A dark cloud that keeps darkening with time seems to have descended on the Arab world since the landing of Napoleon Bonaparte in Egypt in July, 1798. It is even darker and more ominous than it was during the nearly two and a half centuries of the Crusader era, eight centuries previously. At least during those times, the two sides, though bitter enemies, viewed each other as humans. This does not seem to be the case in this modern Western crusade, where the Arabs, especially the Palestinians, who have been made into refugees and confined to horrific “concentration camps” in their own country, are regarded and treated as inferior subhuman species, undeserving of a homeland or “human rights”, forbidden from and punished for defending themselves from their oppressors and occupiers. Napoleon’s Montpellier call for the Jews to “return” to Palestine paved the way for the Balfour Declaration and the Sykes-Picot Agreement to hand over land that was not theirs to people who did not belong to it, and blessed Zionism’s inhumane policies.
Since the end of the World War II, this dark cloud seems to have engulfed the entire Western world, which is a curious development not only in view of its affluence and prosperity, economic, political and military superiority, but also because of the strong attraction it has for all other civilizations. At the historic moment when it should deal in confidence, it seems to do exactly the opposite. Not only is it abandoning its lofty and noble ideals of humanism and equality with regard to the non-Western civilizations, it appears to be marching on a path of abandoning them even in their own societies. How else can one explain the cannibalistic, corporate capitalism within and the spreading non-democratic right-wing populist movements inflaming Europe and the reckless isolationist policies of Trumpism.
Why is it that of all the various civilizations, only the Western continues to question its ability to survive? Beginning with Oswald Spencer’s book, “The Decline of the West”, following the end of World War I, that question continues; at the same time that its predominant military, technological and economic power continue to grow and expand.
One major reason may be the creeping infiltration of the West, over the past few centuries, by the grim, even paranoia and melancholia of Zionism, an ideology best expressed by statements coming from Israel like, “We will always live by the sword”, ”We have enough bullets for everyone”, and after the recent massacre of the non-violent, peaceful demonstrators, “We know where every bullet went”, “The only way we can survive is to keep on killing”. Such an ideology, which has come to be greatly influential in the culture and capitals of the West, anchored as it is in pure brute force, offers no hope for the future.
The commercialization and fierce mercantilism that encourages consumerism and justifies the fiercely unjust income distribution between the West and others, as well as within each society, has to be explained in terms of the death of the noble principles of the monotheistic religions, as well as the lofty principles of the “rights of man”, “liberty, equality, fraternity” and the corruption and rendering helpless of the democratic system by the powers of wealth: Wealth justified by the brutal social Darwinist principles of the “survival of the fittest”.
Pope Francis remains the only world leader in modern times capable of providing the moral, spiritual and political leadership that modern civilization has failed to provide; only producing as leaders, wealthy politicians, not statesmen, soon forgotten at the end of their term in office.
While the reconciliation of Judaism and Christianity as a result of the Protestant Reformation and the Catholic Nostra Aetate was a welcome development, such reconciliation has yet to be made with Islam, also a monotheistic religion, and also a victim of the creeping Zionisation of Western civilization. His Holiness Pope Francis, a courageous man of peace, leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics, firm believer in justice, humanity and tolerance between and within societies, can offer a glimmer of hope for reconciliation between the children of Abraham. Only the Pope can address them and perhaps convince the Zionists to relinquish the citadel, suicidal mentality that has taken hold of the Judaic tradition.
Where do world leaders get the idea and the right to build physical, mental and economic walls to “protect” their countries from immigrants and asylum seekers created by their own adventurism, or the idea of separating the families of immigrants and forcing them to wear yellow bracelets for identification, ideas that are destroying the edifice of international law and relations built painfully over the last hundred years. Who but the so-called evangelical Christian Zionists, imbued as they are with the idea that Israel can do no wrong and that all the crimes it commits and evil it does are preludes to the Second Coming of Christ.
Among all the world leaders, only the Pope has the independence and moral and spiritual integrity and authority to help in pushing back this Western racist, xenophobic dark cloud promoting hate from bringing about the destruction of humanity.
