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Peace with Syria - Lunch in Damascus
By Uri Avnery (about the author) Page 1 of 3 page(s)
For OpEdNews: Uri Avnery - Writer
Suddenly I had an inspiration. "When we have peace," I said, "You can take your taxi in the morning and go to Damascus, have lunch there with real authentic Hummus and come back home in the evening."
He jumped at the idea. "Wow," he exclaimed, "If that happens, I shall take you with me for nothing!"
"And I shall treat you to lunch," I responded.
He continued to dream. "If I could go to Damascus in my car, I could drive on from there all the way to Paris!"
* * *
BASHAR AL-ASSAD has done it again. He has succeeded in confusing the Israeli government.
As long as he voices the ritual threat to liberate the Golan Heights by force, it does not upset anybody. After all, that only confirms what many want to hear: that there is no way to have peace with Syria, that sooner or later we shall have a war with them.
Why is that good? Simple: peace with Syria would mean giving back the Golan Heights (Syrian territory by any definition). No peace, no need to give them back.
But when Bashar starts to talk peace, we are in trouble. That is a sinister plot. It may, God forbid, create a situation that would compel us to return the territory.
Therefore, we should not even speak about it. The news must be buried in some remote corner of the papers and at the end of the news on TV, as just "another speech of Assad". The government rejects them "on the threshold", adding that it cannot even be discussed until
Until what? Until he stops supporting Hizbullah. Until Syria expels the representatives of Hamas and the other Palestinian organizations. Until regime change takes place in Syria. Until a Western-style democracy is installed there. In short, until he registers as a member of the Zionist organization.
* * *
THE RELATIONS between Israel and Syria have a documented history of at least 2859 years. In the year 853 B.C. Israel is mentioned--for the first time, it seems--in an authentic document outside the Bible. Twelve monarchs of the region, led by the kings of Damascus and Israel, united against the growing threat of Assyria, The decisive battle took place at Karkar (in the north of today's Syria). According to an Assyrian document, 20 thousand soldiers and 1200 chariots of Damascus fought side by side with 10 thousand soldiers and 2000 chariots of Ahab, king of Israel. It is not quite clear which side won.
But that was a temporary alliance. For most of the time, Israel and Aram-Damascus fought against each other for regional supremacy. Ahab died a hero's death in one of these wars against Aram, just two years after the battle against the Assyrians.
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Thank you for this thoughtful article, Uri.
I am no fan of Israel or of Judaism, but I find the currently widespread opinion in the U.S. that AIPAC and Israel determine U.S. foreign policy to be ludicrous. Do the people who blame AIPAC and Israel for the invasion of Iraq believe that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and the gang are men of peace and that if not for AIPAC and Israel they wouldn't have gone to war at all? Do the people who blame AIPAC and Israel for the invasion of Iraq believe that if not for AIPAC and Israel, BushCo would have invaded some country other than Iraq, perhaps a country whose citizens were Caucasion and which had no oil? Since the U.S. started out by committing genocide against the Native American population here, and went on to invade and annex part of Mexico, and then to invade wherever it felt there was money to be made, to overthrow elected governments it perceived as leftist or hostile towards U.S. business interests, and to install dictators of its own choosing, even before the state of Israel or AIPAC existed, who do the people who think that AIPAC and Israel control U.S. policy, think was directing it back then? I wish that Israel was not a theocracy, and that it wasn't pursuing what I believe to be a fascist policy towards the Palestinians, because it would make it much easier to defend Israel against allegations of fascism. In any event, although Israel is obviously a strong ally of the U.S.,I don't believe that AIPAC and Israel control U.S. policy. I think the U.S. is fully capable of being totally meshuggah all by itself. --Mark by Mark E. Smith (21 articles, 30 quicklinks, 100 diaries, 1325 comments [1 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Friday, Oct 6, 2006 at 1:54:12 AM  (0+)
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