Hezbollah’s resistance against Israeli attacks during the 33-day war introduced a new model for other resistance groups in the region and the world. Unfortunately the Arab regimes, despite their affinities with the Lebanese people, did not help or support Hezbollah’s resistance during the war.
Iran and Syria were the two main supporters of the Lebanese people.
Hence, it is necessary for Muslim states to boycott the Zionist regime whose main financial support, not considering the US financial support, is its exports to the regional and Western states.
Iran Daily‘s Amir Tajik interviewed Gabriel Ash and discussed different aspects of Israel’s boycott issue. Ash is a Jewish anti-imperialist and anti-Zionist activist and political writer who grew up in Israel. He writes because the pen is sometimes mightier than the sword and sometimes not. Excerpts:
Amir Tajik: Why did Israel support the Fatah movement during the current disputes in the Palestinian territories?
Gabriel Ash: The current reading of the situation in Israel is that the conflict cannot be solved; it can only be managed. Therefore, the mainstream international view of Fatah as a ‘pragmatic’ Palestinian faction with which the West and Israel can reach an acceptable agreement is simply false.
The support for Abbas, not just from Olmert, but also from the US, Europe and the Arab League has three causes. First, there is the old “divide and rule”. The power struggle within the Palestinian political scene is weakening both Hamas and Fatah and is also very demoralizing for the Palestinian public. When you play “divide and rule”, the first rule is to support the weaker side in order to prolong the crisis as much as possible. This is exactly what Israel and the West are doing by supporting Fatah.
Second, supporting Abbas is good propaganda. Israel, the US and Europe are all able to describe their support for Abbas as working for the cause of peace and against the ‘militant’ Hamas. This is very important because Western publics expect their governments to be committed to peace. Even in Israel the prospect of eternal war is unwelcome to most.
Third, Hamas provides a model of resistance that threatens all Arab governments in addition to Israel. Hence undermining Hamas is a common goal of the West, Israel and the client Arab states — chiefly Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Of course, the ‘peace’ strategy must look believable. So there might be a new ‘peace’ dynamic, but the conditions for peace are absent.
Amir Tajik: How will Europeans’ boycott of Israel harm the regime’s economic and political structure?
Gabriel Ash: Israel is a small country with large military expenses. In order to maintain relatively first-world living standards, Israel’s economy depends on exports, foreign investment and non-commercial support. Clearly, a full EU trade boycott of Israel will cause severe damage to the Israeli economy. The EU is Israel’s largest trading partner, and Israel exports to the EU are over $10 billion a year. Let us, however, not deceive ourselves. There is no chance for such a trade embargo to happen in the foreseeable future.
Nevertheless, grassroots boycotts can have a cumulative impact. Increased public awareness to Israel’s criminal politics can translate into lower sales for brands associated with Israel, lower investment in Israel, and pressure on EU governments to stop some of their more directly damaging involvement in the region, including buying Israeli weapon systems, selling weapons to Israel, subsidizing the Israeli occupation and helping Israel fight Palestinian resistance.
The most important role of grassroots boycott initiatives is educational and moral. They expose Israel for the kind of country it really is: a racist, brutal colonial outpost. And they undermine the mainstream media whitewashing job. Grassroots boycotts can thus repeat the dynamics that made Western support for Apartheid South Africa untenable.
Amir Tajik: Could Israel get rid of the legal consequences of the boycott?
Gabriel Ash: Boycotts do not change the legal situation. Israel is in breach of every UN resolution that mentions it and then some. It is in breach of the UN charter, the Fourth Geneva Convention, The Fourth Hague Convention, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, The International Court for Justice, etc. etc. Furthermore, all these breaches are not merely technical, but massive and substantial.
With regards to international law, Israel is a major scofflaw.
International law, however, cannot simply be called upon for redress, because there is no world government with enforcement powers. International law represents the stage of the enlightened opinion of humanity with regards to how states should behave. But only the application of pressure by other states can force states to obey the law, should their own residents be unable or unwilling to demand such obedience.
Amir Tajik: Why don’t Arab regimes initiate a serious boycott against Israel?
Gabriel Ash: There is an expectation that Arab governments would support the Palestinians and be against Israel. It is historically baseless. Arab regimes are part of the problem. Their concern is how to maintain their power domestically. The major struggle in the Middle East is between the indigenous population and capitalist imperialist and colonialist enterprises, not between Arabs and Jews.
Arab governments are not on the side of the Arab indigenous people. Palestinians, for example, are not just oppressed by Israel. They are oppressed by many Arab states.
Arab governments are key elements of the Western domination of the Middle East. The very states most of them govern represent arbitrary lines drawn in the sand by colonial envoys. This is true of Israel, but equally so of Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, etc. These states exist by the grace of the colonial powers, and their local elites benefit from the plundering and killing of their people. Some of these states do make a show of boycotting Israel. But it is a charade. Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Israel are all on the same side. They are all US client states. So let’s not wait for salvation to come from Arab governments.
Amir Tajik: If Iran were to stop its anti-Israel policy, would the West stop bothering Iran?
Gabriel Ash: There might be an easing, but the West didn’t become the dominant force on the planet through a policy of non-interference.
There is an imperial world system, global capitalism. States must somehow fit in. The global system is the context within which every governing formation must choose its strategies for political survival and economic advancement. The system defines a number of generic templates that local elite can follow, adapt, negotiate or challenge.
The most typical template for a third-world country, however, is the raw materials provider, a template that usually includes Western ownership of the means of production, an unemployed majority left to rot in slums, barely existing local industry and minimal domestic consumption, except for a small elite that consumes imported luxury goods and works mostly in government. With local variations, this is the typical template in South America and the Middle East.
Iran was squeezed into this template between 1953 and 1979. Then there is the outpost state, which is supported by the West for its role as a weapon platform and/or as a tool for putting pressure on other states to conform to a desired template. Israel, Taiwan, Japan, Apartheid South Africa, and Turkey are all local variants of this template. In many ways, this is the most enviable position, at least economically, since outpost states are often used as positive examples that advertise the benefits of submission, and are therefore allowed to attain relatively high levels of development.
Finally, there is the worse template of all, the battleground state. Battleground states are states that provide the West a place to destroy overcapacity and justify the existence of its military industry and repressive technologies. The battleground template can come about from the failure of local elites to impose a desired template, as in Colombia, Somalia or Vietnam, or it can come about as a deliberate choice, as in Iraq. Countries that refuse to follow an acceptable template are good candidates for the battleground category. Iran is one such candidate.
The West’s problem with Iran is not its anti-Israel rhetoric, but the general independence of its foreign policies and economy, which is particularly annoying given Iran’s size and strategic location. Regardless of the template, no country within the global order is supposed to have independent foreign policies, and the worse offense is helping other countries resist Western imposed integration, as Iran does. Iran is also a state created in a revolution against a Western imposed template. It is a reminder that Western domination can be rejected. Therefore, like Cuba, the destruction of Iran is never going to be completely off the table. They are afraid that defeat and withdrawal from Iraq would deal a severe economic blow to the arms industry in the US. A confrontational Iran serves them well.
Iran has two possible paths. Either it renounces its geopolitical independence and opens itself up to Western capital, or it prepares for escalation by building up its defenses, extending its alliances and strengthening its society. A crucial asset for Iran is the rise of newly balancing powers: China and Russia. But there is a danger of getting to the party too soon, as these emerging global powers are still unsure of their footing.
Iran’s government’s verbal provocations against Israel are not the cause of Western hostility, but they are a wonderful excuse. Holocaust denial and other such inflammatory language help the West justify its ‘concern’ about Iran.