Syria, Lee Smith wrote in his book The Strong Horse, is the one Sunni majority country in the Middle East which has bet that the “narrative of resistance” (the hatred for Israel) is stronger than the ties of the Sunni world. That calculation underlies its alliance with Shiite Hezbollah. It probably undergirds Syria’s decision to let protesters storm its border with Israel leading to the death of at least 14 and the wounding of hundreds of others. Torn by internal dissension, Damascus seeks a solution by reminding the region that it is after all on the frontline with Israel.
Israeli soldiers fired on protesters trying to breach the country’s frontier fence with Syria on the anniversary of the 1967 Middle East War. At least 20 people were killed, according to Syrian state television.
Some 277 people were wounded, including 12 in critical condition, the television said. An Israeli soldier could be heard telling protesters through a loudspeaker in live Syrian television coverage: “If you cross the fence you will be killed.” Israeli soldiers shot at demonstrators’ legs after firing warning shots, Brigadier General Yoav Mordechai, Israel’s chief military spokesman, said on Channel 2 television.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said today that security forces would act with “determination” to prevent “extremist elements in the region” from penetrating the frontier.
It was an event everybody knew was coming. The IDF’s northern command had been on publicly announced high alert for exactly what transpired. The Lebanese, alive to the possibility of a clash and aware this game had been played before at their expense, closed the border. But the Syrians let the protesters mass and let themselves against the border. It was entirely predictable. The Belmont Club has frequently noted that Syria might try something, perhaps rocketing Israel, to distract its population from Damascus’ internal problems. There were no surprises and no way to stop it either.
Dozens of Syrians amassed near the country’s border with Israel on Sunday, as Israeli security forces braced for possible border clashes with protesters marking Naksa Day, the anniversary of the start of the 1967 Six-Day War, in which Israel took control of the West Bank, Gaza Strip, East Jerusalem and Golan Heights. …
The IDF Central Command and Southern Command also declared a high alert in case of an outbreak of violence near the West Bank and the Gaza Strip respectively, although the northern border seemed the most likely flashpoint for clashes.
The two likely locations where clashes were expected were thought to be the border crossing at Quneitra and the “The Hill of Shouting.” The latter location is the same spot where some 180 refugees crossed the border three weeks ago, at least four of whom were killed by IDF fire.
The possibility that refugees will seek to storm the border from the direction of Maroun al-Rass in Lebanon, opposite Moshav Avivim, is considered less likely following the Lebanese army’s announcement that the entire area opposite the border with Israel is a closed military zone.
Following the announcement, the organizers of the Naksa Day events in Lebanon canceled the marches they had planned for today toward the border with Israel. Instead, the various Palestinian organizations will hold rallies in refugee camps throughout Lebanon.
Michael Totten, in his book The Road To Fatima Gate, recalls how the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah played an important part in stemming the declining fortunes of Syria after it had withdrawn its regular forces from Lebanon. Overnight Hezbollah became the “resistance” rather than what it was: an occupying force in Lebanon answerable to a foreign power. Although Syria may in the end be wrong in believing that hatred for the Jew is stronger than any other political narrative in the Middle East, there’s no doubt that attacking Israel is always a major draw.
The power of this tactic has been demonstrated time and again. During Desert Storm, Saddam Hussein attempted to split the international coalition facing him in Kuwait by firing Scuds into Israel. Israel had nothing to do with the invasion of Kuwait, but the late Saddam understood that in the Middle East, whenever any Arab or Muslim hurts another or natural tragedy strikes, revenge must be exacted to redress the cosmic balance. And the only proper response is to revenge yourself on Israel. Like some terrible reprise of the scapegoat or human sacrificial ideas, Israel exists to propitiate the gods of misfortune, or so it seems in Middle Eastern politics.
Did King Hussein drive the PLO out of Jordan in Black September? Attack Munich. Did Saddam Hussein invade Kuwait? Rocket Israel. Is Syria being driven from the Levant? Kidnap IDF troops on the Lebanese border. Are Middle Eastern strongmen now shaking in their thrones as their populations grow restive from lack of food and jobs? Why send unarmed demonstrators across the heavily defended border between Syria and Israel and blame Israel. And even though it makes no sense whatsoever, it doesn’t have to. Hitting Israel is always going to work to a degree. It’s dollars to donuts that the Western Left is even now preparing marches of outrage — not against Damascus — but against Israel.
But it works in a deceptive and counterproductive way.
Scapegoating is like the tactic of hitting your head with an axe to forget the ache of your thumb throbbing from the blow of a tack-hammer. It is a device of long standing in this region. Only this time it isn’t going to work. Syria’s ploy may lead to border clashes or even regional war. But it won’t quash the Arab Spring. It won’t put food on the table. It won’t give jobs to the jobless. It will be just one more thing. The region now resembles a man with an axe through his head, an icepick through his chest, roofing nails embedded all over his limbs — all hurts inflicted to forget the previous ones — and just because Israel is a chainsaw doesn’t mean using it to decapitate oneself is necessarily a good idea.
In actuality the injuries have accumulated. The momentary relief of one agony to distract from another is an illusory one. Syria has just made things worse. The region is now beset with Islamism, economic crisis, nuclear proliferation, authoritarianism, and sectarian hatred. The last thing it needs is a regional war. And therefore Damascus may reach for it, or at least threaten it, the better to extend the life of the regime one more week, or one more hour.
Lee Smith noted that the political culture of the Middle East lives for drama. It does not live for solutions. In the popular mind things have been steadily getting worse since the Garden of Eden. From the schism of Islam, the time of the Crusades, the long dusk of the Ottoman Empire, the humiliating period of Western domination or the “catastrophic” establishment of the nation of Israel, nothing has gone right. Humiliation piled on humiliation assails a region. It grasps for the apocalyptic drama that will break the spell and return things to the way they never were.
Perhaps the fundamental psychological barrier to the idea of democracy in the Middle East is the failure of the West to convey the notion that democracy is not another religion. Democracy is a way of solving problems. Real, specific, practical problems. It is a method of resolving disputes, using information directly conveyed by the Creator to his Creatures through a mechanism called reason and choice. It is nothing out of a book to be regurgitated by memorization unless you can reflect upon it through a process collectively referred to as freedom. It is less about endless hates, or awaiting a day of deliverance, than it is about men working together in boring offices, day by day, little by little, to build a pathway to the stars. The monuments to democracy aren’t titanic statuary in vast squares but the lawnmower left carelessly by the side of the house. Its sound isn’t the blast of carbombs but the crack of the bat or the thump of the ball in a little league playground. It is a world of life, as Elie Fawaz put it; and not a determination to self-death.
Perehaps the only course of the Arab Spring is to let the regional populations discover mundane reality for themselves. After they’ve gone through the promises of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Nazi Parties, the varioius and sundry fanatic sects; after the last chimera has evaporated into gunsmoke; after the last intoxicating illusion has left them with a headache, then they may look out across the Fatima Gate and realize that the Jew is after all a man like themselves. And then they will notice the lawnmower, the soccer ball, and the little delivery van and know it for the first time.
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