By Ismail Ibrahim Nawwab
Let me state at the outset that I write this as a friend and supporter of those who seek to resolve differences between nations peacefully. I count numberless millions of Europeans, Americans and Asians in this group and salute their efforts to make this a better world for all. Also I write this as an opponent of the policies of successive US governments which over many decades have demonstrated an insatiable greed for seizing the resources of other nations, worked to topple several democratically elected
governments, shown callous indifference to human life and rights and perpetrated crimes against humanity in various parts of the globe, including Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Latin America, Afghanistan, and, lastly, Iraq -- to mention a few examples.
I will admit that some of what will be said here is certain to raise the hackles of those Americans who equate patriotism with blind loyalty to their president. Fortunately, there are many equally patriotic Americans who do not subscribe to this sentiment and reserve their democratic right to think and criticize their officials, elected or court-appointed.
This article is undoubtedly anti-Bush and anti-US administration but to understand it as an anti-American diatribe is to miss the point. Notwithstanding a microscopic, unrepresentative group of dissidents, Muslims -- Arabs and non-Arabs alike -- have no quarrel with the Americans or any other people. On the contrary, Muslims embrace all peaceloving nations and would like to work with them for the betterment of humankind. It is through dialogue,
understanding, love for one another, respect for the rule of law and the establishment of universal justice, and not through violence and war, the exploitation of the weak by the strong and the law of the jungle, that we all can ensure a brighter, humane tomorrow for ourselves and succeeding generations.
I
Stench of Double Standards Turns the Stomach
Today, there are some indistinct mutterings about a Road Map for peace in the Middle East. This writer takes a pessimistic view of the current talk about the United States’ will to take any serious action to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict fairly and equitably. All this is no more than silly prattle trying to fool the Arabs, whom the Americans in their characteristic ignorance regard as morons.
The way the Arabs accept to be trampled on and humiliated by the United States, the US administration may have ample justification for looking down on them with utter contempt. The Arabs and Muslims have to stand up and defend themselves before they are all devoured monstrously, one by one, by the American Leviathan. To paraphrase Franklin D. Roosevelt, the only thing they have to fear is fear itself.
The stench of the Western powers’ -- particularly the United
States’ -- double standards in dealing harshly with Iraq, under false pretences and with false evidence and in contravention of the United Nations’ Charter, turns the stomach of the world community. These nauseating double standards are in sharp contrast to the West’s delicate cosseting for decades of a proven aggressive and racist Israel daily maiming, murdering and destroying a defenseless occupied Palestinian population with impunity and in front of an incredibly silent, acquiescent, morally bankrupt world.
Where are the champions of human rights and democracy in the US? Those who look the other way when Israel commits its quotidian atrocities have lost all credibility and decency. They are shorn of dignity as they are terrorized by Israel and its “Amen Corner.” They are not different from those who turned a blind eye to the genocides of the Nazis.
Nothing illustrates the cowardliness of the US administration and US congressmen more glaringly than the case of Rachel Corrie. A young American citizen and peace activist, and a representative of the beautiful face of America, 23-year-old Ms. Corrie was rolled over and crushed to death in March 2003 by the driver of an Israeli army bulldozer in broad daylight while she was peacefully and non-violently defending a Palestinian home from illegal demolition. Let
alone asking that Ms. Corrie’s murderer be extradited to the United States to stand trial there, neither President Bush nor even one worthy member of the US Congress so much as condemned her murder. Where Israel is concerned, its crimes are buried even if the victims are citizens of United States, the world’s hyperpower.
Even the slightest criticism of Israel is equated with anti- Semitism, a flag in which pro-Zionists wrap themselves. The heightened sensitivity to reasoned criticism of Israel is perhaps an indication that the pro-Zionists -- whose political and financial clout intimidates policymakers and congressmen -- are becoming aware that a fair and open-minded American public is increasingly beginning to question the dastardly crimes that Israel is committing
against the helpless Palestinians with their tax dollars. The stifling of such criticism brings back painful memories of the McCarthyte witch-hunts of the 1950s.
Today, no serious writing on the Middle East can avoid dwelling on Iraq. This piece, however, is not written in reaction to, or as a commentary upon, the fall of Saddam Husayn’s (Hussein’s) despotic and cruel regime. No sane or humane person sheds a tear over the end of this dark period in the history of Iraq. This in no way means that we regard the war of aggression on Iraq as lawful or justified. We can never condone the heavy cost in civilian casualties and environmental and cultural damage that this criminal war exacted. The Anglo-American aggressors’ disregard for
international law and conventions will stain their honor and
credibility forever. Thousands of innocents were maimed and killed in this war. Unique cultural institutions were allowed to be looted right under the noses of the US occupation forces, whose primary and most urgent interest was to ensure the security of the oil wells and the Ministry of Petroleum. The safety and security of the people and their property, hospitals, libraries and shrines was the obligation of the Anglo-American occupying power under international law, but not the least of their concerns. US troops rocketed an ancient religious landmark of Baghdad, the mosque where one of the most venerable religious figures in Islamic history,
Imam Abu Hanifah, who has hundreds of millions of followers, lies buried. All this will be a perennial blot, a mark of Cain, on the barbarian invaders of Iraq.
The world will not forget the Anglo-American dance of the seven veils at the Security Council where, one at a time, the pretexts dropped, the pretext of sending the inspectors, the pretext of disarmament, the pretext of violations of human rights, until, finally, these two rapists of the United Nations’ Charter stood naked.
We will not forget that the United States, which professes to spread democracy in the Middle East, has applied pressure on its Arab client states to declare non-violent, peaceful anti-war demonstrations illegal and to suppress them by force. America not only aids and abets these despotic regimes to deprive their citizens of their fundamental birthright to express their opinion, but is also, by its silence, complicit in endangering the lives and limbs of the demonstrators. Hundreds of them are kidnapped, jailed and tortured by its vassals. Therefore, Muslims know that America’s claims to promote democracy in their countries are just a charade and one more lie.
Those who are fooled by the United States’ duplicitous advocacy of democracy should consider just one example among many of how US administrations treat truly democratic regimes. In September 1973, the United States engineered and facilitated the overthrow of the democratically elected government of Chile and the assassination of its president Salvador Allende and several of
his cabinet members. Allende was replaced by a US-supported military junta headed by General Augusto Pinochet. Under Pinochet, and with US approval, opposition parties were banned, universities were put under military control, thousands of Chileans were tortured and killed, many fingered as “radicals” by lists provided by the CIA. Recently, after thirty years, US Secretary of State Colin Powell admitted in a public forum that the US was
responsible for the coup against Allende. (George Gedda, “Powell Regrets 1973 U.S. Actions in Chile,” Associated Press, April 16, 2003). That bloody period in Chilean history was ushered in at the instigation of Henry Kissinger, the documented mass murderer of millions of South East Asians, Latin Americans and Africans. The unvarnished truth is that Kissinger is no less guilty of crimes against humanity than those tried at Nuremberg. He, however, along with many other war criminals are not only harbored but also lionized in
the United States, which is “smoking out and hunting down”
terrorists all over the world. It really does not have to look far or hard to find them.
America indeed supports democracy -- of sorts. The US
administration’s lexicon defines democracy elastically thus: 1. a system of government where corporations, vested interests, a coterie of self-serving politicians, and pressure groups run an election campaign at regular intervals to give a gullible and largely uninformed public the illusion that they can freely choose their president, vice president and congressional representatives. The powerful and well-funded military-industrial complex and the lobbies make sure that presidential nominees are often of average or less than average intelligence, so that they can easily be manipulated; the United States is the best representative of this type of democracy; 2. a system of government in which an apartheid settler regime every day a: murders the people it occupies, and b: tramples on their basic rights, with the overt backing of the United States; 3. a country whose democratically
elected but independently minded government is clandestinely toppled by the CIA and replaced by a dictatorial regime which suppresses fundamental human rights by force and whose rulers receive subsidies (also known as bribes) from the United States and proclaim their undying allegiance to Uncle Sam.
The US President is rhapsodizing over the democracy that will follow and flourish in Iraq, which has every reason to be thankful for its liberation through death and destruction. However, according to plain-speaking US officials, if democratic elections produce a government in Iraq that is not pro-American, it will be replaced by a client regime (à la Chile in 1973).
The last time the US helped appoint a client regime in Iraq was some thirty years ago. The Iraqis thereafter plunged into a long, dark night. A reign of terror and torture ensued. But no matter. That tyrannical, undemocratic regime was good for American business and geopolitical objectives. It also suited most Arab and Muslim states. All willingly participated in covering up its heinous crimes. To head that regime, the United States brought to power and fully supported, all those nightmarish years, a monster after its
heart. However, as soon as the monster no longer served its
creator’s purposes, the American Frankenstein destroyed him. The name of that monster? Saddam Husayn.
II
Israeli-American Road Map Destined to Fail
The United States has proven over the years, and never so much as under the current Bush administration, that it is a meek dog that is wagged by its evil tail, Israel. All US ideas for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian impasse are really Israeli ideas, clumsily and transparently wrapped by the Americans. The so-called Road Map is a brazen ploy designed to have a solution favorable to the Israelis. The Road Map -- largely the product of pro-Zionist Jews in the US administration working together with the Israelis -- will be an utter failure, as it bypasses and flouts UN resolutions. Further, the implementation of this essentially flawed map will be
completely at the mercy of the nuclear-armed Israelis, past masters of deceitful interpretations, procrastination and faits accomplis by brute force.
THE WHOLE CONCEPT OF THE PEACE PROCESS IS
DOOMED. THIS PROCESS MUST BE DITCHED. THE ONLY FRUITFUL COURSE TO BE FOLLOWED IS THE
IMPLEMENTATION OF THE UNITED NATIONS’
RESOLUTIONS. If the hypocritical US administration and its pro-Zionist supporters really mean what they say about peace in the Middle East, they should demand of Israel to immediately IMPLEMENT the long-dead UN resolutions, WHICH PROVIDE THE ONLY SOLUTION TO THE CONFLICT. The Israeli-American Road Map (which basically will fulfill Israel’s wishes, despite its noises to the contrary), will lead to another fifty years of misery, rage, blood, and instability in Palestine, the region and the world.
So, I urge those who are serious about finding an equitable and fair solution to this issue to ask for the implementation of ALREADY EXISTING UN RESOLUTIONS, which, incidentally, have, years ago, been accepted and endorsed by ALL Security Council members, including the US. Why do we, in the case of Israel, allow that country to flout UN resolutions? Just because of the United States’ subservience to Israeli and Zionist interests? WE NEED JUSTICE AS MANDATED BY THE UNITED NATIONS and NOT AS MEDIATED BY A PROVEN AND FAILED DISHONEST BROKER. As long as this dishonest broker, which is, or is perceived to be, the enemy of the Arabs and Islam, is
mediating this conflict, there will be no justice. And WITHOUT JUSTICE, THERE WILL NEVER BE PEACE. The US administration is absolutely myopic and stupid to think that it can defy the Muslim world forever by imposing a settlement on the Palestinians on Israel’s terms.
The Arabs and Muslims have weathered and outlasted many world storms down the ages. We have outlasted the old imperialists. And we will, God willing, outlast the new imperial power. In God’s time, a few decades are as short as the twinkling of an eye, no more than a fleeting moment in the annals of man. And God always brings oppressors to their knees. The Qur’an repeatedly tells us of the downfall of the oppressors. Today, there is a new empire, full of hubris and possessed of military might. But where are the great military empires of the past?
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Thomas à Kampis, the fourteenth-fifteenth-century Dutch monk, observed in his celebrated The Imitation of Christ: o quam cito transit gloria mundi, “Oh, how quickly the glory of the world passes away!”
The Greek dramatist Euripides said, “Those whom God wishes to destroy, He first makes mad.” Is there a bigger madman than the one who resides on Pennsylvania Avenue? The tragedy is that this lunatic is also the leader of the most powerful military state today.
Former presidential candidate Senator George McGovern has
expressed his views on the US President in more restrained
language. In a memorable article in The Nation (“The Reason Why,” 21 April, 2003), he said, “The nation has been given a President of painfully limited wisdom and compassion and lacking any sense of the nation’s true greatness.” Forgive us mal élevé Muslims if we cannot observe our customary stylistic courtesies after having thousands of us maimed and murdered for no justifiable reason by someone “of painfully limited wisdom and
compassion.”
Our cup is full: our angry, iconoclastic language, shouted every day through our independent TV satellite stations, does not spare even our own two-tongued, ineffectual governments, most of whom failed to protect wider Arab and Muslim interests. It is a myth that Arabs and Muslims blame only the United States for their woes. They also heap criticism on their own governments and dysfunctional societies.
Those Muslims who are foolishly expecting justice from US
administrations and congressmen, who are bootlickers of their Zionist, pro-Zionist and Israeli puppet masters, are in for a big disappointment. By now, Muslims should have learned of the untrustworthiness of these enemies of the Arabs and Muslims. Israel is and will remain our enemy as long as it is headed by expansionist, racist, fascist warmongers.
We should consider any friend of Israel our enemy. Anyone who gives aid and comfort to our enemy is our enemy. Muslims believe this, regardless of what client Muslim governments say or do for a variety of reasons. All ordinary Muslims perceive that the Islamic world faces two primary enemies: Israel and the US, the sinful progenitor, blind backer and shameless protector of this bastard, rogue state, which was conceived and born in injustice and infamy.
(“Bastard” is used here in its technical sense, to express a historical fact, and not as a term of abuse). This perception will last as long as the United States keeps blindly supporting Israel, right or wrong.
If we need proof that the United States’ government and its
political leadership are our enemy, just consider the policy of
double standards they have. US-funded and -armed Israel, which has brought death and ruin in the region for over five decades and is bristling with weapons of mass destruction, is considered above the law and its Prime Minister Ariel Sharon “a man of peace,” though most of the world regards him as a war criminal.
Every effort by the world community to have Israel behave in
accordance with international law founders because it is shamelessly vetoed in the Security Council by the United States. Every such veto, the United States should never forget, is regarded a HOSTILE ACT by 1.25 billion Muslims. All Israel’s crimes are overlooked by the United States. But which countries does this enemy of the Arabs and Muslims have on its hit list? Syria, Iran, Egypt, Libya, Sudan, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. On the other hand, defiant North Korea, which expels UN nuclear weapons
inspectors, receives fairly gentle treatment though it is known to have weapons of mass destruction. Of course, only Muslim countries qualify for attacks by weapons of mass destruction and military invasions launched by the Madman on the Potomac. If no action is taken soon against Muslim countries on the US administration’s hit list, do not be too optimistic. It is only a question of time and “targets of opportunity.”
Instead of chasing the chimera of the Israeli-American Road Map, we should search for and insist on a feasible and just solution to the scandalously long-drawn-out Israeli-Palestinian conflict which has caused immense human suffering and represents the longest post-Second-World-War military occupation. We should advocate that the UN be charged with implementing those resolutions that it has
passed since 1949, including the important resolution No. 242 passed unanimously in 1967. And we should ask that the
implementation of these resolutions be IMMEDIATE.
OUR PATIENCE WITH THE UNITED STATES IS RUNNING OUT. Its monopoly of the role of a mediator in the conflict is only to ensure that Israel imposes its will on the weak Palestinians. The result will be an unjust peace, favoring the Israelis and therefore guaranteed to fail. Because of its past deeds, the United States is perceived by Muslims to be a biased party allied to Israel and working against Arab and Muslim interests. We should have learned our lesson by now: it is folly to trust a blatantly partisan
United States. The only solution that we should find acceptable is one that recognizes the legitimacy of the UN resolutions and pursues their implementation without delay. The United States should be put on notice by the Muslims, if not by their craven, mostly unrepresentative governments, that “he who is not with us is against us.” Perhaps, this is the only language which the cretin in the White House can understand.
III
Shared Values of Muslims and non-Muslims
We have to recognize that we are a defeated and a humiliated
people because we are living in societies which have failed in many areas, and we have been unable to lift ourselves up. Defeat and humiliation, coupled with the marginalization, silencing and ill-treatment of political dissidents, engender intolerance and extremism. This inevitably leads to the birth of desperate militant groups on the fringes of society which lash out at friend and foe. We have to watch out for this and take measures to renew our societies on all fronts so that we can restore a sense of individual dignity and worth to all members of our societies.
Despite the many challenges we face, we have hope. We have seen many dark days throughout our long history, but Muslims have always demonstrated a remarkable measure of resilience and success in preserving their religion and civilization. Some of our darkest periods ushered eras of brilliant achievements. “If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?”
In the specific matter of Palestine, instead of putting our faith in the United States, we should put our faith in God and in our own people and work to improve our situation so that we can take care of ourselves, and not be the slaves of the United States or any other power. We should forge new commercial and political alliances with nations who are friendly to us and not be tied mainly to the United States, which cannot be considered our friend as long as it befriends our enemy.
Speaking of our failings, they are galore. Let me mention just a couple of them because they are of some relevance to our relations with the Other. We have failed miserably to reach out to ordinary Westerners to explain our case to them. A majority of them is brainwashed by the media, most of which is devoid of credibility and to some extent state-controlled, ironically reminiscent of the situation of nearly all of the media in the despotic regimes of the Third World. For instance, if one did not know where Fox News operates from, one would think it is telecasting from a Stalinist-like state or that it is a government-run channel in an undemocratic Third World country. The other mistake is that our diplomats
explain our point of view almost exclusively to Western leaders and fail to grasp that, in democratic countries, the man and woman on the street can ultimately influence their politicians. Since most of our governments are each run by one all-powerful man, our envoys think that Western governments, too, are one-man shows, so our emissaries do not feel the urge to reach out to the average citizen in the West. It is not only the Americans who have an amusingly poor grasp of the thought, culture and political geography of the Other.
I would like to reiterate the point I made at the beginning of this piece. Muslims do not have a quarrel with Americans,
Europeans or any other people. Their quarrel is exclusively with those Western governments who use their nationals’taxes to commit crimes in Muslim lands and elsewhere in their name.
Based on mutual understanding and respect, there is limitless space for cooperation between the Muslims and the rest of the world in many areas. We Muslims recognize the decency and humanity of people everywhere. We share many universal values with non-Muslims: the love of peace; the upholding of the rule of law; the brotherhood of humankind; the inalienable entitlement of the individual to dignity, freedom and other basic human rights; the search for social and political justice; the obligation to be charitable; and the protection of the environment.
Nowhere has the friendship of the people of the world to the
Muslims been more visibly and vibrantly exemplified than in the recent unprecedented worldwide peace movement and huge demonstrations protesting the war on Iraq and supporting the oppressed Palestinians. The Pope, the Orthodox Church and all the mainstream Protestant churches,representing hundreds of millions of Christians, spoke for peace and against the war. Millions of non-Muslims -- old and young, men, women and children -- in the West and in Asia have proven their solidarity with oppressed Muslims in
Iraq and Palestine. Many peace activists, including some Jewish and Israeli peace activists, made sacrifices to show their solidarity with the Arabs and Muslims. Some of the demonstrators were abused and spat upon by pro-war individuals. Others were jailed and brutalized by the police. But the anti-war activists did not fail or falter. Some made the ultimate sacrifice. Among others, Rachel Corrie paid with her life for peace and justice.
The worldwide solidarity which has united peace-loving people should provide the catalyst for further humanitarian activities based on the common values shared by Muslims and non-Muslims. This type of cooperation is greatly encouraged by Islam and is part of its worldview. In the Internet, we have a powerful tool which instantly bonds humanity across the world and breaks the shackles on
freedom imposed by governments in the East and the West.
IV
Conclusion: Today’s Dinosaur, Tomorrow’s Hope
Before ending, a few more words on the unpleasant realities of the fraudulent Israeli-American Road Map. It is not possible for a party as weak as the Palestinians to negotiate with the regional superpower that is Israel. America is not interested in justice for the Palestinians but only in assuring that Israel emerges as the sole hegemon in the Middle East to which all Arabs must genuflect. These near-sighted policies and injustices will turn Palestine and the region into a seething cauldron. Short of a miracle, the uncritical and impassioned backing of the United States’ government for
Israel will remain hostage to the pressures and ideological agenda of the Zionists, neoconservatives, and the Armageddon-obsessed Christian fundamentalists. The US administration will continue to guarantee its unquestioning, passionate financial, diplomatic and military support of Israel no matter how damaging and costly this support is to the safety and national interests of the Americans. In view of the US administration’s stance and the world community’s
double standards, the implementation of UN resolutions on settling the Israeli-Palestinian conflict may be no more than wishful thinking.
For these reasons, I am pessimistic about the prospects for peace and stability in the Middle East in the short- and mid-term. Being a historian, however, my time horizon extends into the future. I have some reasons to be optimistic. All dinosaurs went the way of the dodo. Dinosaurs were physically formidable and could pulverize their enemies, but they had a proportionately diminutive brain. The United States is today’s dinosaur. Like that extinct reptilian giant, a day will come when today’s dinosaur, too, will vanish from the scene as the world’s superpower.
“Al-mulku li-Allah,” Islam proclaims. Dominion is God’s. The dinosaur will be no more. But the Muslims will still be here when that day arrives. No earthly power can ever efface Islam. This is the confident belief of every child, woman and man in the Muslim world.
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
Ismail Ibrahim Nawwab is a former university professor
and general manager at Saudi Aramco. He is co-editor of
the forthcoming “The Foundations of Islam.” The latest of
his publications that is germane to this article is a paper
entitled "Muslims and the West in History.”
E-Mail: gratefulthrice@yahoo.com
