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Arabs'
Ties With Israel Damages The Palestinian Cause: Prof
Gilbert Achcar
06 August 2010By
Kourosh Ziabari
Prof. Gilbert Achcar is a renowned Lebanese
academician, writer, socialist and anti-war activist.
He left Lebanon in 1983 and taught international
relations and politics at the University of Paris VII
for several years. Since 2007, Achcar has been
Professor of Development Studies and International
Relations at the School of Oriental and African
Studies of the
University of London.
He is a frequent contributor to Le Monde Diplomatique
and ZNet .
Prof. Achcar joined me in an interview to discuss the
latest developments related to the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict, Israel's attack on the Freedom Flotilla and
the prospect of Israel's occupation of West Bank and
Gaza.
Kourosh Ziabari: Dear Prof. Achcar, what's your
estimation of the prospect of the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict?
Gilbert Achcar: This is extremely difficult to answer
because the situation of the
Middle East
is changing so quickly and frequently that any kind of
prediction about the future is always very risky, so
what I can say in reply to your question is that in
the foreseeable future, there can't be any serious and
acceptable compromise leading to a peaceful
coexistence between Israel and the Palestinians. The
reason is that the Israeli society has been
continuously shifting to the right so that more and
more extreme branches of Zionism are governing Israel,
and therefore it's extremely difficult to imagine that
governments like the present government of Israel
would make all of the concessions that are required
for a true peace with the Palestinians. There can't be
any beginning of peace actually without an end to the
occupation of the territories that were occupied since
1967, the dismantlement of the separation wall which
Israel has been building and the dismantlement of the
settlements. These are basic conditions to which of
course one should add the immediate lifting of the
blockade of
Gaza.
So, there's absolutely no indication at present that
the Israeli government as it is, has any inclination
to go in that direction.
KZ: Both of the Palestinians and the Israelis, from a
religious viewpoint, claim that the
land of Israel
belongs to them. Both of them cite the historical
evidences and religious implications in this regard.
What's your idea about that? How should this
interminable conflict come to an end?
GA: This should be hardly debatable among serious
people because it's absolutely clear that when the
United Nations voted on the partition of Palestine and
voted on creating a Jewish state on Palestine which
was the goal of the Zionists, it gave 56 percent of
the land of Palestine to the
Jewish
population which constituted only one
third of the whole population. Moreover, the majority
of this one third were immigrants, the overwhelming
majority of whom had been in Palestine less than 15
years, so there is no fair standard on earth by which
this kind of resolution could be considered as
legitimate and just; it was completely unjust and
completely unfair. No people on earth would admit that
recently arrived immigrants have a right to establish
their own state in their country. However, I believe
that a just solution to the problem is one that would
not involve any new expulsion of population; it should
be a solution based on democratic principles and
peaceful coexistence of Muslims, Christians and Jews,
Arabs and Israelis in the region. But, for this to
happen, the very nature of Israel's relationship with
its environment should change whereas what we're
seeing now is more and more violence, barbarity and
cruelty on the part of Israel.
KZ: Israelis believe and claim that they should have a
state with its borders spanned from Nile to Euphrates.
This is the "Promised
Land" which they recurrently refer to.
What do you think about that? Is it a reasonable and
justifiable claim?
GA: Even in Israel, very few people subscribe to this
view. Only some extremist branches of Zionism believe
in this idea. It sounds so absurd that only crazy
people can uphold such perspectives. Now, if we had to
redraw the map of the world to go back to how the
world was 2,000 years ago, we can imagine what a
terrible mess would happen in the whole world.
Besides, there's much debate even on the fact that the
European Jews who came to Palestine in the
20th century are descendants of the Jews
who were in Palestine 2,000 years ago. But even if
that were the case, and again, if we had to redraw the
map of the world as it was 2,000 years ago, why not
3,000 years ago or 1,000 years ago? So the only
legitimate claim to a land is that of the people who
were living on it in recent centuries. But no
Palestinian group among the main Palestinian forces is
calling for the expulsion of Jews and Israelis from
the Middle East. All of them call for coexistence, but
coexistence based on democratic principles and on
equal footing, not the present situation of very harsh
oppression of the Palestinians and the Lebanese by
Israel.
KZ: Some Arab nations are progressively taking steps
to normalize their ties with Israel. We can name the
United Arab Emirates
which invited the Israel's transport and
infrastructure minister to an international summit
held in
Abu Dhabi.
Other Arab states, in turn, are making efforts to
establish new relations with Israel. Isn't it going to
be harmful and destructive for the cause of
Palestinian people?
GA: Four countries have established relations with
Israel among the Arab states and they are
Egypt,
Jordan, Qatar and Oman. This is damaging for the cause
of the Palestinians, especially when the country
betraying them is Egypt which is the largest Arab
country. This is a result of the increasing hegemony
of the United States over the Middle East, which
pushes the Arab governments to establish relations
with the state of Israel against the will of their own
people. If you look at Jordan and Egypt, you'll see
that the overwhelming majority of their population is
opposed to Israel and its policies, and this creates a
wide
gap between governmental policies and
what the population wants.
KZ: What's your view regarding the recent Israeli
assault on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla? What would
happen if another country rather than Israel, say
Iran,
had attacked the flotilla of 600
international peace activists? Would the
international community's response have been the same?
GA: You should ask me what would happen if the United
States had attacked the flotilla, because they do such
things quite often. But, you're right in saying that
Israel gets the least protest in comparison with other
countries when it comes to the violation of
international law and perpetration of
war crimes and
crimes against humanity. This judgment
is in line with the reports of Judge
Richard Goldstone who is a devout Jew
and even a devout Zionist, but honest enough for
acknowledging the fact that Israel committed war
crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza. So of
course Israel gets much less condemnation than any
countries that are opposed to the United States and to
Western hegemony. One should say, however, that Israel
started to lose even the support of Western public
opinion recently, especially since the Gaza war of
2008-2009 which was a brutal and cruel attack on
defenseless civilians and was criticized even by
traditional friends of Israel. After the attack on
Freedom Flotilla, the international condemnation of
Israel reached an unprecedented level. A few countries
cut their diplomatic relations with Israel in
Latin America
like
Venezuela
and Bolivia in the last year and Nicaragua in the
current year. A number of countries recalled their
ambassadors: we have seen a shift in the stance of
public opinion and even a wave of protests has taken
shape in the United States. So there's been a real
impact and this shows that the Israeli state by its
cruelty and brutality is losing more and more ground
in the global public opinion.
KZ: The Saudi King has recently made remarks in which
he likened Iran's government to the state of Israel
and said that these two countries don't deserve to
exist. Is this a fair and rational statement? Doesn't
it damage the Islamic solidarity and integrity?
GA: First of all, this statement, if true, is a really
infamous statement. Putting Iran and Israel on the
same level is totally absurd. Israel is a state that
has been created through a colonial process and is
violently oppressing the original population of the
land it seized. Iran is a country which has been there
for a long period of history and there was no
involvement of colonial powers in its creation. Its
government is certainly more legitimate than that of
the Saudi kingdom, which was established by armed
conquest less than one century ago, and never elected
since then. However, the Saudi King meant probably
that both the Israeli government and the Iranian
government are extremist to his taste. The truth is
that the Saudi regime is the most reactionary and the
most backward regime in the whole region. They're
closer to the
Taliban than
to anything else in terms of regime and society. Saudi
rulers are better advised to change their own regime
rather than trying to change the regimes in other
countries.
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