Uri
Avnery
December 31, 2011
Shukran,
Israel
IF
ISLAMIST movements come to power all over the region, they should express their
debt of gratitude to their bete noire, Israel.
Without
the active or passive help of successive Israeli governments, they may not have
been able to realize their dreams.
That
is true in Gaza, in Beirut, in Cairo and even in Tehran.
LET’S
TAKE the example of Hamas.
All
over the Arab lands, dictators have been faced with a dilemma. They could
easily close down all political and civic activities, but they could not close
the mosques. In the mosques people could congregate in order to pray, organize
charities and, secretly, set up political organizations. Before the days of
Twitter and Facebook, that was the only way to reach masses of people.
One
of the dictators faced with this dilemma was the Israel military governor in
the occupied Palestinian territories. Right from the beginning, he forbade any
political activity. Even peace activists went to prison. Advocates of non-violence
were deported. Civic centers were closed down. Only the mosques remained open.
There people could meet.
But
this went beyond tolerance. The General Security Service (known as Shin Bet or
Shabak) had an active interest in the flourishing of the mosques. People who
pray five times a day, they thought, have no time to build bombs.
The
main enemy, as laid down by Shabak, was the dreadful PLO, led by that monster,
Yasser Arafat. The PLO was a secular organization, with many prominent
Christian members, aiming at a “nonsectarian” Palestinian state. They were the
enemies of the Islamists, who were talking about a pan-Islamic Caliphate.
Turning
the Palestinians towards Islam, it was thought, would weaken the PLO and its
main faction, Fatah. So everything was done to help the Islamic movement
discreetly.
It
was a very successful policy, and the Security people congratulated themselves
on their cleverness, when something untoward happened. In December 1987, the
first intifada broke out. The mainstream Islamists had to compete with
more radical groupings. Within days, they transformed themselves into the
Islamic Resistance Movement (acronym Hamas) and became the most dangerous foes
of Israel. Yet it took Shabak more than a year before they arrested Sheik Ahmad
Yassin, the Hamas leader. In order to
fight this new menace, Israel came to an agreement with the PLO in Oslo.
And
now, irony of ironies, Hamas is about to join the PLO and take part in a
Palestinian National Unity government. They really should send us a message of
Shukran (“thanks”).
OUR
PART in the rise of Hizbollah is less direct, but no less effective.
When
Ariel Sharon rolled into Lebanon in 1982, his troops had to cross the mainly
Shiite South. The Israeli soldiers were received as liberators. Liberators from
the PLO, which had turned this area into a state within a state.
Following
the troops in my private car, trying to reach the front, I had to traverse
about a dozen Shiite villages. In each one I was detained by the villagers, who
insisted that I have coffee in their homes.
Neither
Sharon nor anyone else paid much attention to the Shiites. In the federation of
autonomous ethnic-religious communities that is called Lebanon, the Shiites
were the most downtrodden and powerless.
However,
the Israelis outstayed their welcome. It took the Shiites just a few weeks to
realize that they had no intention of leaving. So, for the first time in their
history, they rebelled. The main political group, Amal (“hope”), started small
armed actions. When the Israelis did not take the hint, operations multiplied
and turned into a full-fledged guerrilla war.
To
outflank Amal, Israel encouraged a small, more radical, rival: God’s Party,
Hizbollah.
If
Israel had got out then (as Haolam Hazeh demanded), not much harm would have
been done. But they remained for a full 18 years, ample time for Hizbollah to
turn into an efficient fighting machine, earn the admiration of the Arab masses
everywhere, take over the leadership of the Shiite community and become the most
powerful force in Lebanese politics.
They,
too, owe us a big Shukran.
THE
CASE of the Muslim Brotherhood is even more complex.
The
organization was founded in 1928, twenty years before the State of Israel. Its
members volunteered to fight us in 1948. They are passionately pan-Islamic, and
the Palestinian plight is close to their hearts.
As
the Israeli-Palestinian conflict worsened, the popularity of the Brothers grew.
Since the 1967 war, in which Egypt lost Sinai, and even more after the separate
peace agreement with Israel, they stoked the deep-seated resentment of the
masses in Egypt and all over the Arab world. The assassination of Anwar
al-Sadat was not of their doing, but they rejoiced.
Their
opposition to the peace agreement with Israel was not only an Islamist, but
also an authentic Egyptian reaction. Most Egyptians felt cheated and betrayed
by Israel. The Camp David agreement had an important Palestinian component,
without which the agreement would have been impossible for Egypt. Sadat, a visionary,
looked at the big picture and believed that the agreement would quickly lead to
a Palestinian state. Menachem Begin, a lawyer, saw to the fine print.
Generations of Jews have been brought up on the Talmud, which is mainly a
compilation of legal precedents, and their mind has been honed by legalistic
arguments. Not for nothing are Jewish lawyers in demand the world over.
Actually,
the agreement made no mention of a Palestinian state, only of autonomy, phrased
in a way that allowed Israel to continue the occupation. That was not what the
Egyptians had been led to believe, and their resentment was palpable. Egyptians
are convinced that their country is the leader of the Arab world, and bears a
special responsibility for every part of it. They cannot bear to be seen as the
betrayers of their poor, helpless Palestinian cousins.
Long
before he was overthrown, Hosni Mubarak was despised as an Israeli lackey, paid
by the US. For Egyptians, his despicable role in the Israeli blockade of a
million and a half Palestinians in the Gaza Strip was particularly shameful.
Since
their beginnings in the 1920s, Brotherhood leaders and activists have been
hanged, imprisoned, tortured and otherwise persecuted. Their anti-regime
credentials are impeccable. Their stand for the Palestinians contributed a lot
to this image.
Had
Israel made peace with the Palestinian people somewhere along the line, the
Brotherhood would have lost much of its luster. As it is, they are emerging
from the present democratic elections as the central force in Egyptian politics.
Shukran,
Israel.
LET’S
NOT forget the Islamic Republic of Iran.
They
owe us something, too. Quite a lot, actually.
In
1951, in the first democratic elections in an Islamic country in the region,
Muhammad Mossadeq was elected Prime Minister. The Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi,
who had been installed by the British during World War II, was thrown out, and
Mossadeq nationalized the country’s vital oil industry. Until then, the British
had robbed the Iranian people, paying a pittance for the Black Gold.
Two
years later, in a coup organized by the British MI6 and the American CIA, the
Shah was brought back and returned the oil to the hated British and their
partners. Israel had probably no part in the coup, but under the restored
regime of the Shah, Israel prospered. Israelis made fortunes selling weapons to
the Iranian army. Israeli Shabak agents trained the Shah’s dreaded secret
police, Savak. It was widely believed that they also taught them torture
techniques. The Shah helped to build and pay for a pipeline for Iranian oil
from Eilat to Ashkelon. Israeli generals traveled through Iran to Iraqi
Kurdistan, where they helped the rebellion against Baghdad.
At
the time, the Israeli leadership was cooperating with the South African
apartheid regime in developing nuclear arms. The two offered the Shah
partnership in the effort, so that Iran, too, would become a nuclear power.
Before
that partnership became effective, the detested ruler was overthrown by the
Islamic revolution of February 1979. Since then, the hatred of the Great Satan
(the US) and the Little Satan (us) has played a major role in the propaganda of
the Islamic regime. It has helped to keep the loyalty of the masses, and now
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is using it to bolster his rule.
It
seems that all Iranian factions – including the opposition – now support the
Iranian effort to obtain a nuclear bomb of their own, ostensibly to deter an
Israeli nuclear attack. (This week, the chief of the Mossad pronounced that an
Iranian nuclear bomb would not constitute an “existential danger” to Israel.)
Where
would the Islamic Republic be without Israel? So they owe us a big “Thank you”, too.
HOWEVER, LET us not be too megalomaniac. Israel has
contributed a lot to the Islamist awakening. But it is not the only – or even
the main – contributor.
Strange
as it may appear, obscurantist religious fundamentalism seems to express the
Zeitgeist. An American nun-turned-historian, Karen Armstrong, has written an
interesting book following the three fundamentalist movements in the Muslim
world, in the US and in Israel. It shows a clear pattern: all these divergent
movements – Muslim, Christian and Jewish - have passed through almost identical
and simultaneous stages.
At
present, all Israel is in turmoil because the powerful Orthodox community is compelling women in many parts
of the country to sit separately in the back of buses, like blacks in the good
old days in Alabama, and use separate sidewalks on one side of the streets.
Male religious soldiers are forbidden by their rabbis to listen to women
soldiers singing. In orthodox neighborhoods, women are compelled to swathe
their bodies in garments that reveal nothing but their faces and hands, even in
temperatures of 30 degrees Celsius and
above. An 8-year old girl from a religious family was spat upon in the street
because her clothes were not “modest” enough.
In counter-demonstrations, secular women waved posters saying “Tehran is
Here!”
Perhaps
some day a fundamentalist Israel will make peace with a fundamentalist Muslim
world, under the auspices of a fundamentalist American president.
Unless
we do something to stop the process before it is too late.
