You cannot perceive what is after Gaza unless you read Israel as exterminating state, saturated with Nazism. The bloods of children, women and the pregnant ones among them, have been an exercise to kill Arabs, an exercise for extermination of whoever stands against the Jewish state, as George Bush has described it. And the apparent meaning of such description implies the desire that no other people, than the Jews, live in this state. This national – religious – racist belief, to the extent of chauvinism, requires the evacuation of the Palestinians, who carry the Israelite nationality or their suppression in order that they immigrate or throw themselves in the Arabian deserts.
The Hamas rockets and their [armed] factions are pretext for the brutal attack on Gaza. This is the old abhorrence toward Hagar and Ismail, since the writing of the book of Genesis. Our struggle is not merely with this hybrid existence, but with the abhorrence it carries, which logically leads to extermination. I do not want here to enter into a clarification of the meaning of “the chosen people”. This has the meaning of free grace, which God has poured upon Abraham and God intended through it the service of consolidation, and not the superiority [of these people]. However, the renegade people contrived superiority, thus they worshiped themselves and assumed the right for extermination, thinking that it is a divine commission. And this is how Hitler has set in the area (of the trigger) of every German soldier the Biblical statement Gott mit uns, which means: God is with us.
Then, the concept has been secularized and big numbers, or most, of the citizens of Israel have distanced themselves from faith. Though, the secularized state remained Jewish, in the social sense. And those who are not Jewish, they do not in reality belong to this entity, which assumes to be the only democratic state in the East.
What do the American governance, and some of Europeans, mean when they say that they want to create two neighboring states on the land of historical Palestine? Thos have desired that Palestinians become ‘prudent’ and they also aimed for an sane Jewish state. However, could Palestine become prudent without its Jerusalem? Does the whole earth mean anything without Jerusalem?
The talk about the two states means the reconciliation between a state which is not constrained by any ideology and another, which is the slave of Zionism. There might be between the two [states] apparent peace, but this is not mutual understanding. This discrepancy reveals an Arab nation, which believes in one humanity, and another Zionist one, whose philosophy denies the belief in one humanity. What does neighborhood between a nation with no army and another, all of which are soldiers wearing the uniform whenever they want as a military community, mean? Two states, with disproportion between them, is a project for war inherent in the intentions of the two parties.
The question which poses itself theoretically is: do we want Israel to survive? Have we been reconciled with this erroneous entity, which is conceived by iniquity and born in sin? We are compelled to legitimize an adulterous birth. Nevertheless, I do not call for an eradication of Israel by weapon. I am afraid this would not be possible in the foreseen future. And most importantly I am afraid that, applying this, we fall in the sin of extermination in which the Jews have fallen in Gaza and before Gaza. I want to safeguard the Jews, but reject the state of Israel. This would be followed by many queries about the power of the Arabs, whenever they unite. And for what purpose do they unite, if they want? And also when and how should Palestinians meet in order to express their opinion about a victory on Israel? Do they think that a rocket from here or there might eliminate the Hebrew existence? Do I agree with Hamas that all of Palestine is an Islamic property?
You cannot abolish a Jewish ideology with an Islamic one. Both aphorisms are the same. I cannot accept that Arabs reject a Jewish state, because it is Jewish, while all their countries, except Lebanon, are Islamic states by their constitution, and one of them necessitates a Muslim president. You should fight Israel with a different persuasion, otherwise it will prevail.
And if we assume that we strike the Jewish arrogance by armed Islam, and as a result we found Islamic united governance in Palestine, where is my place, I, the Arab Christian, on the land of the ‘restored Palestine’? Our struggle against Israel should be then under the heading of Arabism, or Arab consensus.
The case does not close with the tiding of the Arab house in a reduced, hesitant and miserable Palestine. The question is not about erecting this entity, but about the Palestinians’ recognition, or repudiation, of the Jewish state. Whenever the founding of the two states implies diplomatic reciprocity between them, the Palestinian case is over. Israel might continue to exist on the level of fact and not on the juristic level de jure. Not only because we aspire to the union of the whole of historical Palestinian land, but also because we deny the Zionist ideology. We want Jews to be freed from this ideology, which destroys their spiritual reality and intact humanity. We do not reject the Jewish people in the world, because we want them to be saved and because they have throughout the world great intellectual and scientific capabilities. Whoever is an enemy to the Jewish person cannot serve our cause. We seek that they may be freed from ideological antagonism that rejects the other.
With the arrival of Mr. Obama to the American presidency terrible pressure might be exerted on Arabs, so that all acknowledge Israel, accept the exchange of diplomatic missions and normalize the relations with it. Palestinians may be forced to be congested in a small spot of their country with the acceptance of some non-military institutions. I worry that the time of their oppressiveness comes. If they accept this, the rest of Arabs should not recline.
I call for an Arab repudiation, for the persistence of repudiation of the Zionist entity. Military resistance will be demised with the founding of the state and with the Arabs’ consenting, either explicitly or implicitly, to the two states. Military resistance is a facet of repudiation. Repudiation is the norm of our facing Israel politically and intellectually, and this does not contradict the peaceful [existence]. However, the founding of the two states assumes the factions’ acceptance of this. How?
From now the factions should be united and the Palestinian governance should also unite. The intellectuals, academicians, and journalists should subsist in the mindset of repudiation and the spirituality of repudiation, with the hope that the bloodshed in Gaza, and other than Gaza, may stop. This means the withdrawal of the Israelite army entirely from Gaza, and reconstructing it, or initiating in its reconstruction.
This means also the elimination of [the principle of] Zionism from the minds, including the Jewish minds, and also, on the long run, the elimination of the ideology of Israelite entity. Nothing indicates that Israel will remain forever. Few analysts believe that there are elements of disintegration in it, which would abolish cohesion among its citizens. This is not our concern now. Our concern is that Arabs unify. This intellectual resistance conveys to me the new features of an educated Arabism, which accepts the diversity of Arab countries. In their strives, those countries should coil around each other, in [at atmosphere of] modernity comparable to the modernity of the West.
This implies that Arabs should reject terrorism. This is partly responsible for the Islamophobia in the West. Terrorism is a foolish choice, which convinces the westerners about the underdeveloped reality of Arabs. The peacefulness of the Arab soul and its complete renouncing of violence might convince the westerners not only to converse with us and be friendly to us, but also to consider us as partners in world politics. [The role of] Arabs is vital for the universal human coexistence, whenever they abandon violence permanently in their thought and activity.
‘Gaza after Gaza’ is the symbolic statement which indicates the need to carve the Arab peace in a way that whoever wants to shred it would be an unjust criminal. The time has come for our entry into the fully civilized life, which spirit is peace. This alone prohibits the evil ones to kill Arabs and to abolish their good life, which has been since long time safe and has been built upon cultural bestowal and human sharing which generates love.
Translated by Sylvie Avakian-Maamarbashi
Original Text: “ماذا بعد غزة؟” –An Nahar- 24.01.2009
