Israel Palestine Infos
Uri Avnery
August 11, 2012
Bloody Spring
ON A flight to
On the way, the plane made a stop in
Three young Arabs took seats in the row behind me, and I somehow managed to
introduce myself and start a conversation with them. I learned that they were
Syrians. I mentioned the recent breakup of the United Arab Republic, the union
of
My three neighbors were very happy about the split. One of them drew a passport
from his bag and passed it to me. It was a shiny new document, issued by
There could be no mistake about the immense pride with which this young Syrian
showed me – an Israeli enemy – this evidence of
ONE OF the books which had a profound impact on me in my youth was Phillip
Hitti’s “A History of
Hitti, a Maronite Christian from what is now Lebanon, was educated in Ottoman
Beirut and emigrated to the US, where he became the father of modern Arab
studies.
His ground-breaking book was based on
Hitti recounted the history of this country from the earliest prehistoric times
to the (then) present, layer upon layer, including every period and every
region, such as Biblical
The book changed my own geographical and cultural view of our place in the
world. Even before the State of
(This would have enraged Hitti, who denied that there was a country called
FROM HITTI I learned for the first time about the many ethnic-religious groups
of today’s
The European imperialist powers, Britain and France, which broke up the
all-inclusive Ottoman Empire after World War I, had scant respect for the
diversity of their new acquisitions. However, they both adopted the principle of
“divide et impera”. The French excelled in it.
Faced with a fierce nationalist opposition and an armed uprising led by the
Druze, they carved up the rump
Their most far-reaching venture, the division between a Christian-dominated
“Greater
WHEN THE French were finally kicked out of the region at the end of World War
II, the question was whether and how
In both there was an inbuilt contradiction between the unifying nationalism and
the dividing ethnic/religious tendency. They adopted two different solutions.
In
(This is partly an inheritance from the Byzantine and Ottoman empires, but
without an emperor or a sultan. It exists in
The Lebanese system is a negation of “one person – one vote” democracy, but it
has survived a vicious civil war, several massacres, a number of Israeli
invasions and a shift of the Shiites from last to first place. It is more robust
than might have been supposed.
The Syrian solution was very different - dictatorship. A series of strongmen
followed each other, until the al-Assad dynasty took over. Its surprising
longevity arises from the fact that many Syrians of all communities seem to have
preferred even a brutal tyrant to the breakup of the state, chaos and civil war.
NO MORE, it seems. The Syrian Spring is an offspring of the Arab Spring, but
under very different conditions.
The unity of
If the Monster of
All over the West, and in
This is quite possible. One of the few options left to Bashar al-Assad is to
gather the Alawis in his army and retreat to the Alawi redoubt in the North-West
of the country, cutting it off from the rest of
This would lead to much bloodshed. The Alawis would certainly drive out all the
Sunnis from their region, and the Sunnis would drive the Alawis out of all the
other regions. It could resemble the horrible events in
The Druze in the south of
Possible, but certainly not inevitable. It would be a supreme test of Syrian
nationalism. Does it exist? How strong is it? Strong enough to overcome the
separatism of the communities?
I would not dare to prophesy. I can only hope. I hope that the diverse elements
of the Syrian opposition unite enough to win the present brutal civil war and
create a new
Unlike most Israeli commentators, I am not afraid of the “Islamization” of
FOR ME, one riddle remains. I see on the internet that many well-meaning people
around the world, especially on the left, support Bashar.
This is a phenomenon that repeats itself. There seems to be a kind of leftist
monsterphilia around. The same people who embraced Slobodan Milošević, Hosni
Mubarak and Moammar Qaddafi now embrace Bashar al-Assad, again loudly protesting
against American imperialist designs against this public benefactor.
Frankly, this seems to me a bit looney. True, Great Power politics do influence
what’s happening in
I HOPE with all my heart that a free, unified, democratic
In sha Allah, if God wills it, as our neighbors would put it.