RSSThe West’s Costly Hamas Error
Hamas represents the moderate current in Islamism
that advocates for democracy and electoral politics.
The alternative — which the West is effectively chosing
– is violent nihilism
First, it’s worth noting that the whole idea that Palestinian “moderates” are being bolstered in order that they will make peace with Israel is just a PR line, or a rather sick joke. The Israelis have left no doubt that when they talk about boosting Mahmoud Abbas in order to strengthen prospects for a two-state solution, they are simply taking the piss — or more correctly, to borrow a line from Mike Leigh’s “Naked,” the U.S. media is giving it away. Nor is it only the media: the Western world’s political elites seem equally comfortable with the charade. Leading Israeli political correspondent Aluf Benn reports that there is now a firm consensus, across Israel’s political spectrum, that there can be no withdrawal from the West Bank for the foreseeable future. Benn writes:
In this atmosphere, it is clear that any talk about a “two-state solution” and the prime minister’s declarations at the Sharm el-Sheikh summit about “new opportunities” and “accelerating the process toward a Palestinian state” are bogus. This diplomatic lip service, disassociated from reality and real expectations, is meant to assuage the Americans and the Europeans and deflect pressure on Israel.
The international community is participating in the show, and gradually is losing interest in the conflict. The postponment of the speech of President George W. Bush, meant to commemorate five years since he presented his “vision” and to offer new ideas for an Israeli-Palestinian settlement, suggests that he has nothing to say. As it winds down its tenure, the Bush administration in Washington is toying with fake charms: like the “shelf agreement,” proposed by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, or the appointment of Tony Blair as the Quartet representative “to build Palestinian institutions.” Does anyone remember his predecessor in that job, James Wolfensohn?
Not only does the Israeli position make nonsense of all talk of peacemaking between Israelis and Palestinians — and Blair, rabid Bush sycophant though he may be, must surely be aware that he has signed on for a humiliating postcript to a failed career on the global stage — but it also fundamentally challenges the manner in which Palestinian political rivalries are being cast in the Western media right now. You’d think that the fact that BBC reporter Alan Johnstone was freed by Hamas this week after 16 weeks as a hostage held by a criminal gang that enjoyed the protection of the very Fatah security forces that were recently driven out of Gaza would give some pause for thought. Don’t bet on it. In any event, the idea that the West is backing Fatah as a moderate force for achieving Palestinian national goals is equally derided on the Palestinian side. They know all too well that the regime of Mahmoud Abbas is being boosted in order that it can more effectively play the role of gendarme, eliminating threats to Israel and policing the status quo. Israel simply has no intention of withdrawing to its 1967 borders; there is no “political horizon” to rationalize this policing role, it is simply an end in itself.
Many even in Fatah recognize that what Mahmoud Abbas has signed on for has nothing to do with ending the occupation. That’s why he had to sack his senior presidential adviser Hani al-Hassan last week. Hassan had pointed out that Hamas was not fighting Fatah as a whole when it took over Gaza, but rather a group within Fatah that was collaborating with outside forces against Palestinian interests. Here’s how the Israeli daily Yediot Ahoronot reported it:
The Gaza events were not a war between Fatah and Hamas; but between Hamas and Fatah collaborators who served the Americans and the Israelis, said a senior Fatah advisor on Wednesday.
Hani al-Hassan, the Palestinian president’s senior political advisor and member of Fatah’s central committee said in a TV interview that what was happening in the Gaza Strip was the defeat of to plans of American Major General Keith Dayton and his Fatah followers.
This is only the beginning of the revolt that Mahmoud Abbas is going to face from those within Fatah who believe nothing good will come of the organization throwing in its lot with the Americans and Israelis. I’d venture a guess that Abbas’s inevitable heir to the leadership, the imprisoned Marwan Barghouti, would be strongly aligned with this view, meaning that if Fatah is to have any chance of surviving, it will require renouncing and reversing the direction pursued by its current leadership.
But Alastair Crooke, in a must-read piece in the London Review of Books chocful of profound insights, notes that the nature of the confrontation in Gaza — into which Hamas was provoked by U.S.-directed plans to overthrow the elected government — has probably weakened this tendency in Fatah: The humiliation suffered by the organization in Gaza makes it more difficult, inside the organization, to advocate for rapprochment with Hamas. (Crooke also, importantly, savages the Europeans for their inexplicable decision to follow the U.S. line — and having been the EU’s direct liaison with Hamas until the Europeans abandoned their independence, Crooke should know: He writes, “Europeans may wring their hands at what they see on their TVs, but European policy, acting in concert with the US, bears a large measure of responsibility for what has happened.”
Crooke adds:
The West could not have chosen a worse time to try to make Fatah a proxy dependent on Western financial subsidy and Israeli ‘concessions’ to make up for the popular support it patently lacks. The largest Hebrew newspaper, Yediot Aharnot, noted on 14 June that ‘in Nablus, Jenin, Hebron and Ramallah, the people of the Fatah al-Aqsa Brigades are in control, much thanks to the Israeli General Security Services who have jailed anyone vaguely smelling of Hamas.’ European policy-makers – to judge by their public statements – are largely oblivious to the rising tension in the region. Instability is feeding instability; and the American and European imposition of a bank freeze that left the Palestinian government unable to gain access to its funds – including those from Muslim countries – will trigger new and potentially dangerous disturbances in the region.
Western commentators – prompted by Fatah loyalists – are still inclined to see the 2006 election result as no more than a severe rap on the knuckles for the hitherto dominant Fatah on the part of an electorate angered by its corruption and mismanagement. Since 1993, Palestinians have been living under a one-party system: patronage, jobs and government have been in the gift of Fatah, and it is to its members that these benefits have been distributed. The election outcome, however, was not primarily a judgment on Fatah’s corruption, even if this was a significant factor. I recall a leader in a refugee camp in Lebanon saying: ‘You will see . . . what this victory for Hamas represents is the final rupture of the Palestinians’ faith in the international community. We no longer believe that the Americans or the Europeans ultimately can be counted on to do the right thing by us. We know that we must rely only on ourselves now.’ Hamas had recognised for some time that the Palestinian constituency that voted Fatah a monopoly of power and of armed force in 1993, following the Oslo Accords, no longer existed. Hardly any Palestinians now believe that Palestinian ‘good behaviour’ – as promised to Israel by Fatah – will induce the US to ignore its domestic Israel lobby and exert pressure on Israel to withdraw from the lands occupied in 1967. ‘Hamas had predicted all along that Israel would not fulfil its bargain,’ Tamimi writes, ‘and that it was using peacemaking in order to expropriate more land.’
Palestinians have seen their putative state in the West Bank salami-sliced away by settlements, army posts, military zones, fences and Israeli-only roads that cut the territory into enclaves in which 2.5 million Palestinians are confined, their movements heavily curtailed. A map of the West Bank recently published by the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs shows that the Israeli system of settlements and protective infrastructure has rendered 40 per cent of the West Bank off-limits to Palestinians. Palestinians have seen the US and Europe do nothing about this. The US and the EU argued that Palestinian violence was the problem; but the Palestinians noted that in periods of quiet more rather than less of their land fell to the Israeli salami-slicer – yet still the international community remained silent. Any optimism from Oslo had long faded by 2006, when the Palestinians voted in Hamas. There is no longer a significant ‘peace camp’ that believes in gradual progress towards a Palestinian state…
One reason for Fatah’s election defeat was its failure to recognise that the Bush administration was different from the Clinton administration. Fatah persisted in its assumption that, at bottom, the Bush administration shared its vision of a Palestinian state based on Israeli withdrawal from the territories occupied in 1967. The leadership continued to assume that if they pleased the US they would eventually be rewarded by pressure on Israel to concede a viable Palestinian state. It has long been obvious to most Palestinians, including many in Fatah, that the vision Bush shared was not Fatah’s, but that of Tel Aviv, and it sees Israel remaining in the West Bank for ever.
But the breakdown of the Palestinian Authority and the prospect for a two-state solution is only a part of the collateral damage from this reckless U.S. policy promoted by the unchecked extremism that has shaped the Bush Administration’s policies in the Middle East. Crooke is the first analyst I’ve read situating the fate of Hamas in a regional dynamic — as Washington has failed to comprehend — in which Islamism is the dominant political dynamic, and will remain so for the foreseeable future. But Islamism, is hardly an undifferentiated political entity, as Crooke makes clear, and on its spectrum, the Hamas leadership is closer to the moderate, democratic tendency of its parent organization, the Muslim Brotherhood, than it is to the jihadist nihilism of al-Qaeda.
The problem for Hamas is that its constituency – the rank and file – and the wider Islamist movement have now embarked on a period of introspection. What is apparent – and this can be ascertained on any number of Islamist websites – is that the mainstream Islamist strategy of pursuing an electoral path to reform is now being questioned. This will have an impact well beyond Palestine – most obviously in Egypt and Jordan. Three events have triggered this reassessment: the sanctions imposed on the Hamas government; last summer’s US-backed war to destroy Hizbullah in Lebanon; and the repression of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, which raises not a peep of protest from Europeans. Continued Western hostility towards all Islamists, however moderate their policies, has also frustrated the grass-roots.
At a conference held in Beirut in April, the senior Hamas official present, Usamah Hamadan, was strongly criticised by Fathi Yakan, the leader of Jamaat Islamiyah in Lebanon, for having embarked on the electoral route in the first place. Yakan pointed to the failure – experienced by all Islamists without exception – of those who have participated in their national parliaments. No MP or deputy, from Islamabad to Cairo, or anywhere in between, has succeeded in bringing any significant change to their society. At the same time, young Egyptians in the Muslim Brotherhood have been debating whether their eighty-year-old movement has lost its way. Commentators have been arguing that for it to sit in parliament – while its leaders are being interned, its economic base is being attacked, and legislation is being passed aimed at excluding movements with a religious basis from elections – undermines its credibility and invites derision. The movement, it’s suggested, is too big, rigid and ungainly, and needs to be rethought – and perhaps broken up.
At issue in these discussions is whether moderate Islamist groups such as Hamas and Hizbullah will manage to retain their influence over this process of radicalisation; and whether they will survive as a cohesive, disciplined political bloc. Sunni Islamist movements are increasingly concerned at the spread of small Salafist groups that verge on the nihilistic in their disdain for political ideology and in their belief that to set fire to the remnants of colonial power is in itself enough to raise the revolutionary consciousness they hope for. Salafist groups are beginning to make inroads in Gaza, as they have already done in Iraq, Lebanon and North Africa.
If the Islamists are denied a political role, there is, in fact, no prospect for democracy in the Middle East — as the Palestinian experience has now graphically demonstrated. The pro-Western regimes can survive only by repression and patronage, and the momentum is against them. All that Mahmoud Abbas has succeeded in doing in the past month has been to irreversibly associate the PLO leadership with the decrepit autocracies of the region to which it once presented itself as a revolutionary alternative to appealed to the Arab street, not only because of the plight of the Palestinians, but because of the nature of their own regimes. The result has been, in an epic sense, to “blow an opportunity.”
Crooke writes:
When all parties begin to see conflict as inevitable, then the ‘inevitable’ becomes self-fulfilling. Americans are fond of comparing the situation in the region to the 1930s and the rise of totalitarianism; but perhaps Europe in 1914 is a better metaphor: the situation is such that some small, unexpected autonomous event might trigger a sequence of events that even the great powers of the region could find it beyond their ability to control. In the past, after all, a car accident (in the case of the first intifada) and a cinema fire (triggering the Iranian revolution) have unleashed consequences that no one could have foreseen.
Israel, too, seems oblivious to its position. It believes that the Palestinian conflict can be sustained, and it continues to enjoy a growing economy and a healthy tourist trade. Israelis have arrived at a modus vivendi with their peculiar circumstances: life can go on, they sanguinely presume.
The Israelis, Americans and Europeans may, however, once again be burying their heads in the sand. Heaven knows, it wouldn’t be the first time.
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29 Responses to “The West’s Costly Hamas Error”
Excellent stuff, not least by drawing on Crooke’s complementary analysis.
A couple of marginal points.
The ‘two-state solution’ as bullshit is not recent. From the start. It has always been palaver. Israel was and is never going to withdraw from the West Bank.
The Israeli leadership is not giving lip service to ‘assuage the Americans and the Europeans and deflect pressure on Israel.’ The Americans and Europeans speak the same doublespeak, everybody knows the translation, and there is no pressure on Israel to deflect.
Moreover, why put Bush on a new direction to predecessors? Clinton was as unprepared to tackle the Israeli leadership as is Bush. Camp David was a joke.
Finally, the Israelis, Americans and Europeans do not have their heads in the sand. They know exactly what is going on.
Check out Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon. Disintegration.
Then add Pakistan and Eqypt. Veritable ‘powder kegs’.
Water off a duck’s back.
Reason–Europe like USA is fearful of the zionist Jewish control of their politics, media and industrial complex. Let’s not forget that Israels are European Jews and Russian.
The real sad part is Canada Australia has the same problem. Palestine is a big Jail and no country will give ahand.
No Jojo, that’s just anti-semitic trash, actually. There’s no substantial Israel lobby shaping European responses — I’d love to hear more thoughts on why the Europeans are doing this, but my suspicion is that it’s their own rising Islamo-phobia… Just a suspicion, mind you…
Europe will remain squarely on the side of the U.S./Israel because, oddly enough, Iraq. Europe has a very strong stake in continuing U.S. dominant global status quo. American power depends largely on control of the Mideast/Persian Gulf. That control requires that local nations be dependent upon the U.S. and therefore compliant with U.S. wishes.
Hence, America’s primary allies are Israel and the Saudi government. Neither can survive long without U.S. support.
Independent governments, such as Iran and Syria, are a threat precisely because they are independent. They can challenge (not militarily of course) America’s dominant position primarily as an idea other nations in the region can follow…Iran is viewed as the great hope in much of the Sunni Muslim world, an alternative to U.S. dominance.
Getting back to the point, total failure in Iraq could leave Iran as the undisputed hegemon of the Persian gulf, and not inconceivably of the whole Mideast (though the latter would be decades off. Given the growing scarcity of oil resources, that will make Iran a very popular nation among growing powers (India and China) as well as an ally on the energy game with Russia.
Such a situation is a real challenge to the U.S. global position. Europe has done very well under the U.S, umbrella in the post war world. They don’t want to trade it for Russian or Chinese alternatives.
As for Israel, I recomend this essay at pinr.com;
http://www.pinr.com/report.php?ac=view_report&report_id=216&language_id=1
Also, I highly recommend to anyone with the time Tony Judt’s “Postwar” history of Europe since 1945. Not quite done with it but its a very good explanation of why Europe follows America’s lead.
The olive branch:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070704/ap_on_re_mi_ea/palestinians_kidnapped_journalist
Thanks Shlomo, had just updated to include reference to that. Of course, what few US media outlets will report is that the Dagmoush gang had de facto protection from Dahlan’s Fatah security forces, which is why it took Hamas taking control of Gaza to get him out!
I just read the 2004 article on Power and Interest News Report (pinr).
So the US support of Israel is all about cheap oil?
And Israel is a US satrap?
I’m sorry to say that this analysis is utterly implausible.
As for the claim tha ‘Israel’s small size and cultural isolation has prevented it from forming any sort of military alliance with neighboring states …’. What?
“Unlike Israel, Iran’s size and oil resources give it the opportunity to become an independent, powerful state.”
I don’t agree with this article’s portrayal of Israel as a modern-day South Vietnam. Israel of course “benefits” (or not) from U.S. support, but I think it would get by without such support. Has is occured to Mr. Marquardt that there are other forms of power besides oil and landmass? At one point Britain ruled most of the world’s population, and it’s just a few tiny little islands in the North Atlantic. How could this have happened? The answer is human capital. Israel still would have a tremendous technological and educational advantage, even if Iran got the nukes. Sixty years ago, Israel outmuscled the majority Arab population because of the same advantage. It stands to reason that this can happen again.
Also, there are reasons besides imperialism to be against Iran acquiring weapons. For example, a desire to avoid a mini-Cold War between Jerusalem and Tehran.
Finally, the European history student in me finds this report’s historical narrative somewhat jarring. Judging by this article alone, it almost seems as though the U.S. has been operating in the Mideast in a vacuum. I am not disputing the claim that the U.S. wanted oil–that’s a no brainer. But I’d say there is one word I keep looking for, that is very sorely lacking: SOVIETS!!
The U.S. consistently rallied to Israel’s support because the basic arrangement of Israel’s society bore close resemblance to American society. The U.S. supported any dictatorial sonofabitch it could find because he was “our sonofabitch”. It supported dictators everywhere, oil or not, because the alternative was the dreaded “people’s revolution”. Also, the USSR did not always behave so wonderfully in the Middle East either. For every Cold War action, there was a reaction. The combined wranglings of the US and USSR had very negative effects to the “Third World” as a whole. But to take U.S. actions of the past half-century in a vacuum–that is one mangled historical perspective!
Shlomo, I certainly don’t believe that Israel would collapse the moment U.S. aid is withdrawn. But to maintain the style of life Israelis have become accustomed to, along with its position of regional dominance, U.S. assistance is required. Think about it. What if you couldn’t count on a U.S. veto, or American pressure on European states, or for that matter Arab ones, to, for example, isolate Hamas? or if it were irrelevant to U.S. interests if Hizbollah were armed or not, or if the U.S. lifted sanctions on Iran? Israel’s position would be far worse.
And I didn’t even mention economic aid, favorable trading status, advanced weapons, etc. Israel could likely survive without these things but it wouldn’t be easy.
I also don’t doubt Israel’s human capital. But lets take the example you mentioned of the British. At one point in time they dominated India and even much of China. And yet no one accuses these countries of lacking human capital. What they lacked was gunpowder. If at one point India didn’t have the human capital needed to keep its independence, the gap has long since been closed. Israel can’t assume its neighbors could never do the same (although, I confess, it does appear so at times.)
The Soviet explanation might have made more sense if U.S. support for Israel diminished in 1991, as was the case for South Africa, rather than expand. I can see only 2 plausible explanations for this; 1) The U.S. had no need for SA to keep Angola and Mozambique in check, but did need Israel to keep an eye on the Mideast oil or 2) A strong pro Israel lobby compels U.S. support, against its own best interests. The old “we support Israel because its a democracy just like us,” explanation doesn’t really hold water.
Best Wishes,
Z
Just some reflections from an casual passerbyer:
Mahmoud Abbas is the new Yasser Arafat: the guy who can’t get things done but who is easier to deal with than the people who actually represent the Palestinian people. In time, Abbas will also face Arafat’s fate and be criticized for not being able to control the Palestinians.
Secondly, the West always sees things through the prism of a developed state. They never consider the turmoil that preceded the current state.
Thus, they IMAGINE that once a dictator is toppled and all of the kings men are dispersed, the “freedom loving people” will join hands and build a nation that can withstand “evil.”
Thus, there is a great (and grave) lack of understanding of how the real world works. At least Rummy had it part right when he noted that “freedom is messy” as Iraq began to dissolve into anarchy. What he and everyone in the administration didn’t realize is that the people don’t just get tired and come together like they did at Woodstock.
Finally, I read somewhere (Newsweek, perhaps?) that Condi Rice was most proud of her “proposing a two-state solution.” I found that incredible, as I was under the impression that EVERYONE realized that there’s no way there’s going to be ANY peace in the Middle East UNTIL the Palestinians get their own home. (I suppose, though, that this is all “official speak” - i.e. no one in government had “officially” proposed a two-state solution. It took Condi Rice to put the offer on the table. Hooray for Condi.) And it has to be a decent one at that, not one that is the geographical resemblance of the continental U.S. and Hawaii.
Tony Karon:
As to why Europeans are doing this. I can only write about Britain. But I think there are all kinds of complexities.
1. The thrust of Crooke’s argument would suggest that a major part of the answer is simple stupidity. One element of this is an inability to grasp the extent to which Fatah is discredited, and the fact that the strategy of attempting to support Fatah against Hamas, in the hope that we can then go back to business as usual, is bankrupt. Another, which is related, is the failure to grasp that the political tide in the region is towards Islamism, and that the intellectual and practical problem is to be clear about the very great differences between different forms of Islamism and work out different responses to different forms. This inability, Crooke is suggesting, produces policies which make equally bad sense judged on moral or Machiavellian criteria: which is plain dumb.
2. So the natural next question then becomes, why are the British being dumb? Part of the answer is that, in our political elite, there is a very powerful neocon strand, which swallowed a great deal of the hogwash about a ‘clash of civilisations’. The genealogy is partly similar to the U.S., partly different. So, for example, two of the leading journalistic advocates of the invasion of Iraq, David Aaronovitch and John Lloyd, are former communists. Blair himself is in many ways a neocon — also the most pro-Israel Prime Minister ever, as is evidenced in his choice of Lord Levy as Middle East envoy. Meanwhile, in 2005 we saw the foundation of a Henry Jackson Society, with various British luminaries proclaiming their dedication to the vision of the figure who was largely responsible for inflicting Perle and Wolfowitz on the world.
2. Certainly the notion that there is anything like the kind of Israeli lobby which exists in the U.S. in Britain is nonsense. However, it is important to bear in mind the neocon affiliations of Rupert Murdoch, who is still in control of a very powerful media empire. Among the signatories of the declaration of principles of the Henry Jackson society is Irwin Stelzer, who has been the link man between Murdoch and Blair, and also I think Brown. But then, as I suggested above, Blair is actually a natural neocon — he is not being strong armed into taking up attitudes he does not share. How Brown will shape up now he has taken over as PM is not yet clear. But his recent remark about the fight against terrorism being our Cold War is not reassuring.
Also, even though Conrad Black lost control of the Daily Telegraph, the general line and tone of the paper still reflects his influence.
3. A lot of this is to do with drawing dubious lessons from the outcome of the Cold War. So, for example, shortly before the invasion of Iraq, John Lloyd wrote a long piece in the FT, treating Richard Pipes as a prophet vindicated on the question of Soviet nuclear strategy, and treating that as reason to take the views of William Pipes on Islamic radicalism seriously. This was simply journalistic incompetence. Pipes’s view that the Soviets believed they could fight and win a nuclear war was taken to pieces by Raymond Garthoff back in the 1978, and when in 1990 the Soviets declassified the archive of the confidential General Staff journal Military Thought, Garthoff was shown to be right. What emerged was, as he wrote back in 1990, there was ‘no strategic doctrine for waging intercontinental nuclear war’ in what by then was a very substantial sample of Soviet writings on the subject. The ability of the neocons to get themselves accepted as prophets vindicated in relation to the retreat and collapse of Soviet power is truly remarkable, given their extraordinary record of analytical failure. But it is certainly important in understanding current thinking in the UK as well as the US.
4. Will the fact that neocon approaches are so clearly failing eventually produce a radical rethinking of these? To some extent they are doing so, but the process is slow.
5. An interesting question, however, is what is happening to opinion beneath the surface. My suspicion is that the neoconservatism of much of the political elite is increasingly out of kilter with how many people think. The invasion of Iraq was from the outset a project about which there were deep doubts among the general population, crossing the political spectrum. It seems increasingly likely that the British army, which is not used to losing wars, is going to end up retreating with its tail between its legs not only from Iraq, but also from Afghanistan. The long term implications of this are I think likely to be interesting.
6. Islamophobia certainly enters into this. And this is very dangerous, as we simply cannot, in this country, afford to be involved in a ‘clash of civilisations’. The possibility of a vicious circle leading to a catastrophic worsening of relations between the host community and Muslim minorities is a very real one, and a reason why nobody in their right mind would have become involved in invading Iraq. Moreover, ironically, as Leila Hudson noted on her blog, which unfortunately seems to have gone into abeyance, the notion of a ‘clash of civilisations’ was quite alien to ‘anything developed in the British imperial, military field culture.’ Wicked imperialists were obsessively interested in the differences between different subject groups, because in large measure their rule depended upon manipulating them — as Kipling’s stories illustrate well. The anthropologist/spook Colonel Creighton in Kim says there is ‘no sin so great as ignorance’.
7. On the other hand, increasing Islamophobia is quite compatible with a new — or perhaps I should say revived — sense that the interests of Israel and of Britain are different, and that British Jews who identify very strongly with Israel are in some sense therefore not quite properly British. Stephen Pollard complained last May in the Daily Telegraph that the famous ‘cricket test’ which the Tory politician Norman Tebbit devised in relation to Asians back in 1990 was being applied to him, as a Jew. The test related to which side British Asians would cheer for, in a test between England and Pakistan, or England and India. Pollard complained that he was being asked the same question, when England was playing Israel at football. See http://www.stephenpollard.net/003197.html.
Actually I think his piece is confused, in that Tebbit’s ‘cricket test’ does not necessarily imply hostility to Asians — the central point at issue is conflict of loyalties. So it is misleading for Pollard to suggest that its being raised in relation to English Jews is ipso facto a manifestation of anti-Semitism: it may be, but one cannot that it is. And the fact that it is raised is, I think, likely to be a consequence of the Iraq War.
7. At the same time, the tensions between commitments to Enlightenment values, of different kinds and allegiance to Israel — such as one sees being worked out in your blog or in the writings of Tony Judt or Philip Weiss — are also clearly present among British Jews. It is perhaps significant that Crooke’s root and branch critique of American and European Middle Eastern policy appears in the London Review of Books, whose Jewish editor Mary-Kay Wilmers has been described as the ‘mater familias of London’s liberal intelligentsia’. It was the same magazine, of course, which published the Mearsheimer/Walt article on the Israeli lobby in the U.S., which no American journal was prepared to touch. And then, the kind of British liberal tradition in which I — a non-Jew — was reared was heavily influenced by Jewish thinkers, notably Isaiah Berlin and Sir Karl Popper. In the end it is not possible to reconcile the kind of liberalism for which such men argued with commitment to an ideology of Blut und Boden in the Middle East.
How these different elements will play out over the long term I would not presume to guess!
Well done, excellent article.
Islam, Islamist, Jihadist was never reffered to on Tv or in the news papers, now, Islam or matters relating to it are reported daily, often headline news or front page material.
This mirrors the growing popularity of Islamic awareness, an awarenes in the Muslim world that Islam will be the vehicle to free them of colonial, imperialistic of foreign economic powers. Israel could have been a permanent state, It’s now clear it’s days are numbered, maybe 5yrs maybe 10yrs maybe 50yrs, but it will surely end. It’s survival depended on how it treated the palistinians, Palistians were happy to settle for the 67 boarders, but now they want all of their land back, and they will certainly get it.
Thank you David Habakkuk for your supremely incisive comments. Forget that Jamestown terrorist “expert” Erich Marquardt and his false JINSA disinformation of Israel as America’s aircraft carrier in the Middle East, and oil, oil, oil being the sole and significant reason for the west’s blind support of an out of control Israel, while completely ignoring the prime reason…Zionism. Even Karon’s elementary rehash and tamely evasive analysis of recent events in Palestine can be quickly discarded in this thread as irrelevant. Karon sounds like he is still writing for America’s right wing news magazines. The only relevant and accurate analysis coming out of this blog entry was made by commenter David Habakkuk. David should get a weblog of his own so the rest of the world can learn the real reasons for U.S. and Englands deadly embrace with Israel.
“Islamism, is hardly an undifferentiated political entity, as Crooke makes clear, and on its spectrum, the Hamas leadership is closer to the moderate, democratic tendency of its parent organization, the Muslim Brotherhood, than it is to the jihadist nihilism of al-Qaeda.”
The appropriate historical analogy, perhaps (emphasis on the perhaps) is the post-World War I split between the Social Democrats and the Communists — or, if geopolitics is your bag, the Sino-Soviet split of the early 1960s.
In both cases, many conservative hardliners either refused to recognize that a split had occurred or downplayed its significance, at least in part because it injected unwanted ambiguity into the simplistic good-versus-evil narrative they preferred.
It took several decades and a major crisis (World War II and the postwar popularity of Stalinist parties in France and Italy in the first case; defeat in Vietnam in the second) before capitalists were willing to work with socialists to defeat communists, or with Chinese communists to defeat Soviet communists. But once they were tried both policies proved highly successful.
It looks like the “West” is going to have to go through the same learning process with the Islamists before a saner, more viable political strategy emerges in the Middle East.
Who knows? Maybe a U.S. defeat in Iraq will be the needed catalyst.
Sorry but the zionist cult arguement just doesn’t cut it. One hears several arguements that unlimited US support for Israel is contrary to US interests. That is true ASSUMING that at some point the Muslim/Arab world will gain the stregth to challenge U.S-Israeli dominance. In other words, will they force the US to choose between oil and West Bank settlements?
Up untill now the US has been able to have both and so ussually faced no such choice. At the times it did, it tried its best to ballance things out. In 1973, for example, it rapidly rearmed Israel, but then forced it to accept a disengagement in 1974 that left Egypt in controll of both sides of the Suez canal. The U.S. was prepared to go only so far in its ‘defense’ of Israel. Long term oil cuttoffs, and a nuclear exchange with the USSR (a close run thing in 1973) were not on the agenda.
In 1978, the US pressured Israel to return the Sinai to Egypt because Washington deemed it usefull to have Egypt on America’s side in the cold war. Left to their own devices, Israel would have proably kept it.
None of this is to discount the role of the pro Israel lobby today. They are certainly pushing for a military conflict with Iran. Barring that, then they will try to prevent any rapproachment between Iran and the US. (see Tom Lantos’ current bill)
Weather they will be successful remains to be seen but there intent is clear. If the US accepts a powerful and nuclear Iran under its current government, then sooner or later the US will have to cut a deal with it. Who will be the odd man out in that deal is not far from AIPAC’s mind.
None other than the Great Charles Krauthammer admits something along those lines;
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/03/AR2006080301258.html
In other words, a future US president will come to the conclusion that US interests are served by an Iran that is a friend of the US rather than a friend of Russia-China.
“In other words, a future US president will come to the conclusion that US interests are served by an Iran that is a friend of the US rather than a friend of Russia-China.”
>>>>>
Well that is a president I will support.
And why all the nonsense about “which” reason we are in the ME….?
By now everyone should understand that it is a convergence of several agendas colluding and piggybacking each other…..Israel and the US zionist for israel, the oil fetish, not the oil companies mind you, but some individuals ideas of control of the oil supply and third, your ordinary US neocon war hawks. You average devious teenage girl could figure out this clique and all the players in it.
If there was ever a made-up world “wur” for reasons that have nothing to do with US interest or security, this is it…..it’s US hubris, it’s Israeli desire to be their “own” superpower and economic dominator in the ME.
Lastly it’s not even realistic to think our oil or security needs are better served by recreating the US/Isr game against Russia in the ME when a child knows that stable relations with all of Arabia are a better guarentee of oil supplies and security. The only country a replay of this benefits is Israel, the same way it benfited them in the cold war.
A lot of people have been creating this war for reasons that have nothing to do with American interest…..and they hawk it in terms of “American interest” but they aren’t american interest at all….the fact is they want to “change” the definition of american interest for their own agendas…empire building, Israel, and the class of global ideologues who do believe in a new world order.
If some incident doesn’t spark an all out ME conflict soon my bet is Israel will create one to speed up the US involvement in Iran, Syria and Lebanon.
Shortly after that happens we here in the US are gonna throw our second American revolution.
What is required is for the western “news” disseminators to start displaying some decency and calling the elected government of the Palestinians as their government and its military force as Soldiers and not as militants.
As in todays news, 8 hamas militants killed. Even though this was a hamas security force inside its own so called country that confronted an undercover Israeli death squad.
If western news sources dont have any human decency except when it comes to the white man and his slaves then what good is it? I was just reading about the Aryan Jew! I mean get real! Israel is very close to Africa and it is in the middle east. When was the last time you saw a blond blue eyed African or middle easterner? Which is why I refuse to go to a church which has blond blue eyed Jesus! He was BLACK!!!!!!!!! As in black as a Negro!!!!
Of course I could be mistaken and he was Thor’s son who got lost.
Any situation is as complex as we make it. This thought occurred to me on reading some of the above. (Thank you Habikkuk for your fine effort.) The danger is that in the complexity we lose the simple essence of a situation. There is a danger too in oversimplification, I recognize that. But, my understanding of the whole mess is roughly as follows: A segment of the Jewish population, despite their European and Russian ancestry, began a campaign to have their own country in Palestine, on the false justification that that is where their roots are. (European Jews apparently originated in Turkey) By hook and by crook (and through terrorist actions) they succeeded in this and displaced the Arab population in many areas (buldozing as many as 400 Arab villages into dust). On parts of the coastal plain this could be fairly described as ethnic cleansing. Albert Einstein, who initially supported the creation of state of Israel warned as early as 1928 that if Jews failed to work in co-operation with Palestinian Arabs, they deserved the fate that awaited them. (Einstein also opposed the militarization of Israel.) In any event, this is the crux of the problem, the utter failure of Israel to join hands (it may sound corny) with their Arab bretheren, and to treat them with respect and as equals, rather than having an antagonistic relationship such as they have now. Let me add just one more thing. The Chinese sages recognized 2000 years ago (see the I-Ching) that all human affairs are governed by immutable natural laws. When you ignore or break those laws, you pay the price. The people I see currently governing Israel have not a clue about this, and that will be their downfall. The emergence of Hamas is no accident but a natural consequence of previous events. Israel and other Western nations would do well to get with the program, and fast. Sadly, this is unlikely to happen and things are likely to get even worse.
Tony Karon says - “the jihadist nihilism of al-Qaeda”
If you wish to pass as a serious political analyst, Mr Karon, I suggest you avoid, when discussing any particular group, adopting the slanderous propaganda phraseology of their political enemies.
Otherwise, as in this example, you expose yourself as partisan and thus incapable - just foaming at the mouth.
While such intellectual dishonesty is obviously de rigueur when writing for an agitprop rag like TIME, it is beneath your obvious ability and impresses no readers here.
A sober look at AQ reveals plenty of rational political acumen aiming to rally support towards a firm emancipatory goal, demonstrated organisational and ideological wherewithal to grow under extremely harsh conditions, and offering a plausible political alternative based in REALISM.
Whether you disagree with their goals, methods or ideology matters not one iota to that political movement and its adherents. But refusing to recognise and respect your political enemy as a rational actor (trademark neoconism) is the first step on the path to helping him win.
Go back to Sun Tzu - know yourself and know your enemy.
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Tony Karon says - “No Jojo, that’s just anti-semitic trash”
Interesting reaction ! This seems to indicate a rather itchy trigger finger manning the old debate-destruction cannon, Mr Karon — did you learn this ‘overwhelming-firepower’ technique at TIME?
I certainly don’t see you bringing any reasoned argument to butress your gratuitous insult. In fact, you then feign to admit ignorance, before postulating that europeans may suffer from a genetic condition called ‘rising Islamophobia’, which is of course entirely unrelated to the efforts of Israel / its so-called ‘Lobby’. Thus, another cheap and disappointing effort, Mr Karon.
“There’s no substantial Israel lobby shaping European responses” — this is a joke, right? You think europeans don’t read newspapers (e.g. TIME) or watch TV from USA? You think the inhabitants of Iraeli Embassies in EU sit around all day listlessly flicking coins at each other to break up the monotonous boredom?
The ‘Lobby’ may not be *principally* based in EU, but it certainly shapes the thinking of the upper levels of corrupt politicoes and their presstitutes, and thus filters through to a proportion of the susceptible public.
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@ evanj - 100% accurate, except to add 1 little word of qualification, as in “Israel was and is never going to VOLUNTARILY withdraw from the West Bank.”
Same as US-Loser Oil-Pirates never intended to leave Iraq. Nevertheless, they will leave, bankrupt and under a rain of Resistance blows. (http://www.iraq-war.ru/article/129470)
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@ David Habakkuk - thanks for injecting some lucidity here. Just wondering, when you referred to the Blut und Boden philosophy in Middle East, do you infer the Zionist variety?
Great Job Tony! Very informative, analytical, and truth digging article. Written as if by an inside observer with precise facts narrative, and fair analysis. The theme yet is so simple and so obvious to the very average common sensor. When it comes to foreign policy, democracy as it is understood and practiced by the elite states of the world, especially the western states, continue to be no more than a synonym to dictatorship and mere means to more sophisticated shadowy imperialism. In a very disappointing and self-destructive retrospect, the so-called civilized and democratic world is repeating the same historic mistakes which gave rise in the first place to the foundations of modern democracy. And as if the post 1945 world of human, political, and civil rights covenants and the international community stand-up against autonomous aggression did nothing more than obsession with repeating the same dramatic geopolitical reality which existed before 1945. Nothing is new under the sun. Democracy is not blind. It is the content that matters, not the mechanism. After all, it is the hegemony and control of the powerful states to the undeveloped ones. From the start Israel was transplanted in the Middle East by western imperialism to facilitate imperialist ambitions and the very definition of Israel contradicts democracy. No one with a sound definition of democracy would agree that a “Jewish” minority of immigrants, mainly from Euro-ethnic descent can be allowed to declare itself under the facilitation, support, and supervision of the Super Powers as a “Jewish” state in the middle of a pre-existing non-Jewish majority without ridiculing the very meaning of democracy. The Eurocentric man has been the broker of the political reality since 1948 in “Palestine,” and the Eurocentric man has been a failure as well. This may sound very simple and axiomatic but it is a settled conviction in the Palestinian subconscious that any proposed peace process and fancy names for its politics means nothing to the average Palestinian who ever doubts the credibility of the Eurocentric invention of democracy. Peace process as Tony Highlights in this invaluable presentation becomes another name for buying time to seize more Palestinian land and complete the Zionist project. No wonder that the same democracy today means overriding the electorate Palestinian majority to accomplish what? Exactly the same thing: to rob more Palestinian land, to confuse the issues of dispute, and to ultimately complete the Zionist project, even if that means turning Palestinians against each other by all means possible.
addendum:
For the alleviation of willful ignorance, here’s a link to the official AQ position on Middle East, Iraq, Hamas, etc., as recently expressed in video release featuring Dr. Ayman Al-Zawahiri
(h ttp://clearinghouse.infovlad.net/showthread.php?t=8059)
Ziad,
“Human capital” as I am using it means not just many people, but also many educated people. There was more human capital in Britain during its reign over India than there was in India. However, it is possible to overcome that, as Gandhi has shown–using nonviolent methods!!
Many people on this board have a surreal sense of inevitability regarding Israel’s destruction. Nonsense. While it is true that India managed to kick the Brits out, they have not yet conquered Britain, and even 80 years after independance they are still not even close. So while I agree with you, Ziad, that the Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank is coming, I don’t think we are near to the destruction of Israel.
In order to destroy Israel, Palestinians would have to:
1. Kick Israel out of the West Bank.
2. Build up an army superior to IDF.
And not a phony, cowardly “sucide-bomber” army that kills innocent civilians, but a REAL army that can defeat IDF soldiers and march into Jerusalem. Jews are the minority in West Bank just as Brits were in India; but Jews are still the majority in Israel proper, just as Britons are in Britain. Arabs might eventually make up the majority in Israel, but Israeli Arabs and Palestinian Arabs are very(!) different.
And Ziad, BTW, the important thing with Israel-Palestinian vs. South Africa, is not chronology. After ANC had a big revolt that was brutally supressed, Reagan began to step in in a big way. Similarly, after the First Intifadah was crushed, Clinton began to step in in a big way, leading to Oslo.
Also, someone here said that Carter “forced” Begin to negotiate with Sadat. I highly doubt that. First, look at the personalities of Begin and Carter. Begin, a former Irgun loony, was not the type of person one could “force”, and Carter was not exactly known for being “force”ful. What really happened is that Begin and Sadat decided on their own to make peace, so Carter could serve as the (here’s that word again!) “honest broker.”
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