[lit-ideas] Re: A protracted colonial war
- From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2006 08:00:44 -0700
What sort of comment would you expect, Omar? Tariq Ali was a leftist
radical from Pakistan who fled Britain who now writes for the New Left
Review. He was very sympathetic to the Soviets and a member of Marxist
organizations. As to what is in his Guardian article, it isn't remarkable.
It seems pretty much like the Leftist party line that we are use to.
As to Deutscher, the atheist expert on Trotsky, Stalin and Soviet affairs,
he was indeed interested in traditional Judaism, but he was more inclined
toward International Socialism. He is often quoted in such contexts as
these because he didn't approve of all the things Israel had to do to
survive. International Socialism was more important to him than Israeli
survival -- it seems to me. I can't help thinking of Edward Said who in my
opinion never did understand the significance of Islamism. He kept trying
to fit Middle-Eastern Islamism into a Marxist Revolutionary box.
Lawrence
-----Original Message-----
From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Omar Kusturica
Sent: Thursday, July 20, 2006 7:20 AM
To: polidea@xxxxxxxxxx
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Subject: [lit-ideas] A protracted colonial war
Comment
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A protracted colonial war
With US support, Israel is hoping to isolate and
topple Syria by holding sway over Lebanon
Tariq Ali
Thursday July 20, 2006
The Guardian
In his last interview - after the 1967 six-day war -
the historian Isaac Deutscher, whose next-of-kin had
died in the Nazi camps and whose surviving relations
lived in Israel, said: "To justify or condone Israel's
wars against the Arabs is to render Israel a very bad
service indeed and harm its own long-term interest."
Comparing Israel to Prussia, he issued a sombre
warning: "The Germans have summed up their own
experience in the bitter phrase 'Man kann sich
totseigen!' 'You can triumph yourself to death'."
In Israel's actions today we can detect many of the
elements of hubris: an imperial arrogance, a
distortion of reality, an awareness of its military
superiority, the self-righteousness with which it
wrecks the social infrastructure of weaker states, and
a belief in its racial superiority. The loss of many
civilian lives in Gaza and Lebanon matters less than
the capture or death of a single Israeli soldier. In
this, Israeli actions are validated by the US.
The offensive against Gaza is designed to destroy
Hamas for daring to win an election. The
"international community" stood by as Gaza suffered
collective punishment. Dozens of innocents continue to
die. This meant nothing to the G8 leaders. Nothing was
done.
Israeli recklessness is always green-lighted by
Washington. In this case, their interests coincide.
They want to isolate and topple the Syrian regime by
securing Lebanon as an Israeli-American protectorate
on the Jordanian model. They argue this was the
original design of the country. Contemporary Lebanon,
it is true, still remains in large measure the
artificial creation of French colonialism it was at
the outset - a coastal band of Greater Syria sliced
off from its hinterland by Paris to form a regional
client dominated by a Maronite minority.
The country's confessional chequerboard has never
allowed an accurate census, for fear of revealing that
a substantial Muslim - today perhaps even a Shia -
majority is denied due representation in the political
system. Sectarian tensions, over-determined by the
plight of refugees from Palestine, exploded into civil
war in the 1970s, providing for the entry of Syrian
troops, with tacit US approval, and their
establishment there - ostensibly as a buffer between
the warring factions, and deterrent to an Israeli
takeover, on the cards with the invasions of 1978 and
1982 (when Hizbullah did not exist).
The killing of Rafik Hariri provoked vast
demonstrations by the middle class, demanding the
expulsion of the Syrians, while western organisations
arrived to assist the progress of a Cedar Revolution.
Backed by threats from Washington and Paris, the
momentum was sufficient to force a Syrian withdrawal
and produce a weak government in Beirut.
But Lebanon's factions remained spread-eagled.
Hizbullah had not disarmed, and Syria has not fallen.
Washington had taken a pawn, but the castle had still
to be captured. I was in Beirut in May, when the
Israeli army entered and killed two "terrorists" from
a Palestinian splinter group. The latter responded
with rockets. Israeli warplanes punished Hizbullah by
dropping over 50 bombs on its villages and
headquarters near the border. The latest Israeli
offensive is designed to take the castle. Will it
succeed? A protracted colonial war lies ahead, since
Hizbullah, like Hamas, has mass support. It cannot be
written off as a "terrorist" organisation. The Arab
world sees its forces as freedom fighters resisting
colonial occupation.
There are 9,000 Palestinian political prisoners in
Israeli gulags. That is why Israeli soldiers are
captured. Prisoner exchanges have occurred as a
result. To blame Syria and Iran for Israel's latest
offensive is frivolous. Until the question of
Palestine is resolved and Iraq's occupation ended,
there will be no peace in the region. A "UN" force to
deter Hizbullah, but not Israel, is a nonsensical
notion.
tariq.ali3@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
. A demonstration against the Middle East war has been
called by the Stop the War Coalition and others on
Saturday http://www.stopwar.org.uk/.
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