American Rottweiler

The main product of this war is hatred. The pictures of death and destructionin Lebanon entered every Arab home, indeed every Muslim home, from Indonesia toMorocco, from Yemen to the Muslim ghettos in London and Berlin. Not for an hour,not for a day, but for 33 successive days - day after day, hour after hour. Themangled bodies of babies, the women weeping over the ruins of their homes,Israeli children writing "greetings" on shells about to be fired atvillages, Ehud Olmert blabbering about "the most moral army in theworld" while the screen showed a heap of bodies.

Israelis ignored these sights, indeed they were scarcely shown on our TV. Ofcourse, we could see them on Aljazeera and some Western channels, but Israeliswere much too busy with the damage wrought in our Northern towns. Feelings ofpity and empathy for non-Jews have been blunted here a long time ago.

But it is a terrible mistake to ignore this result of the war. It is far moreimportant than the stationing of a few thousand European troops along ourborder, with the kind consent of Hizbullah. It may still be botheringgenerations of Israelis, when the names Olmert and Halutz have long beenforgotten, and when even Nasrallah no longer remember the name Amir Peretz.

In order for the significance of Assad's words tobecome clear, they have to be viewed in a historical context.

The whole Zionist enterprise has been compared to the transplantation of anorgan into the body of a human being. The natural immunity system rises upagainst the foreign implant, the body mobilizes all its power to reject it. Thedoctors use a heavy dosage of medicines in order to overcome the rejection. Thatcan go on for a long time, sometimes until the eventual death of the bodyitself, including the transplant.

(Of course, this analogy, like any other, should be treated cautiously. Ananalogy can help in understanding things, but no more than that.)

The Zionist movement has planted a foreign body in this country, which wasthen a part of the Arab-Muslim space. The inhabitants of the country, and theentire Arab region, rejected the Zionist entity. Meanwhile, the Jewishsettlement has taken roots and become an authentic new nation rooted in thecountry. Its defensive power against the rejection has grown. This struggle hasbeen going on for 125 years, becoming more violent from generation togeneration. The last war was yet another episode.

What is our historic objective in this confrontation?

A fool will say: to stand up to the rejection with a growing dosage ofmedicaments, provided by America and World Jewry. The greatest fools will add:There is no solution. This situation will last forever. There is nothing to bedone about it but to defend ourselves in war after war after war. And the nextwar is already knocking on the door.

The wise will say: our objective is to cause the body to accept thetransplant as one of its organs, so that the immune system will no longer treatus as an enemy that must be removed at any price. And if this is the aim, itmust become the main axis of our efforts. Meaning: each of our actions must bejudged according to a simple criterion: does it serve this aim or obstruct it?

According to this criterion, the Second Lebanon War was a disaster.

Fifty nine years ago, two months before the outbreak ofour War of Independence, I published a booklet entitled "War or Peace inthe Semitic Region". Its opening words were:

"When our Zionist fathers decided to set up a 'safe haven' in Palestine,they had a choice between two ways:

"They could appear in West Asia as a European conqueror, who seeshimself as a bridge-head of the 'white' race and a master of the 'natives', likethe Spanish Conquistadores and the Anglo-Saxon colonists in America. That iswhat the Crusaders did in Palestine.

"The second way was to consider themselves as an Asian nation returningto its home - a nation that sees itself as an heir to the political and culturalheritage of the Semitic race, and which is prepared to join the peoples of theSemitic region in their war of liberation from European exploitation."

As is well known, the State of Israel, which was established a few monthslater, chose the first way. It gave its hand to colonial France, tried to helpBritain to return to the Suez Canal and, since 1967, has become the littlesister of the United States.

That was not inevitable. On the contrary, in the course of years there havebeen a growing number of indications that the immune system of the Arab-Muslimbody is starting to incorporate the transplant - as a human body accepts theorgan of a close relative - and is ready to accept us. Such an indication wasthe visit of Anwar Sadat to Jerusalem. Such was the peace treaty signed with usby King Hussein, a descendent of the Prophet. And, most importantly, thehistoric decision of Yasser Arafat, the leader of the Palestinian people, tomake peace with Israel.

But after every huge step forward, there came an Israeli step backward. It isas if the transplant rejects the body's acceptance of it. As if it has become soaccustomed to being rejected, that it does all it can to induce the body toreject it even more.

It is against this background that one should weigh the words spoken by AssadJr., a member of the new Arab generation, at the end of the recent war.

After every single one of the war aims put forward byour government had evaporated, one after the other, another reason was broughtup: this war was a part of the "clash of civilizations", the greatcampaign of the Western world and its lofty values against the barbariandarkness of the Islamic world.

That reminds one, of course, of the words written 110 years ago by the fatherof modern Zionism, Theodor Herzl, in the founding document of the Zionistmovement: "In Palestine…we shall constitute for Europe a part of the wallagainst Asia, and serve as the vanguard of civilization against barbarism."Without knowing, Olmert almost repeated this formula in his justification of hiswar, in order to please President Bush.

It happens from time to time in the United States that somebody invents anempty but easily digested slogan, which then dominates the public discourse forsome time. It seems that the more stupid the slogan is, the better its chancesof becoming the guiding light for academia and the media - until another sloganappears and supersedes it. The latest example is the slogan "Clash ofCivilizations", coined by Samuel P. Huntington in 1993 (taking over fromthe "End of History").

What clash of ideas is there between Muslim Indonesia and Christian Chile?What eternal struggle between Poland and Morocco? What is it that unifiesMalaysia and Kosovo, two Muslim nations? Or two Christian nations like Swedenand Ethiopia?

In what way are the ideas of the West more sublime than those of the East?The Jews that fled the flames of the auto-da-fe of the Christian Inquisition inSpain were received with open arms by the Muslim Ottoman Empire. The mostcultured of European nations democratically elected Adolf Hitler as its leaderand perpetrated the Holocaust, without the Pope raising his voice in protest.

In what way are the spiritual values of the United States, today's Empire ofthe West, superior to those of India and China, the rising stars of the East?Huntington himself was compelled to admit: "The West won the world not bythe superiority of its ideas or values or religion, but rather by itssuperiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact,non-Westerners never do." In the West, too, women won the vote only in the20th century, and slavery was abolished there only in the second half of the19th. And in the leading nation of the West, fundamentalism is now also raisingits head.

What interest, for goodness sake, have we in volunteering to be a politicaland military vanguard of the West in this imagined clash?

The truth is, of course, that this entire story of theclash of civilizations is nothing but an ideological cover for something thathas no connection with ideas and values: the determination of the United Statesto dominate the world's resources, and especially oil.

The Second Lebanon War is considered by many as a "War by Proxy".That's to say: Hizbullah is the Dobermann of Iran, we are the Rottweiler ofAmerica. Hizbullah gets money, rockets and support from the Islamic Republic, weget money, cluster bombs and support from the United States of America.

That is certainly exaggerated. Hizbullah is an authentic Lebanese movement,deeply rooted in the Shiite community. The Israeli government has its owninterests (the occupied territories) that do not depend on America. But there isno doubt that there is much truth in the argument that this was also a war bysubstitutes.

The US is fighting against Iran, because Iran has a key role in the regionwhere the most important oil reserves in the world are located. Not only doesIran itself sit on huge oil deposits, but through its revolutionary Islamicideology it also menaces American control over the near-by oil countries. Thedeclining resource oil becomes more and more essential in the modern economy. Hewho controls the oil controls the world.

The US would viciously attack Iran even it were peopled with pigmies devotedto the religion of the Dalai Lama. There is a shocking similarity between GeorgeW. Bush and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, The one has personal conversations with Jesus,the other has a line to Allah. But the name of the game is domination.

What interest do we have to get involved in this struggle? What interest dowe have in being regarded - accurately - as the servants of the greatest enemyof the Muslim world in general and the Arab world in particular?

We want to live here in 100 years, in 500 years. Our most basic nationalinterests demand that we extend our hands to the Arab nations that accept us,and act together with them for the rehabilitation of this region. That was true59 years ago, and that will be true 59 years hence.

Little politicians like Olmert, Peretz and Halutz are unable to think inthese terms. They can hardly see as far as the end of their noses. But where arethe intellectuals, who should be more far-sighted?

Bashar al-Assad may not be one of the world's Great Thinkers. But his remarkshould certainly give us pause for thought.