On the 39th anniversary of the 1967 War, the Arab-Israeli relationship has undergone substantial changes. Dina Ezzat sifts through the evidence On Monday of this week, Israel and the Arabs -- or at least some Israelis and some Arabs -- will take a minute, or may be more, to remember the events of 5 June 1967 when, to put historic euphemism aside, the Israeli army crushed the Egyptian and other front line Arab militaries in a war that ended -- before it even started -- with a shocking Israeli occupation of Arab territories. Almost four decades later, however, and judging by the headlines and opinion pieces in the Arab press over a wide range of issues that involve Israel (not least the recent Israeli aggression on Lebanon), it would be hard to find profound sentiment or painful thoughts generated by the memories of defeat across the Arab world especially by those countries which did not suffer the military consequences of the Israeli occupation, even if they did share for a few years the overall implications of Arab humiliation. Indeed, this week's Israeli attacks on south Lebanon are referred to as an "assault" in very few Arab publications, mostly in Syria and Lebanon. For the most part, especially in the Arab Gulf countries, they were termed military skirmishes that, to quote the news pages of the prestigious Kuwaiti daily Al-Rai Al-Aam on Monday, "were prompted by the return of the rituals of launching Katyusha rockets [by Hizbullah] across the Blue Line... at a time when Hizbullah is aiming to send a clear message to the Lebanese about the vitality of the resistance movement." On Monday and throughout the week, more than one influential Arab newspaper gave prominence in their headlines to the statements made by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert who held Lebanon (whose territories he still occupies) responsible for attacks on Israel (which has serious military nuclear capabilities). And very few accorded adequate attention to statements made by top Lebanese officials that called for an end to the Israeli military occupation of Lebanese territories and warned of an Israeli attempt to destabilise the situation in Lebanon to deny it a fruitful summer season of tourism. Only a few commentators, not excluding those of Arab Gulf states, begged to differ. Among those, Saud Al-Shamari of the Kuwaiti daily Al-Watan did so in daring fashion. Anticipating the future of the Palestinian cause after four decades of UN resolutions, many Arab-Israeli peace initiatives and many other Arab defeats, Al-Shamari argued, "any Arab would have to be perplexed by the alarming deterioration that has befallen the Palestinian cause. This deterioration has reached a point by which it has become very difficult to keep faith in any of the peace initiatives that have been proposed by all those peace-loving people across the decades." But Al-Shamari was indeed in the absolute minority. The overwhelming majority seemed to adopt the same concept proposed in the same paper on the same day by Hassan Ali Karam who frankly argued that "Israel is no longer such a rejected and isolated entity by neighbouring countries and governments... Israel, in the wake of peace treaties and as a result of globalisation, is an accepted and welcomed face not only in those countries that it signed peace treaties with but by almost all Arab countries... Those who are still rejecting normalisation with Israel are still living in the past." In a most perceptive analysis by Wessam Saada in the prestigious Lebanese daily As-Safir on Monday, the author captured the core of the problem: in Lebanon and to an extent across the Arab world, Israel is now perceived in different ways by different groups depending on their political ideologies and indeed on their political agenda. Some may wish to project Israel as "a peaceful sheep" that would make peace if granted a chance. Some may wish to project it as a coercive state that will never make peace, while a third group may simply think of it in terms of a state that can only be deterred by the use of military resistance. For Saada, "the fact of the matter is that Israel is simply a state that you cannot unilaterally end the state of war with. And even if the Lebanese issue with Israel is different from that of the other Arab countries involved in the 1967 defeat, the fact remains that one of the consequences of the... defeat and its pursuant political development is that Lebanon can only make a settlement with Israel within the larger regional context." It was therefore predictable to read articles, news or opinion, anticipating a forced, Israel-tailored settlement on the rest of the Arab world. In an opinion piece in the London-based daily Al-Hayat on Tuesday, retired Egyptian diplomat and legal expert Abdallah El-Ashaal argued that through a series of resolutions issued by the UN Security Council on the state of relations between Syria and Lebanon, starting with Resolution 1559 and up to Resolution 1680 adopted a couple of weeks ago, the UN, in accordance with the wishes of Israel, is painting Syria into a corner of agreeing to a set of measures aimed at separating the joint Syrian-Lebanese tracks of negotiations with Israel and consequently forcing Damascus to go for talks with Tel Aviv all alone and indeed very weak. El-Ashaal warned: "the Security Council seems to be engaged in an effort aimed at issuing a resolution to force all Arab countries to recognise and establish diplomatic relations with Israel in accordance with the vision proposed in the famous UN Security Council Resolution 242" adopted in the wake of the Arab defeat in 1967.
