In Answer To Tedward (from right now)

Tedward replied to my last post (about the elections) asking what I think America should do to bring peace over here. I hope he doesn't mind, but here's his comment and my response.


tEdwardo says:
February 10, 2009 at 12:25 pm (Edit)

Hey Wantman. I was interested to read your thoughts on the election, especially because of the way they are being covered here in the states.

The fact that there has been so much coverage of the elections here in the states got me to thinking about the United States’ role, and it really seems to me that the US has been as much an obstacle as it has been a facilitator of lasting stability in the region. Of course, the whole point has been to prevent the entire Arab world from attacking Israel – something no one wants on our hands.

So, it seems to me that the only good that America is doing is keeping the peace, and that our historic blank-check style support for Israel has been, at least in part, an encouragement of hard line military positions on both sides. I may be wrong about that, and if you disagree, I would like to hear why.

The most disheartening thing for me is that is seems that popular support in both Israel and Palestine is for more conflict, not less.

My question is, why is it a bad idea to change our policy to this:

- America hereby withdraws official support for either side
- America offers full defensive support (diplomatic and military) for any side that democratically adopts a position of unilateral peace*

If the answer is that America doesn’t have the political will, then we should just admit that the United States is not politically committed to peace in the region, but victory for Israel.

If the answer is that America doesn’t have the military werewithall to do this, that could be solved by engaging a coalition of other countries.

If the answer is that America doesn’t have the international political legitimacy to do this, then we can just stop pretending that we have the ability to bring peace to the region without first withdrawing the kind of support we have shown Israel for the past 30 year.

I am VERY POORLY INFORMED about all this, which is why I am asking.

*granted, whether “peace” means no invasion or no “self defense” (the definition of which Israel and Palestine both play fast and loose with) is a sticky point, but even if it were the latter, giving a powerful third party the right to decide the extent of legitimate self defense would be a huge step in the right direction.




Obviously, this is just my point of view from what I've seen and picked up. As you guys know, I don't like politics and and pretty ignorant about it.

To start with, the popular idea of this being a "centuries-old religious conflict" is completely wrong. It's about 90 years old and has almost nothing to do with religion. A better term would be "identity." In short, this is why the fighting between Israeli and Palestinians is, on the underlying level, the same as the fighting between Syria and Lebanon, and between Hamas and Fatah within Gaza.

Let's go back to World War I. At the time, this whole area was part of the Turkish Empire, which was fighting against Britain and France (also against Russia and America, but that's not important here). Both countries worked on a policy of promising whatever they had to in order to achieve their goals without worrying about future consequences.

Two of the more famous promises were the Balfour Declaration and the McMahon letters. The Balfour Declaration was from the Foreign Secretary Balfour to Lord Rothschild while the McMahon letters were between Sir Henry McMahon, the High Commissioner in Egypt, to Hussein bin Ali, the Sharif of Mecca, and both promising what is now Israel and Egypt to each group (Jews and Arabs).

The fact that the same land was being given was two different people at the same time didn't concern the British - they didn't really intend to give it away at all. A secret deal was made between Britain and France, known as the Sykes-Piccot Agreement, in which the two empires agreed to split up the Ottoman Empire between them. Britain would get modern-day Jordan, Israel, and southern Iraq, and France would get Lebanon, Syria, and northern Iraq.

Both countries were used to the colonialism game and as usual, set up local governments and power structures in a way that played local groups against each other and forced the European country to stay in control. The clearest example of this was in Syria: the area was populated by three main ethnic groups - Christians, Sunnis, and Alawis (another branch of Islam). The Alawis were by far the smallest, so the French put them in control. There was no way the Alawis could stay in power on their own, so they were forced to rely on French backing.

From the British/French point of view, this worked more or less for the next few decades. But then came the post-World War II breaking up of the European empires. I don't know France's history here as well, so I'll stick to Britain. They had no desire to lose all their colonies and territories, so they tried to get out of it any way they could. The main approach was to point to unrest (mostly caused by their intentional distribution of power) and say how it would all go to Hell if they left. In the end, they only reluctantly turned over the Palestine Mandate to the United Nations.

Now let's go back and look at this specifically with regard to what's now Israel. Towards the end of the 19th Century Jews started arriving in large numbers, whether to escape persecution or in the idealistic hope of creating a Jewish State. They began by buying land, often from absentee landlords, and building farming communities.

This large influx of people and work naturally led to many new jobs being created. Even more so because most of the new immigrants came from cities and knew nothing about the farming or the region as a whole. So many Arabs also began to come.

The Arab leadership's main goal, then as now, was to keep themselves in power. The most significant leader at the time was Mohammad Amin al-Huseini. He grew up in Jerusalem, fought in the First World War as an officer in the Turkish army before being captured by the British and joining their side. In 1920 he ran away to Transjordan (modern-day Jordan) in order to avoid arrest for inciting anti-Jewish riots in Jerusalem. The next year all those arrested over the riots were pardoned and he returned to Jerusalem.

Husseini's half-brother, the mufti of Jerusalem, had just died and the British were looking for a replacement. Husseini was not particularly religious, but he saw this as the best way to get power. Elections were held between the four main candidates for the position, and Husseini came in last. The British felt bad because they had had appointed a member of the al-Husseini clan's rival to be mayor shortly before, and with some finageling they announced Husseini to be the new Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, a lifetime position they had just created for him.

In 1922 Husseini was elected President of the Supreme Muslim Council, which had control over their funds and Islamic courts, as well as the power to appoint teachers and religious leaders. The British tried to keep the council membership balanced between the al-Husseinis and their rivals, the Nashashibis, and the two clans spent more time fighting each other than trying to build and sustain a proper society.

In order to keep control of the masses, he did what he could to turn them against an easy enemy - the Jews. His main arguments were that they wanted to get rid of the Arabs and destroy the Dome of the Rock in order to build their own Temple, the same arguments that have been used regularly since.

On Yom Kippur 1928, the Jews put up a screen to separate men and women worshipping at the Western Wall. The Arab authorities declared that this was the first step to rebuilding a Temple, and the British police entered with force and took away the screen. The same thing had happened in 1926 over collapsible chairs on Yom Kippur and led to Arab riots, which the British absolutely did not want. After much discussion and argument between the British and Arab leaders, it was agreed that the Jews could use ritual objects, but could not bring in chairs, screens, or other such objects.

Tensions grew between Jews and Arabs to the point of several deaths, and in August 1929 large-scale riots broke out, leaving over 250 dead. There were calls in England to have Husseini deported for inciting the riots and for causing anti-British unrest in general. The League of Nations investigated the situation and declared that the riots were not premeditated.

More riots broke out in 1936 against the British and Jews, this time with Husseini's complete backing and encouragement. He declared a general strike amongst Arab workers, but it turned out that this primarily hurt the poor Arabs themselves, as the Jews had started pressing themselves for self-reliance after previous riots. For help, Husseini turned to Mussolini and Hitler.

The riots continued until 1939 when the British announced a White Paper, severely restricting Jewish immigration over the next five years, after which all immigration would be subject to Arab approval, and further restricting Jews from buying land from Arabs. The British were worried that the Arabs would side with Hitler should war break out, whereas the Jews had no real alternative, and so they didn't see any need to cozy up to the Jews.

Nevertheless, Husseini rejected the White Paper, demanding that all Jewish immigration be stopped and an official scrapping of the idea of a Jewish national homeland (what had been promised in the Balfour Declaration). During World War II he stood strongly on the side of the Axis power and spent the war in Berlin. After the war, Husseini was arrested by the French and sentenced to three years imprisonment as a war criminal, but escaped to Egypt. The British in charge there refused to arrest him because they feared it would cause them problems with the Arabs in Egypt and Palestine.

In 1947, the United Nations voted to turn the Palestine Mandate into two states, one Jewish and one Arab. This was around the same time that all the neighboring Arab states were getting their independence, and each tried to flex puff out its own chest. With the new Jewish State, they found their perfect lynchpin. The Arab leaders took turns making threats and announcing what they would do once the Jews declared their independence (at which point it would be its own country and they could attack without having to come against the British). The only trouble was they were expected to follow through on their promises.

Sorry for the long foray there, but I don't feel the situation can be explained properly without looking at where it came from. It's not simply an Arab vs. Jew conflict, and the same themes run through again and again. The 1948 War of Independence was largely caused by Arab leaders' posturing to their own people, and then having to try and fulfill these promises.

The same thing has happened a number of times since. In the 60's, Egypt and Syria were each trying to become the leader of the Arab/Islamic world. Again, they turned to threatening Israel as a way to gain support, and it all led to the Six Day War in '67. In the early 70's, Anwar Sadat became the new Prime Minister of Egypt. He wanted to build up his country and end the conflict with Israel, but was having trouble with the Muslim Brotherhood (a forerunner of Al Quaeda). He frequently said afterwards that the only way he could make peace with Israel was to first go to war in order to get back some dignity after the Six Day War.

Today Egypt and Syria are less significant in the Arab world, but the same conflict is there. Today it's between Saudi Arabia and Iran. While Iran continues with the same old approach of threatening to destroy Israel, Saudi Arabia is looking more internationally. They feel that if they can be seen as the ones who make peace between Israelis and Palestinians, the international community will turn to them as the leader of the Muslim world. That's why they have been pushing so hard at coming up with peace plans and conferences over the past few years.

From the Palestinian point of view, things are a little more complicated. Their leaders are continuing in the Husseini approach of doing whatever necessary to be on top, even if that means taking it out on their own people. Yassir Arafat's organization, Fatah, was first formed to kill and scare "collaborators," and only then moved against Israel.

No matter how much aid and assistance was given for Palestinians, the regular people on the street lived in terrible conditions and constantly in fear, while the people on the top were living the good life (and often far from Gaza and the West Bank). The popular example is Suha Arafat, Yassir Arafat's wife, who lived in France on $200,000 a month for many years.

Returning to history briefly, in the late 80's was the First Intifada, a popular uprising by Palestinian youth. Arafat and the PLO were worried and did what they could to stop it, because they weren't in charge - they were in exile in Tunisia at the time. Instead, a new group had formed, opposed to the corruption in the PLO. They called themselves Hamas.

When the PLO began negotiating with Israel in the early 90's, Hamas vilified them as traitors to the Palestinian cause. Whenever the two groups had free time, they would fight each other, either verbally or physically. The big switches came in late 2004 and early 2005, when Arafat died and then Hamas won the elections. The West Bank and Gaza became effectively two separate entities, with the West Bank being controlled by the PLO and Gaza by Hamas (particularly after the Hamas-PLO war in Gaza a couple years ago). Even now, the first thing Hamas did after Israel left Gaza last month was to find and kill those they suspected of collaborating.

On the other hand, Hamas has entered into negotiations with Israel and has agreed on ceasefires (they were never properly followed, but that's no different than the PLO's negotiating techniques). And now there's Islamic Jihad and another new group who are declaring Hamas to be traitors for talking with Israel, and thereby implying their recognition of a Jewish State.

Finally, now an answer to your main question. In your question, you gave the main reason why the peace deals don't work when you asked whether it would be bad to either drop support for both sides or to fully support whichever side goes for peace first. Peace takes time. You can't jump from a situation like this into peace and elections within a few weeks, months, or maybe even years. But everyone is looking for the instant solution, whether it's the Oslo Accords, Madrid Conference, Taba, Roadmap For Peace, Saudi Initiative...

The Oslo Accords were an attempt at this, but everyone got too caught up in the idea of peace that they didn't want to see any problems. When Arafat would ignore his responsibilities, Israel was told to keep going with its side, because otherwise they would be "derailing the peace process." So a step-by-step approach turned into two unrelated sides having their responsiblities, which turned into just Israel having to fulfill its responsibilities (that last line is paraphrased from Yisrael Ne'eman, whom I'll get to later).

As for what is needed, I agree with Natan Sharansky. The first thing is to fix the conditions of the general Palestinian population. There's no reason they should be living in hovels without bathrooms while Hamas leaders have beachfront mansions and SUVs from money that's given as humanitarian aid (I don't think I'll forget being in the kitchen of a beautiful apartment in a nice neighborhood in Gaza and seeing bottles of cooking oil with the label "Gift of France"). Once a proper infrastructure is in place, then have elections. You won't get honest and fair people in power when gangs (which is basically what Hamas and the PLO are in many senses) kill anyone they disagree with.

If you get a chance, I'd check out Natan Sharansky's book, The Case For Democracy. He uses the example of the fall of the Soviet Union (where he was held as a political prisoner for 9 years) to show how to promote democracy. The book is touted as the explanation of the Bush Doctrine, but I completely disagree. Sharansky's main argument is that you can't support "good" tyrants and dictators in order to defeat "bad" tyrants and dictators (exactly how Bin Ladin and Saddam Hussein were put in power). Bush may have paid lip-service to Sharansky's ideals, but in practice they were ignored.

What America can or should do is a very hard question. I think right now we're in a good spot - Bush didn't have the legitimacy in the Arab/Muslim and World eyes to achieve a long-lasting solution here. Obama is a new face and I expect will be better received. Specifically what to do, though, I don't know. A lot also depends on how today's elections (which ended two hours ago) turn out, and what the Israeli politicians decide to do over the next few days.

If you're interested in following what goes on here, a professor I had at Haifa University, Yisrael Ne'eman, writes a weekly/biweekly opinion piece called Mideast: On Target. He wrote one yesterday in which he argued that the best hope for peace is if Likud wins and forms a right-centrist coalition. You can see the article at http://me-ontarget.com/2009/120-february/628-likud-victory-likud-dilemmas