"Rejecting Israel: I debated a man that I did not see
When the University of San Francisco invited me to debate the consul general of the state of Israel in the city of San Francisco, I accepted this invitation immediately since it came from the university itself. I accepted it while still fully committed to strict conditions (set forth by myself) to the requirements of an extensive boycott of the enemy and in order to control the format of the debate lest it deviates from the rules of the boycott.
Some of my colleagues were wandering whether the debate will violate the terms of the boycott. My answer was that this depended on a set of circumstances. If the invitation had been Israeli that would have been definitely a violation of the terms of boycott, but it was the university that issued the invitation. There were many in the University’s administration who confided in me their annoyance at the fact that the invitation was originally sent to the Israeli consul alone, but that there were individuals in administration who said that the other party should be invited as well. The second thing is the manner in which one has to deal with such a debate: it could take place according terms that would violate the conditions of boycott, but then it can also be done under a set of conditions that would still insist on the boycott and the categorical rejection of the mere existence of the entity.
The debate can be summarized as such by practically saying that I actually debated a man that I did not see, and didn’t even look at. I did not gaze at the man and I did not let my eyes ever fall on him. I was told by some that the university’s administration was throwing a cocktail party in honour of the consul and me, but that someone had told them based on my writings that they had read that I will never accept in any way to attend a party with the presence of an Israeli. However, it did not end at this point. The moderator of the debate (an American professor of Iranian origins and is said that she was once the official translator for the Iranian President) led me to the hall, where I expressed my dissatisfaction as soon as I entered. What I saw was a big room with a table in the middle and only two chairs behind my name and consul’s. I told the professor: «I will not accept this arrangement. I cannot sit adjacent to Israeli because this contradicts with my principles ». She looked at me with surprise and some annoyance, and then smiled and asked: Are you joking? I said to her: «Do you see me in a joking mood? ». She asked me: Why do you reject the arrangement? I replied: «I do not accept to sit at his side». She said: "But this is a meeting at a University and the arrangements must reflect a friendly and academic atmosphere.” I said: «It doesn’t matter to me whether it’s in a university academia or some-such. There is something that is more important, and much more important. This is a matter of principle for me ». She said: "Why do you appear unrelenting in this matter and why do you refuse to sit next to him? I said to her: «Maybe you will know after you listen to what I have to say». I sat waiting for the appointed time to start the debate, where I had the pleasure of meeting the only Palestinian student at the university. His presence made me feel that the task at hand is crucial: He must be avenged, even if from behind a microphone.
The heavy presence of police and security officers as well as private and diplomatic security services irritated me. Some students complained to me that they had to go through a thorough search of their bags before they entered the room. A responsible in the university told me that the consul made sure that the police and some security services in the U.S. government were notified of his visit to the university. It seems that the fear from the shoe, or a bunch of shoes, is that irks the diplomats of the usurping entity. I then asked the moderator about this heavy presence of security officers, and her answer was that it was for the protection of the Israeli diplomat. I could not restrain myself and I confronted her by asking about my own safety and protection. Or is it that the standards stipulate that they alone deserve protection but not Arabs? She did not like my reply nor my question and she mumbled some unintelligible words about their interest in my security.
I took my seat waiting for the debate to start. A man soon stood in front of me but I did not look at him, and kept staring into the void: I saw a hand extended to me and I heard a voice say: «I am pleased to meet you, Professor. I am so and so ». I kept staring into the void, without moving or looking or showing any expression on my face. He repeated his attempt and reached out again. He changed his greeting but I did not cave in, and that’s when he became certain that I will not shake his hand and would soon become even more certain during the debate that I shall not acknowledge his presence and will not look at him not even once.
He was a man that I did not see even if I had debated him at the University of San Francisco. There were many who told me after the lecture that he was a burly man and that he was wearing a skullcap, or that he was staring in shock as soon as I started to talk, but I cannot confirm this or deny it you because I indeed debated a man that I did not see. (To be honest, I saw him for the first time after writing these words on a video of the debate posted on YouTube).
Then the debate started after the audience took their seats. I noticed that my students smiled to me when they saw that I am ignoring the man and his attempt to shake hands with an Arab.
Register please that I have refused! And register please that the one whose hollow presidency has expired in Ramallah, is embracing Ehud Olmert as if they were lovers!
Register that Olmert took a liking to Arab food in the House of Saeb Erekat, the “civilized” demagogue (This is reminiscent of what Clemenceau said about the United States about a century ago). Register that there is member of parliament in Lebanon [a reference to Solange Gemayyel], who prepared with her own hands Lebanese dishes (or Syrian dishes in reality but without her knowledge, since she is a blatant ignorant racist) to Ariel Sharon and promised him to host him in the presidential palace in Baabda, as soon as her husband , installed by Israel, becomes president. Anyone who shook this woman’s hands must wash their hands with hot water, soap and the poetry of Amal Dunqul.
The moderator let him start first, although proper etiquette would normally have a coin tossed in the air first to randomly choose who can speak first. She did not ask whether I minded or not. But I had hidden from her that I actually prefer to speak after my opponent is done in a debate so I can have a double response. The Israeli started speaking while I continued to stare into the void that lay before me, and listening to him. I had the chance to reflect on the history of Arab debates with Zionism. I remembered that Lebanese individuals, such as Emile Eddeh and Bishop Mubarak, made pro-Zionist statements to the Peel Commission in the thirties. I also remembered how Charles Malek represented the Arabs in world forums in the west. The Arabs were not aware that the fanatic Christian and right wing extremist was a secret friend of the Zionists, and used to exchange small paper notes and jokes under the table with Israel’s representative, Abba Eban, in the United Nations building where idiots (or worse) in the Arab world assumes that Charles Malek was defending the Palestinian Cause. Eban revealed this years later in his memoirs. But this Charles Malek became the pride of this abomination of a nation (Lebanon), where a broad avenue was named after him.
Eban was taught his orientalism at Cambridge, and mastered both Arabic and Persian, and began early on debating in the defense of Zionism.
The orientalist Eban translated Toufic Al-Hakim’s book into English in 1947 “A Deputy in the country-side: A diary». It is likely that Eban received the approval of Al-Hakim first, particularly so that the latter’s self-consciousness and spirit came back to him only when Anwar Sadat managed to get rid of the “Pillars of Power”. (Dar Al-Saqi has worked on the re-publication of the Abba Eban’s translation a few years ago, and this should not be surprising, because this publishing house is heavily involved in the affairs of “civilizes” normalization as a form of Wahhabist enlightenment, and it seems that they do not object to the payment of royalties to the family of Abba Eban).
Eban’s school of thought in Zionist debating was effective. He was eloquent and articulate and insisted on cramming ideas and words without stopping to take a breath. This Method was aimed at better using the allocated time and at overcoming the opponent in the debate. Eban supervised Zionist propaganda in the interest of Israel for decades, and he – just like all Israel’s propagandists- lied for the sake of defending Israel’s aggressions. It is attributed to him the lie about Israel having been attacked by Egypt first on the seventh of June 1967. The White House however did not buy into this lie so the supervisor of Zionist lying stopped using it.
I saw many Arab debaters in the West over the years, and it has irritated me many times both of the configuration and the content of those debates. I noticed that Israelis almost always prefer Arabs who do not fluently speak western languages so that debating them becomes easier in front of an audience that appreciates the fluency of the representatives of the usurping entity in foreign languages, which is the result of the demographic makeup of the state of Israel.
Furthermore, many Arab debaters translate into English or other languages, meaning that they literally translate Arab rhetoric without rewording, into other languages. A number of Arab friends make fun of a speech delivered by Clovis Maksoud where he used an English word to denote “Arab hemorrhage” which basically confused the American public. Ahmed Shukairy, who is boisterous in his memoirs, while he, and unfortunately for the Arab nation, was the one who left us multitude of them [i.e. memoirs] in America that remain the object of ridicule, east and west, although this era of Tariq Al-Hameed and Adel Darwish made some nostalgic to the era of Shukairi and even Ahmad Said, who, contrary to his successors in the media, was not a pen for hire.
Moreover, some Arab debaters believe that tear-jerking is effective in the West: Many of the representatives of the PLO used to cry rivers to stir sympathy. But the result came often in favour of the enemy. Then there is normalization. The idea of cultural conflict, which was adopted by the party of the (Guardians of the ) Cedar Revolution is not new: it started with Zuhdi [it should be Raghib] An-Nashashibi and the Hashemites (in secret thanks to their tawdriness), as well as Sheikh Al-Ja’bari and Moustapha Doudin. The “civilized idea” consists of promoting a theory by Anwar Sadat that the struggle with Israel is a simple misunderstanding that we can remove once we overcome the psychological barrier, which was built by the Arabs.
Such an overcoming and which was mastered by Sadat requires one to become a sycophant, and to think inferiorly contemptuously of oneself, determined for us- or for them – by the enemy. As if they were imbued with what has been written by Albert Mimi on the tendency by the colonized to mimic the colonizer in order to gain favour and appreciation. Menachem Begin used to enjoy insulting Sadat in front of the camera although Sadat did not really notice, while Ehud Olmert also treats Mahmoud Abbas like a minor child. The biography of David Ben-Gurion written by Shabtai Teveth quotes Ben-Gurion as likening Arabs to children.
As I have been staring into nothingness avoiding looking at the Israeli, something like a movie screen appeared in the eye of my mind, displaying a series of the succeeding Israeli massacres against our people. You remember of the scenes of mass expulsion and the tents of tragedy. But you also remember those scenes that inflame your will and motivate your resolve: Scenes of “women that only give birth to armies”, like Muzzaffar Al-Nawwab once said. You Remember, or think that you remember, the scene of the great family of George Habash as it is expelled by force by the army of professional terrorists, led by Yitzhak Rabin, whom Rafik El-Hariri, and his son Sa’ad after him, are of his fans. All of this while you are at an arm’s reach from a man who may have killed a brother or a sister, or a comrade of yours. This underlines the utter need to maintain the card of absolutely boycotting the usurper entity in all aspects.
However, the boycott is not a substitute for resistance, but rather its complementary, especially in those countries that are further away from the conflict. It is noted that Israeli diplomats take refuge in generalist and ambiguous talk about peace, and exaggerate in offering praise to a vague peace, in front of the American public that is often ill informed about the subject.
The details of the devil do not work in their favour, since it includes stories and figures about crimes, robberies, occupation, invasions, bombings, destruction and mutilation of children. Perhaps this was the reason behind the meeting between the Custodian of the Two Holy Shrines and Shimon Peres during the dialogue of those ”religions” carefully selected by senior clerics. Finally, the Israeli consul ended his talk with peace-loving words – with all his love.
A person may not evaluate herself or make judgements about who won the debate, but I started my talk by reminding the audience that I was there at the invitation of the university and not by any other party – without acknowledging the Israeli or even looking at him – and that my presence there doesn’t mean in any way or form a lesser commitment on my part to a firm, complete, extensive, and absolute boycotting of the entity, its representatives, sons and daughters, who serve in an army that professes the killing of children and committing massacres.
All of this does not seem to concern the Saudi media, which is never taken by sleep or distraction because of the preoccupation with the combating the Safavid scheming (and sometimes the Qajari scheming). I have called on the audience to commit to the boycott, a call that is now being answered in Western academia and in some American academic circles as well.
A couple of weeks ago, I spoke in a number of British universities, including the University of Manchester, where activists had occupied a building at the university to express their anger towards the Israeli massacres in Gaza. I took a look at those students in the occupied building into which I was moved surreptitiously, and I noticed that they were made up from a variety of races and nationalities, although there are Arabs who have complained to me that some Arab students (whose numbers are steadily decreasing in the west because of the heavy financial burdens and the mushrooming of private universities in our countries) avoid participating in political activities either because of their fear or because they are yearning for a non-political future in Dubai, before the collapse of its “glamorous” model. (Some Lebanese students at the University of California at Berkeley started a “Phoenician” club to celebrate Lebanese Cuisine).
In the time period allocated to questions and answers, there were many embarrassing questions aimed at the Israeli consul. It was said that he seemed confused, embarrassed and irritated. In one of his answers, he said to the audience that I refused to acknowledge his presence or shake his hand or even look at him. He complained about that to them and said: He refuses to humanize me. I said to myself: The liberals in the Hariri and Saudi media may sympathize with you, and then I said to the audience: I see them (i.e. the Zionists) as they see the children of Gaza.
My friend Amer, who was among the audience, noticed that the consul taunted me with the same thing that my Lebanese opponents use to taunt me, that is that I speak the obsolete language of the seventies. This is the same language that is called “wooden lingo” by those people in the party of the Cedars Revolution (Guardians of the Cedars). The Israeli said that Palestinians in Ramallah and other Arabs do not speak with the anger that I showed and that Arabs are offering a peace initiative (in a clear insinuation to Thomas Friedman’s initiative promoted by that who considers himself the Custodian of the Two Holy Shrines.)
Unfortunately for the Israeli speaker, there was a Palestinian scientist in the audience and who was from Ramallah, and who explained that my anger is similar to the popular Arab anger in Ramallah and outside of Ramallah. But I reminded the audience that a classical characteristic of colonialism is the ignorance about the status of the colonized people. The United States for instance is still dealing with its ignorance of the Afghan and Iraqi peoples, along with Zionism that did not truly know the Palestinian people nor did it study it because of the racism inherent to Zionism and that looks with inferiority upon the indigenous people. However, things were mixed up to the leaders of Israel and its propagandists because they only deal with the Dahlanian team and thus miss the true trends of Palestinian public opinion. These are the same people who were assured of the victory of their allies in the Fatah movement in the recent parliamentary elections.
The debate experience was very indicative of things to come. There is a deep anger boiling in our chests, we being those who grew up with the goal of the liberation of all of Palestine. We witnessed the massacres and lived under occupation, which made some of us more determined not to compromise when it comes to the rejection of Zionism in our countries, even if the challenge brought upon us by the enemy is becoming increasingly fiercer. Zionism has official received a place in the Arab League through the Thomas Friedman initiative. Amro Moussa (who is loved very much by Sha’ban ‘Abdul-Rahim) can now being the Arab League meetings by saying grace (to the occupation). They are trying to impose on us a new language and a new terminology cast and forged and Israel. Some are ashamed of answering an obvious question: Do you recognize the right of Israel to exist? I used to watch Arab speakers sweating about the question and trying to evade answering it candidly. There are these days those among Arabs (rulers, journalists and intellectuals) who answer this question in the affirmative. Meanwhile, I eagerly wait for someone to ask me that question; especially that Zionists here pose it in an attempt to embarrass the Arab speaker. But I answer enthusiastically: Of course not, and I will never recognize Israel's right to exist, and I still stand by the three NOs of Khartoum and which were imposed by the Arab public opinion on defeated and defeatist Arab leaders. But Arab leaders know deep within themselves that the Arab people will never accept peace, even if they themselves threw themselves on the threshold of the enemy prime minister’s office as it does Mahmoud Abbas. The stubbornness of the Arab people in the rejection of the Zionist entity - and against the will and in spite of the house of Saud commentators - haunts Zionists and Arab dictators alike. They have their own vision for coexistence and yield to the occupation and Israeli domination in the Arab region. The Bahraini minister of foreign affairs (he has the mental and intellectual capacity of Sa’ad, Nader and Ahmad Hariri) clearly expressed this trend. But who and what does the Bahraini minister of foreign affairs think he represents along with any of the commentators working for the house of Saud princes?
