Secretary of State John Kerry has every what-should-be-discredited cliché about the Middle East firmly ensconced in his head. Of course, he is not alone. I just briefed a European diplomat who came up with the exact formulation I’m going to deal with in a moment. What is disconcerting—though long familiar—is that Western policymakers hold so many ideas that are totally out of touch with reality.
They do not allow these assumptions to be questioned. On the contrary, it is astonishing to find how often individuals in elite positions have never heard counter-arguments to these beliefs. It is easy to prove that many of these ideas simply don’t make sense, but it is nearly impossible to get elite intellectuals, officials, and politicians to open their minds to these explanations.
Yet we can’t just believe what we want to believe, what we’d like to see happen, what we hope for. Reality must be faced or things will be worse. Having unexamined utopian ideas dominate this topic does not serve anyone’s interests.
Let me give a single example. Here are Kerry’s observations after touring the Middle East:
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“I am intensely focused on this issue and the region because it is vital really to American interests and regional interests to try and advance the peace process and because this festering absence of peace is used by groups everywhere to recruit and encourage extremism.”
Supposedly, then, the reason that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is so important and urgent to solve is that otherwise it is a powerful force in encouraging extremism. Of course, steps toward easing Israel-Palestinian tensions and stabilizing the situation are good but have no positive effect on the region.
Let’s stipulate that it would be a very good thing if this conflict would be resolved in a stable and compromise way. Let’s further stipulate that this isn’t going to happen.
But there is another point which sounds counter-intuitive and yet makes perfect sense:
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Resolving the conflict in some way will encourage even more extremism and regional instability. How can I say that? Very simple.
Islamist groups and governments, along with radical Arab nationalists, Iran, and others, are determined to prevent any resolution of the issue. Anything other than Israel’s extinction they hold to be treason. If—and this isn’t going to happen—Israel and the Palestinian Authority made a comprehensive peace treaty those forces would double and triple their efforts to subvert it.
The government of Palestine would face determined domestic opposition, including assassination attempts on the “traitors” who made peace. Palestinian factions would claim to be more militant than their rivals and would seek to use the new state as a basis for attacking Israel in order to prove their credentials and advance their political fortunes.
What would the government of Palestine do once cross-border attacks inevitably began against Israel? It is highly likely it would disclaim responsibility and say they cannot find those responsible or even proclaim that these people are heroes.
Of course, the Hamas regime in the Gaza Strip would not accept the deal, thus ensuring that it could not be implemented. That last factor, which is a huge and impassable barrier is simply ignored by the “peacemakers.” Israel would have to make major territorial concessions and take heightened risks in advance that would bring zero benefits from a Hamas government that would increase its attacks on Israel. Hamas forces on the West Bank, perhaps in partnership with Fatah radicals, would seek to overthrow Palestine’s government.
There would be attempts to carry out atrocities against Israeli civilians to break the deal, just as happened by Hamas alone during the 1993-2000 “Oslo peace process” period. Hizballah from Lebanon would also increase attacks on Israel to prove that the treasonous peace could not hold.
The ruling Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Syria would do everything possible to help Hamas. There would be outrage in large sectors of public opinion and especially among the armed Islamist militias who would try to lever their countries into war, stage cross-border attacks against Israel, and back Palestinian insurgents.
Of course, the fact that they understand all of the points made above is one of the main reasons why the Palestinian Authority’s leadership isn’t interested in making a peace deal with Israel, and not even negotiating seriously toward that end.
Ironically, then, the recruiting and encouragement of extremism would be at far higher levels than it is now.
But that’s not all. Who would be identified as the architects of this terrible setback for Islam and Arab nationalism? The United States and the West, of course. Imagine the increase of anti-American terrorism for having permanently “stolen” Palestine, perpetuated “injustice,” and so powerfully entrenching the “Zionist entity.”
Kerry, no doubt, thinks that the Egyptians, Syrians, Lebanese, and Iranians would applaud the wonderful U.S. achievement. This is sheerest nonsense, especially at a time when Islamists feel they are riding the crest of a tidal wave of victory.
While the parallels are inexact, some aspects of such a situation remind me of what happened at the end of World War One. Many people in Germany were convinced that their country was not defeated but merely suffered a “stab in the back” by its foreign enemies and the Jews at home. Out of this soil arose the Nazi movement, to avenge this betrayal and defeat. You can make of that parallel what you will.
Remember, too, that the 1990s “peace process” effort came at a time when Arab regimes were weak, repeatedly defeated by Israel, having lost their Soviet superpower ally, been riven by the Iran-Iraq and Kuwait wars, and with a bankrupt PLO. Now we are in a new era when, for example, the most important single Arab pillar for peace—the Husni Mubarak regime in Egypt—has been driven out to the cheers of those Westerners who also claim to recognize the value of an Arab-Israel peace.
Whether or not I’ve convinced you, I assume that you must understand that a serious case can be made for the argument stated above. Yet none of these points will appear in the mass media or the high-level debate. The assumption is, as Kerry stated, that Israel-Palestinian peace will make things better and no idea will be considered that contradicts this notion.
Let me again emphasize that I am not making an “anti-peace” argument here. If it was possible to secure a lasting, stable compromise peace between Israel and the Palestinians, that would be a great achievement. That might be possible some day but, dangerous wishful thinking aside, that isn’t true now.
Yet instead there could only be—and, again, it isn’t going to happen at all–a rickety, unstable arrangement which either the Palestinian Authority would be determined to overturn in a stage two effort to destroy Israel. And if those who signed the treaty would not lead such an effort that would only be because they are consciously—and they say so publicly—leave the task to their successors. To different extents, the governments of Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Iran, and others would push that agenda.
And, as we have seen in the past, “diplomatic progress” would produce a regional political firestorm. Such thinking is counter-intuitive but that’s only because the intuition is wrong.
If you are interested in reading more about the Arab-Israeli conflict, current regional situation you’re welcome to read my book Tragedy of the Middle East online or download it for free.
If you are interested in reading more about the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict, you’re welcome to read my book The Arab States and the Palestine Conflict online or download it for free.
Barry Rubin’s analysis is refreshing and regrettably sound. He should try to get The Times (of London) to publish it.
Here are my replies:
http://www.geraldahonigman.com/blog/2013/04/11/elusive-arab-israeli-peace-i-hate-to-break-the-news/
http://www.geraldahonigman.com/blog/2013/03/27/nice-speech-wrong-audience-flawed-analogy/
One hope: massive simultaneous mutation!
Japan & Germany changed, but at what cost and Germany is showing signs of fachist resurgence just like Hungary, while many others in the EU are hiding behind the EU flag. Human do not change (mutation). Situations only change.
@ Bernard Ross:
Bernard Ross Said:
I was referring to the concept, Liberal Cognitive Egocentrism, i.e. seeing Muslims/Arabs as if they are like us in their mentality.
I think it is a concept that is more useful than mere attribution of bad judgement on the part of the westerners. It is a concept that allows us to understand what exactly it is that constitutes the bad judgement that the westerners are evincing, namely the tendency to project our own mindset on Muslim/Arabs while disregarding the cultural forces that shape them into Jihadis who care more for (religious and nationalistic) honor than for their children’s well-being. Besides, “Liberal Cognitive Egocentrism” is a more judgmental expression (the term “egocentrism” should hurt a bit the pseudo-liberals!), so it is more conducive to inviting debate. And we need the debate, because, as things stand now, the media and the academic elites don’t pay any attention to alternative paradigms to their own. If we want to challenge the prevailing paradigm in the discourse about Muslims/Arabs, first we must get the attention of our opponents.
It also sounds more scientific, and this should count for something :P.
dionissis mitropoulos Said:
yes, more impressive but also more obscure and less likely to be understood. Have you heard of the acronym KISS?
(were you referring to his phd or to the name he created.)
@ Bernard Ross:
Dr Landes’ sounds better 😛
dionissis mitropoulos Said:
I call it “poor Judgment” as I wrote; however, I am not a Phd.
@ Bernard Ross:
Bernard Ross Said:
An additional factor to the ones you propose is what Dr Landes has called “Cognitive Liberal Egocentrism”: the tendency to think that the Arabs/Muslims think like us and want the same things with us. Hence the inability of many westerners to identify the suicidal and dominating Jihad tendencies, simply because they don’t harbor in their minds such tendencies and they think that the Arab/Muslims don’t either.
Suicide by self-imposed blindness.
American-Jewish historian Dr Richard Landes has made his usual “fisking” of Rubin’s article. It’s worth reading because Dr Landes has constructed a paradigm/framework that makes the Israel/Palestine conflict accessible even to the uninitiated:
http://www.theaugeanstables.com/2013/04/11/the-arab-israeli-conflict-for-dummies-barry-rubin-explains-why-kerrys-peace-push-is-bad-for-peace/
Clicking on the “reflections from the Second Draft” option (at the top of the page in his blog which is called “the Augean Stables”) will also give you the basic dimensions of his views.
My comment botted?
I couldn’t agree more with all of the above and have watched with great dismay, the determined ,but clueless efforts that Kerry has made to implement his and Obama’s terribly mistaken policies.
Is there no person or entity in this world who can enable these guys and this administration to “Get it “?
I know I can’t and therefore continue to be heartsick.
@ Goldi Steiner, Founder and Chair of Canadians for Israel’s Legal Rights (CILR):
I believe Yamit (Uncle Nahum) made this same statement a number of times in the past. So it must be true.
The very reason why Israel should continue to build communities throughout all of Israel claiming as much of the Holy Land rightfully theirs.
Possession is 9/10 of the law.
Go for it.
Who will stop them or be crazy to try.
I first realized this just after Reagan got elected. He sent a “fact finding team” to the Caribbean. I met with a couple of them in Miami. I had recently left the Caribbean due to a “creeping communism” situation. After hearing what they had done in the country I just left: who they talked to and what conclusions they reached, I decided that these intelligent men could not possibly be more clueless as to what was the reality in the country I had just left. They only spoke to a group with a specific political agenda and therefore their conclusions reflected that group. After that, on the basis of their conclusions, Reagan put the Caribbean Basin Initiative into law. Since then I make it an important part of political analysis to consider poor judgment, negligence and incompetence as factors in any series of events. Often it does not matter because they just throw money at their mistakes and cover their backsides.
IS IT NO CLEAR BY NOW, THAT EVERY CONCESSION MADE BY ISRAEL HAS WEAKENED IT, AND STRENGTHENED THE PALIS?!
IS IT NOT EVIDENT AFTER ALL THE YEARS OF MAKE BELIEVE ‘PEACE MAKING’, THAT NO ONE, BUT NO ONE REALLY WANTS PEACE.
FOR A DIVERSITY OF REASONS, ALL THE PLAYERS, SIMPLY WANT THE STATUS QUO.
Barry Rubin’s point is that “progress” in the Middle East consists of strengthening your enemies and punishing your friends.
Which is a succinct and apt description of Obama’s foreign policy towards the region.
Feeding Israel to the Islamist crocodile won’t keep the West from being consumed later.
Its classic appeasement of the Middle East’s new dictators now.
Unfortunately I agree with everything you have said . It’s unfortunate senior members of the US administration have such a childish view of this conflict. One can forgive this thinking by the young, we all want a world without conflict . Wisdom bought by Experience tells us this is not going to happen. I believe non of the players on the Islamic side want peace but will accept nothing less than the complete destruction of Israel . This is their life , their Religion. The free world must stand unambiguously with Israel against this seventh century monstrosity of bad thinking, that is the Islamic faith. There seems to be a trait in secular humanism that tries to find excuses for Islam a kind of relativism born out of ignorance or what modern Marxists find attractive the idea that my enemy’s enemy is my friend. The trouble with that idea is eventually your still let with your enemy , a enemy that is now significantly stronger. Not only do the Jews need Israel to survive, so does the free world. I would very much like to read your book as I am sure this conflict is as an onion and has many layers.