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There is something in Damascus which, since the days of the Crusaders, has made it the angry pulse of resistance against foreign occupation, Mansfeld's famous "beating heart of Arabism". It was at Maysaloon that Syrians tried to prevent the French occupation of our land and it is from Damascus that the most principled resistance to Israeli hegemony has always taken place. Damascus was the centre of the office responsible for boycotting Israel, once a formidable institution that ensured that no American products or Israeli affiliated products were considered respectable to have or aspire to at one time. Syria has fought three wars with Israel, it continues to 'support' Hezbullah and Hamas in their struggle against Zionism and has played a key role in destroying American efforts to consolidate their illegal occupation of Iraq. Some people think that the recent talks between Syria and Israel mark a change, that 'peace' is in the air. These people are wrong.

Like the vast majority of principled Syrians, I am against any agreement whatsoever with this occupying entity. I do not call Israel a country, for it is an occupying colonial state which has displaced the Palestinians, it is also (I don't care what their official line states and neither will history) the first country to introduce nuclear weapons into the region and, heaven forbid, the most likely to first use them. It is a country which is closely aligned with the United States and it is a staunch supporter of Americanism. The ongoing Nakba of the Palestinian people is a direct result of one of the most prolonged efforts at ethnic cleansing ever perpetrated in recorded history. The list can go on and on. Yet the world somehow thinks that we, the peoples who have been wronged and whose land has been stolen, must accept the rule of the mighty and the brutal and that we should surrender. Permeating throughout much Zionist discourse is the "Iron Wall" mentality which seeks to impose despair on the Arabs of ever regaining their right. This has developed into the "Israel is here to stay, we might as well deal with it" fallacy which is parroted by many.

Missing from much of the contemporary "analysis" of recent events, is an understanding of the events which have led to this position, a position which we are lead to believe, as is usual for the media circus covering this region, could lead to some form of peace. We are expected to forget the US and Israeli attempt to destroy Hezbullah which began in 2005 with the ousting of Syrian troops from Lebanon. We are expected to forget the brutal Israeli war of aggression against Lebanon in 2006, luckily a bloody defeat thanks to Hezbullah. We are not expected to draw connections between the bloody quagmire that the United States finds itself in within Iraq. We are certainly not supposed to look into the tit for tat killings of Iranian scientists, US Defense Attaches and Imad Mughniyeh. Nor should we consider the kidnapping of an Iranian general, dubbed a 'defection' by Western media who were too busy to follow up on why no interviews with the man were made available.

Forget the events in Beirut in the last few weeks where three years of infiltration and work by American, Israeli and Arab intelligence were shattered within eight hours by Hezbullah. The payment of Lebanon as a price to pay for a quieter southern Iraq is not a notion we are allowed to entertain either. You can also forget about the charade of a Sunni/Shia regional war which was touted as the 'next big thing' that might hit the region because of the Iraqi pandoras box, a box designed, built and delivered by USA Inc. No, no, no, we are all much too intelligent to draw connections like this and instead offer political analysis akin to a traditional Arab coffee cup reading session, one which just makes us feel better and doesn't tell us anything new, "Now please finger your cup". Within days of any of these events taking place, phenomenally, Lebanon gets a president, the talks are announced and Basra is called "a changed city" in the Western media. Israel and the West are at their weakest and most vulnerable in decades and yet somehow we are lead to believe that this is somehow a breakthrough for them. I'd certainly say it is a breakthrough in that they were desparate for it, but to rob Syria and Iran and Hezbullah of their victory over the West?

I can't say I understand why Hezbullah and Iran are very quiet at the moment, but I tell you this, anyone who thinks that Syria has decided to jump ship to the Israeli/American/Saudi bandwagon in order to have a joint national park with the Israelis is in for a nasty surprise. I don't take these talks at face value and expect there must be some other objective in mind. Besides the strategic and political considerations, frankly the thought of an Israeli flag flying in Damascus is abhorrent, outrageous and morally unacceptable. It makes me angry, as it would any Syrian on the street. No shopkeeper will sell to an Israeli, stock their goods or want to be anywhere near their 'embassy' - there is something which people in capitalist countries do not understand, it is that you cannot buy all people, nor can you buy their principles. Revised school texts which might ostensibly aim at turning Syria into a 'moderate' vassal of the United States will also be useless, this is a country where the most valuable education takes place at home and in mosques and churches, not schools. There is also more to the human being than an economic tool of production no matter how much you starve them with liberal economic "development" packages or eliminate subsidies. As Sayid Makawi once sang, the land truly does "speak Arabic" and I would add further that for Arabism, for Islam, for principles, it is not the state which has ever spoken for these, it is the people of this great land. These are the true beating heart of Arabism.