On De-Linking Palestine from Iraq and Afghanistan
=======================================================
By Ibrahim Alloush


It is only everyday that one encounters in the Western media Arab and
Islamic material that purposely seeks to delude and mystify more than
it seeks to inform or educate.

But the article titled "A Socialism of Fools" which appeared in the
British Guardian on October 17, 2001, exhibits, in addition to the
regular dose of Western intelligence services propaganda, a certain
measure of sincere ignorance, which could take in many people with the
pseudo-logic of its playful shallowness.

The writer, Jonathan Freeland, claims that Arabs and Muslims, across
the area that extends from Morocco to Pakistan, care too much about the
question of Palestine. But then he insists that "sentiment" has created
an UNWARRANTED, even a somewhat irrational, LINKAGE between their other
issues and Palestine.  He states rather idiotically:

"But for Muslims around the world to see this dispute as the central
question in their lives makes no sense at all. An Israeli withdrawal
from Gaza is essential for the dispossessed of Gaza - but how, exactly,
will it transform the life of an unemployed youth in Morocco? A
Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem is a fair goal for the
Palestinians - but how, precisely, will it rescue Pakistan from
military dictatorship? A new border between Israel and Palestine is
essential for those two nations, but how will it stop the Muslims of
Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya, Egypt and Saudi Arabia living under brutal,
repressive regimes? It will not."

But of course!  Wouldn't life be so much easier for the U.S.
government, Britain, and the Zionists if Arabs and Muslims did not LINK
Palestine to their other issues?!  Wouldn't the siege on Iraq, the
aggression on Afghanistan, and even the occupation of Palestine become
so much easier?!

It is obvious then that the interest of the ruling elites in the West
lies in DE-LINKING Palestine from other Arab and Islamic issues, and
vice versa, where these issues are in fact  inextricably linked to each
other by the tight bonds of HISTORY, ECONOMICS, GEO-POLITICS, and
CULTURE.

But let's analyze first the origin of the Arab and Islamic "sentiment"
towards Palestine:

Suppose the Russians decided to take over New York, would Americans
from the West Coast be blamed if they harbored a special "sentiment"
for occupied American lands or if they decided to launch guerilla
attacks against the hypothetical Russian army of occupation?!  Of
course not.. because they'd be defending their own country and nation.

Similarly, Palestine is deemed by most Arabs and Muslims an Arab and a
Muslim land under occupation.  Jonathan Freeland, on the other hand,
ignores these NATIONAL AND RELIGIOUS TIES completely.  In fact, for
this purpose it does not matter if an Arab is employed or unemployed,
and whether s/he lives under an oppressive regime or not.  For s/he
would still feel obligated to take a moral stand on the occupation of
ARAB Palestine nonetheless.  He would, furthermore, tend to evaluate
the regime s/he lives under in terms of where it REALLY stands on the
occupation of Palestine.  So there Arabs feel very frustrated that
their regimes and rulers befriend the invader or the supporters of the
invader, i.e., the governments of the U.S. and the U.K., and join
military coalitions with them against other Arab and Muslim peoples,
instead of liberating Palestine.  AND THAT IS PRECISELY THE SOURCE OF
THE POPULARITY OF THOSE WHO CHAMPION THE CAUSE OF PALESTINE ON THE ARAB
"STREET".

Moreover, the insistence that there should NOT be a linkage between
Palestine and other Arab or Islamic issues hides a sinister colonial
proclivity.  When the British and French divided the Arab World into
mini-states, for example [but not only] under the Syckes-Picot Treaty
of 1916, they were attempting to manufacture independent nations out of
what was essentially Arab provinces: Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan,
etc... Thus, the very insistence that Palestine is something totally
different from these provinces, and that each of them is totally
different from the other, elicits memories of colonialism in and of
itself, very offensive memories indeed.

Imagine, for example, if someone severs London from England and gives
it to the Arabs, then calls the English irrational if they admire
leaders who call for the liberation of London, especially if the
Arab-apppointed rulers of other English counties are viewed as totally
subservient to Arab colonialism or neo-colonialism.  Would that make
any sense?!

But that is just the very tip of the ice burg. Take history:  it was
the division of the Arab World that made giving Palestine to Jewish
invaders possible.  For example, the Balfore Declaration came on
November 2, 1917, where the Syckes-Picot Treaty came in 1916.  In other
words, it was only by colonial force that Palestine was SEVERED from
the Arab World.  Westerners may feel free to pretend that they have
destroyed all national and religious ties in the Arab or Islamic Worlds
with the lines they have drawn on the map, and the regimes they have
installed within these lines, but that does not make these ties
history, as is evident on the Arab "street".

But why was Palestine severed from the Arab World?  Look at
geo-politics.  Another area Jonathan Freeland has chosen to ignore.
British plans to create "an alien demographic barrier" in Palestine
emerged in the 1840's after Muhammad Ali Pasha, a former ruler of
Egypt, forayed into Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, and what is now Saudi
Arabia, in an attempt to create a huge Arab empire for himself.  Such a
superpower could have posed a strategic threat to British colonial
designs elsewhere in the Third World.  Thus, it became imperative for
colonialism to un-Arabize Palestine to separate the Asian from the
African wings of the Arab World so as to contain the centers of
regional power in Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and what is now Saudi Arabia.
This means Israel is there primarily against those centers of
regional power [another linkage].  The suffering of Palestinians is
only an unintentional by-product.  This also means that whether there
is a Palestinian state or not, the ARAB-Zionist conflict will NOT end
even if there are no more Palestinians left on the face of the earth.

To prove this point on the presence of a historical linkage between the
Arab-Zionist conflict, on one hand, and the struggle to achieve Arab
unity on the other, Viscount Palmerston, a former prime minister of
Britain, wrote to his ambassador in Istanbul, Turkey, upon the failure
to reunite the Arab World by Muhammad Ali Pasha, a ruler of Egypt from
the first half of the 19th century, due to colonial and British
intervention:

"The return of the Jewish people to Palestine, represents a bulwark
against any evil designs prepared by Muhammad Ali or whoever succeeds
him". (British Foreign Ministry document dated 8/11/1940, JB 78-380
No.134) [cited by Dr. Abdul Wahhab al Kayyali in his book The Modern
History of Palestine].

Upon the division of the Arab Homeland in 1916 by Syckes and Picot, the
British and French foreign ministers then, oil had not been discovered
yet in Arab lands.  Thus the division ensured that any single Arab
state on its own would not be able to pose a serious threat to the
interests of colonial powers in the region. Each Arab state taken by
itself is left lacking either in manpower, capital, water, agricultural
land, or some combination of these.  Needless to say what is at stake
here is the neo-colonial need to thwart the emergence of a competing
Arab and Islamic bloc in such a central part of the world.  THIS
GEO-POLITICAL IMPERATIVE PERSISTS TODAY.  And it can only be achieved
by de-linking Palestine from its natural environment, and by de-linking
each part of that environment from the other.

Now throw in the oil, oil revenues, the Suez Canal, large consumer
markets, and the past and present ECONOMIC COLONIAL NEED TO DOMINATE
ALL THESE RESOURCES by force if need be, and what you would end up with
is a three-pronged oppression against the Arab people:

1)	The Zionist occupation in Palestine as an extension of Western
colonialism,
2)	Direct and indirect bases of Western colonialism across the Arab and
Islamic Worlds, whether military, political, economic, or cultural,
3)	Arab regimes that are friendly to colonialism but extremely
unfriendly to their people.

In fact, the latter are the reason why so many Arabs have not yet
managed to eat so few Zionists alive yet.  So don't kid yourself: had
there been real democracy in the Arab World, the more anti-Zionist
candidates would win, and the doors of proverbial hell would open
across every inch of borders with "Israel".  It is thus precisely Arab
dictatorships that are keeping Zionist and Western colonialism alive in
the Arab World, and that is why EVEN DEMOCRACY IN THE ARAB WORLD IS
SOMEHOW LINKED TO THE LIBERATION OF PALESTINE.  As for unemployment,
well, for one thing, hundreds of billions of dollars of Arab wealth
remain in Western banks where they have been deposited by the
colonial-friendly Arab dictatorships, instead of being invested back in
Arab economies where they can solve the Arab unemployment problem among
other things.  For another thing, attempts at independent development
have been subject to violent sieges by the West, as for example in the
case of Iraq.

Therefore, it is only natural that sincere calls for resisting
imperialism and Zionism would get this popular in the Arab and Islamic
Worlds to the continued dismay of the governments of the U.S. and the
U.K.

I am not saying of course that Arabs and Muslims don't need to work
hard to improve themselves.  I am saying that to improve themselves,
they need to work hard at defeating Zionism and imperialism.  Such
self-improvement under the present circumstances can only mean
achieving a minimum threshold in three areas:

1)	political education
2)	political organization
3)	THE ARMED STRUGGLE (as in South Lebanon).

The rest are secondary issues, and since this is not about Arab
strategies for self-emancipation, I am going to leave it at that.

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