Syria's Tishrin newspaper ran an information campaign on behalf of PLO-initiated "Catastrophe Day" activities throughout Israel. Journalist Ahmed Halaweh opens his summary of recent Mid-East history by declaring: "Fifty three years have passed since the establishment of the Zionist entity on the land of Palestine. Fifty three years is the age of the Arab and Palestinian tragedy, of the Palestinian exodus, of the uprootedness, homelessness, negation, annihilation and massacres suffered by the Palestinian people at the hands of the Zionist usurpers and their allies."
The history lesson then begins. "In 1948...with extensive support from imperialism in general and Britain in particular, the armed Zionist usurpers established their state under the umbrella of international law represented by the Partition Plan," Halaweh explains. Sidestepping the Arabs' rejection of the plan, Halaweh writes that Israel "went further in their interpretation of this resolution, undermining the defined borders of the Palestinian state....The very word of Palestine has for years been absent from political lexicons and atlases in a cruel attempt to erase it from memory."
Halaweh's account of the 1948 allied Arab army attack on the makeshift Israeli "defense forces" echoes, to a great extent, the claims of Israel's "new historians": "There were those who considered this war just a short round; they thought they were facing a few bandits; they had no idea of the development of Zionist power in the economic and military fields, and in terms of human resources. This power was markedly superior to that of the Arab forces which took part in the war, qualitatively and quantitatively, in terms of arms and human resources."
How did Israel flourish after its 1948 victory? Halaweh: "The lopsided international balance of power prevailing at that time contributed to the success of the imperialist-Zionist effort to establish Israel. The Soviet Union had just emerged from the war where it had suffered heavy damage and casualties, together with the newly born socialist community. It was not in a position to foil the imperialist- Zionist scheme. This is aside from all the wrong calculations and evaluations on which attitudes towards the Zionist entity were based. These included assumptions that the Jews had a right to self-determination, and that there was a chance for democratic development in the young Hebrew state....Much of world public opinion assumed that Israel was a state of victimized Jews who had - relatively speaking - paid most dearly for the rise of the Nazi monster in Europe; thus it would be peaceful and an 'oasis of democracy' in the region. Both western and Zionist mass media contributed to the promotion of this image, achieving outstanding successes. This image is not easy to erase, even after fifty three years of the Zionist entity's existence and aggression."
Arutz-7's Ron Meir offered the following comments on the Tishrin piece: "Halaweh must have been hoping that his confident writing style would overshadow the sheer absurdity of his comments. The implication here is of course that Halaweh, and the official Syrian government paper for which he writes, are the ones who truly understand the fundamentals of democracy, while Israel only 'pretends to.' Yet, even countries not positively disposed to Israel - if asked to honestly compare the Damascus regime with Israel's political system - would acknowledge that Israel is a democracy while Syria is a totalitarian military regime. What's more, Syria is a political, economic and cultural backwater, and the Assad style of rule has played no small part in that country's stagnation. It makes most of its money in drug production and smuggling. Israel, on the other hand - though its parliamentary system could be drastically improved - boasts a modern free-market economy and is one of the largest producers of computer software in the world.... It seems that Syria's inherent antagonism towards Israel - instead of being expressed directly by its writers, is instead couched in articles presenting themselves as objective historical and political analyses."
The history lesson then begins. "In 1948...with extensive support from imperialism in general and Britain in particular, the armed Zionist usurpers established their state under the umbrella of international law represented by the Partition Plan," Halaweh explains. Sidestepping the Arabs' rejection of the plan, Halaweh writes that Israel "went further in their interpretation of this resolution, undermining the defined borders of the Palestinian state....The very word of Palestine has for years been absent from political lexicons and atlases in a cruel attempt to erase it from memory."
Halaweh's account of the 1948 allied Arab army attack on the makeshift Israeli "defense forces" echoes, to a great extent, the claims of Israel's "new historians": "There were those who considered this war just a short round; they thought they were facing a few bandits; they had no idea of the development of Zionist power in the economic and military fields, and in terms of human resources. This power was markedly superior to that of the Arab forces which took part in the war, qualitatively and quantitatively, in terms of arms and human resources."
How did Israel flourish after its 1948 victory? Halaweh: "The lopsided international balance of power prevailing at that time contributed to the success of the imperialist-Zionist effort to establish Israel. The Soviet Union had just emerged from the war where it had suffered heavy damage and casualties, together with the newly born socialist community. It was not in a position to foil the imperialist- Zionist scheme. This is aside from all the wrong calculations and evaluations on which attitudes towards the Zionist entity were based. These included assumptions that the Jews had a right to self-determination, and that there was a chance for democratic development in the young Hebrew state....Much of world public opinion assumed that Israel was a state of victimized Jews who had - relatively speaking - paid most dearly for the rise of the Nazi monster in Europe; thus it would be peaceful and an 'oasis of democracy' in the region. Both western and Zionist mass media contributed to the promotion of this image, achieving outstanding successes. This image is not easy to erase, even after fifty three years of the Zionist entity's existence and aggression."
Arutz-7's Ron Meir offered the following comments on the Tishrin piece: "Halaweh must have been hoping that his confident writing style would overshadow the sheer absurdity of his comments. The implication here is of course that Halaweh, and the official Syrian government paper for which he writes, are the ones who truly understand the fundamentals of democracy, while Israel only 'pretends to.' Yet, even countries not positively disposed to Israel - if asked to honestly compare the Damascus regime with Israel's political system - would acknowledge that Israel is a democracy while Syria is a totalitarian military regime. What's more, Syria is a political, economic and cultural backwater, and the Assad style of rule has played no small part in that country's stagnation. It makes most of its money in drug production and smuggling. Israel, on the other hand - though its parliamentary system could be drastically improved - boasts a modern free-market economy and is one of the largest producers of computer software in the world.... It seems that Syria's inherent antagonism towards Israel - instead of being expressed directly by its writers, is instead couched in articles presenting themselves as objective historical and political analyses."