Iranian-American realist scholar Trita Parsi, a protege of Fukuyama, has been making the rounds of the left to talk about his new book Treacherous Alliance: the Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran and the U.S. The book is extremely powerful. After Parsi guest-blogged on Tony Karon’s blog, his call for dialogue between the U.S. and Iran to neutralize tensions in the Middle East has been taken up, ardently, by Richard Silverstein, It is a great pity that Parsi is not getting more airtime in the mainstream media; it is a sign of the weakness of the left and the continuing orthodoxy in the mainstream, that these ideas are not being discussed widely.
I’m 2/3 of the way through his book, but want to convey my excitement as a reader. In a nutshell, Parsi says that Israel and Iran have been working secretly together and against one another from time immemorial in a regional struggle for power that brings in the Arab world (Baghdad) and the the superpowers, too. A great deal of his understanding comes from Israelis, whom Parsi has tirelessly interviewed. (I never accepted the charge against Walt and Mearsheimer, that they failed to talk to real people; it was not necessary to their project; but Parsi distinguishes himself by doing just that.)
Here is a brilliant take from a former Mossad boss, about why he is "optimistic" about Iranian-Israeli relations in the future.
Whatever the name of Iran–Pars, Elam, Media–and whatever the name of Iraq… there was always a rivalry and sometimes a war… [Cyrus the Great] knew that there is a common interest between the two sides of the Middle East–Iran and Israel. That is why Koroush let Ezra and Nehemja come back and rebuild the temple…Iran is Moslem but not Arab, and [to keep this balance] Iran needs another [non-Arab] people [who share that] common interest.
Parsi can point to countless times over the years in which Iran, even under the Shah, made threatening statements about eliminating Israel–a cancer, and so forth–even as it secretly dealt with her. I am not trying to diminish Ahmadinejad’s threats; the significance of Parsi’s work is that he contextualizes them, and shows how the rhetoric has waxed and waned, as one side got the bomb, or defeated Iraq, and so forth.
The U.S. and the Arab world have been played by both sides. For instance, Iran feared during the Rabin era, in 1994, that a peace deal was about to eventuate between Israel and Syria and the Palestinians– feared that the Arab world would turn against Iran once it had lost its main enemy, Israel. And so it did all it could to upset the deal by funding and pushing terror by Islamists in the Palestinian rejectionist camp, Hamas.
Bad bad Iran; yes. But Parsi shows that Islamic terror was in some ways a fulfillment of Israeli rhetoric. When the Cold War ended five years earlier, the Israelis understood that they would be losing value to the United States as an ally against the Soviet Union in the Middle East. During the Cold War Israel had secretly traded with Iran and urged the U.S. to make nice with Iran–even as Iran called Israel a "tumor" and held Americans hostage. But ten years on, Israel feared a loss of U.S. sponsorship; and the Iranian threat to the west rose in Israeli rhetoric.
That brings me to the most staggering statement in Parsi’s book, a comment by Efraim Inbar, an Israeli at the conservative Begin-Sadat Center in Jerusalem. He told Parsi that Rabin overplayed the Iranian threat.
"There was a feeling in Israel that because of the end of the Cold War, relations with the U.S. were cooling and we needed some new glue for the alliance… And the new glue… was radical Islam. And Iran was radical Islam."
And the Israel lobby went to work in the U.S. to push this idea; and it became the American religion under Bush. Yes, of course: radical Islam is a real threat. A phantom didn’t take down the World Trade Center. The issue here is to what extent American fears, and foreign policy, are being driven by local forces that are doing their utmost to gain the upper hand. Why aren’t we talking about this? Why isn’t Parsi’s "glue" revelation sparking front-page investigative series in the Washington Post and N.Y. Times?
Related posts:
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Interesting comments on the aspect of multiple forces with multiple and internally conflicting objectives.
It suggests a reason that the US cannot possibly succeed in Iraq. As unless civility and then civil institutions take hold in Iraq OVER external influences and alliances and over internal factions, that any military effort only benefits the party(s) that sit out the conflict, while the conflictors just beat each other down.
And, at the same time, it then suggests the strategy that the US is in Iraq currently, to contain the distractions to civility.
It then implies similarly in Israel/Palestine, that civility and civil institutions are the objective, to take root, to be consented to. And, that the reality of the context is of three or more parties attempting to retain validity in the region and through moving alliances and sentiments.
Back to the same question. "What is the best policy? What is the best characteristics of implementation? What is the best preparation for that?"
Organized by skillful and ethical leaders.
The implication that Iran has interests in working with Israel except in the divide and conquer mode, is a fantasy though.
To the extent that Iran is involved in the region (on its own or through Hezbollah) it will only delay the civility necessary to form a Palestinian state, or a single civil state.
I did not know about Iran supporting Hamas directly.
But does Parsi mention anything about Israel funding the early Hamas movement led by Shiek Yassin as a counterweight to the at-the-time more dangerous secularist Fatah? Or Netanyahu pardoning Yassan and allowing him back into the Occupied Territories circa `97?
Relatedly, there is something very funny about the Wikipedia entry on Hamas. It must mention that Hamas was founded in 1987 and its charter written in 1988 a good 10 different times.
The fact is that Hamas grew out of an earlier movement (Muslim Brotherhood) and had been active, under Shiek Yassin, in social programs since the late '70s, when Israeli intelligence financially supported its activities, including the university it built, and many civic associations.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/ZER403A.html
Aww, come on, Phil. You know why we aren't talking about it. The massive over representation of jews in media is not good for any non jewish society when those jews, or most of them, either because they're ideologically aligned to Jew centric agendas or because they're so damned cowed, they have to produce the goods. In an ideal world, people, groups, wouldn't do this to each other. But they do, and your group is doing this to every other – You know it and you have guts enough to try calling them on it. You got my respect though I read some of your "we're so great, so smart, we could do better" and I just get so deflated. You are not seeing the writting on the wall. We, the majority dont want to be judiased or force fed a jewish outlook or made to take it on as ours. It isn't ours, it's yours.
The Fed doesn't belong to us, Phil. It used to be an AMerican institution, ours. It's a private bank, jews own it. They've got my money and my country in their hands, only it isn't just us dumb Americans, it's almost every other industrialized country on the planet. Jews have got the IMF and so they've got third world countries and everything in them, including un tapped resources. The protocols of zion were forgeries, so why the hell are some of your people acting them out? And why are we so cowed, that we let you. We have to fix the money, we have to fix this multicultural hell you got us into because all America is now, is the place we work and pay into, work and pay into and take whatever shit your people are shovelling to us. We all got rights ( a real joke, we have hollywood feel good hiding the horse shit and destruction of any rights we used to have) but no responsibilites to each other, multiculuralism made us more ethno aware, it made us fight for crumbs against each other. We lost our Americanism, we're all played off against one another. Now we're told we're globalists, no borders. Nation states is yesterday but it's only the borders that will keep your guys out. It's only the borders that will make these guys decide where they want to be, in Israel or America or any place else. Stop them from taking every cent a poor guy ever earned and owning him and his family through debt and political-financial dominence.
It isn't anti semitic to talk about the rip off, it's anti gentile, it's anti Arab, it's anti anything these guys see as a problem for them and Israel and going really global Owning all our asses and pulling our every string. Thats we why we dont talk about it.
I think Parsi's argument puts the cart before the horse.
There would be no need to focus on Radical Islam or to have the support of the US if there were no conflict with the Palestinians.
Radical Islam actually has its current high level of influence because of the conflict with the Palestinians.
But given the conflict with the Palestinians it is necessary for Israel to elevate Radical Islam to a powerful self-generating entity, threatening the West, which would exist without the Palestinian conflict.
This persuades the US to fight those who support Palestinian independence and hence helps keep the settlements off center stage.
I think Parsi's argument puts the cart before the horse.
There would be no need to focus on Radical Islam or to have the support of the US if there were no conflict with the Palestinians.
Radical Islam actually has its current high level of influence because of the conflict with the Palestinians.
But given the conflict with the Palestinians it is necessary for Israel to elevate Radical Islam to a powerful self-generating entity, threatening the West, which would exist without the Palestinian conflict.
This persuades the US to fight those who support Palestinian independence and hence helps keep the settlements off center stage.
Yes this is indeed a very timely book.
Parsi's doing a great job in exposing a few bugs in the cookie can, isn't he?
And being a protege of Fukuyama, hw knows how to sound … uhm … (neo)conservative.
In a way, he is saying everything that everyone does is for their "national security". But my little problem with his approach comes from the fact that he is not (in as far as I have read) paying any attention to "racism" and "capitalism" as teh mother of all evil in our century!
Israel's point is to turn their cause into a universal/Western one.
________________
But it's deception all along: To begin with, their religion is an ethnic one — but they try to sell it as a universal, humanist one as Spielberg did in 'Schindler's List' with the fake Talmud quote:
"Who saves one life saves the whole world" when in fact the quote from the Talmud is: "Who saves a life of Israel(!) saves the whole world".
Radical Islam indeed serves a useful purpose to those who want to keep stolen Palestinian land and to go to war with all Muslim countries. It serves as a distraction from the abhorrent actions of the radical Zionist settlers (well-documented in Zertal and Eldar's book "Lords of the Land.") Indeed many believe that radical Islam took off after 1967 with the radical Zionist settlements in occupied Palestine.
Elevation or recognition?
And to what extent?
What is binary?
And
What is a conflict of three or more players?
"Why isn't Parsi's "glue" revelation sparking front-page investigative series in the Washington Post and N.Y. Times?"
**********
Rhetorical question, of just disingenuous?
David,
Have you read the book? Or, even heard an interview with him?
I'm listening now to an NPR interview.
http://wamu.org/audio/dr/07/10/r2071008-13753.asx
Parsi's treatment is very comprehensive and effective.
It neither supports the idea of Israel as demon, nor Iran as demon, but very critical of each.
I very much wish that scholarly efforts NOT be highlighted with provocative headlines.
Phil does it (of his own editing). Parsi's book title is similary potentially inflammatory. Walt/Mearsheimer's title is similarly negligently inflammatory.
"It serves as a distraction from the abhorrent actions of the radical Zionist settlers (well-documented in Zertal and Eldar's book "Lords of the Land.") Indeed many believe that radical Islam took off after 1967 with the radical Zionist settlements in occupied Palestine."
Settlers AND soldiers.
Conal Urquhart in Jerusalem
Sunday October 21, 2007
The Observer
"A study by an Israeli psychologist into the violent behaviour of the country's soldiers is provoking bitter controversy and has awakened urgent questions about the way the army conducts itself in the Gaza Strip and West Bank.
Nufar Yishai-Karin, a clinical psychologist at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, interviewed 21 Israeli soldiers and heard confessions of frequent brutal assaults against Palestinians, aggravated by poor training and discipline. In her recently published report, co-authored by Professor Yoel Elizur, Yishai-Karin details a series of violent incidents, including the beating of a four-year-old boy by an officer.
The report, although dealing with the experience of soldiers in the 1990s, has triggered an impassioned debate in Israel, where it was published in an abbreviated form in the newspaper Haaretz last month. According to Yishai Karin: 'At one point or another of their service, the majority of the interviewees enjoyed violence. They enjoyed the violence because it broke the routine and they liked the destruction and the chaos. They also enjoyed the feeling of power in the violence and the sense of danger.'
In the words of one soldier: 'The truth? When there is chaos, I like it. That's when I enjoy it. It's like a drug. If I don't go into Rafah, and if there isn't some kind of riot once in some weeks, I go nuts.'
Another explained: 'The most important thing is that it removes the burden of the law from you. You feel that you are the law. You are the law. You are the one who decides… As though from the moment you leave the place that is called Eretz Yisrael [the Land of Israel] and go through the Erez checkpoint into the Gaza Strip, you are the law. You are God.'
The soldiers described dozens of incidents of extreme violence. One recalled an incident when a Palestinian was shot for no reason and left on the street. 'We were in a weapons carrier when this guy, around 25, passed by in the street and, just like that, for no reason – he didn't throw a stone, did nothing – bang, a bullet in the stomach, he shot him in the stomach and the guy is dying on the pavement and we keep going, apathetic. No one gave him a second look,' he said.
The soldiers developed a mentality in which they would use physical violence to deter Palestinians from abusing them. One described beating women. 'With women I have no problem. With women, one threw a clog at me and I kicked her here [pointing to the crotch], I broke everything there. She can't have children. Next time she won't throw clogs at me. When one of them [a woman] spat at me, I gave her the rifle butt in the face. She doesn't have what to spit with any more.'
Yishai-Karin found that the soldiers were exposed to violence against Palestinians from as early as their first weeks of basic training. On one occasion, the soldiers were escorting some arrested Palestinians. The arrested men were made to sit on the floor of the bus. They had been taken from their beds and were barely clothed, even though the temperature was below zero. The new recruits trampled on the Palestinians and then proceeded to beat them for the whole of the journey. They opened the bus windows and poured water on the arrested men.
The disclosure of the report in the Israeli media has occasioned a remarkable response. In letters responding to the recollections, writers have focused on both the present and past experience of Israeli soldiers to ask troubling questions that have probed the legitimacy of the actions of the Israeli Defence Forces.
The study and the reactions to it have marked a sharp change in the way Israelis regard their period of military service – particularly in the occupied territories – which has been reflected in the increasing levels of conscientious objection and draft-dodging.
The debate has contrasted sharply with an Israeli army where new recruits are taught that they are joining 'the most ethical army in the world' – a refrain that is echoed throughout Israeli society. In its doctrine, published on its website, the Israeli army emphasises human dignity. 'The Israeli army and its soldiers are obligated to protect human dignity. Every human being is of value regardless of his or her origin, religion, nationality, gender, status or position.'
…
Yishai-Karin, in an interview with Haaretz, described how her research came out of her own experience as a soldier at an army base in Rafah in the Gaza Strip. She interviewed 18 ordinary soldiers and three officers whom she had served with in Gaza. The soldiers described how the violence was encouraged by some commanders. One soldier recalled: 'After two months in Rafah, a [new] commanding officer arrived… So we do a first patrol with him. It's 6am, Rafah is under curfew, there isn't so much as a dog in the streets. Only a little boy of four playing in the sand. He is building a castle in his yard. He [the officer] suddenly starts running and we all run with him. He was from the combat engineers.
'He grabbed the boy. I am a degenerate if I am not telling you the truth. He broke his hand here at the wrist, broke his leg here. And started to stomp on his stomach, three times, and left. We are all there, jaws dropping, looking at him in shock…
'The next day I go out with him on another patrol, and the soldiers are already starting to do the same thing." "
And now for the usual BS:
"A spokeswoman for the Israeli army said that, if a soldier deviates from the army's norms, they could be investigated by the military police or face criminal investigation.
She said: 'It should be noted that since the events described in Nufar Yishai-Karin's research the number of ethical violations by IDF soldiers involving the Palestinian population has consistently dropped. This trend has continued in the last few years.'"
Since these incidents remain largely unrecorded there is, in my view, no way of telling whether their level goes up or down.
IDF paraphernalia
___________________
When I was in Israel it struck me that in every souvenier shop at hotels and elsewhere you could buy IDF T-shirts and other paraphernalia.
I can't remeber any other country I have been to that is so proud of its military that it sells their T-shirts to tourists.
"I can't remember any other country I have been to that is so proud of its military that it sells their T-shirts to tourists."
*****************
That is very interesting. When I lived in Tel-Aviv in the early 70s it was practically impossible to acquire Israeli military surplus of any kind. To even ask about it raised eyebrows. My girlfriend finally managed to scrounge me a forage cap as a souvenir after much asking around.
I think that's an interesting difference, a significant detail, the sort of thing Sherlock Holmes would seize on. I know it means something, but I'm not sure exactly what.
Talk to an old German.
"…where new recruits are taught that they are joining 'the most ethical army in the world'."
So it's true, Richard Witty is indeed an idf recruiter and only a part-time mondoweiss tormentor.
"I broke everything there. She can't have children."
Nuance, nuance everywhere…
The Israeli army cannot claim that it has not been warned for this process of dehumanisation. Various Israeli public intellectuals pointed out in advance that military occupation would inevitably lead to that. And the anti-occupation movement has staunchly maintained that 'the occupation corrupts’.
Nor can the army claim that it wasn’t told by members of its own forces what was going on. Here is, for instance, one such story, that appeared in Haaretz in 2003, and that I have shortened a bit.
Here too it appears that some commanders are encouraging violence as was claimed in the previous piece.
I Punched an Arab in the Face
Gideon Levy
Haaretz Weekend Magazine – 21/11/2003
Staff Sergeant (res.) Liran Ron Furer cannot just routinely get on with his life anymore. He is haunted by images from his three years of military service in Gaza and the thought that this could be a syndrome afflicting everyone who serves at checkpoints gives him no respite. On the verge of completing his studies in the design program at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, he decided to drop everything and devote all his time to the book he wanted to write.
The major publishers he brought it to declined to publish it. The publisher that finally accepted it (Gevanim) says that the Steimatzky bookstore chain refuses to distribute it. But Furer is determined to bring his book to the public's attention.
You can adopt the most hard-line political positions, but no parent would agree to his son becoming a thief, a criminal or a violent person," says Furer. "The problem is that it's never presented this way. The boy himself doesn't portray himself this way to his family when he returns from the territories. On the contrary – he is received as a hero, as someone who is doing the important work of being a soldier. No one can be indifferent to the fact that there are many families in which, in a certain sense, there are already two generations of criminals. The father went through it and now the son is going through it and no one talks about it around the dinner table."
Furer is certain that what happened to him is not at all unique. Here he was – a creative, sensitive graduate of the Thelma Yellin High School of the Arts, who became an animal at the checkpoint, a violent sadist who beat up Palestinians because they didn't show him the proper courtesy, who shot out tires of cars because their owners were playing the radio too loud, who abused a retarded teenage boy lying handcuffed on the floor of the Jeep, just because he had to take his anger out somehow. "Checkpoint Syndrome" (also the title of his book), gradually transforms every soldier into an animal, he maintains, regardless of whatever values he brings with him from home. No one can escape its taint. In a place where nearly everything is permissible and violence is perceived as normative behavior, each soldier tests his own limits of violence and impulsiveness on his victims – the Palestinians.
His book is not easy reading. Written in terse, fierce prose, in the blunt and coarse language of soldiers, he reconstructs scenes from the years in which he served in Gaza (1996-1999), years that, one must remember, were relatively quiet. He describes how he and his comrades forced some Palestinians to sing "Elinor" – "It was really something to see these Arabs singing a Zohar Argov song, like in a movie"; the emotions the Palestinians aroused in him – "Sometimes these Arabs really disgust me, especially those that try to toady up to us – the older ones, who come to the checkpoint with this smile on their faces"; the reactions they spurred – "If they really annoy us, we find away to keep them stuck at the checkpoint for a few hours. They lose a whole day of work because of it sometimes, but that's the only way they learn."
He described how they would order children to clean the checkpoint before inspection time; how a soldier named Shahar invented a game:"He checks someone's identity card, and instead of handing it back to him, just tosses it in the air. He got a kick out of seeing the Arab have to get out of his car to pick up his identity card … It's a game for him and he can pass a whole shift this way"; how they humiliated a dwarf who came to the checkpoint every day on his wagon: "They forced him to have his picture taken on the horse, hit him and degraded him for a good half hour and let him go only when cars arrived at the checkpoint. The poor guy, he really didn't deserve it"; how they had a souvenir picture taken with bloodied, bound Arabs whom they'd beaten up; how Shahar pissed on the head of an Arab because the man had the nerve to smile at a soldier; how Dado forced an Arab to stand on four legs and bark like a dog; and how they stole prayer beads and cigarettes – "Miro wanted them to give him their cigarettes, the Arabs didn't want to give so Miro broke someone's hand, and Boaz slashed their tires."
The most chilling of all the personal confessions: "I ran toward them and punched an Arab right in the face. I'd never punched anyone that way. He collapsed on the road. The officers said that we had to search him for his papers. We pulled his hands behind his back and I bound them with plastic handcuffs. Then we blindfolded him so he wouldn't see what was in the Jeep. I picked him up from the road.
Blood was trickling from his lip onto his chin. I led him up behind the Jeep and threw him in, his knees banged against the trunk and he landed inside. We sat in the back, stepping on the Arab … Our Arab lay there pretty quietly, just crying softly to himself. His face was right on my flak jacket and he was bleeding and making a kind ofpuddle of blood and saliva, and it disgusted and angered me, so I grabbed him by the hair and turned his head to the side. He cried out loud and to get him to stop, we stepped harder and harder on his back. That quieted him down for a while and then he started up again. We concluded that he was either retarded or crazy.
The company commander informed us over the radio that we had to bring him to the base. `Good work, tigers,' he said, teasing us. All the other soldiers were waiting there to see what we'd caught. When we came in with the Jeep, they whistled and applauded wildly. We put the Arab next to the guard. He didn't stop crying and someone who understood Arabic said that his hands were hurting from the handcuffs. One of the soldiers went up to him and kicked him in the stomach. The Arab doubled over and grunted, and we all laughed. It was funny … I kicked him really hard in the ass and he flew forward just as I'd expected. They shouted that I was a totally crazy, and they laughed … and I felt happy. Our Arab was just a 16-year-old mentally retarded boy." …
Furer is out to prove that this is a syndrome and not a collection of isolated, individual cases. That's why he deleted a lot of personal details from the original manuscript, in order to underscore the general nature of what he describes. "During my army service, I believed that was atypical, because I came from a background of art and creativity. I was considered a moderate soldier – but I fell into the same trap that most soldiers fall into. I was carried away by the possibility of acting in the most fear of punishment and without oversight. You're tense about it at first, but as you get more comfortable at the checkpoint over time, the behavior becomes more natural. People gradually test the limits of their behavior toward the Palestinians. It gradually becomes coarser and coarser.
The more confident I became with the situation, as soon as we reached the conclusion – each one at his own stage – that we are the rulers, we are the strong ones, and when we felt our power, each one started to stretch the limits more and more, in accordance with his personality. As soon as serving at the checkpoint became routine, all kinds of deviant behavior became normal. It started with 'souvenir collecting': We'd confiscate prayer beads and then it was cigarettes and it didn't stop. It became normative behavior.
After that came the power games. We got the message from above that we were to project seriousness and deterrence to the Arabs. Physical violence also became normative. We felt free to punish any Palestinian who didn't follow the 'proper code of behavior' at the checkpoint. Anyone we thought wasn't polite enough to us or tried to act smart – was severely punished.
It was deliberate harassment on the most trivial pretexts. …
At the checkpoint, young people have the chance to be masters and using force and violence becomes legitimate – and this is a much more basic impulse than the political views or values that you bring from home. As soon as using force is given legitimacy, and even rewarded, the tendency is to take it as far as it can go, to exploit it much as possible. To satisfy these impulses beyond what the situation requires. Today, I'd call it sadistic impulses …
We weren't criminals or especially violent people. We were a group of good boys, a relatively 'high-quality' group, and for all of us – and we still talk about this sometimes – the checkpoint became a place to test our personal limits. How tough, how callous, how crazy we could be – and we thought of that in the positive sense.
Something about the situation – being in a godforsaken place, far from home, far from oversight – made it justified … The line of what was forbidden was never precisely drawn. No one was ever punished and they just let us continue.
Today, I feel confident saying that even the most senior ranks – the brigade commander, the battalion commander – are aware of the power that soldiers have in this situation and what they do with it.
How could a commander not be aware of it when the more crazy and tough his soldiers are, the quieter his sector is? The more complex picture of the long-term effects of this violent behavior is something you only become conscious of when you get away from the checkpoint.
Today it's clear to me that that boy whose father we humiliated for the flimsiest of reasons will grow up to hate anyone who represents what was done to his father. I definitely have an understanding of their motives now. We are cruelty, we are power. I'm sure that their response is affected by elements related to their society – a disregard for human life and a readiness to sacrifice lives – but the basic desire to resist, the hatred itself, the fear – I feel are completely justified and legitimate."
Not sure how those last two posts relate to the Parsi book?
To be challenged by you, Richard, on relevancy, makes one feel what it would be like to be reproached by Bush for bad grammar.
I can understand that you would rather not see this information appear here. It obviously is at odds with your opinion of the IDF in which you would like, as you claimed, your son to serve.
But the topic was not just Trita Parsi but the radicalization of Islam. Do you think that these horror stories that go all over the Middle East, and in a magnified form (though they hardly need magnification), are unrelated to the latter?
To a Palestinian like Ghassan Khatib, the Vice-President of Birzeit University, the answer is clear:
"One of the main causes of Palestinian and regional radicalization is the continued suffering of the Palestinian people as a result of the ongoing Israeli occupation."
That there is very much of a linkage between political developments in Iran and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is, in fact, also recognized by Trita Parsi. This is what he said last year in an interview published on the Israel Policy Forum:
Question: "Can the Israeli-Palestinian conflict be dealt with without addressing the question of Iran?"
"We must pay attention to the geopolitical context and geopolitical rivalries that drive the Israeli-Iranian conflict. Though the Israeli-Iranian rivalry is not driven by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the latter cannot be resolved without addressing the former. Both Iran and Israel have the capability to play the role of a spoiler if only one side of this equation is addressed."
Arie,
Ask Phil if he considers my comments as relevant or on topic.
It definitely isn't head-on to your choice of "relevant" comments.
You select Parsi quotes, rather than adopt his approach and range.
For example, from the interview that I saw which was described as a summary of his points, the headline to this blog posting was misrepresentative.
But, you seem to be selecting the headline rather than the wide range of content in his book as a summary of your views.
Parsi has NOT chosen to demonize Israel. He does NOT describe Israel's choices as the driver of events in the middle east.
In fact, he describes more macro events as drivers. Things like the geo-political posturing of large movements, Turkish empire collapse, WW2 alliances, cold war, pan-Arabism, the collapse of the Soviet Union (in the time frame of this thesis).
Make your thesis already.
Is that you think that Israel is merely a pawn of the US? (ala Chomsky)
Or, is it that you think that Zionism is the cause of all evil in the political world?
Hard to know. You infer, rather than state.
Parsi's critical point is that the Iran has always regarded itself as independant of and threatened by Arab nationalism and Soviet expansionism, and its relationship to Israel in that time period had been driven by its "common enemy" status relative to Soviet Union and Arab world.
He does not state that Iran and Israel were "friends", but that they occassionally collaborated on security concerns, and occassionally conflicted.
And, that Iran has also always sought to be and be regarded as a major player in the region, and by the Machiavellian logic and means of states asserting their power. (Sometimes politic, sometimes unscrupulously)
Now that the US and Israel took out Iraq as a player, Iran is a big fish, and is currently posturing for dominance.
In that regard Iran is both seeking to compete with Israel's apparent hope for dominance in the region.
My generous sense of your view is that you seem to believe that Israel's primary motivation is for dominance, not healthy survival ("dominance" being a bad, and "healthy survival" being a good).
I am not a dominance seeking Zionist. I am a healthy survival seeking Zionist.
They are different, and BOTH evident in Israeli behavior, practise, and plan.
I don't believe that the voices of healthy survival thrive in an environment of demonization of Israel, of failure to incorporate the vital in one's view and expression.
I believe that healthy relationships come only with candid acknowledgement of the other. (In the case of Jews that regard Israel or the diaspora Jewish community as "other", as well.)
"Ask Phil if he considers my comments as relevant or on topic."
What a silly suggestion.
The point I made is that the radicalization of Islam in the Middle East also feeds on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The way Israeli soldiers (mis)behave has a lot to do with that.
You can grab the security blanket that the word 'demonization' seems to provide for you for all you like.
"I don't believe…I believe"
"…as [evolutionary theorist Robert] Trivers (1985) notes, the best deceivers are those who are self-deceived."
http://www.kevinmacdonald.net/Blog.htm
Arie,
You have the vanity to assume that I was responding to your point at all.
I was responding to Phil's thesis, and the arguments that he was making.
I consider the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to be material and also immaterial in the invocation of radical Islam.
Radical Islam has erupted many times during Islamic culture, and stimulated by very different events and conditions.
In all cases, in addition to the response to "infidels", there was an internal vying for power within the Islamic world.
One thing is true.
That is that I have come to think of the responders to Phil's posts as a "they", unnamed, unfaced.
I'm not alone in that. I am certainly referred as part of a "they".
Also, the fact that people can post under multiple names, not their own usually, makes this and other web-spaces anonymous, rather than identifiable.
"I am certainly referred as part of a 'they'."
Sure you're not, I refer to you as our very own "Gríma Wormtongue."
(Sorry, Alex, couldn't resist.)
So, noone wants to talk about Parsi?
To see how our Arab partners in the region are being further mistreated, read this Esquire piece:
"The Secret History of the Impending War with Iran That the White House Doesn't Want You to Know"
http://www.esquire.com/features/iranbriefing1107
thank you, arie ,for your excerpt, it was very valuable.
a random iranian i met said, " the israelis have no pity". he did not say "their policies are wrong".
Witty: "Not sure how those last two posts relate to the Parsi book?"
Therefor what? we should not read or react to the revelations from the Furer book?
Tell you what, Richard, why don't you write an apologia to the Furer revelations, explaining how the accounts are exaggerated, how they all happened a decade ago, how the Israeli army subsequently cracked down on people who abuse Arabs, how badly the soldiers at check points are provoked, how any soldier far from home in a sea of Arabs might react this way, it's all a lie in any case?
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