In his latest speech, which infuriated so many people, Syrian President Bashar Assad uttered a sentence that deserves attention: “Every new Arab generation hates Israel more than the previous one.”

Of all that has been said about the Second Lebanon War, these are perhaps the most important words.

The main product of this war is hatred. The pictures of death and destruction in Lebanon entered every Arab home, indeed every Muslim home, from Indonesia to Morocco, from Yemen to the Muslim ghettos in London and Berlin.

In order for the significance of Bashar’s words to become clear, they have to be viewed in a historical context.

The Zionist movement has planted a foreign body in this country, which was then a part of the Arab-Muslim space. The inhabitants of the country, and the entire Arab region, rejected the Zionist entity. Meanwhile, the Jewish settlement has taken roots and become an authentic new nation rooted in the country. Its defensive power against the rejection has grown. This struggle has been going on for 125 years, becoming more violent from generation to generation. The last war was yet another episode.

What is our historic objective in this confrontation? A fool will say: To stand up to the rejection with a growing dosage of medicaments, provided by America and World Jewry. The wise will say: Our objective is to cause the body to accept the transplant as one of its organs, so that the immune system will no longer treat us as an enemy that must be removed at any price. And if this is the aim, it must become the main axis of our efforts. This means that each of our actions must be judged according to a simple criterion: Does it serve this aim or obstruct it?

According to this criterion, the Second Lebanon War was a disaster.

Fifty nine years ago, two months before the outbreak of the war between Arabs and Jews, I published a booklet entitled “War or Peace in the Semitic Region”. Its opening words were:

“When our Zionist fathers decided to set up a ‘safe haven’ in Palestine, they had a choice between two ways: “They could appear in West Asia as a European conqueror, who sees himself as a bridge-head of the ‘white’ race and a master of the ‘natives’, like the Spanish Conquistadores and the Anglo-Saxon colonists in America. That is what the Crusaders did in Palestine. “The second way was to consider themselves as an Asian nation returning to its home — a nation that sees itself as an heir to the political and cultural heritage of the Semitic race, and which is prepared to join the peoples of the Semitic region in their war of liberation from European exploitation.”

As is well known, the State of Israel, which was established a few months later, chose the first way. That was not inevitable. On the contrary, in the course of years there have been a growing number of indications that the immune system of the Arab-Muslim body is starting to incorporate the transplant — as a human body accepts the organ of a close relative — and is ready to accept us. 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. It is against this background that one should weigh the words spoken by Bashar, 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. 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 most cultured of European nations democratically elected Adolf Hitler as its leader and perpetrated the holocaust, without the pope raising his voice in protest.

The truth is, of course, that this entire story of the clash of civilizations is nothing but an ideological cover for something that has no connection with ideas and values: The determination of the United States to dominate the world’s resources, and especially oil.

The Second Lebanon War is considered by many as a “War by Proxy”. That’s to say: Hezbollah is the Dobermann of Iran, we are the Rottweiler of America. Hezbollah is an authentic Lebanese movement, deeply rooted in the Shiite community. The Israeli government has its own interests (the occupied territories) that do not depend on America. But there is no doubt that there is much truth in the argument that this was also a war by substitutes.

The US is fighting against Iran, because Iran has a key role in the region where the most important oil reserves in the world are located. But what interest do we have to get involved in this struggle? What interest do we have in being regarded — accurately — as the servants of the greatest enemy of the Muslim world in general and the Arab world in particular?

We want to live here in 100 years, in 500 years.

Our most basic national interests demand that we extend our hands to the Arab nations that accept us, and act together with them for the rehabilitation of this region. That was true 59 years ago, and that will be true 59 years hence.