Despite Turkey’s efforts, and all the reports to the contrary, I feel that there is little hope for Israeli Syrian peace, because both Syria and Israel are doing relatively well in today’s global market. Syria is thriving instead of withering under US pressure, and Israel is exploiting the entire security fear market.<\/p>\n
Bush and Cheney policies have made Syria\u2019s regime popular, and they have even made it profitable to be anti-American in the Middle East. Global and local factors have led to Syria\u2019s current and surprising enrichment. A few years ago, Syria was besieged, and nearly economically bankrupt. President Bush\u2019s inept policies towards the region supplied a new lifeline to Syria. A well executed relaxation of Syria\u2019s banking system coincided with an inept US crackdown on everything \u201cIslamic,\u201d and both undertakings made Syria a natural deposit site for all Muslim funds. You don\u2019t need to be a terrorist, or a terrorist sympathizer, to have once written a check to a charity that has been now (fairly or unfairly) linked to Hamas or Hezbollah. And if you are one of the unlucky men or women who have ever done so, then Syria\u2026not Switzerland (or New York) is where you want to bank today. Money talks and money has no ideology. With skyrocketing oil prices, plummeting dollar and harsher US security measures, Syria is winning the all-important war of the Euro.<\/p>\n
Just visit Damascus, as I recently did, and you can conclude that Uncle Sam, intent on making Syria \u201caccountable,\u201d has lost his touch. The ineptitude of the Bush administration in concert with the wise financial reforms instituted by the Syrian government have created a situation where Syria is thriving. This recent economic boon in Syria has allowed Syrians to adopt a wait-and-see strategy Vis-\u00e0-Vis Israel. Hafez Al Assad once asked something to the effect of \u2018why are you all (Arab Leaders at a summit) in such a hurry to sit down with Israel and negotiate a peace agreement? The Crusaders were amongst us for hundreds of years, so were the Ottomans, Israel has been around for a few decades\u2026give us another hundred years and they too will be gone!\u2019 President Bashar Al Assad grew up listening to the farsighted musings of his father and he has internalized them; what is the point in negotiating with a foe that has all the cards? If one can afford to wait and see, then things will change. Things now have changed, and as long as the neocons run America things will change even more in Syria\u2019s favor. Syria thrives on low grade confrontation with America; rejection of Israeli inspired US hegemony is Brand Syria.<\/p>\n
The other reason for my pessimism is the fact that Israel is also thriving on tension with Syrians Arabs and Muslims in general. The clash of civilizations paradigm has become a cottage industry for Israelis who are the global leaders in technology and security. They are the first to market in this growing field. Fronted by other world nationals the security industry is thriving. Who, other that the Israelis, can really viscerally understand this atmosphere of insecurity and therefore profit from it? They have made it laudable and more importantly profitable to be pro-American and pro-western in an atmosphere of hyped fears for national security.<\/p>\n
Syrians and Israelis love to talk politics, and that’s why this peace initiative is being discussed, but at heart they are mercantile people who share a y-chromosome that resonates to the music of cha ching. Walk the streets of Tel Aviv and I dare you to tell Israelis apart from the Syrians of Damascus; thier real differences are in their nurture not nature. Israelis have been brought up to yearn for security “in purity” while Syrians have been raised on pride “in patrimony”. Both are false Gods and until both realize this fact they will be no peace.<\/p>\n
Both have been told lies for so long that they fully believe in them. The \u201cIsraeli Lie\u201d is around the notion that it is possible to live safely in the middle of the bloody Middle East as a purely \u201cJewish\u201d state. This is what I call security in purity. I don\u2019t even bother arguing this point with my many Jewish friends because their discourse is dominated by the Holocaust and one can\u2019t say, \u201cGet over it!\u201d and not sound like an Anti Semite. But to all my none-Jewish friends, the idea of being purely anything and building a nation-state around that concept seems irrational. Imagine a purely Christian America! Or a purely Native American Manhattan returned to it indigenous owners! Can such a fantasy be sustained? Yet, every day we hear some powerful Israeli standing side by side with an even more powerful American informing some hapless Palestinian that he must first and foremost acknowledge the existence of the \u201cJewish\u201d state of Israel. There is no security in purity, security only comes in diversity.<\/p>\n
Syria’s obfuscation is what I call pride in patrimony. I have resigned myself to never discuss the issue of leadership with any fellow Syrian. Every Syrian is a chief, and all the chiefs yearn of an ever greater and bigger chief to come along and further lead them with his inspired leadership. Thus, the faults of all Syrians rest in their leaders and indirectly the regime while, ironically, all their strengths also stem from the same regime. To my non-Syrian friends this is incomprehensible. People\u2019s faults reside in the people and not their leaders because they all end up with leaders that are (in one way or another) reflective of who they are. President Bush is what America wanted after Nine Eleven, a warmonger who may not be too smart but he can sure scare the crazies that are out to get them. Bashar Assad is exactly what Syrians want; the son of Syria\u2019s long-term wise father.<\/p>\n
Security in purity and pride in patrimony are two lies that Israelis and Syrians have propagated. Lies that have served them well financially but that have also been emotionally costly. For Israel and Syria to talk of real peace, a new set of questions must be asked in hope of shifting the existing paradigm. The first question\u2019s simple: Is the profitable status quo sustainable? The second question is more nuanced: Can you see any profit in cooperation? And last and but not least; the most important factor needed to bring about real peace talks is the expiration of the Bush Presidency…all that is going on now is a prelude to 2009. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Despite Turkey’s efforts, and all the reports to the contrary, I feel that there is little hope for Israeli Syrian peace, because both Syria and Israel are doing relatively well in today’s global market. Syria is thriving instead of withering under US pressure, and Israel is exploiting the entire security fear market. Bush and Cheney […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.creativesyria.com\/syrianbloggers\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.creativesyria.com\/syrianbloggers\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.creativesyria.com\/syrianbloggers\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.creativesyria.com\/syrianbloggers\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.creativesyria.com\/syrianbloggers\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=59"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.creativesyria.com\/syrianbloggers\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.creativesyria.com\/syrianbloggers\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=59"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.creativesyria.com\/syrianbloggers\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=59"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.creativesyria.com\/syrianbloggers\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=59"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}