By Gamil Mattar In the closing years of the 20th century, many countries have attained their 50th year as independent nations. It appears, however, that only one 50th anniversary merits celebration throughout the entire Western world. Moreover, the West is forcing its glee on this occasion down the throats of the entire world. In the age of globalised communications networks, the spectacles of joy that the dominant nations broadcast must delight us too, and the displays of anger or sorrow it disseminates should, supposedly, anger or sorrow us as well. Thus, we have been made participants -- if only passively -- in the international celebrations marking the 50th anniversary of the creation of the state of Israel. In like manner, the West compelled us to recognise that state; now, they are trying to make us accept that the Israeli formula for peace is the only one that complies with their definition of a just and lasting peace. Still, there is a difference between a simple celebration and the excessive fanfare surrounding this particular event. In recent weeks, the sensationalism accompanying the spectacles of Israel's 50th anniversary celebrations have seemed limitless. The West's excess stands out sharply -- at least to the peoples of the South -- when contrasted with the commemoration of India's independence. India, a subcontinent inhabited by hundreds of millions, with an ancient civilisation and a human heritage several thousands of years old, was, for many centuries, the jewel in the British crown. Empires fought over it, and their fortunes determined the prosperity -- or poverty -- of the Mediterranean and Arab seaports. As a result of India's place in colonial history, economic "globalisation" took its first steps. Nevertheless, the anniversary of the independence of the subcontinent, whether from the Indian or Pakistani perspective, received no attention in the West, with the exception of Great Britain. Even Great Britain blundered embarrassingly on that occasion when Queen Elizabeth decided to visit Amritsar, in which the British forces had committed one of their most atrocious massacres. By all objective standards, India merited a grander universal celebration of its independence than Israel. One justification alone would have been that it would have afforded the West the opportunity to offer a sincere and comprehensive apology for all the crimes it committed against the peoples of its former colonies in the nations of the South and the East. Such a recognition would have been an unprecedented opening for a historical reconciliation between the white West and the rest of the world. Moreover, it would have served as a powerful and appropriate response to the "clash of civilisations" idea currently monopolising academia and the think-tank circuit. Certainly, a celebration of independence on the scale with which the West is celebrating the creation of the state of Israel would have gone a long way towards mending the growing breach in relations between the West, particularly the US, and other regions of the world. India may well have deserved the fanfare that has been dedicated to the anniversary celebrations in Israel. But then, Israel met a condition that India could not, and that sets it apart from the rest of the South and the East. Netanyahu, only a few days ago, alluded to this condition in a few short but very arrogant words. He said that Israel is preparing itself for a long struggle. The Israelis and the Arabs are at opposing ends in the on-going conflict raging between Western civilisation, of which Israel is a part, and Oriental civilisations, to which the Arabs belong. Thus, Israel is being honoured as an outpost of the West in the East. But is that sufficient for its anniversary to merit such an excessive outpouring of acclaim? Western countries have numerous occasions worth honouring: the centennial celebrations of American independence, of the French revolution, of the Magna Carta. None of these have received nearly the amount of media attention that is being devoted to the Israeli anniversary celebrations. Never before has the US Congress unanimously passed a resolution commemorating the Magna Carta, for example. But it did so in the case of the 50th anniversary of Israel. Nor has an American president used the celebrations of one people in order to offend another. Yet, on this occasion, Clinton offended the sensitivities of millions of Arabs when he said that Palestine, when Israel was created, was no more than a barren desert. His hyperbole may have been intended to flatter Israel, but it certainly tarnished the image of the US as a supposedly honest broker -- I will not say impartial intermediary, because the US has never and will never be impartial as far as Israel is concerned. In London, too, Prime Minister Tony Blair rushed to play his part on-stage. He sang and danced along with the rest of the cabinet. His speech was predictable. The creation of the state of Israel was "one of the most momentous events of our age," he said, as if to remind us of Great Britain's fateful role in the sufferings of both the Jews and the Arabs in the Middle East from the end of World War I until today. In addition, his pronouncement that the creation of the state of Israel marked "a turning point in the 4,000-year-old history of an extraordinary people" is little more than an indicator of the racism that pervades British political thinking. In all events, however much Tony Blair imagined he was indulging the Israelis and the Jews, he, too, offended the feelings of millions of Arabs and perhaps many other not so extraordinary peoples. Perhaps the Western celebrations of Israel's 50th anniversary reflect a subliminal sense of surprise that Israel has actually survived this long. In the course of the half century of its existence, Israel required the services of the UK, France and the US in turn. The first to give it birth, the second to nurture it in the cradle and the third to help it unleash its brutality. Perhaps Israel's continued dependency on one or more great powers is what generated the sense in Western capitals that it would not last. These doubts surrounding Israel's viability must still prevail; otherwise, why would the West make such a song and dance about it? I also imagine that there is a deeply imbedded conviction in Western political thinking that Israel has entered a phase in which it threatens to consume itself. Part of the aim of the extravaganza in the West, therefore, is to give the Israelis self-confidence: to reassure them that they do have a state that is recognised by the rest of the world. The West, perhaps, seeks to put through the message that they can divest themselves of their persecution complex, because it will not permit other peoples in the region or elsewhere to treat the Israelis as anything but superior in civilisation and strength. That is why the Arabs must accept Israel's conditions. If they do, it is hoped, Israeli self-confidence will increase and perhaps they will refrain from exercising their worst trait -- their disposition to domestic strife. Netanyahu has largely confirmed this analysis. His path to national consensus has been based on securing unanimous support for refusing to make concessions to the Palestinians and to the Arabs in general, for treating the Arabs with the utmost arrogance, for taking every opportunity to insult them and for reneging on the "surrender" agreements, as he called them, signed by Rabin. By resorting to every available means to humiliate and degrade the Palestinian people and to partition their land, the Israelis can bolster their confidence in themselves and in their leaders. Israeli analysts make no secret of their conviction that the government of Israel has planned for the day on which a Palestinian state is created, offering the necessary conditions to meet the goals of Israel. Such a state, in the Israeli conception, is an entity in which the Palestinian Authority's VIPs -- as defined by their ability to move between the various areas subject to Palestinian control -- believe themselves to be members of an autonomous state. In reality, however, the entity in which the bulk of the Palestinians will find themselves will be a collection of separate cantons, connected only by those individuals whom the Israeli government deems safe to consider "very important persons". The extravagance in the celebration of Israel's creation has prompted a number of writers to raise questions, many of which had been previously voiced by Arab writers who were promptly accused of racism and extremism. Several observers, for example, brought up the exorbitant costs the West has borne on Israel's behalf for over a hundred years. Nor does it appear that Israel's demands for material and moral support will abate. Does Israel deserve all this? What is the value of the existence of a Jewish state which cannot provide its Jewish citizens with the security and stability that Jews in other countries enjoy? What is the future of a state that emerged by a sleight of hand, and survived at the cost of a series of catastrophes? What kind of state ignited five regional wars in fifty years, yet failed to achieve the victory that would bring it security? The conflict is still raging, 100 years on. Israel and its Western supporters, in their excessive celebrations of its anniversary and their displays of contempt for the Arabs, have only succeeded in igniting new storms of racism in the Middle East, and in reawakening the spectre of violence. The writer is the director of the Arab Centre for Development and Futuristic Research.
