The Arab
condition 
Why do the Arabs never
pool their resources to fight for the causes which
officially, at least, they support. And how much further
can we sink, asks Edward Said
My impression is that
many Arabs today feel that what has been taking place in
Iraq over the last two months is little short of a
catastrophe. True, Saddam Hussein's regime was a
despicable one in every way and it deserved to be
removed. Also true is the sense of anger many feel at how
outlandishly cruel and despotic that regime was, and how
dreadful has been the suffering of Iraq's people. There
seems little doubt that far too many other governments
and individuals connived to keep Saddam Hussein in power,
looking the other way as they went about their business
as usual. Nevertheless, the only thing that gave the US
license to bomb the country and destroy its government
was neither a moral right nor a rational argument but
sheer military power. Having for years supported
Ba'athist Iraq and Saddam Hussein himself, the US and
Britain arrogated to themselves the right to negate their
own complicity in his despotism, and then to state that
they were liberating Iraq from his hated tyranny. And
what now seems to be emerging in the country both during
and after the illegal Anglo-American war against the
people and civilisation that is the essence of Iraq
represents a very grave threat to the Arab people as a
whole.
It is of the utmost
importance that we recall in the first instance that,
despite their many divisions and disputes, the Arabs are
in fact a people, not a collection of random countries
passively available for outside intervention and rule.
There is a clear line of imperial continuity that begins
with Ottoman rule over the Arabs in the 16th century
until our own time. After the Ottomans in World War One
came the British and the French, and after them, in the
period following World War Two, came America and Israel.
One of the most insidiously influential strands of
thought in recent American and Israeli Orientalism, and
evident in American and Israeli policy since the late
1940s, is a virulent, extremely deep-seated hostility to
Arab nationalism and a political will to oppose and fight
it in every possible way. The basic premise of Arab
nationalism in the broad sense is that, with all their
diversity and pluralism of substance and style, the
people whose language and culture are Arab and Muslim
(call them the Arab-speaking peoples, as Albert Hourani
did in his last book) constitute a nation and not just a
collection of states scattered between North Africa and
the western boundaries of Iran. Any independent
articulation of that premise was openly attacked, as in
the 1956 Suez War, the French colonial war against
Algeria, the Israeli wars of occupation and
dispossession, and the campaign against Iraq, a war the
stated purpose of which was to topple a specific regime
but the real goal of which was the devastation of the
most powerful Arab country. And just as the French,
British, Israeli and American campaign against
Abdel-Nasser was designed to bring down a force that
openly stated as its ambition the unification of the
Arabs into a powerful independent political force, the
American goal today is to redraw the map of the Arab
world to suit American, and not Arab, interests. US
policy thrives on Arab fragmentation, collective
inaction, and military and economic weakness.
One would have to be
foolish to argue that the nationalism and doctrinaire
separateness of individual Arab states, whether the state
is Egypt, Syria, Kuwait or Jordan, is a better thing, a
more useful political actuality than some scheme of
inter-Arab cooperation in economic, political and
cultural spheres. Certainly I see no need for total
integration, but any form of useful cooperation and
planning would be better than the disgraceful summits
that have disfigured our national life, say, during the
Iraq crisis. Every Arab asks the question, as does every
foreigner: why do the Arabs never pool their resources to
fight for the causes which officially, at least, they
claim to support, and which, in the case of the
Palestinians, their people actively, indeed passionately
believe in?
I will not spend time
arguing that everything that has been done to promote
Arab nationalism can be excused for its abuses, its
short-sightedness, its wastefulness, repression and
folly. The record is not a good one. But I do want to
state categorically that, since the early 20th century,
the Arabs have never been able to achieve their
collective independence as a whole or in part exactly
because of the designs on the strategic and cultural
importance of their lands by outside powers. Today, no
Arab state is free to dispose of its resources as it
wishes, nor to take positions that represent that
individual state's interests, especially if those
interests seem to threaten US policies. In the more than
50 years since America assumed world dominance, and more
so after the end of the Cold War, it has run its Middle
Eastern policy based on two principles, and two
principles alone: the defence of Israel and the free flow
of Arab oil, both of which involved direct opposition to
Arab nationalism. In all significant ways, with few
exceptions, American policy has been contemptuous of and
openly hostile to the aspirations of the Arab people,
although with surprising success since Nasser's demise it
has had few challengers among the Arab rulers who have
gone along with everything required of them.
During periods of the
most extreme pressure on one or other of them (e.g. the
Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, or the sanctions
against Iraq that were designed to weaken the people and
the state as a whole, the bombings of Libya and Sudan,
the threats against Syria, the pressure on Saudi Arabia),
the collective weakness has been little short of
stunning. Neither their enormous collective economic
power nor the will of their people has moved the Arab
states to even the slightest gesture of defiance. The
imperial policy of divide and rule has reigned supreme,
since each government seems to fear the possibility that
it might damage its bilateral relationship with America.
That consideration has taken precedence over any
contingency, no matter how urgent. Some countries rely on
American economic aid, others on American military
protection. All, however, have decided that they do not
trust each other any more than they care strongly for the
welfare of their own people (which is to say they care
very little), preferring the hauteur and contempt of the
Americans who have gotten progressively worse in their
dealings with the Arab states as the only superpower's
arrogance has developed over time. Indeed, it is
remarkable that the Arab countries have fought each other
far more readily than they have the real aggressors from
the outside.
The result today, after
the invasion of Iraq, is an Arab nation that is badly
demoralised, crushed and beaten down, less able to do
anything except acquiesce in announced American plans to
redraw the Middle East map to suit American and obviously
Israeli interests. Even this extraordinarily grandiose
scheme has yet to receive the vaguest collective answer
from Arab states who seem to be hanging around waiting
for something new to happen as Bush, Rumsfeld, Powell and
the others lurch from threat to plan to visit to snub to
bombing to unilateral announcement. What makes the whole
business especially galling is that whereas the Arabs
have totally accepted the American (or Quartet) roadmap
that seems to have emerged from George Bush's waking
dream, the Israelis have coolly withheld any such
acceptance. How does it feel for a Palestinian to watch a
second-rank leader like Abu Mazen, who has always been
Arafat's faithful subordinate, embrace Colin Powell and
the Americans when it is clear to the youngest child that
the roadmap is designed a) to stimulate a Palestinian
civil war and b) to offer Palestinian compliance with
Israeli-American demands for "reform" in return
for nothing much at all. How much further can we sink?
And as for American
plans in Iraq, it is now absolutely clear that what is
going to happen is nothing less than an old-fashioned
colonial occupation rather like Israel's since 1967. The
idea of bringing in American-style democracy to Iraq
means basically aligning the country with US policy, i.e.
a peace treaty with Israel, oil markets for American
profit, and civil order kept to a minimum that neither
permits real opposition nor real institution building.
Perhaps even the idea is to turn Iraq into civil war
Lebanon. I am not certain. But take one small example of
the kind of planning that is being undertaken. It was
recently announced in the US press that a 32-year-old
assistant professor of law, Noah Feldman, at New York
University, would be responsible for producing a new
Iraqi constitution. It was mentioned in all the media
accounts of this major appointment that Feldman was an
extraordinarily brilliant expert in Islamic law, had
studied Arabic since he was 15, and grew up as an
Orthodox Jew. But he has never practiced law in the Arab
world, never been to Iraq, and seems to have no real
practical background in the problems of post-war Iraq.
What an open-faced snub not only to Iraq itself, but also
to the legions of Arab and Muslim legal minds who could
have done a perfectly acceptable job in the service of
Iraq's future. But no, America wants it done by a fresh
young fellow, so as to be able to say, "we have
given Iraq its new democracy". The contempt is thick
enough to cut with a knife.
The seeming
powerlessness of the Arabs in the face of all this is
what is so discouraging, and not only because no real
effort has been expended on fashioning a collective
response to it. To someone who reflects on the situation
from the outside as I do, it is amazing that in this
moment of crisis there has been no evidence of any sort
of appeal from the rulers to their people for support in
what needs to be seen as a collective national threat.
American military planners have made no secret of the
fact that what they plan is radical change for the Arab
world, a change that they can impose by force of arms and
because there is little that opposes them. Moreover, the
idea behind the effort seems to be nothing less than
destroying the underlying unity of the Arab people once
and for all, changing the bases of their lives and
aspirations irremediably.
To such a display of
power I would have thought that an unprecedented alliance
between Arab rulers and people represented the only
possible deterrence. But that, clearly, would require an
undertaking by every Arab government to open its society
to its people, bring them in so to speak, remove all the
repressive security measures in order to provide an
organised opposition to the new imperialism. A people
coerced into war, or a people silenced and repressed will
never rise to such an occasion. What we must have are
Arab societies released finally from their self-imposed
state of siege between ruler and ruled. Why not instead
welcome democracy in the defence of freedom and self-
determination? Why not say, we want each and every
citizen willing to be mobilised in a common front against
a common enemy? We need every intellectual and every
political force to pull together with us against the
imperial scheme to redesign our lives without our
consent. Why must resistance be left to extremism and
desperate suicide bombers?
As a digression, I might
mention here that when I read last year's United Nations
Human Development Report on the Arab World, I was struck
by how little appreciation there was in it for
imperialist intervention in the Arab world, and how deep
and long-standing its effect has been. I certainly don't
think that all our problems come from the outside, but I
wouldn't want to say that all our problems were of our
own making. Historical context and the problems of
political fragmentation play a very great role, which the
Report itself pays little attention to. The absence of
democracy is partially the result of alliances made
between Western powers on the one hand, and minority
ruling regimes or parties on the other, not because the
Arabs have no interest in democracy but because democracy
has been seen as a threat by several actors in the drama.
Besides, why adopt the American formula for democracy
(usually a euphemism for the free market and little
attention paid to human entitlement and social services)
as the only one? This is a subject that needs
considerably more debate than I have time for here. So
let me return to my main point.
Consider how much more
effective today the Palestinian position might have been
under the US-Israeli onslaught had there been a common
show of unity instead of an unseemly scramble for
positions on the delegation to see Colin Powell. I have
not understood over the years why it is that Palestinian
leaders have been unable to develop a common unified
strategy for opposing the occupation and not getting
diverted into one or another Mitchell, Tenet, or Quartet
plan. Why not say to all Palestinians, we face one enemy
whose design on our lands and lives is well-known and
must be fought by us all together? The root problem
everywhere, and not just in Palestine, is the fundamental
rift between ruler and ruled that is one of the distorted
offshoots of imperialism, this basic fear of democratic
participation, as if too much freedom might lose the
governing colonial elite some favour with the imperial
authority. The result, of course, is not only the absence
of real mobilisation of everyone in the common struggle,
but the perpetuation of fragmentation and petty
factionalism. As things now stand, there are too many
uninvolved, non- participating Arab citizens in the world
today.
Whether they want to or
not, the Arab people today face a wholesale attack on
their future by an imperial power, America, that acts in
concert with Israel, to pacify, subdue, and finally
reduce us to a bunch of warring fiefdoms whose first
loyalty is not to their people but to the great
superpower (and its local surrogate) itself. Not to
understand that this is the conflict that will shape our
area for decades to come is willingly to blind oneself.
What is now needed is a breaking of the iron bands that
tie Arab societies into sullen knots of disaffected
people, insecure leaders, and alienated intellectuals.
This is an unprecedented crisis. Unprecedented means are
therefore required to confront it. The first step then is
to realise the scope of the problem, and then go on to
overcome what reduces us to helpless rage and
marginalised reaction, a condition by no means to be
accepted willingly. The alternative to such an
unattractive condition promises a great deal more hope.
© Copyright Al-Ahram Weekly. All rights reserved
The President, The
Dean and the Historiography of 1948 Palestine.
by Professor Ilan PappeMay 2003 Haifa
The Conference.
Three weeks ago, my colleague in the University of Haifa,
Dr. Asa'd Gahnim of the department of  political science suggested
convening a conference on the 1948 historiography. We
agreed to present in the conference the recent
developments in both the Israeli and Palestinian
historiography on the1948 war and Nakbah. He and Salman
Natur were asked to introduce the recent critical trends
in the Palestinian side (with particular stress on works
which deconstruct the roll of the traditional leadership
and the Arab regimes in the> 1948 war). In the second
half of the day we wanted Udi Adiv, Teddy Katz and myself
to present an updated picture of the historiographical
debates on the 1948 war within the scholarly community in
Israel. I asked my own division, the International
Relations division, to host the meeting. The head of the
division, Dr. Michael Gross agreed.
The Dean of the Faculty
of Social Sciences
The conference was published in the usual sites as is
common in the campus. Upon learning of the event,
Professor Aryeh Ratner, the Dean of Social Sciences,
phoned the head of the division and later me. He ordered
us - by direct instructions from the Rector and the
President of the university -
to cancel the conference. He clarified that he will not
allow a conference which included Udi Adiv.
Adiv in the early 1970s was accused and found guilty for
spying for the Syrians and sat in jail for that
allegation. After his release, in the early 1980s, he
finished a Ph. D. thesis in the University of London,
under the supervision of Professor Sami Zubadia, one of
the world leading scholars on the Middle East. His thesis
was about the Zionist historiography and particularly on
the 1948 historiography . He was then appointed as a
lecturer in the Open University of Israel, a position he
holds until today.
I clarified all these details to Ratner. He told me this
is of no interest and that the conference will not take
place. He also explained he would send an official letter
claiming that I have not filled correctly the forms
needed for the convening of a conference. The same
dichotomy between what would be officially written in the
letters and the real reasons for the cancellation was
explained to Dr. Gross (on the phone) I asked what
would happen if I would 'properly' refill the forms and
was told that this would not change the decision, as its
source was ideological and not administrative. He also
told us that this was not his own policy, but that of the
president of Haifa University, Professor Yehuda Hayut.
In the university codex there is indeed reference for the
procedures of conference convention. Like many other
procedures it has never been implemented in the
university ever since its foundation in the early 1970s.
After consulting some people who were experts on the
codex, it was suggested to
me that if the conference is a departmental symposium
there is no need for such a procedure to take place. So
the conference was re-defined as a departmental
symposium. A room was ordered, a day was set, and
invitations sent.
The President of the
University
On May 22, at 14:00, the lectures and the audience came
to hall 715 in the university. The doors were locked. In
the corridor stood the chief of security forces in the
university and ten of his henchmen, all armed with
pistols and walki-talkies. I was pushed into a side room
by the chief and his lieutenant and handed a personal
letter from the president, Yehuda Hayut. This was done in
front of my wife and my colleagues, who watched
helplessly the macabre scene.
The letter said that my actions were a severe breach of
the university codex and hence the room was blocked and
the event cancelled. The chief explained to me that I
would not be allowed to conduct the event in any other
part of the campus. Outside the corridor, my wife heard
two other lieutenants of the chief informing the
president in their communication network ,"we caught
him'.
They also said to each other, "high time: they
should do the same to all the leftist lectures in the
university".
The Historiography
The participants and myself went to a cafeteria. The
chief explained to me that if we talk sitting, but not
standing, he would not regard it as a conference. We
followed the orders and conducted what to my mind was one
of the best critical symposiums on the 1948
historiography.
The University
Spokesperson:
The local newspaper in Haifa, Kol Bo, under the headline
"Silencing the Voices" reported the event. The
university spokesperson responded: the conference was not
up to academic standards of Haifa university (indeed it
was not).
Two reports
In the internal network of the university there were only
two references to the event: One by Dr. Yuval Yunai from
the Department of Sociology he wrote:
Yuval (speaking on his behalf and not necessarily
reflecting the feelings of all Forum Smol members)
It's also a shame that on the same day that we made this
-- may I say -- pioneering step, the university
management banned another event from taking place. The
dept. of international relations wanted to discuss the
historiography of 1948, but my friend and colleague, the
Dean of the my faculty, decided to use a doubtful
prerogative and to ban the participation of Dr. Udi Adiv,
a sociologist who wrote on the 1948 war, because of the
sins he committed many years ago and for which he paid
abundantly in many years of incarceration. Many people
didn't like the composition of that event and its
apparent challenge to the decision about Teddy Katz' MA
thesis (Katz himself was supposed to talk too). Such
objection is legitimate, but preventing the event by an
instruction from above is against the academic spirit and
freedom, even if Deans have this authority (which is also
legally questionable). In any case, it's against the
necessity to compromise and to heal the wounds of
conflicts and hostilities.
While the circle of violence runs amok around us, can't
we, here, in our campus with its unique composition, show
the citizens of Israel another way of living together,
not side by side, but really together?
.
Professor Micha Leshem from the Department of Psychology
wrote:
Can anyone explain why on earth the University found fit
to ban a seminar of Faculty and students and invited
speakers? I understand the doors of the meeting room were
locked, and security personnel on hand in great numbers
to accompany the participants away.
Such an action is inexcusable in a University, and surely
requires a bold and convincing explanation from our
University authorities. I fear that the good name of our
university will again be questioned by our colleagues and
the media - might it not have been wiser to let the
meeting take place and its organizers take responsibility
for its consequences, if any?
How parochial can the University of Haifa be? I suppose
the next step will be for the Seminar to take place in
one of our less prejudicial and more Academically
orientated sister institutions. Either way we are left
with mud on our faces.
Micah
Conclusions:
1. This is not an isolated event. It is part of a daily
reality in the campus that reflects and represents the
overall demise of basic civic and human rights in Israel.
The shooting of journalists and the assassination of
human rights activists in the West Bank on the one hand,
and the reign of terror and
intimidation in the campus, on the other, are part and
parcel of the same phenomena.
2. This episode illustrates forcefully why the
boycott of Israeli academia abroad is justified, not just
as part of the overall pressure on the Jewish state to
end its brutal occupation, but also as a warning to the
scholarly community in Israel that its protracted moral
cowardice has a price tag on it.
As long as this academia goes on exercising a reign of
intimidation and tyranny in its own campuses, and is
silent about the destruction of academic life in the
occupied territories, it can not be part of the
enlightened and progressive world, to which it wants
eagerly to belong.
3. My colleagues who still find it difficult to support
or show solidarity, for some reasons, fail to learn the
historical lessons of the past. Today it is me, tomorrow
it is them. Many of them come from families who
experienced the same incremental process of silencing in
Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Spain and the military
regimes of Latin America. They still live in
self-denial, believing it will never happen to them.
As in the past, I ask you to express your indignation and
protest and react in any way you deem appropriate, not
for my sake, but for the sake of all those who are
victimized by the present trends and ideologies in the
state of Israel: the Palestinians under occupation, the
minority within the country, and the few dissenting
voices inside the Jewish society. Such a voice, in the
end of the day, will be a valuable contribution to peace
and reconciliation in the Middle
East.
Ilan Pappe
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