To His Highness the Emir of Qatar

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

I heard His Highness the Emir of Qatar say, during his visit to the White House, that he supports the establishment of a peaceable Palestinian state. I did not hear the rest of the phrase except from the news anchor, who said this state would exist alongside Israel. What caught my attention was the word “peaceable,” which carries a great deal of baggage, interpretation, and possible readings — and I wish the Emir had clarified it, sparing us the need to search and scrutinize. The phrase suggests either that the Palestinians have not been peaceable until now, and so have not been permitted to establish a state; or that they are not peaceable, and others are looking for ways to make them so in order for a Palestinian state to be established; or that they would busy themselves with wars if they established a state, so it is important to seek guarantees that they would instead busy themselves with developing the economy.

The Emir’s condition is not strange; it fits perfectly with the mentality of the traditional Arab regimes that are collapsing one after another. Arab leaders have never once demanded that the Zionist state be peaceable; rather, they have permitted it to arm itself with every kind of weapon, and they have fully understood why America and the Western states in general arm Israel, and fully understood why Israel develops weapons, foremost among them nuclear weapons. These leaders understand perfectly well that Israel needs security, that everyone must mobilize their energies so that it may remain safe and reassured, and they have come to believe that anyone who seeks peace must safeguard Israel’s security, and that anyone who does not place Israel’s security at the top of his priorities does not seek peace and is instead working toward the destruction of the entire region.

The Palestinian is forbidden from carrying a bullet without a rifle, and forbidden from carrying a rifle without bullets, while Israel has the right to possess every kind of weapon because it faces enemies lying in wait for it, wanting to erase it from existence. This is the position of the traditional Arab regimes whose collapse we await. These regimes always want to prove to their masters — Americans and Israelis alike — that they are peace-loving, and for that reason they are always ready to grovel and to harness the nation into becoming an easy mount for its enemies. And this Arab posture does not exclude the Palestinian leadership, which pursues Palestinians in defense of Israel’s security.

…Palestine. Those to whom the Emir of Qatar says that the state of Palestine will be peaceable are the aggressors, the killers, the criminals — they are the ones who continue to provide every kind of support to Israel so that it may continue its daily, bloody aggression against the Palestinian people and against all the peoples of the region.

Israel is now wreaking corruption in Egypt in order to sabotage the revolution, manipulating events in Tunisia through its agents, supplying its Libyan agents with weapons against the Libyan people, and preparing for aggression against Lebanon and against Gaza, and against every Arab or Muslim in the region who tries to raise his head. It would therefore have been far more fitting for the Emir of Qatar to insist on stripping Israel of its weapons, rather than speak of a peaceable state for a people who have endured the bitterness of life for a hundred years.

I am fully aware that the Emir of Qatar holds positions marked by rationality and scientific method, and I am fully aware of his focus on developing Qatar and spending vast sums of money on scientific research and economic advancement, and I know he supports Arabs and Palestinians financially. When conditions in Gaza grew dire, Qatar was among the foremost states that rushed to its rescue and supported it with money. I am also aware that Qatar has normalized relations with Israel, and hosts on its soil the largest American military command in the Gulf region. But it is important for His Highness the Emir to be aware that the search for peace never means establishing a feeble Palestinian entity that functions as a security agent for Israel. The search for peace begins, first, with the return of Palestinian refugees to their properties and possessions in the territory occupied in ‘48.

Before nations negotiate the establishment of peace, they begin by releasing prisoners and returning refugees. Why do the Arabs, and some Palestinians, search for a peace that begins from the tail rather than the head? If the Emir is genuinely concerned with achieving a resolution to the Palestinian cause through a negotiating process, then he must begin with the refugee question, not with the establishment of a feeble state that leaves the Palestinian people scattered across the far corners of the earth, and he must first ensure Palestinian security, which is perpetually threatened by the Zionist invaders. And if the Emir is unable to convince the Americans of the necessity of deterring Israel so as to halt its aggression, then he is certainly able to supply the Palestinian resistance factions with weapons, or with the money that buys weapons.

We are, without question, committed to rationality and scientific method in seeking solutions to our problems — but rationality never means conceding rights, or submitting to others, or imagining that our enemies are our best friends.

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “إلى سمو أمير قطر” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.