human body accepts the organ of a close relative-and is ready to accept us. Such an indication was the visit of Anwar Sadat to Jerusalem. Such was the peace treaty signed with us by King Hussein, a descendent of the Prophet. And, most importantly, the historic decision of Yassir Arafat, the leader of the Palestinian people, to make peace with Israel.
But after every huge step forward, there came an Israeli step backward. It is as if the transplant rejects the body's acceptance of it. As if it has become so accustomed to being rejected, that it does all it can to induce the body to reject it even more.
It is against this background that one should weigh the words spoken by Assad Jr, a member of the new Arab generation, at the end of the recent war.
After every single one of the war aims put forward by our government had evaporated, one after the other, another reason was brought up: this war was a part of the "clash of civilizations," the great campaign of the Western world and its lofty values against the barbarian darkness of the Islamic world.
That reminds one, of course, of the words written 110 years ago by the father of modern Zionism, Theodor Herzl, in the founding document of the Zionist Movement: "In Palestine ... we shall constitute for Europe a part of the wall against Asia, and serve as the vanguard of civilization against barbarism."81 Without knowing, Olmert almost repeated this formula in his justification of his war, in order to please President Bush.
It happens from time to time in the United States that somebody invents an empty but easily digested slogan which then dominates the public discourse for some time. It seems that the more stupid the slogan is, the better its chances of becoming the guiding light for academia and the media-until another slogan appears and supersedes it. The latest example is the slogan "clash of civilizations," coined by Samuel P. Huntington in 1993 (taking over from the End of History).82
What clash of ideas is there between Muslim Indonesia and
Christian Chile? What eternal struggle between Poland and Morocco? What is it that unifies Malaysia and Kosovo, two Muslim nations? Or two Christian nations like Sweden and Ethiopia?
In what way are the ideas of the West more sublime than those of the East? The Jews that fled the flames of the autos-da-fe of the Christian Inquisition in Spain were received with open arms by the Muslim Ottoman Empire. The most cultured of European nations democratically elected Adolf Hitler as its leader and perpetrated the Holocaust, without the Pope raising his voice in protest.