Ain-Al-Yaqeen - March 25, 2005

		March 25, 2005

CLEAR AND TRANSPARENT DISCUSSION ON ARAB-EUROPEAN RELATIONS BETWEEN MEMBERS OF THE CONSERVATIVE COUNCIL FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND THE AMBASSADOR OF THE ARAB LEAGUE TO BRITAIN.
AMBASSADOR ALI MUHSEN HAMID: ISRAEL'S UNRESTRAINED POWER IS NOT IN THE INTERESTS OF PEACE NEITHER IS IT IN YOUR INTERESTS, BECAUSE IT ENCOURAGES ISRAEL TO SLIGHT EUROPE AND BELITTLE ITS ROLE IN THE REGION.
OUR REGION IS A PIONEER IN BUILDING CIVILIZATIONS AND SOME ORIENTALISTS ARE BEHIND THE NEGATIVE IDEAS ABOUT ARABS IN THE WEST.
ISRAEL INSTIGATES THE WEST AGAINST ISLAM DESPITE OUR LONG WAR AGAINST TERRORISM.
WE ARE SEMITIC SO HOW ARE THEY TRYING TO ACCUSE US OF ANTI-SEMITISM.
THE INDEPENDENCE OF EUROPEAN POLICIES FROM ISRAELI AND AMERICAN POLICIES IS SOMETHING WHICH ACTUALLY SERVES THE PEACE IN THE REGION.

The Arab League's Ambassador Ali Muhsen Hamid delivered a talk entitled Arabs and the West: Indispensable Relation, before the Conservative Foreign & Commonwealth Council at the Palace of Westminster.

Following is the text of the talk:

Ladies and gentlemen,

Thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to speak before this august gathering hosted by the Conservative Foreign and Commonwealth Council.

Please allow me, from the outset, to make two points.

The first is that in spite of the negative impression we Arabs have of the Conservative Party because of its role in the Arab region at the time of the British imperialist period in a number of Arab countries, we nonetheless consider this part and parcel of the past, and are currently, in our aspiration to undergo significant reform and enjoy good governance, truly appreciative of the Conservative Party's faith and undeniable role in developing the democratic process and developing political pluralism, the parliamentary process, and freedom of the press. The Conservative Party has had a central role in entrenching these and other values. We hope that Arab conservatives will follow in the footsteps of the Conservative Party.

The second point I wish to put across is in connection with the difficulties I faced in writing down the text of this speech on Arab-Western relations. The Arab world consists of 22 Arab countries of differing levels of political and economic development and of population size who often have divergent interests and stances in their international relations. This is of course also true of a number of western countries.

The Arabs, Europe's neighbours, are also a very cohesive population block, brought together by a common language, religion and geographical extension stretching from north Africa to the Indian ocean, and possessing rich natural resources marked by their diversity. The Arabs, who currently number about 300 million, originate from the Arab Peninsula, which was the source of large migrations which began before Islam and continued until the eighteenth century. Most Arabs believe in Islam.

Arabs are proud of their common history and of the glories of their past, which left a clear imprint on Europe's Renaissance. This undeniable role represents one of the positive aspects of interaction between the Arabs and Europe.

After the Arab world was under Ottoman then European rule, the Arab political, scientific and cultural role was vastly diminished and Arabs lost their independence and their distinctive international standing. The influence of these diverse imperial forces continues to this day. The political, economic and educational backwardness which manifest in the Arab world is an effect of this.

These conditions weakened the Arab ability to confront challenges, one of the most prominent of which was the creation of the Jewish state in Palestine in 1948. Since that time the Arab region lost its stability and peace, and becomes party to a war approximately every ten years. It appeared recently that the west needed war to hold its societies together, for fear that society would otherwise collapse through selfishness and individualism. I can add that the west needs battlefields to test its new brand of military technology, and that the Arab strategic location seems to be the testing ground. The same, it seems, is true of Israel.

Arabs fought for independence from the Ottomans, but allied western forces dashed their hopes, and western armies took the place of Turkish forces. Arabs believed there was still a ray of hope, at the end of the First World War, when American President Wilson issued his fourteen points, which included peoples' right to self-determination, but they were shocked, or dismayed, to learn that these principles are meant to apply to Europe alone. Oil invalidates these noble principles, because such principles, according to Mr. Henry Kissinger, cannot guide the US policy in the Gulf.

The creation of just one state in Palestine in 1948, was in contravention to UN Resolution 181 of 1947, which stipulated that two states be established, one Arab and the other Jewish. This led to overt or covert expressions of tension in Arab-western relations as a result of the west's total or partial stance of support given to Israel, whether the latter happened to be in the right or in the wrong. Western support of Israel led to a new language which we Arabs call the language of double standards in international relations, reminiscent of Wilson's Fourteen Points, and reminiscent of what a French high official once said to a Syrian citizen who tried to enter into discussion with him regarding the principles of the French Revolution of liberty, equality, and fraternity, to the effect that these principles apply back in France, not here in Syria.

The desire for independence and a dignified life were at the heart of the Arab struggle to free themselves of foreign rule. Looking at Egypt's failure to conclude an arms deal with the United States in the fifties, and the World Bank's refusal to finance the building of the High Dam also in Egypt, the Arab world deemed it wise to avoid being sucked into the formation of military blocks during the cold war between the US and the Soviet camps. The Arabs therefore had no alternative but to adopt a policy of non-alignment. They were able to play a marked role in their adoption of that policy, aiming to preserve their independence.

But the west looked upon non-alignment as an immoral stance, at least, when that policy first emerged, and did not respect this independent Arab resolution. Because the door to the west was closed before us, we had to open our doors to the USSR and to the People's Republic of China. Whenever some progress was achieved in military or economic cooperation between some Arab countries and the Soviet Union, the west began to worry, though its worry did not extend to offering western support as an alternative to the Soviet Union. The west in many cases seemed to put the interests of Israel before its own, and listened deeply to Israel, which falsely depicted itself as the sole protector of western interests in the Arab region, and the power which can curb the expansion of Soviet influence in the region. It appeared that the west needed a pretext or excuse to justify its continued bias in favour of Israel, in spite of the fact that the Arabs had not forgotten that the Soviet Union was the first state to recognize Israel in 1948, and in spite of the fact that London and Paris are closer to them than is Moscow. The Arabs contributed to the defeat of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, both financially and through fighters, and their part in the Union's dissolution was thus certainly not insignificant. Some Arab countries refused to establish diplomatic relations with Moscow or Peking and other capitals of the communist block. But despite all this, Israel continued to be the western policeman in the region, and the pampered child of the west. Israel took advantage of the cold war period to trample roughshod on several political, economic and cultural truths and depict the Arabs as the enemies of western interests, despite the alliance of some Arab states with the west in Afghanistan, Angola and Nicaragua. Israel capitalized on and sought to exacerbate the slightest tension in Arab-western relations. It succeeded in doing that even in instances when some conflict of interests was to be expected, as often happens between the Arabs and the west.

The history of Arab-western relations is full of bitter moments and lost opportunities. Although rosy in parts, it is not without its pathways full of nettles and thorns which were not planted by Arabs, who have on the contrary tried to clear the path and find a constructive pathway upon which to base these relations a pathway based on mutual understanding, positive dynamism and due mindfulness of pan-Arab resolutions since the fifties, and, specifically, since the creation of the League of Arab States in 1945. They strove to have Arab-western relations which surpassed the dynamic of the colonizer and the colonized, and which reduced the burden of European ethno-centricism and its influence on Europe's view of the other. But despite this ardent desire the Arabs did not achieve any great success in this sphere, particularly after the equation had the US element added to it and after the latter's influence on Euro-Arab relations became evident. The more the US showed its bias in favour of Israel the more the European role in the Arab-Israeli conflict was dwarfed.

We seek a new common vision. We need a relationship that does not implant upon Kipling's statement that "East is east and west is west and never the twain shall meet"..

The world has become very small indeed. In an age of global business commuting we need to look towards new horizons. Most Arab capital is in fact deposited in western banks, and most of our trade is with the west, and the greater part of our technical and scientific expertise comprises western consultants and technicians. The only thing that has changed is the absence of the political advisor and the High Commissioner! Your universities enroll tens of thousands of Arab students. We invest in and purchase properties in your cities. The picture is now very different to what it once was. Trade between Saudi Arabia and the UK is larger than Britain's trade with Japan.

There are hundreds of flights weekly between the Arab region and Britain alone.

I wonder why the west does not ask itself this question: What did we achieve in the Gulf during the colonialist period? I wonder why the west does not look at Dubai's achievements over the past 35 as one of the emirates of the UAE since the latter became an independent state?

Unfortunately, and the responsibility for this situation falls on your own shoulders, because you did not concern yourself with education during your long colonial period of rule. Had Britain encouraged education and the development of a true liberal democratic process in the Arab region, instead of combating any independence of thought, the Arab region would have today become an extension of the west, and things would have been very different today. I understand that democracy and freedom are at odds with colonialism and military occupation, and that the first victim of such military means is indeed democracy and freedom. Western policies actually created puppet democracies which paved the way for military coups and for militarized societies.

We tried to create a partnership with you through the Euro-Arab dialogue process begun in 1975, within the framework of the League of Arab States and the European Common Market, but the dialogue begun then did not really achieve its desired objectives, mainly because of Europe's bias towards a narrow point of view in connection with the Palestinian issue, and because of the confinement of that dialogue exclusively to economic issues, bar the oil issue, and did not concern itself with addressing the divide over political issues. Pressure from the US to exclude the issues of oil and Palestine from the talks was evidently a formidable one.

It is clear to all that Arab-western relations have lacked a certain measure of stability as a result of the instability in the region itself. This instability is one of the effects of the Arab-Israeli conflict which is still unresolved in spite of the historical Arab initiative at the Arab League Summit in Beirut in March 2002, and the western bias towards the Israeli view and towards its imagined resolution to the conflict, ignoring as it does UN resolutions, and replacing the language of these resolutions with the language of force and of facts on the ground and their imposition.

This situation is very much at the expense of better Euro-Arab relations and has produced negative effects on both parties. One of these negative effects is the Arab view becoming more prevalent that the west is decidedly mean in its dealings with the Arabs, except when it comes to commercial interests and their development. To this day the west is not a real investor in the region, curtailing its investments as it does to the oil and gas sectors, as if the region is undeserving of economic and social progress. The aspiration to create a better situation is led by a new Arab intelligentsia which actually sees that the west only wants to corner Arab markets and have its stake in Arab oil. When Israel states that Arabs are terrorists the west quickly follows suite. When Israel says that democracy should be imposed on Arabs by force, echoes of this view begin to manifest in some western media outlets and western think tanks. When Israel begins to demonize Iraq and Iran the west goes to war against the former and begins to issue threatening admonishments to the latter.

There are those in the west who believe that an obstacle to improved Euro-Arab relations is the fact that Arabs are not yet on par with the west in terms of modernity, democracy and good governance. If this perception was the main stumbling block then things would not have been so bad. But what makes matters worse is that some people in the west see that the issues of democracy, good governance and the rule of law are inapplicable in the Arab world, because the absence of the foundations necessary for their implementation is an inherent part of the eastern psyche, and that 'eastern despotism' is the norm in the Arab political system. The adherents of this latter view have not made any significant distinction between the term 'eastern despotism' which was widely and indiscriminately applied by orientalists during the Ottoman period when we were under Ottoman subjugation and the realities of the current situation. It is true that we do not yet have a Westminster style democracy, but we nevertheless have systems of government that are gradually opening out which do not close the doors to renewal and reinvigoration. It could have been the old orientalist terminology which led the US to adopt the initiative of 'democratizing' the Middle East from the outside, and to unofficially view Islam as an enemy of democracy. In order not to let the US shoulder all the blame, it is indeed appropriate to remember that making an enemy out of Islam after the fall of the Soviet Union was initially an idea promulgated by a European-Atlantic senior figure, hailing from Brussels, the European capital, rather than from Washington.

But Washington entered actively into the fray after the terrorist events perpetrated on its own soil in 9/11/01. This was not a good justification for its enmity towards Arabs and Muslims. Israel's hand in the matter is clear. The Arabs condemned the terrorism of 9/11 and gave their full cooperation in the fight against it, but the US did not acknowledge their help despite their hand in the US success in combating it. We thought that these harrowing events may create a new understanding in the western mind, which did not seem to ask itself at any time what the source of this terrorism was and what its real reasons were, or did not seem to link the events to their causes. A dim ray of light emerged from the US when 58% of those who responded to a poll conducted by Newsweek magazine, asked what they thought the causes of this terrorism was, said that the Israeli occupation and the mistreatment of the Palestinian people were among the causes of terrorism. Arabs here in London and in other important capitals confirmed that this logic was in fact correct, and that the time had come to reject the policy of ignoring the interests of the Palestinian people, but the neo-conservatives and the Israeli lobby quickly adopted a different logic, which stated that the cause of this terrorism was not the Israeli occupation but Islam, because it incites to violence and hatred of the other. They thus transported hatred to the battlefield in the region. Of course Israel always has to be above censure and criticism. The late president Arafat donated his blood to the victims of 9/11, but despite this the nobility of the act was treated with disdain, and even developed into an accusation levelled against him of terrorism.

Israel got on the PR bandwagon and, together with the US, depicted itself as a victim of terrorism.

The Palestinians, who are the victims of daily Israeli terrorism, became once again terrorists. They were supposed to endure all this without batting an eyelid. Freedom and independence, for them, were taboos. Nobody wished them to have the honour of resisting an occupation which has endured for four decades. They were not allowed to follow in the footsteps of the French Maquis during the Second World War.

It is worth noting that the whole world ignored Arab calls for the convening of an international summit to fight terrorism. The first regional agreement for combating terrorism was signed by Arab countries in 1998. But despite this we are accused of being the terrorists. Killing a Palestinian child walking home from school or playing in his own backyard became part of Israel's fight against terrorism. The UN's accusations directed against Israel of perpetrating war crimes are unheeded.

The history of Arab civilization enables us to truly feel proud that there is nothing in our past to be ashamed of or to exonerate ourselves from responsibility for. We were not terrorists, nor were we anti-semitic in any way, because we ourselves are semites. Jewish people lived through some of their best times with us. Maimonides, or Moussa the son of Maimoun, as we call him in Arabic, lived in Andalusia, and wrote his philosophical works in Arabic, was an Arab citizen and enjoyed his full rights as a citizen. We had no inquisition, nor did our civilization produce Nazi or Fascist ideologies or ideologies which support the uprooting of a people from their homeland and the continued diasporisation of millions of its citizens, unable to exercise their right of return.

Arabs are the closest people on earth to the west and to Europe in the first instance. We are neighbours. Our present and our future are inter-related and there are no major disputes between us, other than that connected with your unjustifiable bias in favour of Israel and its policies of expansionism and colonialism. We understand your support of Israel's right to exist, but we cannot understand your support of its expansionist policies. There are many residual scars in Arab-western relations, some of which hail back to old conflicts, or to the colonialist period. But all these scars are for us residual marks that do not justify negativity in current policies nor do they check our ambition to establish stronger and better relations with you. Together we need to strive to know the reality of the prevalent state of affairs on both sides. It is then that we will find that there are many values held in common and only a few contradictions. We would like you to know us through headlines other than those of terrorism, despotism and fundamentalism. We would like to know you through other headlines than those of hegemony and the beating of the drums of war. We would like you to read about our state of affairs through what we ourselves write, not through what others write about us. We would like you to follow our own media to become more intimately familiar with us, not just to monitor what is said about the west by those who have incomplete information or have lost their objectivity. We would like to engage in a joint long-term cultural and informational enterprise with you. We would like to hold meetings and symposia between Arab and western and other intellectuals, where issues of contention are discussed, researched and analysed. Are you ready and earnest in wishing to deal with us as equals? As human beings we share your concerns and have common interests together with you, which should be mutually respected.

Despite the long-standing historical interactions between Arabs and Europe, there are only a few people in the west who understand Arabs. You call them Arabists. This description of them makes them less British or less American in the eyes of some. Some of those who support our causes you call liberals or leftists, although some of them are actually conservatives, or academics, or Christian members of the clergy. Those who accurately represent us among you are few. If one of them tries to be outspoken in his view he is called one of the 'Camel corps'. You have lived among us as colonialists in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and now it seems you wish to come back again in the twenty first century. You have sent orientalists and missionaries and academics to intermingle with us, but in spite of this misunderstandings still abound. Can this be explained by the fact that the power and affluence you now enjoy have made you unconcerned about the plight of others and unconcerned with the reality of the historical and civilisational origin of the other and the reality of the other's current situation? Some of you still see that there is still a special role for the white man as you did before, when you raised the banner of 'the white man's burden' or of Mission civilisatrice, which have been substituted by Donald Rumsfeld by the term 'liberation' and by George Bush as 'Endurable freedom' both of which terms excluding the Palestinians, who did not even crop up once in his speech on 20th January 2005?

It is not my intention to intimidate anyone here, but I do not intend, either, to paint an imaginary rosy picture of Arab-western relations or fantasise about how wonderful these relations could soon be, because the latter intention would require the exertion of effort by both sides to find a common understanding for the concerns and interests of both parties. Our pain and suffering is limitless. Now you, after having made Arabs and Islam your victims, are transferring your battle front to the Arab Muslim community. I have heard of writings on Dutch Islam, and British Islam and French Islam, but I have not heard of a French Christianity, or a German Christianity, or an American Christianity. We have heard of those who call for the reform of Islam. Is there anything more intimidating than this? Can such calls be acceptable? Is this your priority? We accept the British call for political and economic reform, but we reject the call for religious reform both in principle and practice.. We are in a state of evolution and are currently in a situation where certain convictions cannot be overridden, in order to please others. Social change always guides political change. After Islam the Arab-Muslim community seems to be the scapegoat. The Leader of the Conservative Party, Mr. Michael Howard, is calling for a limit to be put to immigration. I do not wish to be negative when I note that Ariel Sharon said on 29th December 2004, before Israel's ambassadors in Europe, that the spread of anti-Semitism in Europe is a result of the presence of large Arab communities in Europe. Before he said that, Sharansky a pretended human rights activist who is in reality a staunch supporter of occupation and settlement in Palestine - said repeatedly that the presence of a Muslim community in Europe is one of the causes of the increase in anti-Semitism. An independent European vision would serve your national interests far better.

The aforementioned seems to indicate that the future looks bleak and Arab-western relations are not going towards improvement, but I personally believe that such a view would not be accurate, because the past has also seen much cooperation between both sides. The present and the future call for deeper cooperation based on equality, partnership, and the fulfillment of mutual interests. We are both victims of terrorism. We are both victims of instability not only in the region but in the whole world. That which is detrimental to western economic and political interests also has a bearing on the economies and politics of our region. Even education is not unaffected by the influences of shocks which disturb the stability of the Arab region and of the west. We are the largest producers of oil and gas, and you have the largest consumer markets. We have a mutual interest in creating a strong policy for stability in the region policies which would contribute to the realization of marked changes in the direction of modernization and democracy and of greater closeness and understanding between the Arab and western peoples. It is vital that you do not listen to those who wish to depict us as your enemies. We have opened the doors to peace with even those, and hope that their stance and our stance become identical, if they truly mean what they say about peace.

The Israeli factor has been a depressing and obstructive one in any real development in relations with the west. You were at the time concerned about the destiny of Israel and its continued existence. Now, when Israel has become a nuclear state and one that possesses a formidable arsenal of weapons of mass destruction, and a strong industrial nation as well, what more do you want from us? Who should be afraid of the other? Who poses a greater threat to the other? Who needs more security? These are important questions which we wish to have your answers to. Israel keeps creating enemies. In the sixties Egypt was the greatest danger. In the nineties and at the turn of the new millennium Iraq became the greatest danger. Now Iran is deemed to be the danger, and sometimes Saudi Arabia. The duplicity in values which we object to is that very same duplicity which enables you to turn a blind eye to what Israel is doing, and to its possession of nuclear weapons and of weapons of mass destruction, which enable Israel to be ever more arrogant in its attitude towards its neighbours and to refuse to accept the peace proposals submitted by the Palestinians and by all the Arab region. Absolute power is a form of corruption, and Israel wishes to have absolute power. Israel's unrestrained power is not in the interests of peace neither is it in your interests, because it encourages Israel to slight Europe and belittle its role in the region, indeed, to reject the European role, claiming as it does that Europe is biased in favour of the Arabs. Israel wishes to fashion the whole middle east in accordance with its own vision of security and strategic interest, which is something we will not accept. In reality it is not in your interests to allow Israel to continue thus, particularly in the shadow of the Israeli-US alliance which weakens Europe's role in finding a solution to the middle east issue. Israeli arrogance, gained by military might and an unconditional alliance with the US, gave PM Sharon the courage to recently rebuke accredited European ambassador in Beirut because he had met up with the Hizbollah leader. We understand that Israel wishes to deliver a political defeat to Hizbollah, which had caused it to taste military defeat in the first time in its history, but what makes Israel increasingly more overbearing is your including, in your campaign against terrorism, Arab forces who had no hand in terrorism and for whom terrorism was no intrinsic part of their policy, such as Hizbollah.

The independence of European policies from Israeli and American policies is something which actually serves the peace in the region. Such independence would encourage the US administration to take less biased and more equitable policies which would lead to a resolution of the Palestinian issue, the termination of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, the Golan Heights and the Shab'a farms in southern Lebanon.

We wish Europe to declare a clear stance in relation to the Israeli occupation and in relation to the Palestinian people's right to resist that occupation so long as Israel is using tactics of delay and prevarication in its negotiations and uses every pretext for failing to implement or fulfill its commitments, and so long as Israel continues in its policies of Judaization and settlement building, particularly in Jerusalem and the West Bank.

Put yourselves in the place of the Palestinians, and after you have done that, ask yourselves what you should do about those who occupy your land and expel you from your country. At the moment you are debating the right of every citizen to self-defence against burglars.

A strong, flourishing, democratic Arab world is in the interests of Europe and in the interests of peace and stability. I will conclude by quoting what Philippe Nemo, the French writer, said about western civilization, encapsulating it in six points, which are: The rule of law, democracy, freedom of expression, analytical rationalism, science, a free market based on respect for private property. Our values and our culture are based on these very same principles. And if you note that the case is otherwise, the responsibility for the absence of any element in the above is to be shouldered jointly with you. Let's look to the future and work together for the sake of rational relations which inspire common values and enduring shared interests between both parties.

Thank you.