Muslims and Liberals

The Daily Star – Lebanon
Feb 19, 2004

In December 1941, when the Japanese bombed US ships at Pearl Harbor, little did they know that the “isolationist” Americans would roar into World War II, occupy Japan and Germany and change the course of history. Could a real “clash of civilizations” over Israel be an unforeseen consequence of the Iraq war?

Recently the British Foreign Office sponsored a high-powered conference in London to float a breathtaking project. It would make Israel “a member of NATO and integrate (it) more closely into the (European Union).” Rosemary Hollis, who presented the scheme, heads the Middle East department at London’s Royal Institute of International Affairs. She said the idea to Europeanize Israel evolved from her recent discussions with a host of EU officials, and that Prime Minister Tony Blair may join the drive. The plan has yet to be broached at government levels.

Hollis said the Arabs “resent the Europeans” for creating Israel and “demanding Arabs to put up with it.” It is time, she declared, the West tell the Arabs: “We want Israel to exist … but since Israel is more us than you, Israel’s future will be more with us than with you, the Arabs.” Participants from Saudi Arabia, Iran, Israel and Europe attended the meeting.

In Washington a source close to the Bush administration and involved in Israeli-Palestinian affairs said that the move had the “blessings” of some key players in the administration, and it had “gained momentum from the bleak picture in Iraq,” which endangered a main US objective behind the war there. A plan for Iraqi “regime change” was drawn up in the 1990s by a group of pro-Israel American neoconservatives, several of them in the Bush administration, who argued, if a bit naively, that a democratic Iraq would be friendly to Israel and the US.

During the run-up to the Iraq war, the Bush administration expanded the mission of the enterprise. Democracy would not be promoted just in Iraq, but also throughout the Middle East. The rationale: Never mind that democracy yields to ruthless colonialism in Israel and aggressive hegemony by America, it should produce docile Arab regimes subservient to Israeli and US interests.

This illusion is fast evaporating, however, amid the rise of Shiite power in Iraq under the leadership of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani. Some American and European policy planners now fear that the Shiite upheaval in Iraq could be a preview of what is coming in the rest of the Arab world: Populism or democracy could produce Islamic regimes far more hostile to the West and Israel than the current autocratic ones. Hence the search for a new security strategy for Israel.

Israel enjoys strong public and interest-group support in the United States. Europeans, on the other hand, are worried that instability in Israel could threaten their own social stability. Europe went through myriad convulsions because of the Jews. Throughout history, Jews were persecuted in Europe, culminating in the Nazi-led Holocaust. Today fewer than 1 million Jews live in the EU, half of them in France. Since 2000, however, some 300,000 Jews have left Israel for the US and Europe because of the intifada. A meltdown of Israel, which some Israeli commentators consider possible, would drive many more into Europe. The revival of the “Jewish problem” would be a nightmare for the EU, which would have to reconcile this with the presence of its 15 million Muslims.

But tagging Israel onto the European security and political systems would mean the expansion of Europe into the Holy Land, as European Crusaders and colonialists tried to do before. The Crusader states in Syria and Palestine lasted a short time, and after World War I it took the Arabs only a couple of decades to roll back Anglo-French colonialism. Today Arabs and Muslims are more politically conscious than ever. The return of the West would, far from bolstering Israel, spawn a full-blown “clash of civilizations,” which mainstream Arabs and Muslims still view as a foolhardy agenda of American jingoists.

There is a better alternative. The Jews expelled from Europe in earlier times were known for their sociability, and hence could live peacefully and prosper in the Middle East. Today’s Palestinian-Israeli conflict stems from Israel’s occupation of Palestine and appalling repression of the Palestinians. Psychologists say that abused children grow up to be abusive heads of households. Israeli brutality toward the Palestinians probably owes something to European persecution of Jews, though it is not promoting the security of the Jewish state. The abused Palestinians, who make up 42 percent of the population of Israel and the Occupied Territories, will outnumber Jews in the area in 12 years. And while the conflict is still confined to Palestinians and Israelis, the West’s return to the Holy Land with NATO armor would create an impression of a new crusade and trigger a resistance movement in the wider Arab Muslim world.

A better alternative would be a humane approach to the Palestinian-Israeli imbroglio. The West should press Israel to treat the Palestinians with civility and resume peace talks with them in good faith. Recognition of each other’s human dignity and rights is indispensable to bring about peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

Mustafa Malik is a columnist with the Nexus Syndicate in Washington. He wrote this commentary for THE DAILY STAR.