Sunday, May 30, 2010

Realpolitik and breaking the Gaza siege


I think it is admirable that anybody is trying to break the unjust siege of Gaza but for a nation that shamelessly killed thousands of people in Lebanon and Gaza in front of the whole world, I don't expect they will be too worried about stopping the flotilla. I think the day Israel starts to worry about what international public opinion says of it is the day that they have lost the war completely. That is a fact. If you are strong you don't need to worry about what people think about you.

In fact in the Middle East industry (yes - it is a living for many people on both sides of the divide), most people miss that point. Mao Zedong put it aptly, power flows out of the barrel of a gun and no one understands this better than the Zionist. Not that there is anything wrong with that logic. It is almost like a mathematical rule, in fact it is a necessity for anybody keen on surviving to understand the nature of power and how it flows like a stream through rocks and pathways, concentrating in little pools here and there. In that sense, when the student of politics examines the statements, political positions and public expressions of the Zionist government or military, you find expressions of strength and sovereignty in every nuance. It is something on which there is no compromise.

Machiavelli was demonised forever when he tried to sum up what a prince would need to do in order to acquire and then maintain his power. It was not about morality or right and wrong. The morality of nations is different from individual morality. To confuse the two risks injustice on a massive scale. Incontinent people, always ready to miss an opportunity at knowledge, refuse this equation foolishly. As the Arabic saying goes, الفرد في يد المنيح يدبح"the gun in the hands of a good man kills". What that means is that a weapon, in the hands of a self-styled good man, will kill because of his eagerness to do good. Good and evil have different meanings when it comes to the morality of nations and this requires individuals of a particular kind of stomach.

When one looks at the opposing camp, the majority of Arab nations lack this in their dialogue and that is because the majority have decided that they would rather become protectorates. Where you do find the same non-compromising, sovereign and power-conscious discourse is in the speeches, nuances and every detail that emanate from Iran, Hezbullah and Syria.

In this way you begin to identify the two opposing poles around which power is being concentrated. An alliance of Muslim and Arab countries on the one hand, and the Zionist state on the other. The key though is always to be able to recognise power. How is it expressed? Where is it located and what are its limits? Everything else is secondary whether it is culture, tolerance or 'freedom'.

To conclude, if your analysis of the Middle East lacks this nuance then it is flawed. Discussions of peace, tolerance and co-existence are irrelevant. Once the reins of power are assumed there is not a nation in history that has ever given them up willingly. The Cold War ended only with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Rome destroyed Carthage. Sparta defeated Athens. Nazi Germany and Japan were crushed to a pulp. This is a zero-sum game, it is neither tragic nor triumphant to recognise this fact. In the same way that you know two male lions will continue to fight until one of them is dominant, or two stags will continue to clash until only one of them wins the mate, so too the struggle for the Middle East.

5 comments:

Hamoudi Al-Assaf said...

Exactly ...

It's all about the size of the armies at the end of day.. And this is why the arabs who say that we should opt for negotiations and have a democratic approach for confronting the enemy, and to "look good" in the media, i think it just weakens us more. I think the arabs who think that the zionist agenda would stop once we solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, are the ones who are pulling us down. When we have leaders like the douchebag Abdullah of Jordan who once said in Davos : All the problems in the middle east would be solved once the palestenians make peace with Israel . Ya3ni i've read The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and anyone with a decent understanding of history would realize that they won't simply leave us alone after they get that peace. As antoine s3adeh pinned it " الحرب مع اسرائيل حرب وجود وليست حرب حدود "

I simply don't beleive in peace with Israel, i think as oil-rich countries its just dumb to think about peace.

Because, as you nailed it : "If you are strong you don't need to worry about what people think about you."

This is why i think that all the arabs who whore themselves out in front of the white house, that are supposedly trying to "clean" the arab image in front of the world, and who justify concessions with the stupid lie of Peace and "no more bloodshed"...I think those are the ones who are weakening us. It's our weakness that makes Israel strong.

The minute an arab country achieves military parity with Israel, that would be the beginning of the end of Israel. It's not when that peace process magically works that would solve 60 years of struggle . It's when you make the atomic bomb or point your scud missiles on Israel, thats when your voice gets heard on this planet. Not when our arab leaders whore themselves out in front of the white house and import that so-called democracy of the United States to our countries.

War seals everything, even if your wrong.

There's a saying in syria :

ما بفل الحديد إلّا الحديد

Maysaloon said...

Well said, though bear in mind that the protocols of the elders of zion are actually fakes and were propaganda tools made by the czar of Russia. It's actually a disservice to quote from them or mention them.

Hamoudi Al-Assaf said...

Never knew that..Thanks for the clarification

Maysaloon said...

No worries basha.

Editor S. said...

I notice that you have no label for "Peace" on your blog. Is this because the prospect seems so remote?

We invite you to review and comment (openly or in private) upon the iterative, collaborative, way-forward proposal "A Peace of Jerusalem" here: http://APoJi.org

May peace be upon us all.