"Hurra pelo Egipto" de Uri Avnery

Uri Avnery
January 28, 2012

                Hurrah for Egypt!

THE IMPOSSIBLE has happened. The Egyptian parliament, democratically elected by a free people, has convened for its first session.

For me this is a wonderful, a joyful occasion.

For many Israelis, this is a worrisome, a threatening sight.


I CANNOT but rejoice when a downtrodden people arises and wins its freedom and human dignity. And not by the intervention of outside forces, but by its own steadfastness and courage. And not by shooting and bloodshed, but by the sheer power of nonviolence.

Whenever and wherever it happens, it must gladden the heart of any decent person around the globe.

Compared to most other revolutions, this Egyptian uprising was bloodless. The number of victims ran in the dozens, not thousands. The current struggle in Syria claims that number of victims every day or two, and so did the successful uprising in neighboring Libya, which was greatly assisted by foreign military intervention.

A revolution reflects the character of its people. I always had a special liking for the Egyptian people, because they are - by and large - devoid of aggressiveness and violence. They are a singularly patient and humorous lot. You can see this in thousands of years of recorded history and you can see it in daily life in the street.

That is why this revolution was so surprising. Of all the peoples on this planet, the Egyptians are among the most unlikely to revolt. Yet revolt they did.

THE PARLIAMENT convened after 60 years of military rule, which also started with a bloodless revolution. Even the despised king, Farouk, who was overthrown on that day in July 1952, was not harmed. He was bundled into his luxurious yacht and sent off to Monte Carlo, there to spend the rest of his life gambling.

The real leader of the revolution was Gamal Abd-al-Nasser. I had met him several times during the 1948 war – though we were never properly introduced. These were all night battles, and only after the war could I reconstruct the events. He was wounded in a battle for which my company was awarded the honorary name “Samson’s Foxes”, while I was wounded five months later by soldiers under his command.

I never met him face to face, of course, but a good friend of mine did. During the battle of the “Faluja pocket”, a cease-fire was agreed in order to bring out the dead and wounded lying between the lines. The Egyptians sent Major Abd-al-Nasser, our side sent a Yemen-born officer whom we called “Gingi” (Ginger), because he was almost totally black. The two enemy officers liked each other very much, and when the Egyptian revolution broke out, Gingi told me – long before anyone else – that Abd-al-Nasser was the man to watch.

(I cannot restrain myself from voicing a pet peeve here. In Western films and books, Arabs often bear the first name Abdul. Such a name just does not exist. “Abdul” is really Abd-al-, which means “servant of”’ and is invariably followed by one of Allah’s 99 attributes. Abd-al-Nasser, for example, means “Servant of (Allah) the Victorious”. So please!)

“Nasser”, as most people called him for short, was not a born dictator. He later recounted that after the victory of the revolution, he had no idea what to do next. He started by appointing a civilian government, but was appalled by the incompetence and corruption of the politicians. So the army took things into its own hands, and soon enough it became a military dictatorship, which lasted and steadily degenerated until last year.

One does not have to take Nasser’s account literally, but the lesson is clear: now as then, “temporary” military rule tends to turn into a lasting dictatorship. Egyptians know this from bitter experience, and that’s why they are becoming very very impatient now.

I remember an arresting conversation between two leading Arab intellectuals some 45 years ago. We were in a taxi in London, on our way to a conference. One was the admirable Mohammed Sid Ahmad, an aristocratic Egyptian Marxist, the other was Alawi, a courageous leftist Moroccan opposition leader. The Egyptian said that in the contemporary Arab world, no national goal can be achieved without a strong autocratic leadership. Alawi retorted that nothing worthwhile can be achieved before internal democracy is established. I think this case has now been settled.


AS WINSTON CHURCHILL famously said, “democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried.” The bad thing about democracy is that free elections don't always turn out the way you want them to.”

The recent Egyptian election was won by “Islamists”. The tumultuous first session produced by this whiff of freedom was dominated by deputies with religious beards. Elected members of the Muslim Brotherhood and the more extreme Salafists (adherents of the Salafiyeh, a Sunni tendency which claims to follow the teaching of the first three Muslim generations) form the majority. The Israelis and the world’s Islamophobes, for whom all Muslims are the same, are aghast.

Frankly, I don’t like religious parties of any stripe – Jewish, Muslim, Christian or what have you. Full democracy demands full separation between State and religion, in practice as well as in theory.

I would not vote for politicians who use religious fundamentalism as a ladder for their careers – whether they are American presidential candidates, Israeli settlers or Arab demagogues. Even If they were sincere, I  would still vote against them. But if such people are elected freely, I accept them. I certainly would not let the success of the Islamists spoil my joy at the historic victory of the Arab Spring.

The way it looks now, Islamists of various shades are going to be influential in all the new parliaments that will be the products of Arab democracy, from Morocco to Iraq, from Syria to Oman. Israel will not be a “villa in the jungle”, but a Jewish island in a Muslim sea.

Island and sea are not natural enemies. On the contrary, they complement each other. The islanders catch fish in the sea, the island shelters the young fish.

THERE IS no reason for Jews and Muslims not to live peacefully together and cooperate. They have done so many times in history, and these were good times for both.

In any religion, there are many contradictions. In the Hebrew Bible there are the inspiring chapters of the prophets and the abominable calls for genocide in the Book of Joshua, for example. In the New Testament, there are the beautiful Sermon on the Mount and the disgusting (and obviously false and later inserted) description of the Jews calling for the crucifixion of Jesus, which has caused anti-Semitism and untold suffering. In the Koran are several objectionable passages about the Jews, but they are overshadowed by the admirable command to protect the “peoples of the book”, Jews and Christians.

It is up to the believers of any religion to pick from their holy texts the passages they want to act upon. Once I saw a Nazi book composed entirely of quotations from the Talmud – hundreds of them. I was certain that they were all false and was shocked to the core when a friendly rabbi assured me that they were all authentic, only taken out of context.

JEWS AND Muslims can and did live peacefully together, and so did Israelis and Egyptians. 

Just one chapter: in November, 1944, two members of the pre-state underground Lehi organization (aka Stern Gang) assassinated Lord Moyne, the British Minister of State for the Middle East, in Cairo. They were caught, and their trial in an Egyptian court turned into an anti-British demonstration. Young Egyptian patriots filled the chamber and made no effort to hide their admiration for the accused. One of the two (with whom I was acquainted) reciprocated with a rousing speech, in which he dismissed Zionism and defined himself as a freedom fighter out to liberate the entire region from British imperialism.

When Israel was founded soon after, some of us suggested that the new state use this and other acts in order to present ourselves as the first Semitic state that had liberated itself from foreign rule. In this spirit, we publicly welcomed Abd-al-Nasser’s 1952 revolution. But in 1956, Israel attacked Egypt in collusion with France and Great Britain, and was branded as an outpost of Western colonialism.


AFTER ANWAR SADAT’S historic visit to Jerusalem, I was one of the first four Israelis to arrive in Cairo, For weeks we were the heroes of the city, lionized by one and all. Enthusiasm for peace with Israel gave rise to a carnival mood. Only later, when the Egyptians realized that Israel had no intention whatsoever of allowing the Palestinians to achieve their freedom, did this mood evaporate.

Now is the time to try to restore this mood. It can be done, if we resolutely turn our face toward the Arab Spring and its winter offshoots.

That raises again one of the most basic questions for Israel: Do we want to be a part of this region, or an outpost of the West? Are the Arabs our natural allies or our natural enemies? Does the new Arab democracy arouse our sympathy and admiration, or does it frighten us?

This leads to the most profound question of all: Is Israel just another branch of world Jewry, or is it a new nation born in this region and constituting an integral part of it?

For me, the answer is clear. And therefore I salute the Egyptian people and their new parliament: Congratulations!

"Shukran (obrigado), Israel" por Uri Avnery

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.

A jogada de Abu Mazen por Uri Avnery

Uri Avnery

September 24, 2011

                                                           Abu Mazen’s Gamble

A WONDERFUL SPEECH. A beautiful speech.

The language expressive and elegant. The arguments clear and convincing. The delivery flawless.

A work of art. The art of hypocrisy. Almost every statement in the passage concerning the Israeli-Palestinian issue was a lie. A blatant lie: the speaker knew it was a lie, and so did the audience.

It was Obama at his best, Obama at his worst.

Being a moral person, he must have felt the urge to vomit. Being a pragmatic person, he knew that he had to do it, if he wanted to be re-elected.

In essence, he sold the fundamental national interests of the United States of America for the chance of a second term.

Not very nice, but that’s politics, OK?

IT MAY be superfluous – almost insulting to the reader – to point out the mendacious details of this rhetorical edifice.

Obama treated the two sides as if they were equal in strength – Israelis and Palestinians, Palestinians and Israelis.

But of the two, it is the Israelis - only they – who suffer and have suffered. Persecution. Exile. Holocaust. An Israeli child threatened by rockets. Surrounded by the hatred of Arab children. So sad.

No Occupation. No settlements. No June 1967 borders. No Naqba. No Palestinian children killed or frightened. It’s the straight right-wing Israeli propaganda line, pure and simple – the terminology, the historical narrative, the argumentation. The music.

The Palestinians, of course, should have a state of their own. Sure, sure. But they must not be pushy. They must not embarrass the US. They must not come to the UN. They must sit with the Israelis, like reasonable people, and work it out with them. The reasonable sheep must sit down with the reasonable wolf and decide what to have for dinner. Foreigners should not interfere.

Obama gave full service. A lady who provides this kind of service generally gets paid in advance. Obama got paid immediately afterwards, within the hour. Netanyahu sat down with him in front of the cameras and gave him enough quotable professions of love and gratitude to last for several election campaigns.

THE TRAGIC hero of this affair is Mahmoud Abbas. A tragic hero, but a hero nonetheless.

Many people may be surprised by this sudden emergence of Abbas as a daring player for high stakes, ready to confront the mighty US.

If Ariel Sharon were to wake up for a moment from his years-long coma, he would faint with amazement. It was he who called Mahmoud Abbas “a plucked chicken”.

Yet for the last few days, Abbas was the center of global attention. World leaders conferred about how to handle him, senior diplomats were eager to convince him of this or that course of action, commentators were guessing what he would do next. His speech before the UN General Assembly was treated as an event of consequence.

Not bad for a chicken, even for one with a full set of feathers.

His emergence as a leader on the world stage is somewhat reminiscent of Anwar Sadat.

When Gamal Abd-al-Nasser unexpectedly died at the age of 52 in 1970 and his official deputy, Sadat, assumed his mantle, all political experts shrugged.

Sadat? Who the hell is that? He was considered a nonentity, an eternal No. 2, one of the least important members of the group of “free officers” that was ruling Egypt.

In Egypt, a land of jokes and jokers, witticisms about him abounded. One concerned the prominent brown mark on his forehead. The official version was that it was the result of much praying, hitting the ground with his forehead. But the real reason, it was told, was that at meetings, after everyone else had spoken, Sadat would get up and try to say something. Nasser would good-naturedly put his finger to his forehead, push him gently down and say: “Sit, Anwar!”  

To the utter amazement of the experts – and especially the Israeli ones – this “nonentity” took a huge gamble by starting the 1973 October War, and proceeded to do something unprecedented in history: going to the capital of an enemy country still officially in a state of war and making peace.

Abbas’ status under Yasser Arafat was not unlike Sadat’s under Nasser. However, Arafat never appointed a deputy. Abbas was one of a group of four or five likely successors. The heir would surely have been Abu Jihad, had he not been killed by Israeli commandoes in front of his wife and children. Another likely candidate, Abu Iyad, was killed by Palestinian terrorists. Abu Mazen (Abbas) was in a way the choice by default.

Such politicians, emerging suddenly from under the shadow of a great leader, generally fall into one of two categories: the eternal frustrated No. 2 or the surprising new leader.

The Bible gives us examples of both kinds. The first was Rehoboam, the son and heir of the great King Solomon, who told his people: “my father chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions”. The other kind was represented by Joshua, the heir of Moses. He was no second Moses, but according to the story a great conqueror in his own right.

Modern history tells the sad story of Anthony Eden, the long-suffering No. 2 of Winston Churchill, who commanded little respect. (Mussolini called him, after their first meeting, “a well-tailored idiot.”). Upon assuming power, he tried desperately to equal Churchill and soon embroiled Britain in the 1956 Suez disaster. To the second category belonged Harry Truman, the nobody who succeeded the great Franklin Delano Roosevelt and surprised everybody as a resolute leader.

Abbas looked like belonging to the first kind. Now, suddenly, he is revealed as belonging to the second. The world is treating him with newfound respect. Nearing the end of his career, he made the big gamble.

BUT WAS it wise? Courageous, yes. Daring, yes. But wise?

My answer is: Yes, it was.

Abbas has placed the quest for Palestinian freedom squarely on the international table. For more than a week, Palestine has been the center of international attention. Scores of international statesmen and -women, including the leader of the world’s only superpower, have been busy with Palestine.

For a national movement, that is of the utmost importance. Cynics may ask: “So what did they gain from it?” But cynics are fools. A liberation movement gains from the very fact that the world pays attention, that the media grapple with the problem, that people of conscience all over the world are aroused. It strengthens morale at home and brings the struggle a step nearer its goal.

Oppression shuns the limelight. Occupation, settlements, ethnic cleansing thrive in the shadows. It is the oppressed who need the light of day. Abbas’ move provided it, at least for the time being.

BARACK OBAMA’s miserable performance was a nail in the coffin of America’s status as a superpower. In a way, it was a crime against the United States.

The Arab Spring may have been a last chance for the US to recover its standing in the Middle East. After some hesitation, Obama realized that. He called on Mubarak to go, helped the Libyans against their tyrant, made some noises about Bashar al-Assad. He knows that he has to regain the respect of the Arab masses if he wants to recover some stature in the region, and by extension throughout the world.

Now he has blown it, perhaps forever. No self-respecting Arab will forgive him for plunging his knife into the back of the helpless Palestinians. All the credit the US has tried to gain in the last months in the Arab and the wider Muslim world has been blown away with one puff.

All for reelection.

IT WAS also a crime against Israel.

Israel needs peace. Israel needs to live side by side with the Palestinian people, within the Arab world. Israel cannot rely forever on the unconditional support of the declining United States.

Obama knows this full well. He knows what is good for Israel, even if Netanyahu doesn’t. Yet he has handed the keys of the car to the drunken driver.

The State of Palestine will come into being. This week it was already clear that this is unavoidable. Obama will be forgotten, as will Netanyahu, Lieberman and the whole bunch.

Mahmoud Abbas – Abu Mazen, as the Palestinians call him – will be remembered. The “plucked chicken” is soaring into the sky.

"Uma villa na selva?" por Uri Avnery

Do original "A Villa in the Jungle?"  (2011.02.05)
Traduzido pelo Coletivo Vila Vudu

Estamos passando por evento geológico. Terremoto de vastíssimas dimensões está mudando a paisagem do Oriente Médio. Montanhas convertem-se em vales, ilhas emergem do mar, vulcões cobrem de lava a terra.

As pessoas temem mudanças. Quando acontecem, tendem a negar, ignorar, fingir que nada de importante estaria acontecendo.

Os israelenses não fogem a essa regra. Enquanto no vizinho Egito têm lugar eventos que mudam a face da terra, Israel está absorvida num escândalo no alto comando do Exército. O ministro da Defesa detesta o atual comandante do estado-maior e não faz segredo. O novo chefe presuntivo foi denunciado como mentiroso e a nomeação foi cancelada. É o que se vê nas manchetes.

Mas o que está acontecendo no Egito mudará a vida de todos em Israel.

Como sempre, ninguém anteviu coisa alguma. O tão incensado e temido Mossad foi colhido de surpresa, como também a CIA e todos os demais serviços secretos do gênero.

Pois qualquer um poderia prever que aconteceria o que aconteceu – exceto talvez a incrível força da irrupção. Nos últimos poucos anos, temos dito várias vezes nessa coluna, que em todo o mundo árabe multidões de jovens estão chegando à idade adulta tomados por profundo desprezo por seus líderes, e que, mais cedo ou mais tarde, esse desprezo geraria um levante. Não são profecias, mas simples análise atenta das probabilidades.

O torvelinho no Egito foi causado por fatores econômicos: a carestia, a miséria, o desemprego, a nenhuma esperança entre os jovens saídos das universidades. Mas que ninguém se engane: há causas muito mais profundas, que se podem resumir numa palavra: a Palestina.

Na cultura árabe, nada é mais importante que a honra. As pessoas sabem sobreviver à miséria, mas não admitem ser humilhadas.

E o que todos os jovens árabes viam, do Marrocos a Omã, todos os dias, é sempre os seus respectivos líderes políticos deixando-se humilhar, se auto-humilhando, traindo os irmãos palestinos para obter algum favor a mais, um pouco mais de dinheiro, dos EUA; colaborando com a ocupação israelense, curvando-se aos novos colonizadores. É humilhação profunda para os jovens árabes criados à luz das conquistas da cultura árabe em tempos passados e das glórias dos antigos califas.

Em nenhum outro ponto do Oriente Médio essa desonra era mais visível que no Egito, que declaradamente colaborava com os governos israelenses, impondo o escandaloso bloqueio contra a Faixa de Gaza, que condenava 1,5 milhões de árabes à fome e à miséria. Jamais foi bloqueio só israelense. Não haveria bloqueio sem a colaboração do Egito. Sempre foi bloqueio israelense-egípcio, lubrificado anualmente por 1,5 bilhão de dólares dos EUA. [referido apenas ao "benefício" recebido directamente pelo regime de Mubarak, as contas com Israel, são outras...]

Já pensei várias vezes – e várias vezes disse e escrevi – sobre como me sentiria se tivesse 15 anos e vivesse em Alexandria, Amã ou Aleppo, vendo os políticos agir como servos abjetos dos EUA e de Israel, ao mesmo tempo em que oprimem e torturam os próprios cidadãos. Aos 15 anos, eu próprio alistei-me numa organização terrorista. Por que qualquer jovem árabe faria diferente?

É possível tolerar-se um ditador, se ele manifesta a dignidade nacional. Mas ditador que manifeste a vergonha nacional é como árvore sem raízes – qualquer vento mais forte a derruba.

Para mim, a única dúvida sempre foi em que ponto o mundo árabe começaria a agitar-se. O Egito – e a Tunísia – não era o primeiro da minha lista. E, contudo, aí está: a grande revolução árabe acontecendo no Egito.

São perfeitas maravilhas. Se a Tunísia foi pequena maravilha, a revolução dos egípcios é maravilha gigante.

Sempre amei os egípcios. Claro que não se pode amar igualmente 88 milhões de indivíduos, mas pode-se, sim, gostar mais de um povo que de outro. Alguma generalização se permite.

Os egípcios que se veem nas ruas, com quem se fala na casa de intelectuais e nas vielas mais pobres dentre as mais pobres sempre me pareceram inacreditavelmente tolerantes. São dotados de senso de humor que ninguém consegue esconder. E orgulham-se imensamente dos seus 8.000 anos de história.

Do ponto de vista de um israelense, já habituado à agressividade dos israelenses, a quase total ausência de agressividade dos egípcios é sempre surpreendente. Lembro claramente de uma cena: estava num táxi no Cairo, que bateu noutro táxi, no trânsito. Os dois motoristas saltaram dos respectivos veículos e puseram a gritar ameaças, as mais terríveis, um contra o outro. De repente, pararam e puseram-se a rir, às gargalhadas.

Um ocidental que chegue ao Egito, ou ama ou odeia. No instante em que se põe os pés no Egito, o tempo já não é o tirano que o Ocidente conhece. Tudo deixa de ser tão urgente, tudo é mais lento, mas, como que por milagre, tudo sempre toma jeito. A paciência dos egípcios parece sem limites. É traço que pode iludir ditadores, porque paciência é coisa que, de repente, acaba.

É como uma represa, num rio. A água sobe sem que ninguém veja, silenciosamente, imperceptivelmente – mas se ultrapassa o limite crítico, e a represa não a contém, a água explode e varre tudo o que encontrar pela frente.

Meu primeiro encontro com o Egito foi embriagador. Depois da surpreendente visita de Anwar Sadat a Jerusalém, viajei imediatamente para o Cairo. Não tinha visto. Jamais esquecerei o momento em que apresentei meu passaporte israelense ao funcionário do aeroporto. Ele folheou e folheou o passaporte, cada vez mais intrigado – e de repente levantou a cabeça e abriu um sorriso. Disse “marhaba”, bem vindo. Naquele momento éramos só três israelenses naquela enorme cidade, e fomos tratados como reis, como se, a qualquer momento, alguém nos fosse levantar sobre os ombros, em triunfo. A paz estava no ar, e as multidões egípcias riam de prazer.

Mas apenas poucos meses depois, tudo mudou profundamente. Sadat esperava – creio que sinceramente – que a paz implicaria libertação também para os palestinos. Sob intensa pressão de Menachem Begin e Jimmy Carter, aceitou uma declaração em termos vagos sobre os palestinos. Rapidamente Sadat percebeu que Begin nem sonhava cumprir o que prometera. Para Begin, o acordo de paz com o Egito só lhe interessava com paz em separado, que lhe permitiria concentrar-se na guerra contra os Palestinos.

Os egípcios – começando pela elite cultural e chegando às massas – jamais perdoaram essa traição dos israelenses. Sentiram-se enganados. Amem ou não amem os palestinos – nada é mais vergonhoso na tradição árabe que trair parente pobre. Ver Hosni Mubarak colaborar nessa traição levou muitos egípcios a desprezá-lo. Esse desprezo existe em cada movimento do que se viu acontecer semana passada. Conscientemente e inconscientemente, os milhões que gritam “Mubarak fora!” ecoam esse desprezo.

Em todas as revoluções há um “momento Yeltsin”. As colunas de tanques foram mandadas para a capital para reafirmar a ditadura. No momento crítico, as massas enfrentam os soldados. Se os soldados recusam-se a atirar, o jogo terminou. Yeltsin subiu num dos tanques, ElBaradei falou às massas na Praça Tahrir. É o momento em que qualquer ditador prudente parte, como fez o Xá e, agora, também o chefete tunisiano.

Depois, há o “momento Berlim”, quando o regime desaba e ninguém, no poder, sabe o que fazer, e só as massas anônimas parecem ver com clareza o que querem: em Berlim, queriam derrubar o Muro.

E vem o “momento Ceausescu”. O ditador vai ao balcão e fala à multidão, e, das ruas, sobe um coro de “Abaixo o tirano!”. Por um instante, o ditador fica sem ter o que dizer, movendo os lábios sem que ninguém o ouça. Depois, desaparece. De certo modo, já aconteceu a Mubarak, que fez discurso ridículo, tentando conter a maré.

Se Mubarak perdeu o contato com a realidade, o mesmo se pode dizer de Binyamin Netanyahu. Ele e seus colegas parecem incapazes de ver o significado terrível desses eventos, para Israel.

Quando o Egito se move, o mundo árabe move-se com ele. O que quer que aconteça no futuro imediato no Egito – democracia ou ditadura militar – é questão de (pouco) tempo antes do fim das ditaduras em todo o mundo árabe, e as massas modelarão uma nova realidade, sem generais.

Tudo que os governos de Israel fizeram nos últimos 44 anos de ocupação ou 63 anos de existência vai ficando obsoleto. Estamos diante de realidade nova. Israel pode ignorá-la – insistir que Israel ainda seria “uma villa na selva”, na famosa fórmula de Ehud Barak – ou poderá descobrir o lugar que adequado que caiba a Israel na nova realidade.

A paz com os palestinos deixou de ser artigo de luxo. Hoje, é absoluta necessidade. Paz agora, paz rápida, paz já.

Paz com os palestinos e, depois, paz com as massas democratizantes em todo o mundo árabe, paz com as forças islâmicas racionais (como o Hamás e a Fraternidade Muçulmana, absolutamente diferentes da al-Qaeda), paz com as novas lideranças políticas que brotarão no Egito e por toda parte.