October 09, 2014
Israeli
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to the UN General Assembly may go down in retrospect as a sign of two linked issues: how badly out of
touch he is with the rest of the world, and how the traditional Zionist use of
scare tactics to maintain virtually absolute American support for any Israeli
action is steadily wearing thin.
His two principal points were that Hamas, Iran and ISIS emanated from the same
roots and had similarly dangerous and predatory global aims, and that it was
foolhardy for the United States and other Western powers to negotiate an
agreement with Iran on nuclear issues and removing sanctions. All of those
basic points he made are factually wrong. Consequently, because he has repeated
them so many times without offering any proof beyond his own deep frowns and
wild exaggerations, these points do not gain traction among the American
public. They have also created the greatest strains in top-level U.S.-Israeli
relations for generations.
The accusation that Hamas and ISIS are two branches of the same tree is
palpable nonsense. The only thing they have in common is that they draw on
Islamic doctrines and values as their guiding principles — in the same way that
all recent American presidents and some weirdo, kookie Texan cults have all
based their actions in Biblical texts and values. In both cases, though, each
group interprets the religious text in very different ways, leading to very
different actions that are worlds apart.
The repeated mistake Netanyahu makes — or perhaps it is a deliberate lie — is
to see any movement or rhetoric in the Middle East that references Islamic
values as a dangerous threat. Indeed, Iran, Hamas and ISIS all claim to act on
the basis of religious principles, even dictates, but they operate in three
very different universes that Netanyahu conflates into one.
Hamas is a resistance movement that was born in the 1980s primarily to fight
against the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands. Iran is a strong and proud
ancient civilization and country that lingers under the fading influence of its
1979 Islamic Revolution, but mostly is powered by a determination not to bend
to Western colonial manipulation and threats anchored in double standards. ISIS
is a violent, cult-like movement that emerged in recent years from the
post-1990s legacy of Al-Qaeda, and both reflect a fringe micro-minority of
Muslims who react to the despicable way they have been treated for decades by
their own power structures and invading foreign armies alike (American, British,
Soviet and others).
It is telling that Al-Qaeda and, more recently, ISIS have tried repeatedly to
harness mass support among Arab public opinion, but always without success. The
masses of Arabs who are discontented with their socio-economic or political
conditions and look to their faith for succor, hope and strength, chronically
reject the cults of death, destruction and terrorism that ISIS and Al-Qaeda
represent; instead they support the nationalist-, resistance- and
community-based strategies of groups like the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, Hezbollah
and others of this kind. ISIS has only been able to control some lands in Syria
and Iraq by the threat and use of brutal force, rather than by the consent of
those whom it rules (with very, very few exceptions that prove the rule).
Hamas and Hezbollah are very similar groups that are anchored in Islamic values
and operate in several arenas that reflect widespread public sentiments:
resistance to and liberation from Israeli occupation, building more equitable
and less corrupt societies, and, in their words, defiance of American-led
Western and Israeli hegemonic aims. Their relative successes have earned them
significant indigenous support; their real problem is that they have not been
able to offer their people a long-term strategy or national vision that
transcends military resistance and regular bouts of savage and destructive wars
with Israel. Netanyahu refuses to acknowledge that Hamas’ birth and development
are almost totally a reaction to Israeli policies of occupation, annexation,
colonization, death, mass imprisonment and racist-like repression.
Iran is a totally different story, and one that has evolved recently with the
election of President Hassan Rouhani, whose government has negotiated seriously
with world powers to resolve disputes related to nuclear issues and sanctions.
The fact that the United States, European Union, Russia, American public
opinion, and practically the entire world support the negotiations with Iran
indicates how isolated Israel is in its hysteria about Iran’s potential threat.
Netanyahu’s claim that Iran is the greatest threat to world peace should be
viewed in the context of the most recent WIN/Gallup International Global Survey
of 65 countries that identified the world’s most dangerous threat to world
peace as the United States (24% of respondents), followed by Pakistan (8%),
China (6%), North Korea, and then Israel and Iran (5%).
Rami G. Khouri is editor-at-large
of The Daily Star, and director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public
Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut, in
Beirut, Lebanon. On Twitter: @ramikhouri.
Copyright
© 2014 Rami G. Khouri—distributed by Agence Global