“WAITING FOR THE ISRAELIS”

a rough draft

Satti’ Noureddine writes daily editorials for the Lebanese As-Safir (Arab nationalist; Shia; close to Syria and Hezbollah.) In today’s editorial (“Waiting for the Israelis”) he dissects the relative lethargy of the Arab Street in reacting to Gaza. In other words, he’s somewhat surprised and moderately disappointed by the relatively muted response by the Arab public to the massacres in Gaza. A couple of days earlier, he had noted the low-level reaction of the Islamists to Gaza’s suffering. (“Battle of the Islamists,” 1/3/09.)

Mr. Noureddine is off the mark. I’ve fallen myself to measuring the reaction of the Arab Street by what’s visible. I’ve done it quite recently. But in doing so I’ve ignored my earlier observation in this blog: that the Arab Street had long gone underground and was bound to further dig deeper into the ground. Will come a time when the Islamists will shave their beards, don suits, and carry briefcases. Secret cells and secret organization will connect them.

What’s al-Qaeda but the Arab Street/Arab opposition gone underground? That it chose exile is common sense in view of the impossibility of opposing regimes that are endorsed by the West wholesale. Consider Algeria’s experience; and now Palestine. The opposition in both places had won elections fair and square. The West made them eat dirt as a result.

The visible and apparent therefore don’t provide an accurate gage of the reaction of the Arab public to the Gaza massacres. Reaction to these things had headed underground and will head there even more, post-Gaza.

As to Mr. Noureddine’s observation that the opposition to the Gaza massacres against the Palestinians has got to come from the Israelis: this is unlikely to happen unless there are high casualties among Israeli troops. Besides, the Bush years have uncovered such a close and intimate link between Israel’s diaspora in the United States and that diaspora’s choices for political alliances on the one hand and Israel’s behavior on the other. The diaspora has gone right-wing in its majority and has chosen to be at the forefront of imperial expansion, an arm of the Anglo capitalists, so to speak. As things stand, the Anglos are intent on wiping out any Sunni or Arab or Arab Sunni who raises his head. Hence the largest American embassy in the world was built in Baghdad, in the heart of the Arab nation. The Arabs, including Mr. Noureddine, will be monitored closely, very.

The Israelis don’t matter. They now follows their diaspora’s lead, mostly, not the other way around. The diaspora wants to be at the service of the Anglos -- to protect its relevance and cohesiveness by presenting itself as the medium to control Arab and Muslim oil. It even had dispatched a higher proportion of its boys to administer Iraq than, say, Italian-Americans or even Arab-Americans. One of them, U.S. Senator Arlen Specter, even flew to Baghdad to speed up the lynching of an Arab leader. (I’m aware that the Arab leader had little sympathy; but that’s besides the point, isn’t it? Divide and conquer. Who says, for instance, that Mr. Noureddine would get more sympathy if he's lynched? Or Mr. Larijani? Or any Arab or Muslim?)

Israel follows the lead of the oil-hungry imperial Anglos, too, and moves to wipe out the Arabs who’ve raised their head in Gaza.

The harmful idiots and Israel’s diaspora will be monitoring all Arabs and Muslims from the largest American embassy in the world. Divide and conquer will be their operative policy.

Mr. Noureddine: Smile, you’re monitored too, even as you open up to them.