Muslim colleagues” bring the contacts out into the light? Why extend this charade any further.

After all, the self-described last bastion against Israeli “plots” has effectively decimated whatever was left of the cause last February and is now offering this:

... In a bid to gain France's support, Syrian President Bashar Assad sent military intelligence chief Assef Shawkat to Paris "to offer the French officials an interesting deal," which he believed would discharge Syria from its suspected involvement into Hariri's death. [The Kuwaiti paper al-Seyassah] said Shawkat met with his French counterpart and an official from the bureau of French President Jacques Chirac.

According to the newspaper, the deal included a Syrian pledge to "deploy 50,000 along the Syrian-Iraqi borders to help maintain security, to withdraw the remaining and secret intelligence officials from Lebanon, to hold diplomatic relations with Israel, recognize it as a state and renounce its calls for regaining the Golan Heights." The pledge also included "extradition of terrorists detained in Syrian prisons," added the newspaper. In return, Assad would be discharged from his suspected involvement in Hariri's killing.

Yes, anything to stay in power. Despicable.

But at least Qatar was open and didn't insult our intelligence. Its foreign minister even urged Arab nations on Wednesday to reciprocate Israel’s Gaza pullout by dropping their refusal to talk to the Jewish state.

Seemingly shocked, and speaking during a visit to Mars, former Lebanese PM Salim Hoss called for an Arab League meeting to take measures to "check this sweeping, ominous tide." Yes, you heard it. An Arab league meeting. The Arab leaguers can’t even agree on a date to meet let alone be relied on to speak against their own covert policies!

"I wonder how they can undertake such a step, forgetting a cause they espoused for more than half a century ... under the pretext of rewarding the Zionist enemy for withdrawing from Gaza," Hoss said in a statement.

So unbelievably naive it's laughable. But this is coming from Hoss, a failure of a politician who let a dictator's-proxy-turned-president post military personnel in every ministry and watched the abuse of the constitution in disgraceful silence-- all that while posing as champion of Arab rights.
And then Hazem Saghieh in al-Hayat puts it like this:

Most Arab countries, if they can be sure that public reaction can be controlled, would do what Qatar is doing.

What a myth! When exactly did the public reaction matter to those so called tyrants? Did it matter to the Syrians when they killed Hariri? Did it matter to Saddam when he invaded Kuwait, butchered Kurds and Shias? Did it matter to Mubarak when he forged his election? Did it matter to Arafat when he co-destroyed Lebanon and signed Oslo? Did it matter to King Hussein of Jordan when he was recruited by the CIA? Did it matter to the Saudi kings when they kept their people busy with religion while they fornicated and played poker?

Did the people matter to the Arab tyrants when they, whether intentionally or through incompetence and deceipt, transferred the Palestinian cause to fundamentalist organizations like Hizbullah and Hamas? Did it matter to them that a large number of young Arabs and Muslims would become radicalized in such a way that if and when peace happens, they will automatically find themselves in a clash with the silent and more moderate yet oppressed majority? Did it matter to Hafez and Qadhafi and Saddam that those new radicals will always need a struggle to survive because their entire raison d’etre was built on fighting an enemy through violence. When the enemy disappears, they will take it out on the very people they once defended.

it never really mattered. This whole struggle business to them was a way to subdue their people.

What a sad, sad fate. I've been called a negative person by many. I am willing to be shown another reality than what I can see now. Until that happens, I believe that it's officially over. Israel has triumphed. The Arab masses, brought up on conspiracy theories and subjugated by tyranny, are so lacking in discipline and will power that they can’t even prevent a bunch of lunatics like al-Qaeda from hijacking what should have been a noble cause and turning it into a pathetic excuse for spreading terror and ignorance.

And before anyone out there thinks that I am advocating continued war on Israel, I am not. All that I and people like me wanted was justice. Justice for all, and not for the chosen few. I don't see that happening soon, do you?

// Posted by Abu Kais @ 9/20/2005 08:32:00 PM