..Tired Arabism is a punishment

      Did the idea of ​​Arab unity fall before the birth of the idea of ​​Arab nationalism at the beginning of the twentieth century or after the birth of the nationalist thought? We believe that the idea of ​​Arab unity and the one Arab world fell before the birth of the nationalist thought. Moreover, the birth of the Arab nationalist thought was not accompanied by the birth of a mature and successful unifying thought, and consequently this led to the rise of the regional trend, especially after painful events such as the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and the Syrian Assad regime’s colonization of Lebanon. That is, the dwarfing of the Arab nationalist thought is proportional to the growth of the regional thought. It has been proven beyond doubt that the wave of nationalist thought was nothing but slogans, the goal of which was to market dictatorships to control, exploit and practice corruption by employing the nationalist thought for these purposes.   

    The nationalist unitary thought is increasingly dwarfed, and there is no longer a dominant presence for the idea of ​​unity even in the Baath Party, and even the Baath Party has disappeared, and the Nasserist unification wave has evaporated, and the Nasserist Socialist Union Party has disappeared. To understand the stage that Arab unity has reached, it is sufficient to take a quick look at the previous relations between Baathist Iraq and Baathist Syria, and at the relations between Saudi Arabia and Yemen, then Algeria, Morocco, and Qatar with their neighbors, and previously between Egypt and Sudan, and between Syria and Lebanon, etc. It is rare in the history of countries for the rupture to be between two countries ruled by one party, such as Iraq and Syria, as was the rupture between these two countries.

The growing Qatari role and independence, coupled with the decline of Arab nationalist thought and belonging to Arab nationalism, was not a hobby or a temptation, but rather a justified interest and a restoration of respect for the homelands. The Syrian colonization of Lebanon led to the elimination of the model of fraternal relations between the two countries and consequently led to the opening of embassies. Kuwait, with its bitter experience with Iraq, fortified itself with more protection agreements with the West and more Western military bases. Thus, the Qatari state sought, with its own means, to defend itself, its Qatari identity, and its independence in the form it currently exists, not in the form it is intended to be.

 The twentieth century was the golden century of Arab nationalist thought, and it seems as if the twenty-first century will be the century that will have to solve the problems that resulted from the swelling of Arab nationalist thought in the twentieth century. This thought shrank and reached a high degree of shrinkage even in the early part of this century. Imagine the state of this thought had it not been for the Palestinian problem remaining unresolved, and had it not been for Israel’s policy of incessant provocation and blackmail. Would there have been a nationalist thought? Even the ability of the Palestinian problem to maintain some vitality of nationalist thought is on its way to fading, as many Arab countries have diplomatic relations with Israel, such as Jordan, Egypt, Morocco, the Gulf states, and others, on an unofficial basis, such as Saudi Arabia, etc.

     It is said that a problem without a solution is not considered a problem. Thus, the inability of Arab nationalism to solve the Palestinian problem turned this problem into a “non-problem,” that is, into a state with which there is no escape from coexistence in its current form or in the form that Israel wants for it, and not in the form that Arab nationalism desires. Arab nationalism indirectly harmed the Palestinian cause. What the Arabs rejected regarding partition, for example, was wrong, and the inability to avoid losing wars was a political and military weakness. Deceiving people by fabricating victory was a crime, and the greatest crime was the crime of lying and hypocrisy that turned repeated and shameful defeats into legendary victories.

Whether the goal is Arab nationalism, i.e. establishing a greater Arab state, or regional independence, in both cases, the importance of development and the advancement of all countries in the region to what is more advanced and better cannot be ignored. Even the chances of success of any future union or unity will be directly proportional to the progress and development of the state concerned with the union or unity. As for Syria, Arabism has tired it to the point of destruction… My friend, I am tired of my Arabism. Is Arabism a curse and punishment? (Nizar Qabbani). As for Syria, the Syrians were deceived by the lie of Arabism when they neglected the project of the regional Syrian state since 1920 and diverted their efforts towards the Arab national framework. The Syrians carried the Arab concern before the Syrian national regional concern, so the Syrian state experiment failed, and the failed unity experiment increased the height of the mountain of accumulated failure. Any step, no matter how good, turns into bad when it is not implemented at the right time and in the right way. Thus, unity in its integrative form, at that inappropriate time, turned into a current and future disaster.

  Who benefited from the resistance and opposition and from Syria’s interference in the Palestinian issue? Did the Palestinians benefit? Or did the Syrians benefit? Has Palestine returned and has Syria flourished? The Palestinian cause has been harmed and so has Syria. The same questions can be asked about Lebanon. If the Palestinian cause had not been exploited for the purposes of interest to the dictatorships, the Palestinians could have achieved a greater degree of success in obtaining their rights. The dictatorships employed Arabism and Arab nationalist thought to cover up the deception of resistance and opposition, and Arab nationalist thought prolonged the life of the dictatorships. It was this thought that sometimes cooperated with the Brotherhood, and sometimes fought with them. That fighting killed millions of Syrians and Palestinians and led to the almost complete destruction of Syria. If it were not for Arabism and Arab nationalist thought, what happened to the Palestinians would not have happened and what happened to the Syrians would not have happened…