Striking for its scientific analytical thought is a statement by one of the Zionist leaders, Chaim Weizmann, in 1919, that the goal of Zionism was to make Palestine as Jewish as England is English. This was more than a hundred years ago. At that time, there was no state of Israel, no Nakba of Palestine, no setback for the nation, and no occupation of the rest of Palestine, the Golan, and Sinai. There was no PLO or its various factions, no Stone Intifada, and no Oslo Accords or a Palestinian Authority capable of an independent state after five years.
Today, the discussion and debate focus on striking Iran, and whether America, along with Israel, which is nearly eighty years old, will carry out their threats, or if Iran will succumb to avoid this dark fate that is at its doorstep, looming from the muzzles of the death fleets lurking nearby.
A quick review by Arab, Islamic, and regional decision-makers of this "Middle" East is enough to provide the answer, not necessarily for a century, but only for half of it or less. After the departure of the great Arab nationalist leader Gamal Abdel Nasser, his Egypt "drifted" towards peace with Israel, and the Front of Steadfastness and Confrontation was formed, which succeeded in moving the headquarters of the Arab League from Cairo to Tunis. Its pillars were Syria under Hafez al-Assad, Libya under Muammar Gaddafi, Iraq under Saddam Hussein, Algeria under Houari Boumédiène, and the PLO under Yasser Arafat. Most of these leaders were assassinated, and their countries fell into the clutches of Israel and America as if they had never existed. Their historical capitals were occupied, and their civilizations, some of which extend to pre-written history, were trampled. This front ended, and with it, steadfastness and confrontation. All of this happened in less than fifty years, and the "knowledgeable" and, of course, the ignorant, will not know when such a front will rise again.
It is important, as we read this very, very recent history, because many of us lived through it and were witnesses to it, or at least to some of it, to note a striking development: the shift of targeting from Arabs to non-Arabs. Iran is not Arab, but regional, supporting the Palestinian cause as the Arab Front of Steadfastness and Confrontation supported it before. And if Iran is Islamic, then Venezuela, which was targeted with the arrest of its president at the beginning of the new year, is neither Arab nor Islamic. This, in turn, opens up the intellectual field: will Iran be the last to be targeted?
In 1938, 19 years after Weizmann's statement, and ten years before the establishment of the state, Ben-Gurion made a statement in which he said: "I support forced transfer, and I see nothing immoral in it." So why do we seem surprised and open-mouthed at the "new developments" that are, in fact, old axioms?
The great Egyptian writer Mohamed Hassanein Heikal was asked about the reason for his opposition to Hosni Mubarak, and he said that throughout his 30 years of rule, he had not read a book.
שתף את דעתך
An equation: Making Palestine as Jewish as England is English