“Israel should not be afraid of a confederation of Iraq and Syria as a counterweight to a more assertive Turkey and Iran.”
The Middle East is at a crossroads and it is worth considering new approaches in the region. A confederation, involving Iraq, Syria, or even Jordan and Israel might harness the unique qualities of each, while giving space for all the different groups and their agendas to be heard. These were some of the ideas that emerged from a unique event last week at The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, where a group of Israeli, Arab and Kurdish speakers, some speaking via Skype from abroad, discussed the current state of the Middle East and its future.
“These kind of meetings are of great importance to gather Israeli experts and former diplomats together to create a common understanding,” said Ceng Sagnic, coordinator of the Kurdish Studies program at the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies. Dan Diker, director of the Political Warfare Project at the JCPA, was enthusiastic after the meeting, saying that it provided a space to talk about ideas such as federalism in the Middle East. Convened at the Wechsler Forum for Innovative Regional Diplomacy, Diker said the roundtable discussion is important in light of the post-Arab Spring Middle East which “may have created new opportunities for rethinking security and stability across the region.” The JCPA’s President Dore Gold, Pinhas Inbari and Diker have all pushed for assessing federalism’s relevance for the region today.
The meeting was a closed door session and some of the participants did not want to be identified because they are from Middle Eastern countries that do not have relations with Israel. The main point many of them wanted to get across is that it is important to meet with Israelis and for both sides to share their views.
For much of the last century most of the Middle East has been led by dictatorships and monarchies. In recent years there has been several divergent trends. After the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 and Palestinian legislative elections in 2006, there was a trend towards the Arab Spring and demands for democracy. That all came crashing down with the rise of Islamic State and the instability that spread across Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Libya. Today the region has a new authoritarianism and ideas of a “spring,” or democracy healing its wounds seem far fetched.
One idea that has emerged is that some of the root causes of conflict in the region is because numerous groups with disparate agendas are all pursuing them differently and clashing. For instance Sunni Arabs, the majority of Syria, formed the backbone of the rebellion against the Assad regime. Kurds in Iraq and Syria played a key role in fighting ISIS. Shi’ites have their own sectarian parties in Lebanon and Iraq. Large tribes play an important role in each state. What if these different groups could find expression in a federal or confederal structure, sharing commonalities with such countries as Canada, the US or Switzerland, where states or territories have some powers devolved to them. There is a drive towards a confederation structure in Belgium, for instance, but what about in the Middle East.
“My suggestion during the conversations was that Israel should not be afraid of a confederal unit of Iraq and Syria,” one participant said after. “Dream palaces can find traction,” the attendee said, arguing that despite the conflicts of recent years, it is worth thinking out of the box. “The conference was useful in taking stock of how much the region has changed and continues to change, opening up some space for creative ideas.”
Over a dinner, Diker, Inbari and Dr. Kamal Allabwani, discussed some of the issues facing the region. With Iran and Turkey working more closely together and both having negative views of Israel, there is an opportunity for Israel to work more closely with Sunni Arab neighbors. This has been a difficult period for many Arab Sunnis in Iraq and Syria. In Iraq they have lost out at the hands of a Shi’ite dominated government that is close to Iran. In Syria millions have fled their homes from the fighting. “We need to fill the vacuum by a strong local coalition,” said Allabwani, a Syrian intellectual who has opposed the Bashar al-Assad regime. “We didn’t have unity [in 2011] because we just wanted to destroy the prison [of the dictatorship].” Opposition to Assad was a unifying moment, but since then, the Syrian rebellion fractured and it is now completely altered. Part of it is under Turkish influence in the north, while part of it ended up with the US-led Coalition in eastern Syria, and some joined ISIS, which still holds a bit of territory in the Euphrates valley.
Some participants tended to see the Muslim Brotherhood, Salafists and the Iranian regime as major threats to the region today. But they have been disappointed by the stance of the western powers, particularly the US which sought out the Iran deal under the Obama administration and also portrayed the Muslim Brotherhood as a “moderate” alternative to the dictatorship in Egypt in 2011. They were also critical of western support for dictatorships in the region, arguing that western countries, some of which have federal structures like the US, tend to oppose the same structures in the Middle East.
The participants appeared interested in the idea of discussing some kind of political structure that might unite Syria and Iraq, but they also felt there were more pressing, immediate concerns. For instance Turkey has sent its army into northern Syria and looks set to stay there, creating another version of northern Cyprus where what seemed like a temporary Turkish role became a long-term separation. But one participant felt Turkey was not as much a threat as Iran because Turkey is a democracy and it might change its position in the future.
The Gulf states have also played an outsized role in the region, several participants said. “But they don’t give their support for free,” one man said. “They think if they give money they will get friends,” but the reality is the opposite. One many pointed to Syrian rebel groups who had accepted Qatari money to form various rebel “councils” and then taken Saudi money to form various rebel “fronts,” changing their names back and forth to get more financing. Qatar has tended to support groups closer to the Muslim Brotherhood, while the UAE has opposed them, the men agreed.
One of the problems with convincing states in the region that a confederation is in their interests is that most see themselves as the losing power with any change. For instance a confederation of Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and the Palestinians, or even including Israel, would reduce the power of Hezbollah and create a new regional identity. Any connection with Israel is still viewed as controversial but its humanitarian aid for Syrians during the war has brought it a more positive image.
“I deem the meeting very important, regardless of the individual participants and their relative influence in their countries,” says Sagnic. “The federal and confederal issue is worth discussing but it doesn’t touch upon the deep rooted issues in Syria and Iraq,” he noted. Iraq has a federal system with a Kurdistan Regional Government. But Iraq has faced challenges with this model because each group wants to advance its own agenda. “I think western experts are missing that every participant in these governments seeks to advance their own agenda and the solution should be adjusted in accordance with these agendas,” says Sagnic.
@ Hugo Schmidt-Fischer:
Yes I recall that original old Hejaz railway line, a single track, which made Lawrence and Feisal their totally undeserved reputations with the poseur Lawrence, ( I had a cousin Sammy who resembled him greatly) stalking around Paris at the Peace Conference, dressed in full Arab regalia…including open single thonged leather sandals. (that is-as much as a man of 5’4″ can “stalk”.) .I am not an admirer of Lawrence, promoted from 2nd Lieutenant to Lt. Colonel with a snap of the superannuated fingers of some old josser in the British Govt. the Secretary of Colonial affairs likely.
He should have stuck to archaeology. What I intended to say, before being diverted by “The Seven Pillars of “Wisdom”. was that you had actually mentioned the “hjghway” as having been described by Isaiah, and I was just wondering if the reference was from Chap.40. Verse 3….. if it was, then my “scholarly” dispute with Michael over the “voice” which he believes was crying “in the wilderness” and I say according to the Torah, the voice cried out, that a highway should be made in the wilderness for the Lord”….and seeing that it was Isaiah, who always hung around the Court, being related to the Royal House, the voice likely was in Jerusalem, a quite different meaning..
The King James Version , which not only has over 4,000 translation errors of which this passage is one, but is, of the 5-6-7 major Bible translations, is the only one which mistranslates it. So naturally Michael chooses the KJV translation, but is in line with his beliefs, because the KJV is later used in Matthew.. Either crafty or devout…????
Overlong, and garbled, but the only way it seemed to come out.
@ Michael S:
@ Edgar G.:
The highway referred to is from Isaiah, as you correctly surmised.
Of course, mundane worldly highways are on our focus in the Middle East as well. When the Berlin-Baghdad Railway was built Heinrich August Meißner, financed by Deutsche Bank, the Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II commissioned another branch to run from Damascus to Medina.
This side line was to traverse the Hejaz region of Saudi Arabia and was called the Hejaz Railway. With it came a branch line to Haifa and later it was extended to Beer-Sheva. It quickly fell into disrepair.
Yisrael Katz, Israel’s Minister for Transport has grand plans to revive the past. “My vision to connect Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states and Jordan to the Haifa port and the Mediterranean Sea will transform Israel into a center for naval transport and strengthen the Israeli economy,” Katz
Sadly though, Katz regulates one of the least efficient public transport bureaucracies of an OECD country. Urban busses meander through a maze of byzantine routes especially designed to curry political favors, raise political funding from unions or special interest groups and attract corrupt corporate sponsors.
As a result, Israeli cities are congested with busses riding unnecessarily empty but unable to make stops or conversely, lines fully packed with people squeezed in, and poorly served schedules.
A worker traveling from Tel-Aviv for his daily job in Jerusalem, may waste 2,5 hours, each way. An unbearable situation, with huge losses to GDP and life quality. But these are unimportant matters to Katz, he has plans far more grandiose.
Katz errs. Promoting the welfare its enemies, is not Israel’s interest. Nor should Israel attract new towns and urban centers in its proximity. Let the inhabitants of Ismailia or Aqaba seek their fortune elsewhere. Frau Merkel has extended a welcoming hand.
The highway envisaged by Isaiah is one of another quality.
@ Hugo Schmidt-Fischer:
Thank you, Hugo Schmidt-Fischer, for the most pertinent comments I have ever seen on Israpundit. You said,
“But Isaiah 19:21 makes a pre-condition: ‘So the Lord will make himself known to the Egyptians, and in that day they will acknowledge the Lord’”
Tanakh does indeed say that. If this “Middle East Confederation” does come about, and it is truly a fulfillment of Isaiah 19, then the Egyptians must “acknowledge YHWH”.
I do not see this as necessarily an “End of the Age” or “End of the World” prophecy, nor as a foretelling of the first or second coming of Messiah. What I just quoted you as saying, about the Egyptians “acknowledging YHWH”, does not, of itself, warrant such an understanding.
In practical terms, how can Egypt “acknowledge YHWH”? I believe this could be satisfactoraly be fulfilled by Egypt recognizing Israel as the Jewish homeland — a claim by Israel, which can only be definitively be backed up by the Bible — what David Ben Gurion called Israel’s kushan.
https://www.solonchabad.com/templates/articlecco_cdo/aid/2395841/jewish/The-deed-for-the-land.htm
Isaiah 19 also foretells many fabulous things, including five cities of Egypt speaking the Hebrew language (enterprise zones?); but what you have said is probably the most important issue. The King James translation says,
Isaiah 19:
[23] In that day shall there be a highway out of Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrian shall come into Egypt, and the Egyptian into Assyria, and the Egyptians shall serve with the Assyrians.
[24] In that day shall Israel be the third with Egypt and with Assyria, even a blessing in the midst of the land:
[25] Whom the LORD of hosts shall bless, saying, Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel mine inheritance.
I am not predicting that any of this will come out of President Trump’s “Deal of the Century”. I just noted that the “Middle East Confederation” bears some resemblance to Isaiah 19. This does provide the opportunity for a joke, though: The “Deal of the Century” could be called “My way or the highway”.
@ Hugo Schmidt-Fischer:
For Michael…the “highway” that Hugo mentions from Isaiah, is most likely the highway that the crying voice called should be built through the wilderness for the Lord.
HUGO- Dd you get the “highway” you mention from Isaiah 40. verse 3…??
Israel giving up its sovereignty to a “federation” would be a total disaster.
@ Edgar G.:
Yes. “I understand the Arabs and the Arabs understand me but neither of us can understand you.” – Kahane to Dershowitz in debate. I just had somebody tell me I was unJewish for quoting all the passages from the Tanakh and Talmud that tell us how to deal with enemies. “We were strangers in Egypt” and “The judges in ancient Israel put such a high evidentiary bar that they hardly ever executed anybody” so naturally we should turn the other cheek when we are attacked. Save some of that aspirin for me, will ya? Debate between Bennett and outgoing IDF Chief of Staff (I sure hope the new one isn’t such a naif) http://www.israeltoday.co.il/Default.aspx?tabid=178&nid=34439
For hundreds of years it has been well known that one can prove anything through the Bible –with contrary opinions being a specialty.
My concern here is that Arabs, “when the chips are down” remain Arabs, and Hugo is absolutely correct. Saved me the trouble of pointing it out,leaving me only to agree with him 100%. Expediency will carry a compact to a degree but eventually the “story about “the scorpion and the frog”…etc.
All the time of any agreed duration, even in the “honest-sincere” Arab scenario he has to be thinking what a sin against “Allah” he’s committing,,,, and bound to be going to a mosque regularly, and;
(as our friend and neighbour Jackie.Gleeson used to say)…..one day…..ONE DAY………”POW…!… Particularly since the Arabs in question, are not really Westernised, but only with the trappings and technology of the West.
“Changing ” their precious collection of campfire yarns would never occur…….In the event of a Federation they would be regarded as apostates by the enormous mass of global Islam anyway and have to contend with that….(unless it’s understood that they were practicing “taquiyya”-in which case Israel would also get to know this……Soooo…where does it leave us…….?
It leaves ME with a headache -and a quick rush back to Hugo’s post. .
Michael S Said:
But Isaiah 19:21 makes a pre-condition:
“So the Lord will make himself known to the Egyptians, and in that day they will acknowledge the Lord”
Thus first, they must forswear their belief in Islam. Until then, Genesis 16:12 holds:
“He will be a wild donkey of a man; his hand will be against everyone and everyone’s hand against him, and he will live in hostility toward all his brothers.”
And so before, “Assyrians will go to Egypt and the Egyptians to Assyria on a highway” as laid out grandiloquently in Isaiah, all these grand schemes of federations of Kurds/Syrians/Turks/ you name it, must wait. And building Arab cities on the perimeter of Eilat and Rafah should better not happen.
Anything that weakens Islam is good for the Infidel. Anything that strengthens them, is bad for the Infidel.
This would be Isaiah 19: Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel and Egypt. It’s possible.