MER FLASHBACK:
.
BRITISH DEPARTED PALESTINE,
LEAVING CIVIL WAR
.
NEED
FOR "ARAB COMMUNITY" MORE URGENT THAN EVER
MER Editorial - 6/30/97:
The British leave Hong Kong today,
in 1997, a glittering financial empire. But one shouldn't forget the British
left Palestine, just 50 years ago, a political, financial, and psychological
mess. After fracturing the Arab world with artificial boundaries and "client-
regimes" -- most of which continue to this day -- the British ran from
Palestine leaving a civil war to explode between Jewish immigrants they
had encouraged and indigenous "natives" they had repressed. That conflict
too continues to this day.
In other senses, though, the West doesn't
completely leave. Even with Hong Kong, deeply embedded financial and cultural
structures remain in place.
But for the Palestinians, and indeed
for all the Arabs, Western imperialism has continued to control the political
as well as financial destiny of the Arabs to this day. CIA penetration
of the Middle East has expanded decade by decade since the British departure.
American manipulation of Arab "client-regimes" has become something of
a political art-form -- controlling the region through local agents, a
limited number of American military forces, and considerable CIA and covert
penetration.
Another considerable difference looms
large as well. Hong Kong lacked natural resources; and so the British were
forced to build up the human and service resources of the small area on
the Asian coast.
In the Middle East, the natural resources
-- petroleum, "black gold", and then the huge amount of petrodollars that
ensured -- were well understood to be the main prize of the huge region.
And the West has proceeded to relentlessly
exploit these resources for their own benefit; caring little about the
human and service resources of the area. Indeed wanting to continually
drain the petrol resources has required the West to seriously inhibit indigenous
Arab institutions and democracy -- lest the Arabs seek to end the neo-colonial
bondage they have been subjected to for so long.
"ARAB COMMUNITY" URGENTLY NEEDED
Until the Arabs undue the negative
legacies the British left them, and which the Americans have continued
to play upon and manipulate ever since, the Arab world will continue to
be hopelessly subjugated and backward, divided and dominated.
Lastly it should be said clearly, contrary
to contemporary assertions, the British and the Americans have done far
more to prevent democracy in the Middle East, and to inhibit independent
economic development as well, then they will ever admit.
The Europeans have come together in
recent years to form the "European Community" with largely open borders,
unrestricted trade, easy travel, and unrestricted press. Only if the Arabs
finally bring an end to their legacy of British and Western colonialist
past and establish a real "Arab Community" can they hope to have real independence
and a serious role in the modern world.
MAB
