One word you don’t hear mentioned often with regard to the Middle East conflicts is “freedom.”
That’s odd, but not entirely surprising.
I think it’s a word we ought to consider more in the context of the Arab-Israeli crisis.
We’re told the struggle between Arabs and Israelis centers around the desire for a Palestinian homeland.
It doesn’t, of course. That’s merely the latest excuse for conflict. Since there was no national movement for a Palestinian Arab homeland prior to 1967, we can conclude that this is a recent invention – a creation of propagandists whose real goal is the destruction of Israel.
But let’s pretend, for a moment, that it is a genuine, heartfelt conviction. Let’s pretend that there is actually justification for such a movement. Let’s pretend that Palestinian Arabs actually represent a unique cultural and national identify worthy of statehood.
Most of us believe in self-determination for peoples. We believe they have a right to self-government. We believe they have inalienable rights to sovereignty and independence.
Will the Palestinian Arabs ever get it through such a movement?
Not likely. Not while the most reasonable of their leaders is Yasser Arafat. Not while their leadership courts the blessing of international thugs from Baghdad to Tripoli. Not while their leadership fails to recognize the basic human and civil rights of individuals to dissent, to vote for their leadership and to express themselves freely.
We often hear about a “peace process” in the Middle East, yet few ever talk about a “freedom process.” I believe there will be no peace until there is freedom. And there is no freedom in the Arab world, which is why there would be no peace – with or without Israel.
My thoughts about this “freedom issue” in the context of the Middle East conflict arose again recently when I learned of the fate of Habib Younes, a journalist working in Lebanon for the international Arabic newspaper Al-Hayat. Last week he was formally charged with collaborating with Israel and arrested by a military tribunal.
Younes is senior editor at the Beirut bureau of the London-based and Saudi-owned Al-Hayat. He was the second Lebanese journalist to be charged in a week with collaborating and meeting with Israeli officials. The first arrested was Antoine Bassil of the London-based Middle East Broadcasting Corp., who is also suspected of being in contact with Israeli officials.
This is seen as a serious crime for journalists in Syrian-occupied Lebanon. Yet, talking to people – all kinds of people with all kinds of ideas – is the job of journalists. That puts Lebanon and Syria and most of the Arab world, which supports this kind of repression, squarely in the anti-freedom camp.
Two weeks earlier, the Lebanese army detained 250 Christians opposed to Syria’s occupation of Lebanon. Since the Israeli pullout from southern Lebanon last year, more than 3,000 people – mostly Christians – have been sentenced for collaboration with Israel.
Not much protest was heard regarding the recent arrests. Yet, these police-state tactics should be observed by the whole world for what they are – a glimpse of the future in a Palestinian state.
The pope did speak out – though his words stirred little media attention. He said, “a pluralistic and free Lebanon constitutes for the entire Middle East region a richness: let everyone help the Lebanese people preserve it and make it bear fruit.”
Well, I’m afraid there is little to preserve – at least as long as Damascus is calling the shots. But the pope is right about one thing: A free Lebanon should be the No. 1 priority for those who want peace – and freedom – in the Middle East.
The world should be asking: Do we really need another police state in the Middle East? Aren’t there enough Arab police states? If those Arabs protesting in Israel want to live in a police state, don’t they have enough to choose from already?
The answer? The creation of another authoritarian state is the last thing the world needs. How can it possibly bring stability and peace to a region dominated by unaccountable thugs who jail reporters for talking to sources, who arrest citizens because of their faith, who think nothing of eliminating and oppressing their own people over political disagreements?
