Have you ever heard of the Monothelite Christians who follow the One Will? The story dates back to the fifth century AD when a controversy arose over the nature of Jesus Christ, and whether it was divine or human. The controversy was resolved at the Council of Chalcedon in 453 A.D. with the agreement that Christ has two natures, divine and human. But another controversy arose about the relationship between the two natures and which one would prevail. While some insisted that the two natures are separate and equal in substance, others insisted that the human nature is limited, while the divine nature is unlimited, and therefore it will overcome the human nature of Christ and integrate it into it, leading to Christ having one nature, which is the divine nature.

Lessons of History 

This controversy would have remained confined between the walls and corridors of the monasteries between the clergy themselves, had it not taken another dimension to express the conflict between the Greeks on the one hand and the Syriacs, Egyptians, and Arabs on the other hand. The Greeks were the ones who controlled the Eastern Roman or Byzantine Empire, and the Syriacs, Egyptians, and Arabs considered themselves subject to discrimination by the Greeks since the conquest of the East by Alexander the Macedonian in the late 4th century B.C. and his establishment of an empire dominated by the Hellenistic Greek culture, which was succeeded in the first century B.C. by the Roman Empire that adopted the Greek heritage and discriminated against the Syriacs and Copts, who considered themselves more civilized by virtue of their long civilizational heritage since thousands of years BC, emanating from successive civilizations ruling the Near East, whether it was in Iraq, the Levant, or Egypt. This conflict was expressed by the Greeks adopting the doctrine of the two separate natures of Christ and equal in substance, in contrast to the Syrians and Egyptians adopting the doctrine of the one nature of Christ, which is the divine nature. Under the umbrella of this ideological schism, the national and cultural conflict was expressed between the Greeks on the one hand, and the Syriacs, the Egyptians, and a section of the Arabs on the other.

This conflict will play a role in finding the causes of division between the subjects of the Byzantine state in the Levant, Egypt, and Anatolia at a time when the Byzantine state had begun to face a new challenge as the Sassanid state in Iran and Iraq adopted an active hostile policy against Byzantium starting from the second half of the sixth century AD. At that time, the Persians had begun to set their sights on reaching the eastern Mediterranean and extending their trade to it, without having to win the approval of the Byzantines. The Persians took advantage of the conflict within the Byzantine state, supported the followers of the One Will, and used them to achieve victories against the Byzantine state that enabled them to control parts of Anatolia and the whole of the Levant and Egypt in the early seventh century AD.

The Byzantine Emperor Heraclius, who assumed the throne in 610 A.D., had to make a great effort to restore the provinces that had been taken from Byzantium. Two decades later, these efforts would culminate in a great victory over the Persians in 629, in which he was able to occupy their capital in Ctesiphon and force them to sign a treaty by which they would withdraw from Egypt and the Levant, back to the frontier that separated the two empires in the east along the Euphrates River. Heraclius was aware that the division within the Byzantine Empire between the Syriacs and the Egyptians, the followers of one nature, and the Greeks, the followers of the two natures, had played a role in weakening the grip of the Byzantine state in the east. Therefore, he thought that if he succeeded in reconciling the two sects, he would be able to find a common ground that would end the causes of division and help establish Byzantine rule in the East. This made him adopt a view put forward by Paul, the Patriarch of Armenia, in which he was saying that if Christ had two natures, divine, and human, he had only one will, which is the divine will. The sect that followed Paul was known as the followers of the One Will or Monothelites. 

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But the emperor's initiative will fail and will only contribute to generating a new religious sect that will enter into a clash with the Greeks who follow two natures and the Syriacs and the Egyptians who follow one nature. The reason lies in the fact that the emperor was not aware of the fact that this religious dispute reflected a national struggle between the Greeks who were dominant in the Byzantine state on one hand and the Syriacs and Egyptians on the other hand. This national struggle will contribute later to the Syriacs and Egyptians supporting the Muslim Arabs in conquering the Levant and Egypt, as they considered them as saviors from Greek oppression. 

History repeats itself 

The past seems similar to what is going on in the present day, as we witness the United States, which considers itself a reincarnation of the Roman Empire and the Greco-Roman civilization, trying to maintain its hegemony over the Levant to contain the rising Eurasian powers, including Iran, to prevent it from reaching the eastern Mediterranean. The US is trying to consolidate its hegemony over Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and the Gulf, by reshaping the ideology of the region and contributing to the integration of "Israel", which is adopted by the United States as a base for American influence in the Levant, in the surrounding Arab-Muslim majority. This made the United States seek to impose the deal of the century in the region by preventing the establishment of a Palestinian state, and by normalizing relations between the Arabs and "Israel".

As Emperor Heraclius 1400 years ago, the Americans considered the conflict between the West and the Arabs, and between the Arabs and "Israel" to be a religious one. This is what was stated in the writings of right-wing religious Americans such as Samuel Huntington, who considered that the world is divided into civilizations based on religion, including the Judeo-Christian Western civilization, the Orthodox Christian civilization, the Islamic civilization, the Asian, Chinese and Japanese civilizations, the Indian civilization, the African civilization, and the Latin Catholic civilization. Huntington considered that conflicts will arise in the areas of contact between these civilizations, including in the Arab Levant where a conflict is taking place between Zionist Judaism, as part of the Judeo-Christian civilization, with the Arabs who are part of the Arab-Islamic civilization.[1] According to these Western right-wing thinkers, Islam is blamed for the clash in the East with Jewish "Israel", and blame falls on it for its clash with Western civilization as it was unable to modernize itself, as happened to the Judeo-Christian civilization that was able to modernize itself, says the American Zionist historian Bernard Lewis in his book "What Went Wrong", in which he presents himself as a critic of the Islamic religion and culture.[2] 

According to these Western right-wing thinkers, the shortcomings are in Islam; these thinkers began to put forward the idea of ​​"reforming" Islam. And because the conflict according to them is a conflict with a religious dimension, hence “peacebuilding” would lie in the rapprochement between religions or the so-called religious normalization by adapting the religion that has shortcomings, which is Islam according to these right-wing thinkers, with the religion that modernized itself, which are the Jewish religion and the Evangelical Christian religion. Hence the idea of ​​interfaith rapprochement arose since the 1970s with the signing of the Camp David agreement between "Israel" and Egypt. During the past years, with former US President Donald Trump proposing the deal of the century, which is based on the normalization of relations between Arab countries and "Israel", there has been renewed talk of interfaith rapprochement. 

In August 2020, the United Arab Emirates and "Israel" signed in Washington an agreement to establish diplomatic relations between them, followed by another agreement between Bahrain and "Israel" in September 2020, which included a ceremony in which representatives from the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, "Israel" and the United States launched the Abrahamic project to bring “religions” together. The project was based on the call to return to the Prophet Abraham, the father of all prophets, as he is acknowledged by the three monotheistic religions, Judaism, Christianism, and Islam. Scholars have looked literally at the religious texts, as it happened to the Protestant Reform movement in the sixteenth century, which looked at the Bible in its two parts, the Old Testament and the New Testament, in a literal way without looking at the metaphysical and value dimensions. This would pave the way for launching an “Islamic Zionist religion” under the pretext of Religious Reformation, as it happened in the sixteenth century when the rebellion against the Catholic Church contributed to launching the Zionist Christianism. In light of this approach, the Abraham Fund was launched to be funded by member states in order to implement religious, cultural and tourism projects that contribute to the production of a common culture among the followers of the Jewish, Islamic and Christian faiths in their evangelical aspect. A number of Arab leaders have declared their readiness to join this agreement, including Sudan’s, Morocco’s, the Sultanate of Oman’s and Jordan’s leaders.

Failure is inevitable!

We conclude that just as Emperor Heraclius tried to create a new doctrine that was supposed to constitute a common ground between the Jacobite Syriacs and the Greek Orthodox that would ensure the survival of the hegemony of Byzantium in the East, the United States believes that it can guarantee the survival of its hegemony in the East if it supports religious normalization between Muslims, Jews and evangelical Christians by creating a common ground between the three religions. But what the Americans missed was that the Arabs and Muslims’ crisis with the United States lies in the domination of the region by an alien power, and in Washington standing as an obstacle to the national and developmental aspirations of the Arabs and Muslims, just as Emperor Heraclius missed the fact that the religious dispute in the seventh century was nothing but a cover for the nationalistic conflict between the Syriacs and the Egyptians on the one hand, and the Greeks on the other. Thus, just as the Hercules project failed to bring religions together during the 7th century, the US project will inevitably fail, as it does not address the root problem of the Arabs and Muslims' desire to be free from Western control. We conclude that no ideological factor, even if it has a religious dimension, can succeed if it does not address the materialistic dimensions of the conflict. 

In this context, we can recall another ideological experience of the twentieth century, which is that of Arab nationalism. This ideological movement was launched in the second half of the nineteenth century as an attempt by the Arabs under Ottoman rule to find a role for themselves in a changing world. During the First World War, and in the context of the conflict over the Arab region between the Ottoman Empire and Great Britain, Her Majesty's Government supported Arab nationalism, thinking that it would serve in winning the favor of the Arabs against the Ottoman Empire. One of the heroes of this Movement during that period was Nuri al-Saeed, who will become the prime minister of Iraq on various occasions. But during the 1950s, a new leadership would rise in Egypt, represented by Gamal Abdel Nasser, who would raise the banner of liberation from old colonialism. Abdel Nasser was influenced by Arab nationalism, but because he would clash with Great Britain, he would restructure Arab Nationalism, liberating it from British hegemony and reformulating it as a liberation movement. This was the difference between Nasserist nationalism and the traditional nationalism that preceded it. In sum, it is the Nasser movement that will win in the end, and we will find Nuri Al-Saeed, the representative of the Arab nationalist movement affiliated with Britain dragged out in the streets of Baghdad in 1958. Will the godfathers of the Abrahamic agreements themselves face the same fate as Nuri Al-Saeed?

 
[1] Samuel Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations.
[2] Bernard Lewis, What Went wrong?