Outside of Venezuela and Latin America, there was no greater outpouring of support and sympathy for Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez than in the Arab world.
Comparisons to the great Egyptian president Gamal Abdul-Nasser began immediately. Many even declared Chavez himself an Arab based on his anti-imperialist policies and support for Palestinian liberation. Political commentators, at least those not on the Saudi and Qatari payrolls, emphasized his public support for Palestinian rights and Iran’s right to pursue a peaceful nuclear program, as well as his opposition to the wars on Iraq, Libya, and most recently the proxy war on Syria.
It’s not difficult to understand why Chavez enjoyed such support and admiration among the Arab public. Chavez stood in stark contrast to the politically impotent, petty tyrants that rule the Arab world. He spent 14 years as president of Venezuela and consistently won clear majorities of the vote in free and fair elections.
During this period Arabs watched him defy the American empire as semi-literate oil-Sheikhs and brutal dictators groveled in front of the latest US secretary of state. They heard Chavez condemn the war on Iraq as Gulf Cooperation Council royals did sword dances with George W. Bush.
Arabs remembered Chavez’s condemnations of Israel’s 2006 onslaught of Lebanon, when Arab regimes were quietly, and some not so quietly, supporting Israel’s bid to destroy the resistance in Lebanon. Arabs watched Chavez’s famous speech on Gaza when Hosni Mubarak, along with Israel, was enforcing a siege on 1.5 million Palestinians. They also remember that it was Chavez who expelled the Israeli Ambassador to Venezuela in protest of Israel’s 2008 massacre in Gaza.
But it wasn’t only Chavez’s impact on the world stage and his support for Arab causes that earned him popular respect and admiration. The Arab public also admired Chavez’s achievements in Venezuela and Latin America, which also stood in sharp contrast to the failures, incompetence, and corruption of Arab regimes. Chavez succeeded in achieving greater economic and political integration in Latin America while pursuing progressive social and economic policies at home.
Arabs watched Chavez nationalize Venezuelan oil and use the increased revenues to help improve the lives of the most marginalized Venezuelans. Arabs watched their own oil profits squandered on the lavish lifestyles of indulgent sheikhs while Chavez cut poverty in half. Arabs also watched the rise of obscene skyscrapers and the construction of artificial islands as Chavez was investing in social programs to end illiteracy, expand education, and provide healthcare to the most impoverished areas of Venezuela.
Chavez and Nasser had much in common both on a personal and political level. Both came from a humble background, began their careers in the military, and then lead popular revolutions that changed their society. As with Nasser, Arab support and sympathy for Chavez was not emotional nor was it driven solely by a charismatic personality. Although both leaders were highly charismatic, enjoyed an emotional connection with their people, and brought them a greater degree of dignity, their support derived mainly from tangible accomplishments at home and abroad.
Chavez and Nasser were able to improve the quality of life for the neediest in their societies, and both men understood the struggle for freedom and social justice at home was intrinsically linked to the struggle against imperialism and foreign domination. For this, Chavez, like Nasser and all leaders that insist on full sovereignty and the right to pursue independent domestic and foreign policies, was also vilified by Western governments and media.
We often hear that Arab Nationalism is dead and that Arabs do not share any common concerns beyond the borders. US client regimes in the region and their hired propagandists have insisted Arabs no longer consider the liberation of Palestine the central cause of the Arab people and that anti-imperialist discourse is something of the past. Yet the passing of Chavez and the invocation of Nasser’s memory in the wake of his death show the exact opposite.
The overwhelming support for Chavez leaves no doubt that his vision for Venezuela represents many Arabs’ vision for their own future, and that must be very troubling for many people.
Thabit Al-Arabi is co-editor of Ikhras, an Arab-American website that covers Arab and Muslim American politics and activism. You can follow Ikhras on Twitter.
March 12, 2013
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular | Arab, Arab world, Chavez, Gaza, Hugo Chávez, Israel, Palestine, Venezuela, Zionism |
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The Israeli colonization of Palestine continues unabated, and the political show that protects and enables it has become a boring and repetitive charade. At the same time, it serves to feed the agendas, wallets and speeches of politicians and others who like to pretend that they believe in a ‘negotiated solution’. It doesn’t take a genius to see how this deceptive game works, but it may be helpful to those whose eyes are filled with the sand that routinely gets sprinkled into them by Zionist spin doctors and their supporters around the world, to have the scenario spelled out in a clear and unambiguous way.
First of all, let us have a look at the cast, as well as the audience, in this theater of deceit. Of course, first of all there are Israelis and Palestinians; then there is the Arab world, the United States, the so-called ‘Quartet’ and the International Community. Each play their own role in making sure that the charade continues, effectively resulting in the continuing theft and colonization of more and more Palestinian land. This is what we have seen, and this is what we will continue to see if nothing changes. Nowadays, the ‘debate’ centers around ‘settlements’ and ‘settlers’. Let’s have a look at what this is really about.
‘Settlers’: Trained and Armed Terrorist Militia
The first deception that needs to be exposed for what it is, is the fake distinction between ‘Israelis’ on the one hand, and ‘settlers’ on the other. If you follow mainstream media, you would be tempted to believe that Israelis are ordinary citizens in a democracy that is similar to the democracies of Europe or the American continent, while settlers are religious extremist fanatics who often are at odds with the Israeli establishment.
If you believe this, you are actually wrong twice, since the Israelis are not ordinary citizens but themselves settlers or their offspring, who all – men and women – have served their mandatory time in the military for training. Those who are called ‘settlers’ are Israelis from that same population, who are further armed, financed and trained by that same Israeli establishment, and showered in luxury in order to tempt them to populate the new Zionist colonies on stolen Palestinian land.
Those they call ‘Israeli citizens’ live in the older Zionist colonies, that were established by the expulsion of the indigenous Palestinians and the destruction of their villages and cities in 1948. The so-called ‘settlers’ live in the newer colonies, established in a similar way on lands occupied in 1967. If you wish to be confused and misled, go ahead and fall for that deceptive distinction, and you will fail to see that the settlements are the outposts of the Israeli colonization of Palestine, populated by their armed terrorist militia that works closely with the Israeli army. This cooperation is illustrated most clearly by the way that the Israeli army protects the settlers when they conduct their destructive rampages through Palestinian villages and farmlands.
Financing Disunity
As for the Palestinians, they are tied down by the harsh circumstances of the occupation, as well as by their own flaws. One of the reasons for the complexity of their situation is of their own doing, namely their faction-inspired disunity. It lays the perfect groundwork for the Israelis to practice ‘divide and conquer’.
Being dependent on money from the West is the main factor that keeps the Palestinian Authority toeing the line in this sordid game. It is to be hoped that they realize what staying in the game means for the future of the Palestinians, but their lamenting ritual usually steers away from criticizing the most essential deceptions of the charade. On June 8th, the PA complained about Israel’s settlement policies with the following words: “This Israeli government’s priority is to appease the settlers, not to resolve the conflict.”
Keeping what was commented on previously in mind, they have it all wrong; Israel’s priority is to tighten their grip on Palestinian land which they plan to never return. The ‘settlers’ are the armed terrorist militia that they have deployed for this goal. Settlement debates, even in Israeli parliament, are just part of the show.
Good Cop, Bad Cop
This leads us to one of the main actors that enable this show to keep its Palestinian-land-devouring momentum: the United States of America. Under the deceptive layers of theatrical grime and costumes, it basically boils down to a ‘good cop, bad cop’ routine, with the USA posing as the ‘good cop’. A quick overview of almost two decades of ‘Oslo’ negotiations clearly displays that the United States support Israel’s settlement policies as much as they support the Israeli occupation itself, in spite of their efforts at claiming the opposite. The USA ‘condemns’ Israeli settlement expansion in words, while at the same time funding it with millions of American taxpayers’ dollars. Even in this ‘era of communication’, action still speaks louder than words.
On June 7th, Ariel Attias, Israeli Housing Minister, summed up the US-Israeli charade on settlement expansion.”They need to condemn. We need to build.” Does it come any clearer than that?
Crocodile Tears
No show is any good without an audience, and even that is something that has been well-provided for. Since the beginning of this century, the world has been introduced to a new player at the table, namely the ‘Quartet’. This basically non-existent entity is said to be comprised of the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations, and supposedly plays the role of a more objective force that has the capability of representing the International Community. In fact, what it truly serves as is a neutralizing chip that is meant to create a semblance of this representation, with as its main objective to render the International Community passive and inactive. This is why this so-called Quartet is barely ever mentioned, unless there is an issue that seems to require the opinion of the ‘outside world’. When the ‘Quartet’ does speak, all it does is shed a few crocodile tears about the ‘tragedy of the ongoing conflict’.
This should be no surprise, since at least 50 % of this group entails two main pro-Israeli forces: Europe, birthplace, trading partner and moral hostage of ‘Israel’, and the United States, the big bulldog that is sworn to protect Israel’s interests at whatever financial, military or strategic cost. If the idea was to have this balanced into impartiality by the presence of the United Nations (which has both these forces strongly represented in it as well, including American veto power) and by Russia, which has lost all interest in the Israeli question ever since it threw off Communism, we only deserve the title of gullible fools if we buy into this. You would think no one would, but the sad fact is that many in the International Community do, even while knowing better than to do so.
Arabs: No Fingers to Make a Fist
Motivated by selfishness, lack of principle, and a cocktail of moral, economical and strategic weakness, this last group is most visibly represented by the Arab nations. We can’t even blame the so-called ‘Arab Spring’ for this, since all these factors have been rendering the Arab voice – and even more so the Arab fist – impotent in the face of Zionism at least since the 70’s.
What we do see however, is how ‘Israel’ plays its cards comfortably to the backdrop of increased Arab disarray in this period of revolution. At times it appeals to the West for sympathy when it depicts potentially successful Arab revolutions as a threat to its existence. At other times it uses human rights violations in Arab states in revolutionary turmoil as an excuse to boost its own deceitful image as ‘the only democracy in the Middle East’, while making gestures of benevolence (like its fake utterances of sympathy for Syrian civilian victims) that attempt to mask its deeply and inherently racist anti-Arab ideology.
Will We Be Fooled All of the Time?
Having seen all of this, the question remains: isn’t there anyone who sees through this ridiculously dirty setup? Why has this deceitful theater show been allowed to continue for two decades, resulting in nothing but a tightened Israeli grip on territories it occupies in violation of International Law and United Nations resolutions? The answer to this question is not as far-fetched as it may seem at first sight.
In a world run by governments that manage to confuse their citizens by instigating as much bickering as possible over domestic issues, while drawing unwarranted mandates from these populations to manage their foreign policies in any way they please to, it is not to be marveled at that governments and main stream media are doing everything they can to keep up appearances. In other words, it is not because they themselves fail to see through the charade, but because they have a stake in it.
And the rest of us? Ordinary citizens, with an inquisitive mind of our own, who do not enjoy being taken for fools? We see through it, and we search for tools to unmask it, to oppose it, and to defuse it. Keeping in mind that many Palestinian family incomes depend directly upon the existence of a Palestinian Authority, there are not many Palestinians who truly believe that the words used in those charades actually have any meaning. The same goes for many of those who inhabit the Arab World and other ex-colonies of the West, many of them recognizing the patterns of these deceptive political games. As for the populations of the United States and Europe, awareness of the situation is on a steady increase thanks to the courageous efforts of pro-Palestinian activists and writers, despite desperate attempts by Zionist ‘sayanim’ and other (often paid) protagonists of Zionism to flood social media with their propaganda.
The words of Abraham Lincoln spring to mind: “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.” Two decades is quite a lot of time, and the hour is nearing when we must prove that Lincoln was right. Soon enough, the curtain on this political charade must fall, and the show must be over.
– Tariq Shadid is a Palestinian surgeon living in the Middle East, and has written numerous essays about the Palestinian issue over the years.
June 11, 2012
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular | Arab, Israel, Israeli settlement, United States, Zionism |
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